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Abstract
Thucydides is an important author for any discussion of the possibilities for an ancient Greek democratic peace. Though democratic peace did not, in fact, seem to function in classical Greece, a number of passages in Thucydides show that an affinity did exist among democratic factions and city-states in the context of hostile competition between democratic and oligarchic regimes. Thucydides remarked on this competition and was aware of the inter-democratic affinities, but did not seem to think them salient in city-state decisions of war and peace. The failure of democratic peace to develop may relate to the environment of the Greek city-state, which privileged local interests over broader constitutional ideals.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the participants in the PRIO conference at Columbia University and the anonymous readers for JME for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Notes
1. The full security strategy statement (from September 2002) is available from the White House at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html. It is also archived as: US Executive Office of the President. The National security strategy of the United States of America. Washington. September 2002, available at GPO Access: http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS22467 (retrieved July 18, 2005).
2. The text of this press conference (and other occasions since on which the President voiced similar themes) is available from the White House at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/ (Accessed December 16, 2005). See also Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent editorial on democratic peace in the Washington Post (Rice Citation2005).
3. A joint study from the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the Program on International Policy Attitudes released in September 29, 2005, suggests that, despite the President's words, Americans at large are skeptical of the notions that democracies make the world safer or are less likely to go to war with one another. Full text of the study, ‘Americans on Promoting Democracy’, is available at www.pipa.org and www.ccfr.org. (Accessed December 16, 2005). For doubts about democratization and peace in Iraq and the Middle East, see Mansfield and Snyder (Citation2005).
4. See bibliography listed in Robinson (Citation2001a). Realist skeptics of democratic peace received a boost with the publication of Gowa (2000), though compelling studies treating the modern phenomenon as both empirically valid and worthy of exploration continue to appear, e.g., Kadera et al. (Citation2003).
5. See Weart's response to my article (Weart Citation2001) and my following note (Robinson Citation2001b). For further examples of ancient inter-democratic conflict that would seem to violate the theorized peace, see Hansen in Hansen and Nielsen (2004: 84–85). On the incompatibility of democratic peace theory to the case of ancient Athens in particular, see Mitchell (Citation2003).
6. Loeb translation (Smith Citation1920), slightly modified. There are some grammatical difficulties with the second sentence of the first quotation, especially as regards the phrase ‘nor any inclination to do so’ (oude hetoimōn)—there may be a manuscript error here, rendering the text uncertain. See Gomme et al. (Citation1945–1981: 2.372–3) and Hornblower (Citation1991–1996: 1.480–481).
7. E.g., Ps-Xenophon ('Old Oligarch’) 1.14, 16, 3.10–11; Aristotle, Politics 1307b; Thucydides himself again at 1.19.
8. Leppin (Citation1999) and CitationRobinson (in preparation).
9. Roy in Hansen and Nielsen (2004: 497); Robinson (in preparation).
10. For example, during the brief oligarchic revolution at Athens in the years 411–410, Thucydides tells us that Athenian oligarchs went about changing democratic governments in the empire into oligarchies (8.64–5), and we know that the restored Athenian democracy returned popular governments to some of these at least (Paros: Diodorus Siculus 13.47.8). Thucydides also notes that Sparta ensured the loyalty of its allies by installing oligarchic governments (1.19, 126).
11. For example, on freedom and autonomy (eleutheria/autonomia): 3.1.3, 20; 3.4.5, 25; 4.1.35 eleutheria=no foreign ruler; 4.8.14).
12. For example, the description of Sparta's war on Elis of c. 401, which downplays obvious democratic/oligarchic tensions in the causes and course of the war (3.2.21–31), or the stasis in Corinth of c. 492, for which he never actually admits that democracy resulted or that populist politicians had been pushing for it all along (4.4.1–8; cf. Diodorus Siculus 14.86.1, Oxyrhynchus Historian 2.2–3), or the emphasis on non-factional causes of Sparta's attack on Mantinea in 386 (5.2.1–3).There are exceptions, however—occasions where his text is unambiguous that democratic/oligarchic politics played roles in wars and alliances, including 4.8.20 (Rhodes); 5.2.3–7 (the result of the Spartan/Mantinean war); 5.2.25ff. (Theban stasis); 7.1.42–3 (Achaia); 7.1.44 (Sicyon).
13. My thanks to Nino Luraghi for thoughts on ‘democratic war’ and the democratic-oligarchic symmetry. Weart (1998, 2001) considers the similar oligarchic behaviors to be very significant as well, but unfortunately assumes, on little evidence, that it amounted to an ‘oligarchic peace’. Cf. Robinson (Citation2001b).
14. That this is true in Thucydides is significant, given his alertness to the dynamics of democratic/oligarchic competition. But it can also be said of ancient literature more generally: I am aware of no ancient text in which one can find statements suggesting a desire to spread democracy in Greece for its own sake. Always the motivation for fomenting revolution abroad or supporting a faction in another city seems to be the advantage that such would bring to the home state in terms of influence or war or alliance. See, for example, Ps.-Xen. 1.14, 16, 3.10–11.
15. See text and notes at the start of this article for the zeal of the Bush White House. For a similarly strident statement of the American imperative to spread democracy from the opposing political party in the US, see the comments of Bush's recent Presidential rival John Kerry in ‘Promoting Democracy, Human Rights, Development & Rule Of Law’ (retrieved October 1, 2004 from http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/national_security/democracy.html; archived at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2004/kerry_natl-security-plans_democracy.htm, retrieved July 18, 2005).
16. For example, Corinth and Corcyra in the debate at Athens (emphasizing the Corcyrean and Corinthian characters), 1.32–43; Corinth, Athens, and the Spartan ephor in the debate in Sparta (about the Athenian character), 1.68–79, 86; Cleon in the Mytilenean debate (about the Mytileneans), 3.37–40; Alcibiades in the debate before the launching of the Sicilian expedition (about the Sicilians), 6.17.
17. Typical polis citizen populations ranged in the hundreds or low thousands for all but the largest states. Compare Ruschenbusch (Citation1985) with specific results in Hansen and Nielsen (Citation2004).
18. It is worth emphasizing here that the apparent Greek failure to prioritize broad, pan-Hellenic democratic ideals over local considerations of interest need not indicate any lesser Greek attachment to democratic ideals within their own polis. As noted earlier in the paper, a strong allegiance to strikingly similar democratic principles as are practiced in the modern world (freedom, equality) characterize ancient democracies: the evidence from antiquity does not suggest that within the Greek polis internal democratic ideals were somehow undervalued.