Sphinx

The abuse of so-called ‘history’ for political purposes is as old as Herodotus’ invention of it a couple of years ago. Recently we have seen concerted campaigns to rewrite the history of Athenian democracy so as to undermine communal solidarity, our sense of achievement and total superiority over all other Greek states, and even our basic legitimacy. The foundational story of Athenian autocthony that expresses the deep connection between the pure indigenous inhabitants and their land is rationalised and rewritten in order to promote a multicultural, pro-migrant agenda that threatens to undermine our collective identity. Figures central to our history like the heroic Tyrannicides are stigmatised as self-interested and incompetent, and our noble leaders in the present are mocked and caricatured. Athens’ civilising mission is cast in negative terms as a mere exercise in power and self-interest.

Activists sometimes assert that ‘investigating the truth’ about a past they present as complex and problematic is the path to a better and more rational future – a ‘possession for ever’. But the real effect—perhaps the true aim—of their actions is nihilistic destruction whose only beneficiaries are themselves and their literary reputations. Tendentious and even blatantly false readings of history are creating divisions, resentments, and even violence, even as their authors claim to be analysing the roots of such divisions.  They depict partisanship, polarisation and culture war because that is what they feed on, even suggesting that the consolidation of power in the hands of a limited number of oligarchs might go against the freedom of all Athenians. This is damaging to democracy and to a free society.

Free societies depend on popular participation, trust and solidarity.  They need a sense of common purpose and self-worth.  A shared history is a necessary foundation for a successful democracy, rather than all this questioning and uncertainty. The best citizens are those who don’t think that they should be exercising their own judgement about public affairs or that they’re cleverer than the laws, but simply accept the advice of their superiors and sacrifice themselves for the city.

It is a law of nature that the strong will rule while the weak just have to suck it up; we didn’t invent that rule, and anyone else would have done the same given half a chance. You have to judge our empire by contemporary standards, not some anachronistic morality, and that means not paying any attention to all the people in the assembly, let alone elsewhere in Greece, who question whether our rule is actually just and reasonable. The Spartans and Persians have also massacred innocent civilians, you know!

In this historian’s so-called Melian Dialogue, the wisest of the Greeks are made to adduce the most disgraceful arguments, and invest them with the most disagreeable language. Perhaps it was because this historian bore his city a grudge for the sentence passed on him that he has deluged her with these reproaches, which were calculated to make her universally hated: for when the leaders of a state, entrusted by her with great power and appointed to represent her on missions to other states, seem to express certain views, those views are assumed by all to be those of the state which sent them out. The fact that he is praised – praised, not blamed – by one of his admirers for being a ‘citizen of nowhere’ tells you all you need to know.

We do not take the view that our history is uniformly praiseworthy—that would be absurd.  But we reject as equally absurd the corrosive claim that our empire is unjust and shameful, and that there is anything blameworthy in our continuing conquests and massacres.  We agree that history consists of many opinions and many voices.  But this does not mean that all opinions are valid, and certainly not these ones. Only some ivory-tower elitist would think it matters whether or not the Spartans have a troop called the Pitanate; only an enemy of all we hold dear would depict the Sicilian Expedition as an act of monumental folly and then revel in descriptions of the death and capture of our noble soldiers.

We cannot let those who wish to subvert the present state of affairs by questioning the past win this argument.

[Update: I have been politely upbraided by Johanna Hanink on the Twitter for taking Dion Hal’s name in vain; whereas I see his criticism of Thucydides for making the Athenians in the Melian Dialogue say disgraceful things as a problematic critique of historical practice, she – and she’s studied DH much more than I have – thinks it needs to be seen in broader context of his overall condemnation of the Athenians of that era. Not sure, but in any case this is an opportunity to note that she has a new essay out on DH’s reception of the Funeral Oration that looks like a must-read.]