Preliminary Observations on the Treaties in Thucydides’ Work
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It would not be easy to find an important dimension of Thucydides’ work that is left un-probed, an important question left unaddressed, by Clifford Orwin in his magisterial Humanity of Thucydides. Perhaps one such area is the place of the treaties in Thucydides’ narrative as a whole. This observation does not take away from Orwin’s subtle and shrewd discussion of treaty violations and blame for the war, as refracted through the speeches of the Corcyreans, Corinthians, Spartans, and Athenians that are presented by Thucydides in Book I. Yet Leo Strauss in The City and Man makes the arresting observation that not only must one give consideration to the treaties in Thucydides’ work as invoked in the speeches, but furthermore, one must consider the treaties to be themselves the equivalent of speeches: “Treaties form a part of Thucydides’ work just as do the speeches of the actors. The treaties differ from the speeches in two ways: they are quoted verbatim whereas the speeches are not, and whereas the speeches are delivered from one side of the conflict, the treaties represent an agreement among the conflicting parties. The treaties represent an agreement among the conflicting parties. The treaties may thus be said to reflect on the political plane Thucydides’ own impartial speech.” Following Strauss as well as taking his suggestion a step further, in this chapter we survey Thucydides’ own speeches about the treaties in addition to his presentation of their provisions verbatim in certain cases. Tracing and analyzing these aspects of Thucydides’ work closely may shed new light, we conjecture, on the great theme in Thucydides of the relation of right and necessity, so splendidly stated by Orwin in his analysis of the speech of the Athenians at Sparta in Book I. While an exhaustive treatment of the subject would be an endeavor extending far beyond a brief chapter, we emphasize two core themes. The first concerns, as mentioned above, the relationship between right and power. Contrary to the presumptions or prejudices of some contemporary scholars of international law, our premise, like that of Strauss and of Jacqueline de Romilly in her study of law in ancient Greece, is that in Hellas treaties were understood both in theory and in practice as authentic obligations of right, not “gentlemen’s agreements” or mere arrangements of comity or convenience. The problem for right in Thucydides’ universe is not that it does not exist, but that it is vulnerable to the compulsions that bear upon cities, to power politics, as well as dependent on a certain level of trust, which can easily be broken in times of conflict but which is not easy to rebuild, as we will go on to explain. Yet Thucydides’ account of the vulnerability or fragility of right must be carefully distinguished from reductionist positions that right is mere pretext or justifying ideology, or that “might makes right.” Right is real—the treaties have a normative existence that cannot be expunged by the power political plane. But their force in practice is vulnerable to power politics. By indicating that the 30 years’ treaty held for fourteen years, Thucydides indicates that this vulnerability is, however, limited; under favorable conditions treaties can indeed have a practical, not just a normative, existence. In sum, right is something real in human moral, legal, and political life—some people live up to it, some struggle to live up to it, some fight to stymie or destroy it, and the overall result reflects the sum of all these efforts. Second, Thucydides’ narrative lays bare the dark truth of how much easier it is, in terms of time and effort, for power interests to eviscerate the effectiveness of right than it is to rebuild the latter once damaged. This truth is based on the even more fundamental truth that the bases of right—binding enforcement, and good faith and trust—are easily damaged by the moral, psychological, and strategic realities of war. For Thucydides, history is, among other things, a series of contests between right and power, and not one where each contest starts from scratch: rather, one in which prior contests’ outcomes have consequences for the next, and it is far easier for actors to get these outcomes trending toward power interests than it is to subsequently get them trending back toward right. Thus, treaties play the crucial function in Thucydides’ universe of conveying the teaching that is the sum of the two core ideas described above—a teaching whose enduring significance makes clear that Thucydides’ universe is the human condition.
Source Publication
In Search of Humanity: Essays in Honor of Clifford Orwin
Source Editors/Authors
Andrea Radasanu
Publication Date
2015
Recommended Citation
Howse, Robert L. and Lawrence, Noah, "Preliminary Observations on the Treaties in Thucydides’ Work" (2015). Faculty Chapters. 843.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/843
