" A friend, quoting Hegel, told me that the only thing we learn from history is that you don't learn from history. Unfortunately, there are far too many examples in the past that prove the truth of this paradox. […] And yet, while we seem unable to learn from the past, we cannot escape from the past. […] However, this link with the past requires an open and broad discussion, above all because there will always be someone who will have to propose a different hero and a different vision of the future. Reading Obama's book, The audacity of hope:thoughts on reclaiming the American Dream - which often struck me for its resemblance to Isocrates' political exhortation 2400 years ago - we realize how America and many societies in the world have to face the same dilemmas of those who lived in Isocrates' time. This phase of ancient history indicates that it is not only a feature of our times to compare the precariousness of the present with a golden age, when everything was easier, better and safer. Our story highlights that the ancients, just like us, had to come to terms with their past while processing their uncertain present ", ( Michael Scott, From democracy to kings. The fall of Athens and the triumph of Alexander the Great, Laterza, 2009, pp. 237-240 ).
I mentioned this long passage for two reasons. The first concerns the profession of the historian , the need to reflect on the current state of our knowledge regarding the period between the ambush of 405 BC of Lysander (the leader of the Spartan fleet) to the Athenians of Conone near Egospotami and the rise of Macedonian power that we can place from 359 BC. onwards, that is, from the year in which he becomes King Philip II.
As Scott himself points out, not even specialized historiography has managed to deepen all aspects. Usually the enthusiasm of historians is captured by the leading role of Athens, as a beacon of freedom and democracy for Hellas, to pass without any apparent solution of continuity to Alexander the Great. The crises, the riots, the uncertainties of this dark "middle age" are often dismissed as a period of decline and decline.
Telling the story of the tumultuous transformations that are the background to the hegemonic attempts of Sparta (404-379 BC) and Thebes (379-362 BC) is also essential for a second reason, which affects us directly : the construction of a free, democratic and egalitarian society. Democracies crushed and resurrected on imperialist ambitions, political unrest, growing economic inequalities, a re-discussion of globalization, fears of the liquidity of national borders and, finally, attempts to maintain the status quo or, worse, to protect from the other and from the different . This description applies to the present as well as to the time of Isocrates.
And it is on this aspect that we must insist, whether we like it or not. Caution. I am not making it a question of identity, nor am I saying that it is possible to analyze the complexity of two eras by playing only the game of analogies and differences. I'm just trying to reason together on some recurring reasons that perhaps allow us to have greater awareness of what we live. Indeed, we cannot deny that much of today's world is closely linked to the values and models of ancient Greece - just think of George W. Bush who read and interpreted (!?) in a republican key the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, to America's link with Athenian democracy of which Scott speaks, to the excellent work that Martha C. Nussbaum has been doing for years and Amartya Sen to spread a bit of classical culture (stoicism and Greek tragedy first of all ) and Indian.
“ The ethics, customs, culture, philosophy, language, politics and identity of the ancient Greeks are, for a number of reasons, rooted in our culture and often the actions of the ancient Greeks were cited to justify ours. Both positive and negative outcomes have ensued. Greek tragedy has inspired generations of literary creativity. But on the other hand, Hitler justified his eugenics program by referring in part to the heroic mentality of the Spartan warriors (as illustrated in the American film 300). Our world is therefore very interested in the type of interpretation it chooses to give of the history of ancient Greece or in the way it allows others to use it “, (Scott, cit. p. XIV).
Our world therefore has a lot of interest in the type of interpretation it chooses to give of the history of ancient Greece. I would like to start from here. In America, the commitment of Martha C. Nussbaum - And of all those who collaborate or refer to his thought - is making a good contribution in the re-discussion of some issues and problems that revolve around human rights, economics and politics:just take Non for profit. Why democracies need humanistic culture , Bologna, Il Mulino (2011) to get an idea of the author's cultural orientation. Books like the one we started with are then published: Michael Scott he is not only a university lecturer but he is historical consultant for numerous documentaries broadcast on the History Channel.
And what are we doing in Italy? At what point is the debate or, better still, is there such a debate? There is a serious historical and literary disclosure able to fill the void that is created between that miserable percentage of young people who enroll in the Classical Lyceum (and thus have the opportunity to study Plato, Aeschylus and Galen) and "ours" - indeed, the your - speeches on the crisis, the economy and capitalism? Speeches that, in most cases, boast of their modernity and adherence to reality precisely because they are conceived and built without of this historical-cultural tradition?
Nothing. The deafening scream of absence. This makes the comparison with the past even more urgent, with that past that for us is remote and for many it is only a habit of scholars (compared to earlier and more "simple" eras to spend in the debates of television salons, for example). At this point I would like to indicate two food for thought to better understand the present. In the space of an article I can only provide some theoretical suggestions, possibly referring to some future video or to some more structured article the study of the points in question. For now I would like you to reflect on the following: (1) The collapse of the basic ideals of democracy generates monsters. Today the "web democracies", yesterday the College of Thirty Citizens. (2) The collapse of democracy paves the way for the strongman, nationalism and militarism.
