WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.160 Okay, let's unpack this. We are about to do a 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:06.000 deep dive into a figure who is somehow both ancient 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:09.519 history and, well, required reading for anyone 00:00:09.519 --> 00:00:11.759 in a modern war college. That's a perfect way 00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:14.699 to put it. We're talking about Thucydides, an 00:00:14.699 --> 00:00:16.879 Athenian general, a historian, and you could 00:00:16.879 --> 00:00:19.160 argue the single most important foundational 00:00:19.160 --> 00:00:22.500 thinker of what we now call political realism. 00:00:22.660 --> 00:00:25.079 Absolutely. And when you shared these sources 00:00:25.079 --> 00:00:29.879 with us, detailing his life, his... really revolutionary 00:00:29.879 --> 00:00:33.359 method and his huge philosophical impact, the 00:00:33.359 --> 00:00:36.259 mission for us became pretty clear. Right. We 00:00:36.259 --> 00:00:38.679 have to understand why this man, writing about 00:00:38.679 --> 00:00:41.020 a war in the 5th century BC, the Peloponnesian 00:00:41.020 --> 00:00:43.500 War between Athens and Sparta, created something 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:45.740 he was convinced would be, and this is his phrase, 00:00:45.939 --> 00:00:48.020 a possession for all time. That phrase alone. 00:00:48.219 --> 00:00:51.310 A possession for all time. The sheer ambition 00:00:51.310 --> 00:00:53.270 of that is staggering. It suggests that what 00:00:53.270 --> 00:00:55.549 he was seeing wasn't just about Athens and Sparta. 00:00:55.649 --> 00:00:57.570 No, he believed he was mapping the permanent 00:00:57.570 --> 00:01:00.590 features of the human condition, of power, fear, 00:01:00.789 --> 00:01:03.850 and statecraft. And our sources all circle back 00:01:03.850 --> 00:01:06.489 to this title he's been given, the father of 00:01:06.489 --> 00:01:08.969 scientific history. So let's get the core takeaway 00:01:08.969 --> 00:01:10.829 right on the table at the start. What's the big 00:01:10.829 --> 00:01:13.340 innovation? The central innovation, the thing 00:01:13.340 --> 00:01:16.000 that changes everything, is his relentless focus 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:18.420 on cause and effect, what the Greeks call the 00:01:18.420 --> 00:01:21.780 logos. He applied these strict standards of evidence 00:01:21.780 --> 00:01:25.200 while, well, it's about what he omitted. He completely 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:28.010 left out. Any reference to divine intervention. 00:01:28.349 --> 00:01:31.569 Completely. No gods, no fate, no omens. And you 00:01:31.569 --> 00:01:34.469 can't overstate how radical that was. Before 00:01:34.469 --> 00:01:37.189 Thucydides, history was tangled up with morality, 00:01:37.310 --> 00:01:41.489 with divine will. You know, Homer, Hesiod, even 00:01:41.489 --> 00:01:43.849 Herodotus to a degree. They're all asking why 00:01:43.849 --> 00:01:46.010 the gods let something happen. And Thucydides 00:01:46.010 --> 00:01:48.109 just says, no, we're not looking at the heavens. 00:01:48.189 --> 00:01:50.189 We're looking at human decisions and their consequences. 00:01:50.450 --> 00:01:52.489 Precisely. His history of the Peloponnesian War 00:01:52.489 --> 00:01:55.409 covers the conflict up to 411 BC. But it wasn't. 00:01:55.400 --> 00:01:57.620 just a chronicle it was a foundational analysis 00:01:57.620 --> 00:02:00.659 he was convinced this war was the greatest the 00:02:00.659 --> 00:02:02.939 most consequential conflict ever waged by the 00:02:02.939 --> 00:02:05.060 greeks so if he's trying to get at the deepest 00:02:05.060 --> 00:02:07.939 structures of human power we have to start with 00:02:07.939 --> 00:02:11.500 the man himself let's zoom in on thucydides the 00:02:11.500 --> 00:02:16.280 person born around 460 bc in athens his father's 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:20.370 name was olorus What do we actually know for 00:02:20.370 --> 00:02:22.069 sure about him? Well, that's what's so fascinating. 