¹ Momigliano, Arnaldo D., “Some Observations on Causes of War in Ancient Historiography,” in Studies in Historiography (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966), 120.Google Scholar

² Garlan, Yvon, War in the Ancient World: A Social History, Lloyd, Janet, trans. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), 17–18.Google Scholar

³ Wolin, Sheldon, Politics and Vision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960).Google Scholar

⁴ Strauss, Leo, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952).Google Scholar

⁵ This assumption is explicit or implicit in almost all accounts of the ancient polis-world. One important and notable exception is the late Frank Adcock who, in his posthumously published account of Greek diplomacy, wrote that “it is rash to assert, as has been done by some, that war was the permanent characteristic of all Greek communities.” See Sir Adcock, Frank and Mosely, D. J., Diplomacy in Ancient Greece (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975), 12.Google Scholar

⁶ Thucydides, , History of Peloponnesian War, Smith, C. F., trans. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919), I, 15.Google Scholar

⁷ For some survey studies, see Fried, Morton, The Evolution of Political Society (New York: Random House, 1967), esp. 102ffGoogle Scholar; Clastres, Pierre, Society against the State, Hurley, Robert, trans. (New York: Urizen, 1977)Google Scholar; Sahlins, Marshall, “The Origin of Society,” Scientific American, 09 1960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Thucydides, , History, 1, 5.Google Scholar

⁹ E.g., in Thucydides, , History, I, 6.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Garlan, , War, 23.Google Scholar

¹¹ Herodotus, , History of the Greek and Persian War, Rawlinson, G., trans. (New York: Twayne, 1963), 1, 82.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid., V, 49.

¹³ Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan (London: J. M. Dent, 1950), I, 13. Significantly, ancient Greek stories of the origin of the political association differ consistently with early modem “origin” stories. For the Greeks, the political body was “natural” and born of the need of mutuality; for the tradition beginning with Machiavelli, it was born of the need for security, against other individuals and, more important, against other, aggrandizing bodies.Google Scholar

¹⁴ On the important point of “the Greeks,” see Finley, M. I., “The Ancient Greeks and Their Nation,” in his Uses and Abuses of History (New York: Viking, 1971). As Finley argues (p. 120ff), being a Greek meant a great deal to the Greeks, “but it had no political content apart from the one point of not assisting Greeks to defeat and subjugate Greeks.” It is thus simple anachronism to hold that the Greeks failed to form a unified state. When this nineteenth-century anachronism is coupled with the seventeenth-century Hobbesian premises about aggrandizement and competition, the “frightful disunity” of the Greeks naturally becomes a self-evident condition of permanent bellicosity. But as I suggest in what follows, the condition of the polis-world was radically unlike the early modern period.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The trap of speaking of Athens and Sparta as the Greeks, or of Athens and Rome as the ancient world, is not easily avoided. A good example is the opening pages of Garlan's otherwise careful book, mentioned earlier. Even Kathleen Freeman's useful book, Greek City-States (New York: W. W. Norton, 1950), does not escape, despite the fact that she deliberately excludes Athens and Sparta in her study of nine “representative” city-states. Indeed, when she begins to generalize, it is Athens and Sparta in the late fifth century that she clearly has in mind.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Delbrück, Hans, Antiquity, Vol. I of History of the Art of War, Renfroe, Walter J. Jr., trans. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975). This work is a mine of useful information.Google Scholar

¹⁷ This important point is made in Delbrück, , Antiquity, 135Google Scholar. Also see Sir Adcock, Frank, Greek and Macedonian Art of War (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1957), 7, who aptly refers to the battle as a “mass duel.” It was, he continues, “a trial of strength; and the verdict of the trial was accepted.”Google Scholar

¹⁸ The symbolic aspect is well treated by Garlan, War, but he makes no effort to explain its significance.

