Sphinx

As the old proverb (sometimes attributed to Solon) has it, gods, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man on the Internet. Am I being hasty and unfair, leaping to judgement on the basis of fleeting interactions with ‘The Mystic’ (brooding headshot with goatee, quote about chaos and perfection, cover image of some heavily tattooed wrestlers) or AwesomeDude (avatar of a dog, cover image of a Dilbert cartoon)?* Yes, quite possibly. But if they not only ascribe that wretched ‘The society that separates its scholars from its warriors…” quote to Thucydides, but firmly reject gentle correction from the Thucydides Bot, they’re gonna get judged…

I actually quite enjoy these conversations; it doesn’t bring the same satisfaction as someone thanking me for the information – which is after all the point of the whole enterprise, trying to lessen the volume of global misinformation, one Thucydides quote at a time – but it’s a lot more entertaining than just being ignored. The nature of the response seems to me interesting and illuminating. Initial pushback is understandable; there are still, despite all my efforts, a load of apparently reputable websites and people presenting the line as authentic Thucydides. But continuing pushback, despite inability to find the line in Thucydides or anywhere except William F. Butler’s 1889 book, until a simplified version of the original quote starts being attributed to Thucydides in the mid-late 1990s? That takes some intellectual gymnastics, or just absolute self-confidence.

The Mystic: “The society that separates its warriors from its scholars will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools” – Thucydides

Thucydiocy: Not actually Thucydides, but C19 soldier and author Sir William F. Butler.

The Mystic: Okay, I switched scholar and warrior. My bad. Get a life.

Thucydiocy: No, it’s not actually Thucydides either way round.

The Mystic: Well I checked Google and Wikipedia and that said otherwise but whatever.

Thucydiocy: [link to Wikiquote page listing it as misattributed]

The Mystic: [screenshot of Google search including Wikiquote talk page]

Thucydiocy: Yes, if you check that Wikiquote talk page you’ll see the quote was removed for being unsourced. There’s no trace of it in Thucydides, and no one attributes it to him before the 1990s.

The Mystic: So no one really knows. It “could” be him.

Thucydiocy: Except no text before Butler’s 1889 book contains anything like this quote, so you’d have to imagine an entire secret train of transmission. Occam’s Razor says it’s Butler.

The Mystic: Well I’m sticking with the Greek general, sorry pal.

Is the fact that Thucydides is identified as a general significant? I suspect it is (and note in passing that V.D. Hanson is quite fond of referring to General Thucydides, though to be fair I don’t believe he’s ever used this quote). This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the “we don’t know everything about the past so how can you prove it’s not true?” argument, though it’s normally in the form of “X might have happened but no record survives” rather than “X might have said this even though it doesn’t appear in his work or any other ancient text that we know of but Butler came across the quote and plagiarised it and then somehow destroyed all evidence of the source where he found it”.

I was reminded of this exchange from last week by a similar one over the last day or so.

LoneTraveller: A society that separates its scholars from its warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools. h/t @AwesomeDude

AwesomeDude: I got it from Thucydides but maybe he stole it from Herodotus, who’s to say?

Thucydides: It’s not actually either of them, but C19 soldier and author Sir William F. Butler.

[LoneTraveller liked the tweet]

AwesomeDude: I wouldn’t know who said it originally, but no knowledge is original. The quote, and its attribution, has been taught at the Naval War College, and Westpoint, for 100 years (or more?). My first acquaintance was from a text book from the NWC published in 1957.

Well. I’ve asked for a reference to that textbook, and so far received only a stony silence, because, despite the precise detail, I honestly don’t think it exists. Certainly Thucydides was taught at the NWC before Stansfield Turner’s reforms in the early 1970s – another fake Thucydides quote, “a collision at sea can ruin your whole day”, was coined by a cadet in 1960 or so – but not this line, which is correctly attributed to Butler (in the original longer version) into the 1990s (including in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s 1989 report on professional military education). The most charitable explanation I can imagine is that a recent edition of a hypothetical textbook first published in 1957 might have added the quote. But the unequivocal claim that it’s been taught at both places for a century or more? It’s hard to imagine that I wouldn’t have heard about it if soneone had done the extensive research needed to establish that fact. Absent further evidence, I call bullshit.

I’m most fascinated by the “no knowledge is original” line, as a means – I guess – of dismissing the identification of Butler as author, since he must have got it from somewhere else. Surely all knowledge is original at some point? Why couldn’t Butler have coined the phrase? It’s bad enough ignoring his contribution by assuming the quote comes from Thucydides, but actively dismissing it in the apparent grounds that only ancient Greeks could come up with original thoughts? Why is the response to “it’s not Thucydides” a casting around for other ancient authors, rather than the modern author in whose work it actually appears? It seems like a clear example of belief that only classical authority carries any weight, and so must be defended to the death against all contrary evidence.

* N.B. Lightly fictionalised, as I got some very confusing guidance about using public tweets of private individuals as research material when I asked the college ethics committee about an idea for a project. You can just check @Thucydiocy’s timeline for the real thing…