00:02:22.150 --> 00:02:24.030 Most of the really reliable information comes 00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:26.330 directly from his own work. He tells us he was 00:02:26.330 --> 00:02:28.590 an Athenian, that he fought as a strategos, a 00:02:28.590 --> 00:02:30.949 general, that he caught the plague of Athens 00:02:30.949 --> 00:02:32.990 and survived, and most importantly, that he was 00:02:32.990 --> 00:02:35.610 exiled by the democracy he served. And then there's 00:02:35.610 --> 00:02:37.870 that wonderful little story, which our sources 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:39.610 say is probably not true, but it's too good to 00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:41.990 ignore. Oh, the Herodotus story? Yeah, that as 00:02:41.990 --> 00:02:45.330 a boy, maybe 10 or 12 years old, he hears Herodotus 00:02:45.330 --> 00:02:48.150 giving... a public reading of his work. And young 00:02:48.150 --> 00:02:50.969 Thucydides is so moved, he just bursts into tears. 00:02:51.150 --> 00:02:53.389 And Herodotus supposedly turns to his father 00:02:53.389 --> 00:02:56.750 and says, Oloros, your son yearns for knowledge. 00:02:57.009 --> 00:02:58.949 It's a perfect story, right? It sets up this 00:02:58.949 --> 00:03:02.050 intellectual lineage. It does. But scholars are 00:03:02.050 --> 00:03:03.990 pretty sure it's a later invention to kind of 00:03:03.990 --> 00:03:07.810 pass the torch of history from one to the other. 00:03:07.909 --> 00:03:10.550 Even if he was about to completely reject Herodotus' 00:03:10.550 --> 00:03:13.270 style. Exactly. But his early life was shaped 00:03:13.270 --> 00:03:15.310 by something far more brutal than intellectual 00:03:15.310 --> 00:03:18.629 excitement. He lived through a catastrophe. The 00:03:18.629 --> 00:03:21.430 Plague of Athens, an event that killed a third 00:03:21.430 --> 00:03:23.830 of the city's population, including its greatest 00:03:23.830 --> 00:03:26.710 leader, Pericles. And this wasn't just some biographical 00:03:26.710 --> 00:03:29.129 detail. It was a crucible that forged his mind. 00:03:29.250 --> 00:03:32.129 The way he documented the plague is a masterclass 00:03:32.129 --> 00:03:35.110 in his scientific approach. He details the symptoms 00:03:35.110 --> 00:03:38.250 with this terrifying clinical precision. The 00:03:38.250 --> 00:03:42.699 fever, the lesions. the thirst but also the psychological 00:03:42.699 --> 00:03:45.159 collapse the breakdown of society absolutely 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:47.500 and you can see the influence of the hippocratic 00:03:47.500 --> 00:03:49.580 school of medicine here they were all about empirical 00:03:49.580 --> 00:03:52.400 evidence factual reporting and finding natural 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.080 causes for disease not blaming the gods so thucydides 00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:58.180 is doing the same thing with history that hippocrates 00:03:58.180 --> 00:04:00.819 was doing with medicine he is his description 00:04:00.819 --> 00:04:03.360 of the plague is completely free of moralizing 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:06.360 he's just listing the facts how it spread what 00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:09.120 it did to the body and it's right here in the 00:04:09.259 --> 00:04:11.419 middle of all this horror that he makes an observation 00:04:11.419 --> 00:04:14.419 that is Frankly, astounding. Acquired immunity. 00:04:14.759 --> 00:04:17.240 Acquired immunity. He notes that those who got 00:04:17.240 --> 00:04:19.240 sick and recovered could then care for others 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:21.680 without fear of catching it a second time. That's 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:24.240 an incredible intellectual leap for the 5th century 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:27.500 BC. He's basically observing natural immunization 00:04:27.500 --> 00:04:29.980 centuries before anyone had a clue about germ 00:04:29.980 --> 00:04:32.160 theory. It proves his mind was already wired 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:34.420 for this kind of objective cause and effect analysis. 00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:37.100 But the element that really pushed him out of 00:04:37.100 --> 00:04:39.199 the action and into the role of historian was 00:04:39.199 --> 00:04:42.779 a military failure. A huge one. The loss of Amphipolis. 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:45.779 He was serving as a general, the Stratigos, in 00:04:45.779 --> 00:04:49.060 424 BC. He was sent to the region around Thassos. 