Apologies yet again for the lack of posts, not least the lack of a continuation of the User’s Guide to Thucydides (just start at the beginning, folks, and at some point I’ll get round to telling you when you can begin skipping tedious accounts of maritime manoeuvres to get onto one of the famous set-piece episodes), but I remain horribly busy – and am now wary of writing much here because of the number of people who could legitimate send me annoyed emails, demanding to know why I’m doing this instead of getting on with the chapters I was supposed to have submitted months ago. However, the latest twist in the use of classical analogies in characterising the Eurozone crisis seemed too good to miss: Larry Elliott in this morning’s Grauniad, describing the German attitude in current negotiations as offering Greece a Carthaginian peace. That is: surrender absolutely and without conditions, or we’ll wipe you off the face of the earth anyway.
To Elliott’s credit, he avoids the common error in using this analogy of suggesting that the victorious Romans then sowed the fields of Carthage with salt (as has often been pointed out, why would they do that with prime agricultural land from which they could then exact a hefty profit?). It successfully puts across the apparent all-or-nothing position that the Germans (or at any rate Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble) have adopted – and suggests that other references to Roman imperialism could also be brought into service (e.g. Tacitus: “They made a desolation and called it financial discipline”…).
I do have a couple of hesitations about the analogy’s wider connotations, however – without suggesting that Elliott had this in mind. One relates to implied motivation: the major reason why the Romans were prepared to take up such an extreme position was the legacy of several centuries of conflict with Carthage, even of existential threat during the Second Punic War, so that the repeated insistence of Cato that “Carthage must be destroyed” could acquire traction even after that threat had to all intents and purposes passed. For all the complaints of Alternative fuer Deutschland about the impact of bailing out the profligate Greeks on ordinary hard-working German taxpayers, it’s hard to see that such a cultural dynamic is really playing much of a part. I suppose one might tentatively suggest that the enemy to be stomped on here is not Greece but any attempt at questioning austerity and neoliberal dogma – Keynes delenda est – but I’m not sure the analogy helps much with that.
Secondly, the Roman analogy doesn’t quite capture the potentially self-destructive nature of the German approach. In deciding to destroy Carthage if necessary rather than being willing to accept a negotiated peace, the Romans risked having to expend a bit more effort, resources and men than they might otherwise have done – but that wasn’t something their leaders were ever too bothered about, and the potential rewards from being able to loot a defeated enemy without limit significantly outweighed what they would get from a compromise solution. The probable adverse consequences for Germany of a Greek default and exit from the Euro, however, are considerable, while it’s not certain that an absolute Greek surrender would wholly benefit them either. The Roman destruction of Carthage was about deep-seated fear and hatred, and the likely gains for soldiers and general; that doesn’t entirely fit the current situation.
This does look more like the confrontation of the Athenians and the Melians in Thucydides, where the former are willing to accept the negative consequences of their absolute demands (no neutrals will trust them ever again) because of the perceived benefits (maintaining their reputation for strength and ruthlessness so their allies won’t get any ideas). The sooner a copy of Varoufakis’ analysis of the Melian Dialogue as game theory turns up through Inter-Library Loan the better – leaving aside the fact that I don’t currently have time to do it justice…
Sphinx 
Incidentally – and I’m posting this here partly so I can easily find it again when I do come to write my piece on Varoufakis and Melos – interesting blog by Henry Farrell on the dilemma of a game theorist trying to pretend that he isn’t just playing a game… http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/02/16/why-greeces-finance-minister-denies-that-hes-a-game-theorist/
This is potentially turning into a still larger enterprise, as a result of following another breadcrumb trail… In Thursday’s FT, a letter from Gautam Pingle in Hyderabad quoted a chunk of the Melian Dialogue and claimed that it has been essential reading for all serious negotiator and diplomats ever since; both the new Greek government and the EU negotiators need to bear this in mind. This was in response to a letter on Tuesday from William Koelsch in San Diego, which had quoted another bit to make the claim that the Athenians outdid ISIS in their treatment of the Melians. And this was in response to an article on 13th Feb from Ferdinando Giugliano. Economics Correspondent, about Varoufakis and game theory, which cited Roger Myerson of the University of Chicago – ‘Nobel’ prize winning economist – on the relevance of the Melian example. The use of quote mark in this piece is erratic to say the least, so it really isn’t clear how much of it is really Myerson rather than Giugliano; insofar as it’s the latter, I suspect a certain amount of confusion as to Myerson’s point…
“However, opting for forgiveness risks creating dangerous incentives for other countries to act in the same way as Athens. ‘Germany may decide that if the eurozone does not punish Greece, it will have problems with other countries such as Spain and Italy,’ says Roger Myerson, a Nobel-winning economist at the University of Chicago.
“Mr Varoufakis should therefore try to convince Germany that Athens’ situation i unique and that other eurozone countries will not seek debt relief as a result, he says. In doing so, he would follow the illustrious precedent of the citizens of Melos, to whom Athens, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, gave the choice of surrendering or facing annihilation.
“‘The Melians sought to argue that they were different and that sparing them would not set a dangerous precedent vi-a-vis other islands,’ says Mr Myerson.
The problem with this strategy, however, is that the other player may choose to build a reputation for toughness. This is what Athen opted for – it laid siege to the island and starved the inhabitants into submission.”
‘Illustrious precedent’? Doomed, ominous precedent, more like, and Koelsch’s letter has already picked up on what the Athenians actually did to to the Melians after they surrendered.
The interesting trail to follow is now Myerson. Initially I assumed that he raised the example of Melos because of Varoufakis’ work on it, but an initial search hasn’t uncovered anything explicit; what it did throw up is that Myerson, who’s another expert in game theory, has discussed the Melian Dialogue before as a classic example in that field (including in a discussion of Thomas Schelling’s classics Strategies of Conflict, which I also now need to check). It could well prove that Varoufakis’ originality lies not in the choice of Thucydides as a case study, but in his particular approach (his own translation of the text, and his use of experimental data rather than pure abstraction). This may be turning into a broader investigation of Thucydides in game theory…
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The Carthaginian Peace is back!