When Athens invaded Sicily w/poor intell- the war cost Athens everything,

[papau]

When Athens invaded Sicily w/poor intell- the war cost Athens everything, inc.democracy

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-garson23sep23.story
COMMENTARY
... Unless It's All Greek to Him
By Barbara Garson
Barbara Garson is the author of the 1960s antiwar play "Macbird" and, most recently, "Money Makes the World Go Round" (Penguin, 2002).

September 23, 2004

During a lull in the war between Athens and Sparta, the Athenians decided to invade and occupy Sicily. Thucydides tells us in "The Peloponnesian War" that "they were, for the most part, ignorant of the size of the island and the numbers of its inhabitants … and they did not realize that they were taking on a war of almost the same magnitude as their war against the Peloponnesians."

According to Thucydides, the digression into Sicily in 416 BC — a sideshow that involved lying exiles, hopeful contractors, politicized intelligence, a doctrine of preemption — ultimately cost Athens everything, including its democracy.

Nicias, the most experienced Athenian general, had not wanted to be chosen for the command. "His view was that the city was making a mistake and, on a slight pretext which looked reasonable, was in fact aiming at conquering the whole of Sicily — a considerable undertaking indeed," wrote Thucydides.

Nicias warned that it was the wrong war against the wrong enemy and that the Athenians were ignoring their real enemies — the Spartans — while creating new enemies elsewhere. "It is senseless to go against people who, even if conquered, could not be controlled," he argued.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[benburch]

1. Good summary.

I read this book in College, over 28 years ago, and its lessons have stuck with me to this day.

[airstrip1]

2. Great stuff

Nothing really changes in politics apart from the cast of characters. Anyone who wants to see how the Athenian empire abandoned all claims to legitimacy and based its hegemony over the Greek world on force should read Thucydides. In particular pay attention to Pericles funeral oration, the Mytilenian debate and the Melian dialogue which marks the course by which Athens went from moral leader to brutal oppressor. America is hurrying headlong down the same road.

[starroute]

3. Things got a lot worse after that

Xenophon: The News of Aegospotami Reaches Athens (405 b.c.)

It was night when the "Paralus" reached Athens with her evil tidings, on receipt of which a bitter wail of woe broke forth. From Piraeus, following the line of the long walls up to the heart of the city, it swept and swelled, as each man to his neighbour passed on the news. On that night no man slept. There was mourning and sorrow for those that were lost, but the lamentation for the dead was merged in even deeper sorrow for themselves, as they pictured the evils they were about to suffer, the like of which they themselves had inflicted upon the men of Melos, who were colonists of the Lacedaemonians, when they mastered them by siege. Or on the men of Histiaea; on Scione and Torone; on the Aeginetans, and many another Hellene city.