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:51.699 Why there specifically? His family had connections 00:04:51.699 --> 00:04:54.540 and money. They owned gold mines at a place called 00:04:54.540 --> 00:04:57.379 Skeptahiel in Thrace. Yeah. Right across from 00:04:57.379 --> 00:04:59.720 Thassos. So he had influence there. Powerful 00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:01.879 local alliances. And that influence was supposed 00:05:01.879 --> 00:05:05.139 to be an asset. It was. But it ended up being 00:05:05.139 --> 00:05:08.480 part of his undoing. That winter, the brilliant 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:11.040 Spartan general Brasidas makes a surprise attack 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:14.439 on Amphipolis. Strategically vital Athenian colony. 00:05:14.579 --> 00:05:17.500 It controlled timber, access to those gold mines. 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:21.040 It was a huge deal. A massive deal. So the Athenian 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:24.399 commander there sends an urgent message to Thucydides, 00:05:24.519 --> 00:05:28.060 who's nearby on Thassos, and Thucydides rushes 00:05:28.060 --> 00:05:30.439 to help. But Brasidas was not just a great general. 00:05:30.579 --> 00:05:33.220 He was a shrewd politician. He was a step ahead. 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:35.860 He knew Thucydides was coming, and he knew about 00:05:35.860 --> 00:05:38.600 his local influence. So before Thucydides could 00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:41.240 arrive with his ships, Brasidas offers the people 00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:44.259 of Amphipolis incredibly generous surrender terms. 00:05:44.459 --> 00:05:46.920 And they took the deal. Instantly. Why endure 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:49.060 a bloody siege when you can get a good deal? 00:05:49.259 --> 00:05:51.379 By the time Thucydides sailed into the harbor, 00:05:51.620 --> 00:05:54.339 it was all over. Amphipolis was gone. And back 00:05:54.339 --> 00:05:56.420 in Athens, they needed a scapegoat. And he was 00:05:56.420 --> 00:05:58.790 it. The Athenian democracy blamed him for the 00:05:58.790 --> 00:06:02.009 failure and sentenced him to exile for 20 years. 00:06:02.250 --> 00:06:04.050 Which is just one of the great ironies of history, 00:06:04.170 --> 00:06:06.410 because his personal disaster becomes his greatest 00:06:06.410 --> 00:06:09.790 professional gift. He says it himself. His exile 00:06:09.790 --> 00:06:12.500 gave him the freedom to travel. he could move 00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:14.920 among the peloponnesian allies sparta and its 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:18.180 friends he writes that he had leisure to observe 00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:20.500 affairs somewhat particularly because he was 00:06:20.500 --> 00:06:23.120 there yeah with both sides he was getting perspectives 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:25.360 no other athenian general could have possibly 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:28.639 had so you have this perfect storm an insider's 00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:31.240 knowledge from being a general a scientific mind 00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:34.420 sharpened by the plague and now access to all 00:06:34.420 --> 00:06:37.379 sides of the conflict because of his exile But, 00:06:37.399 --> 00:06:39.379 I mean, that's not a cheap lifestyle, living 00:06:39.379 --> 00:06:42.240 in exile for 20 years during a war. Right. How 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:44.339 did he fund all this research? This is a key 00:06:44.339 --> 00:06:47.040 point people often miss. He wasn't some struggling 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:50.000 writer. His family was incredibly wealthy. Those 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:52.800 gold mines in Thrace provided a massive private 00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:55.279 income stream. So he was essentially the world's 00:06:55.279 --> 00:06:57.740 first independently funded scholar. He didn't 00:06:57.740 --> 00:06:59.480 need a patron. He didn't have to write what someone 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:01.620 else wanted to hear. He was completely free. 