Thucydides

The epidemic that killed Pericles: contextual and paleopathological analysis of the 5th century BCE Plague of Athens via primary resources and modern DNA sequence-based identification strategies of dental pulp from a mass grave at Kerameikos. A novel offering of compelling evidence of Avian Influenza as the causative agent of the Plague of Athens.: 

The 5th Century Plague of Athens saw the deaths of one third of the Athenian population including the leader Pericles while under siege during the Peloponnesian War.  The causative pathogenic agent remains a mystery 2,500 years later.  A methodology encompassing both the critically assessed historical accounts and validated scientific techniques is recommended.  Thucydides, a contemporary writer and survivor, provides the best known clinical observations of the symptomology of the Plague as well as the historical context surrounding it.  Additionally, ancient DNA extraction is quickly allowing the story to unfold.  The utility of dental pulp in reporting on septicemic pathogens from archaeological contexts has substantial potential for identifying unknown pathogen agents, as teeth are often natural reservoirs of disease posthumously.  The conditions, including political decisions that created the conditions necessary for propagated outbreak, are examined.  A thorough analysis of the dental pulp study that has so far been carried out from a mass grave will be critiqued and an alternative explanation for its scientifically sound findings confirming the presence of Salmonella enteric serovar Typhi will be discussed.  An in-depth analysis of alternative pathogens will be examined.  Lastly, evidence for my own theory will be advanced regarding the causative agent of the Plague of Athens.  It is strongly suggested that Avian Influenza, a zoonotic disease, is responsible for the observed deaths of the Athenians under siege.  Further studies, especially those utilizing ancient dental pulp, would help to confirm this theory.

The first phase of the Peloponnesian War is usually seen as a clash between tradition and innovation – a story of naval Athens standing on its walls and laughing in the face of Sparta’s old-fashioned desire to decide the issue by hoplite battle. The Peloponnesians ravaged the land, baffled and frustrated, but the Athenians would not come out to meet them. With imported food and naval raids and overseas campaigning, they changed the face of Greek warfare forever.

Yet the Long Walls were constructed decades before the war began. As Krentz has pointed out, these walls can only have served one purpose – to facilitate an Island Strategy, by keeping the city supplied while under siege. We should therefore assume that the Spartans in 431 knew very well how Athens was planning to fight the war. They knew that ravaging their territory was unlikely to starve them into submission and might not provoke them to open battle. Why did they nonetheless insist on fighting the war in this way?

In this paper I will argue that the Peloponnesians were perfectly aware of other strategies, but did not have the means to carry them out. They could not keep their army in the field long enough to wear their enemy down; they could not raise a fleet to match that of Athens; they tried everything they could think of, but they ultimately had to rely on doing maximum damage with their land army for the short time they could afford to have it in the field. As Thucydides says, it was not tradition but a lack of money that held them back – and they were desperate to free themselves of this yoke.

Granted that Thucydides' account of states and power supports the development of some sort of Realist international relations theory, the question I pose is whether reading Thucydides as a strong Realist will yield an adequate account of the complex text that is Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War. My eventual conclusion is no. I will suggest that Thucydides the "strong Realist" theorist is indeed a centrally important presence in the text. But the careful reader eventually finds Thucydides the theorist of state power (Thucydides Theoretikos) challenged and even confuted by another of the text's central authorial presences: Thucydides the historian (Thucydides Histor).  Thucydides text suggests that the best theorizing will be informed and chastened by attention to the complexities and contingency that characterizes the best historical narratives.

How, are we to explain documented cases in which a democracy, for example Athens in the era of the Archidamian War, does well in fierce and sustained competition? Following a recent article by Kenneth Schultz and Barry Weingast (2003), we may call this the puzzle of democratic advantage.3 This chapter argues that Thucydides addressed a version of the democratic-advantage puzzle, and did so in a way that anticipates some important modern developments in social science.

Writing to a friend, Horace describes the man as fascinated by “the discordant harmony of the cosmos, its purpose and power.” Andrew Scholtz takes this notion of “discordant harmony” and argues for it as an aesthetic principle where classical Athenian literature addresses politics in the idiom of sexual desire. His approach is an untried one for this kind of topic. Drawing on theorists of the sociality of language, Scholtz shows how eros, consuming, destabilizing desire, became a vehicle for exploring and exploiting dissonance within the songs Athenians sang about themselves. Thus he shows how societal tension and instability could register as an ideologically charged polyphony in works like the Periclean Funeral Oration, Aristophanes’s Knights, and Xenophon’s Symposium.

Amongst scholars of international relations, Thucydides is frequently identified as the father or grandfather of modern realism. Against this orthodox view, a revisionist school of thought has argued that Thucydides scholarly identity has been misunderstood due to various misinterpretations of his history. This article argues that the revisionist school conclusion is correct but not for the reasons frequently cited. Correctly interpreting Thucydides’ history is only one of the tasks that must be completed in evaluating the orthodox view. To this must be added the tasks of correctly interpreting realism and the claim that Thucydides is one of its members. By addressing these points, this article reconstructs the revisionist view of Thucydides on more secure grounds. The article concludes by discussing how great (and even not so great) works of political theory can best be used by International Relations scholars in their teaching and research.