Act 1 - War
"War, is a violent teacher" - Thucydides [1]
When you think of battle, do you think of honor or glory? What about a sense of pride, or patriotism? Rosy ideals often hide in shade the darker underpinnings of war. Warfare has changed radically across the centuries, however, maybe a key to understanding modern warfare lies in the past. Aside from values changing, we see common motifs such as using past events to leverage modern war, to the greedy prospect of conquest ultimately leading to self-ruin, and common occurrences of moral dilemmas. Being as old as man itself, war truly never changes, and we suffer the same consequences despite new advancements. To learn more of that, let us go over a classical example taken from the Peloponnesian War.
A classical imperialism cartoon; a theme we will discuss later on [2]
Act 2 - The Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian war was a war that dramatically changed Greece itself, taking place for 27 years between 431-404 BC between Athens and Sparta. One of the most powerful poleis, Athens, would be soon reduced to subjection and lose its prosperity. Greece itself would suffer large economic losses, and thousands of lives were lost. Morality itself was also put to question.
The first part, the Archidamian war, involved Pericles' defensive strategy for the Athens, through avoiding the Spartan’s intense hoplite army and deciding to counter with their naval force. They had many farmers and citizens move inside the Long Walls that protected a route to the port. They believed that this strategy would tire the Spartans out. What nobody anticipated however, was a plague that befell Athens. An ancient form of typhoid fever would soon occur, wiping out nearly a third of the denizens in the compact and unsanitary new city environment.
A depiction of the 'long walls' that Pericles devised during the Archidamian war [3]
After the effects of the plague and a brief period of peace in the Peace of Nicias, in 427 BC Cleon, a prominent demagogue, argued to execute and enslave women/children for the revolt of Mytilene against Athens, despite their surrender. Civil strife would also soon occur between the workers and the aristocrat, leading to intense slaughters that was described by the historian Thucydides to include “every death imaginable” [1].
Taken to 415 BC, Athens learn that their ally Sicily is under an attack from Syracuse, and thus decided to aid them. This however was no act done in the goodness of the heart, as demagogue Alcibiades dreamed of conquering them for it would bring immense resources, with wealth and expanding their sphere of influence.
However, before departure, the polis would see religious degradation of their monuments to Hermes. Alcibiades was accused as being responsible for this sacrilege, consequentially defecting to Sparta and revealing that the Athens meant to use Sicily to further their empire and to use their resources in their conquest of the entire Peloponnese. Not only would this spell trouble for Athens, but they were tricked and misled by propagated rumors based on greed believing that Sicily was rich with intense wealth when it was in fact poor. What happened after meant Sparta heeding Alcibiades word and sending fleets to counter the Athens, using a pass they carelessly left unguarded.
Alcibiades, who's noted for his charisma and demagogue prowess [4] 200 ships would soon be rammed in close proximity, forcing a retreat by land rather than sea, causing the Athenian army to abandon all of the sick and wounded. Thucydides described the event with several Athenian soldiers stumbling over each other and “fighting among themselves to gulp the muddy [river] water clotted with blood”, as they were chased down over a river by Spartans [5]. This led to utter defeat, as tens of thousands of soldiers died and were enslaved, all for a result of nothing, leading to a horrifically terrible loss on the part of Athens, piloted by their own greed.
What did this inevitably mean for the Athens? Their conceptual myth of naval superiority was obliterated as a result, and money met poor ends. Revolt became a real temptation for a lot of Athenians, especially with Alcibiades forming rebellions among slaves that would mean disappearance of mine workers for silver production, along with encampment of agriculture in Athens. Thousands of families were torn apart and many women suffered lives as widows. Inevitably, Athens surrendered in 404 BC and was subjected by Sparta, forcing them to tear down their long walls and seizing their naval resources. At the end of the war, the Athens’ power suffered a terrible demise.
A painted depiction of the naval power of Athens upon docking on Sicily [6]
Act 3 - The Modern Day Parallel
After going over the Peloponnesian war, we can now aim to transition to a more modern lens. Modern war is often completely different, as new creations such rifles and guns completely restructure how wars are fought. However, we can still see some similar themes. Recalling back to the Archidamian war, all of Athens was struck with a horrible plague that wiped out a large part of the population. Modern warfare realizes the power of plagues of the past as a biological warfare tool against other armies. Examples in more recent times includes the British giving smallpox-covered blankets to Native Americans in the Siege of Fort Pitt in the Pontiac’s War to eliminate them (Volwiler, 1924).
However, let us delve into an even more modern perspective. The historically recent World War II was one of the worst wars in human history and a crude reminder of the power of politics. Similar to the Peloponnesian war that would change all of Greece, the second world war changed the entire globe. Germany was hungry for power and vengeance, after suffering a humiliating defeat in the first World War. This led to Hitler using demagogue strategies involving irrationally placing the blame on Jewish people to politically fuel and appeal his campaign of Germany’s conquest (Gustainis, 1990).