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:05.180 His father's name, Oloris, connects him to Thracian 00:07:05.180 --> 00:07:08.420 royalty. He was related to famous Athenian statesmen 00:07:08.420 --> 00:07:11.680 like Miltiades and Simon. He was an elite insider 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:14.040 who was forced to become an outsider. That's 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:16.139 the perfect summary of his position. He says 00:07:16.139 --> 00:07:18.220 he started writing the moment the war broke out 00:07:18.220 --> 00:07:21.439 in 431 BC because he knew how big it would be. 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:24.439 And yet, for all that dedication, his book just 00:07:24.439 --> 00:07:28.300 stops. It just cuts off mid -sentence in the 00:07:28.300 --> 00:07:31.040 year 411 BC. It doesn't even cover the final 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:33.680 seven years of the war. And that abrupt ending 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:36.779 has been a puzzle for centuries. The traditional 00:07:36.779 --> 00:07:38.980 assumption is that he simply died while he was 00:07:38.980 --> 00:07:41.259 writing. That's the prevailing theory. But later 00:07:41.259 --> 00:07:43.839 sources offer a few conflicting, more dramatic 00:07:43.839 --> 00:07:46.620 accounts. One says he returned to Athens after 00:07:46.620 --> 00:07:50.060 the war ended, around 404 BC, but was murdered 00:07:50.060 --> 00:07:52.920 on the way. Another story says he was killed 00:07:52.920 --> 00:07:55.439 at his estate in Thrace. But we don't really 00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:58.379 know. The text just stops. He never got to finish 00:07:58.379 --> 00:08:00.959 his... possession for all time. Right. Let's 00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:03.019 move on to his methodology, because this is really 00:08:03.019 --> 00:08:04.560 the heart of it all. This is why he gets that 00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:07.379 title, father of scientific history. What did 00:08:07.379 --> 00:08:09.720 that actually mean in his time? It seems to come 00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:11.959 down to rigor and rationality. I mean, standards 00:08:11.959 --> 00:08:14.240 he set for evidence were completely new, weren't 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:17.199 they? Entirely new. He was obsessed with impartiality, 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:19.980 with gathering evidence. But his core focus was 00:08:19.980 --> 00:08:23.360 always on cause and effect. the logos. And that 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:26.740 meant deliberately, fundamentally excluding the 00:08:26.740 --> 00:08:29.120 gods. Which again, in that intellectual climate, 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:32.299 wasn't just a minor tweak. It was a complete 00:08:32.299 --> 00:08:34.600 rejection of the standard worldview. Oh, absolutely. 00:08:34.860 --> 00:08:37.559 Before Thucydides, if your city was hit by a 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:41.169 plague, it's because you angered Apollo. If you 00:08:41.169 --> 00:08:43.070 won a battle, it's because Athena was on your 00:08:43.070 --> 00:08:46.149 side. He effectively secularized history. He 00:08:46.149 --> 00:08:48.649 treated it like a phenomenon governed by predictable 00:08:48.649 --> 00:08:51.809 human behaviors, not by the whims of deities. 00:08:52.269 --> 00:08:54.450 Exactly. And if the gods aren't responsible, 00:08:54.710 --> 00:08:57.210 then human beings are. And if humans are responsible, 00:08:57.450 --> 00:08:59.250 then we can study their actions, their calculations, 00:08:59.570 --> 00:09:01.570 their mistakes, and maybe even learn from them. 00:09:01.649 --> 00:09:03.710 That's the foundation of political science. So 00:09:03.710 --> 00:09:05.529 how did he go about gathering this evidence? 