¹⁹ See Adcock, , Greek and Macedonian Art of War, 8, who notes that “Greek states did not, in general, see the utter destruction of each other by war conducted a outrance…. And so states passed from war to peace easily, or more easily than from peace to war.”Google Scholar

²⁰ The idea that a polis is inherently limited in size is, of course, carefully defended by “classic” Greek political theory, especially by Aristotle. In Politics (Rackham, H., trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932), bk. VII, 4)Google Scholar, he declares that “the optimum size of a polls occurs when the numbers are the greatest possible for self-sufficiency (autarkeia) while living within sight of each other.” We do suggest, below, that antiexpansionist foreign policy was related essentially to the citizen army as that specifically developed in the polis. On the other hand, it is too easy to argue as, e.g., Adcock, and Mosely, , Diplomacy, 128, do, that “in view of the scale and conditions of ancient warfare it was difficult for a state to follow up its victory with territorial extension and military occupation on a large scale. Few states could either afford or provide the manpower, whether of citizens or of mercenaries, to maintain their own territory.” This is admittedly true insofar as one assumes that the states being referred to are and remain poleis. But what needs explaining is why the Greeks so stoutly clung to their polis form of organization.Google Scholar

²¹ See Finley, M. I., “Sparta,” in Uses and Abuses and HistoryGoogle Scholar; Croix, G. E. M. de Ste., The Origins of the Peloponneslan War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972).Google Scholar

²² See Finley, M. I., The Ancient Economy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973), esp. chs. 1 and 6.Google Scholar

²³ The commercial rivalry hypothesis as regards Corinth and Athens is exploded by de Ste. Croix, Origins. See also his brilliant account of the famous Megarian decress, in the same work.

²⁴ See Finley, John H. Jr., Thucydides (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963), 117ff, who rightly criticizes the older accounts by F. M. Cornford and G. B. Grundy on this score.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Sealey, Raphael, A History of the Greek City-States: 700–338 B.C. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976), ch. 2Google Scholar, for a good account of the genesis of the polis and the emergence of the tyrants. More recently, see Snodgrass, Anthony, Archaic Greece (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980)Google Scholar. Greenhalgh, P. A. L., Early Greek Warfare (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1973), 3Google Scholar, notes that Aristotle's account (Politics, IV, 3, 10) of the dominance of the knights (hippeis), due to superiority in war, after the fall of the kings is “proved credible by archeology.”Google Scholar

²⁶ Finley, , “The Ancient Greeks,” 130.Google Scholar

²⁷ See, e.g., Caldwell, Wallace E., Hellenic Conceptions of Peace, Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1919), 45Google Scholar. Caldwell's account is heavily economistic. He also asserts characteristically (p. 50) that despite “movements in the direction of peace, wars were regular and continuous.” A better discussion is in Adcock, and Mosely, , Diplomacy, esp. 11, 140ff.Google Scholar

²⁸ Adcock, and Mosely, , Diplomacy, 140.Google Scholar

²⁹ Caldwell, , Hellenic Conceptions, 45.Google Scholar

³⁰ Garlan, , War, 93Google Scholar. See also Pritchett, W. K., The Greek State at War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Snodgrass, A. M., “The Hoplite Reform and History,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 85 (1965), 110–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³¹ Machiavelli seems to be the first to see this clearly. The problem which sets the framework of discussion in his remarkable Discourses is whether, in order to be free and secure, a republic will choose to “extend its empire” (as Rome) or will “confine itself merely to its own preservation” (as Sparta and Venice). Machiavelli argues that with each choice there are serious implica- tions regarding the nature of armies, of citizenship, and thus of internal stability. See esp. bk. I, chs. 5 and 6.

³² Delbrück, , Antiquity, 230.Google Scholar

³³ See especially Adcock, and Moseley, , Diplomacy, 210ff.Google Scholar, and Boxeman, Adda B., Politics and Culture in International History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), esp. 81–90. It is difficult to measure the success of arbitration in the ancient world, but one should guard against underestimation, especially when we keep in mind the number of poleis and the complexity of their relations.Google Scholar

³⁴ The best account of Sparta's “natural” foreign policy is de Ste. Croix, , Origins, esp. ch. 4.Google Scholar

³⁵ Delbrück, , Antiquity, 67.Google Scholar

³⁶ Perhaps the best account on this score remains Grote, George, History of Greece (London: J. Murray, 1888), IV, V, although Grote laments the “failure” of the Greeks to unite. Also see Finley, “The Ancient Greeks.”Google Scholar

³⁷ Herodotus, , History, IV, 137, and V, 28–36.Google Scholar

³⁸ Thucydides, , History, VIII, 48.Google Scholar

³⁹ On hegemony, see Grote's helpful discussion. History of Greece, V, 380ffGoogle Scholar. For the pair “autonomy/slavery,” see de Ste. Croix, , Origins, 36ff., who develops the complications as regards the problem of stasis which were introduced by Persian intrusion into Greek affairs.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See Meiggs, Russell, The Athenian Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Grote, , History of Greece, V, esp. 389.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Thucydides, , History, I, 75, 97.Google Scholar

