Sphinx

I have a piece up on Eidolon this week: Why Thucydides? As tends to happen, the moment it’s posted I immediately think of other things I might have said, and ways I might have said them better (and I don’t just mean the fact that every other sentence seems to begin with “But…”). I stand by the three main suggestions as to why Thucydides should be the go-to ancient authority for commenting on current politics and international affairs – his work invites such identification and comparison, there are long traditions of citing him as an authority, and we really want to believe that someone understands what the hell’s going on – but I can’t help feeling that there’s more going on. Herewith some further thoughts…

(1) Quotability: they may sometimes be spurious, or at least garbled, but Thucydides offers plenty of good one-liners. However, so do lots of other ancient authors (cf. the research I did on citations in anthologies and quote collections, the dominance of Plutarch etc.) – and it’s not as if they don’t get quoted: plenty of Aristotle, Plato, Plutarch etc. on Twitter (not so much Tacitus or Herodotus, though, and very little Livy).

(2) Subject matter: this seems to be more like it. Although there is the weird phenomenon of a Thucydides quote being used in a new agey motivational context, most of the time he is firmly associated with politics and war. Aristotle and Plutarch, on the other hand, seem to have been entirely subsumed by the ‘tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life’ crowd: “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all”; “Happiness depends on ourselves”; “Excellence is not an event, it is a habit” and so forth. Very inspiring, but unlikely to be brought to bear on US-China relations.

(3) The sort of chap you’d have a beer with. I’ve written about this before, but I think it stands: while T does have this scary and/or reassuring reputation as brilliant intellect who really knows what’s going on, he also appears as someone who knows because he’s been there himself. Especially in military circles (and since the 16th century…), the fact that T was actually a general and not just a pointy-headed intellectual has been put forward as a reason for trusting him. A Thucydides reference is a sign of manliness and military credibility, where any other author might come across as a bit intellectual.

(4) Rome: Total War.

(5) I told you it was a virus…