00:09:05.629 --> 00:09:07.450 What does his scientific standard actually look 00:09:07.450 --> 00:09:10.190 like? Well, he put a huge value on eyewitness 00:09:10.190 --> 00:09:14.009 testimony, but, and this is key, he was skeptical 00:09:14.009 --> 00:09:17.750 about it. He knew memory was unreliable. He even 00:09:17.750 --> 00:09:20.090 says in his book that different witnesses will 00:09:20.090 --> 00:09:22.090 give different accounts of the same event depending 00:09:22.090 --> 00:09:24.090 on their loyalties or what they remember. So 00:09:24.090 --> 00:09:26.149 he tried to cross -reference them? Yeah. Talk 00:09:26.149 --> 00:09:29.350 to multiple people? Yes. He was essentially triangulating 00:09:29.350 --> 00:09:32.190 his sources. He'd consult written documents when 00:09:32.190 --> 00:09:34.429 he could find them, treaties, official records, 00:09:34.570 --> 00:09:36.970 and he interviewed people from all sides extensively. 00:09:37.980 --> 00:09:41.200 That systematic approach was just unheard of. 00:09:41.379 --> 00:09:43.320 But there's a part of his method that modern 00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:45.899 historians would find, let's say, problematic. 00:09:46.580 --> 00:09:49.259 His exclusion principle. He wasn't writing a 00:09:49.259 --> 00:09:51.200 history of the era. He was only writing a history 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:53.340 of the war. That's a crucial distinction. He 00:09:53.340 --> 00:09:55.940 was recording an event, not a period. And he 00:09:55.940 --> 00:09:58.139 was ruthless about excluding anything he thought 00:09:58.139 --> 00:10:00.279 was frivolous. You read Thucydides, you won't 00:10:00.279 --> 00:10:02.200 find anything about the Parthenon being built 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:05.039 or the plays of Sophocles or the philosophy of 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:07.899 Socrates. He sees life only as political life 00:10:07.899 --> 00:10:10.759 and history only as political history. It's an 00:10:10.759 --> 00:10:13.899 incredibly narrow focus. Laser sharp. It's all 00:10:13.899 --> 00:10:16.299 about who has power, what choices they make, 00:10:16.340 --> 00:10:18.379 and what the military and political consequences 00:10:18.379 --> 00:10:21.899 are. Which brings us to the most debated and 00:10:21.899 --> 00:10:24.639 maybe the most fascinating part of his method. 00:10:24.990 --> 00:10:27.169 The thing that seems to completely contradict 00:10:27.169 --> 00:10:30.490 his claim to be scientific, the speeches. The 00:10:30.490 --> 00:10:34.269 long, formal speeches, yes. This is the central 00:10:34.269 --> 00:10:36.809 tension in his work. He puts these elaborate, 00:10:36.970 --> 00:10:39.990 beautifully constructed speeches into the mouths 00:10:39.990 --> 00:10:41.789 of key figures. But he couldn't have been there 00:10:41.789 --> 00:10:43.889 taking notes, so he's essentially making them 00:10:43.889 --> 00:10:46.720 up. He admits as much. He says that it was hard 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:49.220 to remember the exact words, so he wrote what 00:10:49.220 --> 00:10:51.340 he thought the speakers ought to have said, what 00:10:51.340 --> 00:10:53.620 was demanded of them by the situation, while 00:10:53.620 --> 00:10:55.659 sticking as closely as possible to the general 00:10:55.659 --> 00:10:58.059 gist of what was actually said. So how do you 00:10:58.059 --> 00:11:00.279 square that? If you're building your reputation 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:03.340 on rigor and sacks, how can you justify putting 00:11:03.340 --> 00:11:05.700 words into people's mouths? Doesn't that just 00:11:05.700 --> 00:11:08.490 let all his own biases in? It's a fantastic question, 00:11:08.730 --> 00:11:10.850 and I think his defense would be about purpose. 00:11:11.110 --> 00:11:13.509 He wasn't trying to create a transcript. He was 00:11:13.509 --> 00:11:15.649 trying to capture the essence of the political 00:11:15.649 --> 00:11:19.149 arguments. In a culture that was so heavily oral, 00:11:19.409 --> 00:11:22.629 like Athens, the key strategic debates and the 00:11:22.629 --> 00:11:24.750 rhetorical maneuvering would have just vanished 00:11:24.750 --> 00:11:28.450 into thin air. So the speeches are a literary 00:11:28.450 --> 00:11:31.590 device to rescue the core logic. The motivations 00:11:31.590 --> 00:11:34.889 from being lost to time. Precisely. They are 00:11:34.889 --> 00:11:37.730 dramatic reconstructions of motive. They reveal 00:11:37.730 --> 00:11:40.289 the political calculations, the strategic necessities, 00:11:40.289 --> 00:11:42.950 the psychology of the leaders in a way that a 00:11:42.950 --> 00:11:45.529 dry summary never could. And there's no better 00:11:45.529 --> 00:11:48.210 example of that than Pericles' funeral oration. 