⁴² See Jones, A. H. M., Athenian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957)Google Scholar, Meiggs, , Athenian EmpireGoogle Scholar. This alternative is not offered by Machiavelli in his account in the Discourses. But both Harrington, James in Oceana (1656)Google Scholar and Montesquieu were alive to it. Recall Montesquieu's remark to the famous text from Xenophon: “Athens,” says Xenophon, “rules the sea; but as the Country of Attica is joined to the continent, it is ravaged by enemies while the Athenians are engaged in distant expeditions…. But if the Athenians inhabited an island, and beside this, enjoyed the empire of the sea, they would, so long as they were possessed of these advantages, be able to annoy others, and at the same time to be out of all danger of being annoyed.” One would imagine that Xenophon was speaking of England (Spirit of the Laws, Nugent, Thomas, trans. (New York: Hafner, 1966), vol. I, bk. 21, ch. 7).Google Scholar

⁴³ Thucydides, , History, I, 96. Thucydides reports that phoron (tribute), initially did not imply coercion.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Thucydides, , History, VIII, 72Google Scholar; Aristotle, , Politics, V, 3, 5.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Aristotle, , Constitution of Athens (London: Macmillan and Company, n.d.), 24.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Finley, M. I., Democracy: Ancient and Modern (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1972), ch. 2Google Scholar. Also see Connor, W. R., The New Politicians of Fifth Century Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), who traces the breakdown of the older politics of “friendship” (philoia).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Thucydides, , History, I, 23Google Scholar. For contrasting views of the war, see de Ste. Croix, , OriginsGoogle Scholar, and Sealey, , History of Greek City-States, chs. 9–11Google Scholar. Also see Kagan, Donald, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Thucydides, , History, I, 68–71, and II, 35–46.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ On the Sicilian expedition, see Sealey, , History of Greek City-States, ch. 13Google Scholar; Finley, J. H. Jr., Thucydides, ch. 6Google Scholar. As regards mercenaries, Delbrück, , Antiquity, 145Google Scholar, points out that “fleet service in Athens … except for mass levies, became a purely mercenary service as early as the period following the Persian Wars, and in the course of the Peloponnesian War hoplite service, too, gradually became more and more a mercenary service.” In this context, “mercenary” (misthōphoron) means merely paid service, even though by the beginnings of the fourth century, “strangers” (xenoi) appeared in increasing numbers in the ranks. As Pritchett, , Greek State at War, pt. 2, 114, notesGoogle Scholar, “we lack and presumably always shall lack, any mobilization decree of the fourth century which would explicitly set forth the age-groups of citizens to be called and the ratio of mercenaries, whether domestic or foreign.” See also Griffith, G. T., Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Demosthenes, , “Against Philip,” in Phillipics, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949), 3.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Plato draws the contrast between his day and the (nostalgic) past even more sharply in Laws, Book III, where he speaks of times when both “stasis and war had equally disappeared” (778E). “Men's loneliness,” he continues, “made them sociable and friendly,” and “there could be no quarreling over the means of subsistence.” There was neither rich nor poor, nor, in consequence, was there rivalry, envy, or violence. Thus, “they were good men, partly for this reason, and partly from their proverbial simplicity” (679C). This is, of course, a “story,” but what is important is its moral. Compare Rousseau in The Second Discourse on Inequality.

⁵² Plato, , Republic, Cornford, F. M., trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945), 372C.Google Scholar

⁵³ Ibid., 373D.

⁵⁴ Ibid., 374D.

⁵⁵ See note 31 above. Perhaps the most striking feature of Machiavelli's modernity as a political thinker is his inversion of the Greek priorities. He believes that domestic policy must be subordinate to foreign policy precisely because, for him, war and expansion are permanent conditions of politics. Thus, for him Rome, not Sparta, is the model. See my “Montesquieu and the Eighteenth-Century Vision of the State,” in History of Political Thought, 1981, 2:313–47.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Plato, , Laws, 628A et passim.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Quoted from Ferguson, W. S., Greek Imperialism (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1913), 22.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Thucydides, , History, III, 83.Google Scholar