(1) The collapse of the great ideals and values that underpinning democracy favors a series of popular (and populist) experiments destined sooner or later to failure. Today as yesterday. the Athenian Dream is wrecked by Isocrates - forgive me, but I could not resist calling it that - with the end of the Peloponnesian War and the experience of the Thirty Tyrants in Athens; in the pages of Scott we meet a tired and tried Isocrat by now in his nineties, who in 399 BC. every morning he gets out of bed and tries to complete his work. By now the dream of seeing Athens as a star of democracy and freedom for Hellas is pure utopia. All that remains is to rely on the King, Philip II of Macedon.
The Peloponnesian War was an unprecedented event in ancient history. The victory over the Spartan fleet at the Arginusian islands (406 BC), in front of Mytilene, was the last ray of sunshine on the destiny of Athens. As if that were not enough, a terrible storm hit the fleet; many ships sank without even trying to save the castaways. As if that were not enough, the Athenian people accused the strategists of not having known (or wanted?) To help the shipwrecked and sentenced six of them to death. Athens thus found herself deprived of her best men. The rest has the flavor of a tragic epilogue. When Athens capitulated due to starvation under the siege of Lysander in 404, the ancient splendor of the polis was now a memory.
Between 404 and 403 Athens experiences the government of the College of Thirty Citizens in favor of Sparta, who should have prepared the new aristocratic constitution. Soon the "college of the thirty" became the regime of the Thirty Tyrants including Critias, a pupil of Socrates, and the milder Teramene (who was accused of treason and died a victim of the same restraint as him). The reactions to this regime of terror were not long in coming:many Athenians of the democratic side who had taken refuge in Thebes (which before the Spartan hegemony was the enemy of Athens) found a skilled leader in Trasibulo, a former war strategist decelicates. After passing the fortress of File, on the Attic-Boeotic border, Trasibulo led his family to conquer Piraeus while the popular assembly, although aristocratic, replaced the college of thirty with the College of Ten who asked Sparta for help, failing to make agreements with Trasibulo. Thus only the shadow of the democracy of Clisthenes and Pericles was restored.
With Athens now on its knees and a democracy in name only, we are witnessing the condemnation of Socrates and the hegemonic attempts of Sparta and Thebes. The analogies with the present are not difficult to draw. The axis of strong men (USA, Russia and China), the weakness of a Europe that is a monetary federation and not a communion of peoples and rights, a place where we talk about the euro and the monetary economy, not about laws and common values to be cultivate and share. Europe looks a bit like the ancient Peloponnese:now it commands the Delian-Attic League, now the Peloponnesian League, now the Corinthian League. Democracy is not something shared federally. It is headed by states (formerly cities) that impose their models, often to export them.
Today the crisis of democracy does not manifest itself only at the institutional level, it is enough to observe "our" daily behaviors, widespread ignorance, the lack of ethics in the public as well as in the private sector, the inability of the masses to distinguish a news from a hoax. Not only. The choice of “strong” men - as, for example, the election of Donald Trump shows - seems to feed the illusion of being able to stop change, migrations, transculturalism. Elsewhere, however, the solution is believed to be widespread click-proof participation. All active citizens and (in) aware. Politics requires education, education and preparation; it does not need hordes of ignorant people in danger, nor of strong men. He needs a Socrates, a Demosthenes, an Isocrates. Ideals, education and culture.
(2) Now the dream of seeing Athens as the star of democracy and freedom for Hellas is pure utopia. All that remains is to rely on the King, for Isocrates to Philip II of Macedon. So Isocrates brooded. Before entrusting ourselves to the King we must deal with Sparta and above all with Thebes. The collapse of democracies and ideals of the polis classic favors the revival of a policy of weapons and not of speech, and justifies the strengthening of military assets by those States that intend to claim their role in the international scene . Nationalism, respect for borders and militarism. Thebes like Trump's USA? Isocrates Thebes really didn't like it… (I also talked about it in Philosophy and Life:Isocrates and the Actuality of the Dream of a Moderate Democracy ).
It is no coincidence that the hegemony of Thebes is a story of heroes, strategists and philosophers (with the shield always ready under his robe) mostly forgotten, when compared with the luck of the Athenian and Spartan counterparts: Pelopidas the rich aristocrat "bodybuilder", known for being a heavy drinker with an unbeatable physique, and Epaminonda, the vegetarian philanthropist who remained a bachelor and faithful to the precepts of Pythagorean philosophy.
Their friendship is the background to the hegemonic attempt by Thebes and is characterized by an underlying unity of purpose:the desire that their city become the new Athens, the most powerful and glorious of the Hellas. Military reforms are the icing on the cake. The sacred battalion , the chosen infantry corps, and the oblique tactics they made the fortune of the armies of the Boeotarchs. History teaches that this was not enough. Hopefully… Make Thebes Great Again. Make America Great Again. I'm not (just) provoking.
Bibliography and Ancient Sources:
- Barack Obama, The audacity of hope:thoughts on reclaiming the American Dream, 2008.
- Michael Scott, From Democracy to Kings. The fall of Athens and the triumph of Alexander the Great, 2009.
- Martha C. Nussbaum, Not for profit. Why democracies need humanistic culture, 2011.
- Amartya K. Sen, Ethics and Economics, 2002.
- Amartya K. Sen, Development is freedom. Because there is no growth without democracy, 2001.
- Bruno Bleckmann, The Peloponnesian War 2010.
- Ugo Fantasia, The Peloponnesian War 2012.
- Isocrates, Prayers. Opposite Greek text.
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.
- Aristotle, Politics.
- Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War.
- Xenophon, Hellenic.