The Old Oligarch vs. the Periclean "Hunker-Down" Strategy

Good discussion today.  As I said, having read the background material you will be in a much better position to understand some of the incidental details in Thucydides, especially the whole period of the Pentekontaetia, which he deals with in fairly short order.

With the first section of Thucydides and Xenophon's Lacedaemonian constitution you have plenty of stuff to read for next week -- but I just wanted to point you to one passage in the Old Oligarch's Athenaion Politeia that sheds some interesting light on the public reaction to the Athenian strategy in the first stages of the War.  You'll read next week in Thucydides [starting at II.12] how Pericles counseled an early strategy of allowing the Spartans to ravage the countryside around Athens at will, rather than come out to meet them in a land engagement, for which the Spartans were obviously better trained.  The preparations for this strategy involved bringing in a lot of citizens inside the city walls, and sending property over to the island of Euboea.  But the land itself could obviously not be protected, and as a result this gave the Spartans free rein to pillage the Attic countryside.  This began to turn the populace against Pericles (on top of the plague, of course), requiring him to address the Assembly to calm them down.

Go to the Old Oligarch at II.13-6, where he's talking about the relationship between geography and the politics of war, and specifically the difference between land-powers and sea-powers (thalassocrats), the latter being better able to defend against the ravaging of their territory because of their relative isolation.  The Athenian demos -- trusting in its navy and because they can ship their property off shore (to places like Euboea) -- can simply let the enemy have their way on the countryside, since they [the demos] know that "nothing of theirs will be burnt or cut down."  It is, rather, the wealthy whose land and property is put to the torch.

Building on the discussion we were having today about the parallels between Athens and the United States, I find the Old Oligarch's complaint to offer an interesting contrast with how the blame for war is assigned in the modern era.  It's become a commonplace since the 60s to suspect the motives of politicians advocating military action precisely because they have the least at stake -- neither they nor their sons will be sacrificed for the nation [think Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son"].  In Athens -- at least according to this critique -- it's the exact opposite.  It's the wealthy who are suffering most from the demos' war-mongering. 

So specific a complaint is, incidentally, a good argument in my opinion for placing the Old Oligarch's writing in the mid-420s, though it should be noted that the editor [Bowersock] thinks that is unjustified.  The Athenian Constitution has otherwise been dated anywhere from the 440s to the 410s.

So if you have the time, read the Old Oligarch in his entirety, as it offers a different perspective on the democratic culture of 5th c. Athens.

Athenian Democracy

In advance of our conversation about Thucydides -- and particularly the more radical democratic constitution that evolves in mid-5th century Athens -- I wanted to post one of the slides from the lecture on Athens that you all had in Western Civ. I.