WWII's Hitler depicted using body language conveying demagogue techniques [7]
This concept was actually defined through the Greek word that arose from strategies similarly used by leaders like Cleon in the Peloponnesian war, who politically manipulated the people to fuel his own means, and would suggest merciless slaughter of men and enslavement of women in the revolt of Mytilene. Obviously, this also unfortunately parallels quite similarly to Hitler’s treatment towards several million Jewish people. Advocating against an enemy, whether fabricated or through using existing fear or hatred, is a common demagogue practice and one that has been extensively highlighted in Hitler’s speeches to sway Germany (Gustainis, 1990).
Diving more into the thematic side and context, a lot of war efforts, both past and future, are driven by vain conquests of glory blinded by greed and imperialism. This greed and imperialism was made evident in the Peloponnesian war with the Athenian Sicily expedition, where lies of lavish resources and the merit of strengthening a polis’ power through deceit and territorial expansion ultimately led to a disastrous and horrific consequence for the Athenian side (Osek, 2017). Drawing back to the World War II example, Hitler and Germany’s greed for redemption and global conquest of their political ideology resulted in the inevitable collapse of the empire. The axis forces all met terrible ends involving surrender, no real territorial expansion or benefit, and a huge military casualty and power loss on the European end. Despite these advancements in war, we still seem to never learn and suffer the same consequences piloted by our greed.
It is also this fear of power between nations, whether political or not, that can drive such horrible wars. In the Peloponnesian war, it was thought that the politically differing societies between Athens and Sparta may have led to such an outbreak. Upon Greece’s victory of the Persian empire, overtime, Athens’ maritime prowess became increasingly larger, leading to Sparta’s eventual fear of their potential power and causing war. Just like in modern times, World War I’s real reason of occurring was the breakdown of a balance of power between countries that triggered a global war, along with this similar sense of militarism (Keiger, 2014).
Act 4 - Conclusion
Ultimately, what we can learn at the end of the day is that war never really changes. Causes for war will always be the same throughout human history, but driven with further knowledge and advancements, such as the development of biological warfare. National motivations such as imperialism, an intense blinding of greed through conquest, would lead to the downfall of Athens through their attempted expedition at Sicily that resulted in thousands dead, religious hubris, surrender, and moral challenges. This can be very commonly seen in wars such as WWII that resulted in conventional religious degradation, immoral acts through detainment, and the ultimate downfall of the axis’ power and influence upon surrender. While the greed would fuel and motivate such efforts, it ultimately sought to ruin them in the end. Inevitably, such topics and themes can only become more and more relevant as the modern world is continuing to undergo changes just like the ancient Greek world upon the Peloponnesian war; political disputes and the fear of the potential of power between forces such as the USA and nations like North Korea leaves people with a feeling of unrest.
Things may not be as calm as they appear on the surface. There remains a potential fear of power between the two nations of the United States and North Korea. [8]
What we can learn now may ultimately very well rest upon what we learn of the themes of the past.
End Notes
[1] Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 3.81; Blanco
[2] Meyer, Henri. “China -- the Cake of Kings and... of Emperors.” Wikimedia Commons, 18
Feb. 2005,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China_imperialism_cartoon.jpg#globalusage.
[3] Davis, J. S. (1900). The Piraeus and the Long Walls of Athens. [Digital image]. Retrieved
November 26, 2020, from
[4] Vincent, F. -. (2014, May 24). Alcibiade recevant les leçons de Socrate [Digital image].
Retrieved from
[5] Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 7.84–85; Blanco
[6] Peloponnesian War [Athenian naval forces in the harbour of Syracuse, Sicily, during the
Peloponnesian War, 19th-century print.]. (2020, March 22). Retrieved from
[7]Hoffmann, H. (1930, September). Adolf Hitler, Rednerposen [Digital image]. Retrieved from
[8] “A Handout Photo of President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un
during Their Second Summit.” Vox, 27 Feb. 2019,
www.vox.com/2019/3/8/18256179/north-korea-nuclear-trump-kim-step.
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Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 2, 1990, pp. 155–161.,
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Keiger, John. “Thinking the Causes of World War I.” Horizons: Journal of International
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www.jstor.org/stable/48573432. Accessed 27 Nov. 2020.
Osek, Ewa. “Taking Revenge in the Name of Hermes:” Politics and Performance in Western
Greece, 2017, pp. 81–96., doi:10.2307/j.ctvbj7grj.8.
Pomeroy, Sarah B., et al. A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture. 4th
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Thucydides’ “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” 431 BC
Volwiler, A. T. “William Trent's Journal at Fort Pitt, 1763.” The Mississippi Valley Historical
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