This nation, like much of the world, owes an enormous debt to ancient Greece and Rome. Our political framework, our political philosophies, even our government buildings reflect theirs. Many of our noblest ideas descend from the thinking of Greek philosophers, and Latin words and concepts pervade our language. The epic and lyric poetry of the ancients, their public rhetoric, their art, their musings, their values, and their histories have shaped the way we think and write and govern.
That said, we tend to ignore an unpleasant fact: The ancients were almost constantly at war. To a large extent these societies were designed for war. (They also relied heavily on slavery, but that is a topic for another day.).
Just as words like stoicism and sophistry come from the Greeks, so do the terms Pyrrhic victory and Achilles’ heel.
A few examples of the fighting: Greeks and Persians fought on and off for 50 years (499 B. C. to 449. B.C.). Then two Greek poleis, Sparta and Athens, battled one another, first in a 15-year war from 461 B.C. to 446 B.C., then in the Great Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 431 B.C. to 404 B.C (27 years). Rome and Carthage fought two lengthy Punic Wars (264 B.C. to 241 B.C. and 218 B.C. to 201 B.C.). Indeed, the Greek city-states and Rome got their start by militarily overcoming the territories around them. [1]
I’ve toyed with criticism of the ancients before, due to my study of Frederic Bastiat. This nineteenth-century French libertarian castigated his nation’s system of education because it devoted so much attention to the Greeks and Romans, whose values of courage, physical discipline, and loyalty to one’s group he considered warlike. As I wrote in 2019, Bastiat considered such “virtues” not just military virtues but worse—like honor among thieves or, in his terms, among “buccaneers” and “brigands,” which is how he viewed many of the ancients.
While auditing a course in ancient Mediterranean civilizations this spring, I began thinking about Bastiat’s views again. So let’s look at the bellicosity of the ancients.
Sparta
Sparta was a polis on the Greek peninsula of Peloponnesus. When Spartan boys reached the age of seven, the state took them from their parents and initiated military training, with an emphasis on endurance. Plutarch (first century A.D.) told the apocryphal but emblematic story of the Spartan boy who stole a fox (which boys were taught to do—learning to live off the land). [2] When the fox’s owners came by, he hid it in his clothing. The fox began to eat the boy’s innards but he remained silent, dying in the process. That’s endurance.
Military service was the only profession for the Spartan male. The mundane work was done primarily by helots, slaves owned by the state. I don’t know the roles of women, but I do know that the Spartan aristocrats (“Spartiates”) gradually declined in number along with the decline of the polis.. By 371, B. C., there were 20,000 male slaves and only around 2000 male “Spartiates.” [3] Something wasn’t working.
Athens
Athens was the Paris of Greek culture—the city that philosophers, artists, and metics (foreigners who owned shops and carried on trades) flocked to. Athenian citizens, democratic though they were, engaged in many wars.
For example. in 477 B.C., Athens founded the Delian League, composed of numerous Greek city-states, including those across the Aegean Sea on Asia Minor. The goal was to build a navy to oppose the Persians, and many poleis contributed money rather than men or ships.
After the Persian wars ended, Athens kept the league going, demanding that the tribute continue (and backing that demand with its navy’s force). Those funds and some silver mines helped Athens become a major commercial and artistic center and enabled its citizens to live almost free of taxes.
Rome
Rome went to war to establish itself as an empire and subsequently created the Pax Romana, about 200 years of peace (a point I acknowledge). In contrast, however, the nearly 500 years of the Republic were years of almost constant war against changing adversaries.
Essentially, the Romans went to war every year. Why? Because military glory was the ladder to political success. Without military experience a citizen could not hope to become a consul, the highest political position—or, likely, even a magistrate.
