Syrians continue to slaughter each other, and seem eager to draw others into the conflict. Thucydides, the great Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (431-404 bc), would strongly resist.
Thucydides starts by saying that he began his history because he expected the war would be ‘great and very well worth recording’. After assessing previous conflicts, he concludes that it was indeed ‘greater than all others’, but qualifies what he means by that: ‘there was suffering unparalleled on such a timescale… never before were so many cities captured and laid waste, never before were there such numbers of refugees nor so much slaughter, both in the war itself and as a result of civil strife.’
That war causes suffering is hardly a momentous aperçu. Besides, as Thucydides said of Athens’ ‘total annihilation’ in Sicily in 413 bc, this ‘greatest’ of actions was ‘the most brilliant for the victors’. Even war has its compensations, however momentary. But as he reflects further on the nature of war, he points out that ‘war is not something that proceeds on set rules; far from it. It devises its own solutions to circumstances.’ That ‘solution’ tends to be greater and greater extremes of violence, while ‘simple human decency, the true mark of nobility, flies out of the window’.
How does this come about? He suggests ‘in peace, when the times are good, both city-states and individuals hold to higher principles because they are not forced into hardships over which they have no control. But war, which removes the ease of everyday life, is a teacher of violence, and assimilates men’s natural impulses to their circumstances’. For Thucydides, it is this sheer unpredictability of war, except in the certainty that it will become more and more bloody, that makes it such a disastrous choice.
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