The Peloponnesian War - Book Review

Parameters, Spring, 2004 by Martin L. Cook

The Peloponnesian War. By Donald D. Kagan. New York: Viking, 2003.511 Pages, with 24 maps. $29.95.

Thucydides famously declared his intention to write the history of the war we now call the Peloponnesian War at its very outset, "in the belief that it was going to be a great war and more worth writing about than any of those which had taken place in the past." History has shared his assessment--in no small measure because of the power of his own masterful telling of the story and the philosophical depth of his commentary on its events.

It was, after all, a war that spanned 27 years and in the end destroyed all the major combatants and their civilization. It contains powerful examples of successful and unsuccessful periods of civil-military relations. It demonstrates the "revolutions in military affairs" necessitated by encounters with novel weapons, tactics, and operational concepts. It dramatically shows the relationship of military power to economics, cultural assumptions, and forms of government.

It has been mined for instruction from innumerable perspectives. Naval theorists look to it as an example of the might of the seapower of Athens and the lessons to be learned when, as in the early stages of the war, an almost wholly landbased power such as Sparta attempts to engage a powerful seapower. Political scientists who have never bothered to read even a significant fraction of the work have for generations shamelessly ripped the Melian Dialogue between Athens' generals and the hapless leaders of the neutral city of Melos from context to provide the standard illustration of"realism" as a theory of international relations. Students of military leadership find the examples of Pericles, Brasidas, Demosthenes, and even Alcibiades timeless illustrations of leadership, character, and strategy.

Donald D. Kagan, Sterling Professor of Classics and History at Yale University, has for many years been the foremost authority to consult on fine points of history and interpretation of the events of the period in large and specialized volumes such as Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, and The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, to name only some of his earlier works. The present volume, The Peloponnesian War, is a successful effort to distill decades of specialized scholarship into a one-volume overview of the whole, accessible to a reader who might not have a need or desire for the extremely close assessment of detail in the earlier works. As such, it becomes the single best volume for readers looking to gain a comprehensive understanding of the war's causes, conduct, and outcomes.

The latter is especially important because Thucydides died before the completion of the war, so even a complete and careful reading of his text leaves events incomplete. But also, for all the justifiable praise heaped upon his scrupulosity as a historian (especially one writing at the very dawn of the discipline of objective history), there are important gaps and obscurities within his text that Kagan's comprehensive knowledge of alternate sources helps to fill. Where there are inscriptions of the period, or lines and characters from Athens' dramatic literature of the period that serve to illuminate Thucydides' obscurities or gaps, Kagan consistently has them ready at hand to clarify. In this regard, reading Kagan in parallel with Thucydides' own writing will be an invaluable aid to a reader attempting to work through the admittedly somewhat daunting prose of Thucydides' text alone.

The Peloponnesian War is so rich, however, that much depends on the angle from which the student of it wishes to approach the material. It is many things. For the student of Classical Culture and civilization, getting as much clarity as possible about exactly what happened and why it happened is the paramount issue. For this interest, Kagan is consistently one of the most reliable guides--both in this volume and in the earlier, more detailed studies of specific periods and aspects of the war. For the student of military history, campaign analysis, or weapons and tactics of the period, the Peloponnesian War is also a rich repository of examples. Here again, readers seeking a full understanding of these technical-military matters can look to Kagan for clarity and illumination.

There is no substitute, of course, for reading Thucydides' History directly. It is not the facts about the war or about military technical or operational issues that makes this war perennially and uniquely worthy of study. Credit for that goes ultimately to the mind of its original historian, Thucydides, who succeeded magnificently in his aim that his work be a "possession for all time." It is the mind of Thucydides that added the dimension of philosophical depth that elevates the events of ancient Greece to the realm of timeless truth. His wry wit, his cutting asides, his determination to see through to the root causes of things--these elevate his history far above a recounting of facts. It is through his vision and word that we see the awful truth of what human nature is capable of doing.