Furthermore, for all citizens, military action was honorable—a rite of passage for the young and an opportunity for citizens of lowest status to obtain booty from the conquered cities. When the army was successful, soldiers could go house to house in the conquered polis and loot it; the loot they were allowed to keep reflected their military rank. The Romans also obtained captives this way; the captives became slaves.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by mentioning a small temple located near the Roman Forum. It was dedicated to Janus, the god of gates but also of endings and beginnings (the reason January is named after him). The temple had two gates. When Rome was at war, they were open; when Rome was at peace, they were closed. During the entire history of the Republic, from 509 B.C. to 31 B.C., they were closed only three times, for a total of eight years.
So, the ancients fought a lot. This disturbs me, but I must ask a fundamental question: How does this constant belligerence compare with belligerence in the modern world?
Notes
[1] The Trojan War was part of Greek mythology, brought to life by Homer, although there was a Troy and there may have been a war.
[2] Kayla Jameth, “Spartan Myths—The Spartan Boy and the Fox.” Kayla Jameth’s Corner, http://authorkaylajameth.booklikes.com/post/914146/spartan-myths-the-spartan-boy-and-the-fox.
[3] Lukas de Blois and R.J. van der Spek, An Introduction to the Ancient World, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 2008), 121.
Image of a Roman soldier from WikiImages on Pixabay.
As President Biden states “those were different times”, when you invent your time machine, go back and change history and make good. Dwelling on the past and disparaging the people’s participating in actions which were common at the time, is the hip thing to do currently. History will wonder why the time was wasted.
Perhaps the point is not that western societies engaged in so much warfare, but that the most definite antidote to war is trade. Trade always requires a large amount of trust. The institutions of trust between strangers developed most rapidly and took root most firmly in western societies. Even colonization, that dirty word, was about an exchange of resources. The terms of exchange were often highly skewed, but in most cases colonization decreased local wars.
From the hunter gatherers until 1900 most societies everywhere engaged in war and conquest, often to take by force what is now exchanged in trade. The Great Wall of China was not built to keep out invasive plants. Persian cities were not fortified to protect against space aliens. The Aztec and Inca, Sioux and Iroquois did not prosper by being inclusive and welcoming diversity. Slavery was universal until 1800 with few exceptions, and it continues today in a variety of forms.
The early history of the West was no different than the history of any other societies. Warfare was part of human nature’s defense of family and community. It would still be folly not to have the means of defense against those who would take what they want by war.
Wallace: I agree that trade is a great antidote to war. But the ancients had lots of trade, too. Although there have been disputes about how “commercial” the Greek city-states (for example) were, they could not have achieved what they did without trade. Perhaps merchants in the cities were busily trusting and trading while the soldiers fought!
It’s beginning to look as if the US might be headed down the ancient past. We went into Afghanistan for a good reason but ignoring the historic precedent of British and Russian experience, we didn’t or don’t know how to get out except to declare victory and leave.
Jim: You’re suggesting that the United States is not very good at statecraft. I agree. We entered both World Wars shortly after the president at the time declared that he would not send American boys to war.
So, control of the worlds’ largest natural poppy fields for US pharmaceuticals was a good reason for inventing an Afghan war? Ok. This is why America leads the world in dumbdowness. #WDDWM
Jane gives credit to Rome for the Pax Romana—but not, I think, quite enough. Rome was willing to incorporate other peoples into its empire as “allies” and ultimately extend citizenship to them. It was willing to extend a common legal system to all people who would accept it. Athens, Sparta, and other imperial powers were unwilling to be so generous.
The result was that, until Diocletian’s centralizing reforms at the end of the 3rd century, the “empire” had federal aspects in which many local units were largely self governing.
True, Rome was almost always at war in some sense, even during the Pax Romana. But these were mostly either localized conflicts—hardly avoidable in such an extended empire— or (especially in the 3rd century) civil wars that were soon over. Also, with the establishment of the principate (27 BCE) the incentives to warfare as a path to political promotion were much reduced.
For most of the Empire the peace was profound. For example, until the Vandal capture of North Africa in 429 CE, that part of the world had not seen major conflict for over four centuries. That’s quite a record.