00:11:48.490 --> 00:11:50.629 It's still studied by political theorists everywhere. 00:11:50.950 --> 00:11:53.409 It's the absolute high point of Athenian idealism. 00:11:53.490 --> 00:11:55.450 It's a soaring defense of Athenian democracy, 00:11:55.710 --> 00:11:57.990 of its openness, its culture, its freedom. He 00:11:57.990 --> 00:11:59.730 has Pericles honor the dead, not just for being 00:11:59.730 --> 00:12:02.330 brave, but for dying in defense of this unique 00:12:02.330 --> 00:12:04.210 political experiment. It's just beautiful. It 00:12:04.210 --> 00:12:06.009 has that incredible line. The whole earth is 00:12:06.009 --> 00:12:08.409 the sepulcher of famous men. It's a celebration 00:12:08.409 --> 00:12:11.529 of the Athenian ideal. It's rhetoric at its most 00:12:11.529 --> 00:12:14.649 powerful. But the genius of Thucydides, the thing 00:12:14.649 --> 00:12:17.029 that shows his true purpose, is what he does 00:12:17.029 --> 00:12:19.389 immediately. after that glorious speech. The 00:12:19.389 --> 00:12:23.149 whiplash. It is pure rhetorical whiplash. He 00:12:23.149 --> 00:12:26.129 goes from that lofty, heroic ideal straight into 00:12:26.129 --> 00:12:29.029 the most graphic, horrifying, and clinical description 00:12:29.029 --> 00:12:32.289 of the plague of Athens. He juxtaposes the ideal 00:12:32.289 --> 00:12:36.110 state with the absolute chaos of nature. He shows 00:12:36.110 --> 00:12:38.870 the complete collapse of law and custom with 00:12:38.870 --> 00:12:41.669 the Greeks called anomia. All the sacred burial 00:12:41.669 --> 00:12:44.580 rites, the social norms. They just dissolved. 00:12:44.879 --> 00:12:47.779 He writes that men, not knowing what was to become 00:12:47.779 --> 00:12:50.379 of them, became equally contemptuous of the property 00:12:50.379 --> 00:12:52.720 of and the dues to the deities. He describes 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:55.259 people tossing their dead relatives onto other 00:12:55.259 --> 00:12:56.919 people's funeral pyres because they were too 00:12:56.919 --> 00:12:59.019 sick or too exhausted or just didn't care anymore. 00:12:59.340 --> 00:13:01.879 It's this visceral image of degradation, and 00:13:01.879 --> 00:13:04.059 it's a deliberate choice. It strips away all 00:13:04.059 --> 00:13:06.340 the heroic language of the oration and shows 00:13:06.340 --> 00:13:08.899 you the brutal reality underneath. It's his way 00:13:08.899 --> 00:13:11.480 of saying that human ideals, no matter how beautiful, 00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:14.019 are fragile. They shatter the moment they're 00:13:14.019 --> 00:13:16.799 confronted with true physical necessity and fear. 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:19.500 The plague reveals the ugly truth behind the 00:13:19.500 --> 00:13:22.419 beautiful speech. And that unflinching, you could 00:13:22.419 --> 00:13:25.159 even say cynical, view of how people behave under 00:13:25.159 --> 00:13:28.340 pressure. That is exactly why Thucydides is seen 00:13:28.340 --> 00:13:31.500 as the father of political realism. Right, political 00:13:31.500 --> 00:13:33.759 realism. It's a term you hear all the time in 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:36.059 foreign policy circles. Let's really define it, 00:13:36.080 --> 00:13:38.100 though, through his lens. What does it mean? 00:13:38.570 --> 00:13:41.690 At its core, political realism, as Thucydides 00:13:41.690 --> 00:13:43.769 saw it, argues that the relationships between 00:13:43.769 --> 00:13:46.350 states are driven by three things and three things 00:13:46.350 --> 00:13:50.090 only. Fear, self -interest, and the pursuit of 00:13:50.090 --> 00:13:52.549 power. So it's not about shared morals or justice 00:13:52.549 --> 00:13:55.450 or international law. Not at all. Realism assumes 00:13:55.450 --> 00:13:57.950 that the international system is one of anarchy, 00:13:58.090 --> 00:14:00.509 meaning there's no higher authority to enforce 00:14:00.509 --> 00:14:03.669 rules. So states have to rely on their own strength 00:14:03.669 --> 00:14:06.789 to survive. Morality is a luxury and often a 00:14:06.789 --> 00:14:09.320 dangerous one. This philosophy is laid bare in 00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:11.399 what is probably the most famous and most disturbing 00:14:11.399 --> 00:14:14.559 section of his entire book, the Melian Dialogue. 00:14:14.799 --> 00:14:17.080 Chilling is the only word for it. It is required 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:19.340 reading for a reason. It's a condensed, perfect 00:14:19.340 --> 00:14:21.940 articulation of this worldview. So set the scene 00:14:21.940 --> 00:14:25.259 for us. Who are the Melians? Melos is a small, 00:14:25.320 --> 00:14:27.559 neutral island. They have stayed out of a war. 00:14:27.860 --> 00:14:30.320 But Athens, in the later stages of the conflict, 00:14:30.419 --> 00:14:32.759 decides they need to conquer it. So they sent 00:14:32.759 --> 00:14:35.789 envoys to negotiate a surrender. And the millions 00:14:35.789 --> 00:14:38.669 try to appeal to reason, to justice. They say, 00:14:38.710 --> 00:14:41.870 we've done nothing wrong. We're neutral. Surely 00:14:41.870 --> 00:14:44.210 the gods will be on our side because our cause 00:14:44.210 --> 00:14:47.389 is just. And the Athenian response is just brutal. 00:14:47.669 --> 00:14:49.990 They basically tell the Melians to stop talking 00:14:49.990 --> 00:14:53.269 about high -sounding phrases like justice. It's 00:14:53.269 --> 00:14:55.769 irrelevant. They say that justice is only a concept 00:14:55.769 --> 00:14:58.309 that matters between equals and power. Exactly. 00:14:58.309 --> 00:15:01.250 When there's an imbalance of power, reality takes 00:15:01.250 --> 00:15:03.889 over. And then they deliver the line, the one 00:15:03.889 --> 00:15:06.899 that defines real politic. The strong do what 00:15:06.899 --> 00:15:09.279 they can and the weak suffer what they must. 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:12.159 It is the ultimate dismissal of any kind of ethical 00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:14.580 consideration in foreign policy. It's pure naked 00:15:14.580 --> 00:15:16.899 power. It is. And the Athenians don't even pretend 00:15:16.899 --> 00:15:18.960 they're on a righteous crusade. Their justification 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:21.740 is purely strategic. They argue that if they 00:15:21.740 --> 00:15:24.059 let Melos remain free, their other subjects will 00:15:24.059 --> 00:15:26.120 see it as a sign of weakness and might be tempted 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:28.980 to rebel. So their actions are dictated by fear. 00:15:29.340 --> 00:15:31.980 The fear of losing their empire. The necessity 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:35.279 of maintaining power overrides any claim to morality. 00:15:35.700 --> 00:15:38.019 And the dialogue ends, of course, with the Athenians 00:15:38.019 --> 00:15:40.600 conquering Melos, killing all the men of military 00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:42.899 age, and selling the women and children into 00:15:42.899 --> 00:15:45.740 slavery. It's a grim lesson in what happens when 00:15:45.740 --> 00:15:48.850 self -interest is the only guide. This dark outlook, 00:15:49.070 --> 00:15:51.330 it really seems to come from his deep observation 00:15:51.330 --> 00:15:54.730 of human nature under extreme stress. He saw 00:15:54.730 --> 00:15:56.909 it with the plague, and he also analyzed it in 00:15:56.909 --> 00:15:59.789 the context of civil war. Yes, his analysis of 00:15:59.789 --> 00:16:01.929 the civil war on the island of Corsera is maybe 00:16:01.929 --> 00:16:04.549 his most profound psychological passage. This 00:16:04.549 --> 00:16:06.990 is where he gives us that famous line, war is 00:16:06.990 --> 00:16:10.789 a violent teacher. Didaskalos. And what does 00:16:10.789 --> 00:16:13.529 war teach us, according to him? It teaches us 00:16:13.529 --> 00:16:15.690 the extremes humans are capable of when social 00:16:15.690 --> 00:16:18.529 order breaks down. He shows how in Coursera, 00:16:18.669 --> 00:16:21.029 the conflict between the Democrats and the oligarchs 00:16:21.029 --> 00:16:23.809 became so savage that it inverted the very meaning 00:16:23.809 --> 00:16:26.149 of words. What do you mean it inverted words? 00:16:26.269 --> 00:16:29.269 Language itself became a weapon. For example, 00:16:29.450 --> 00:16:32.309 reckless, brutal violence was suddenly praised 00:16:32.309 --> 00:16:35.950 as courageous loyalty to your side. Caution and 00:16:35.950 --> 00:16:38.669 prudence were relabeled as cowardice in disguise. 00:16:39.029 --> 00:16:42.210 The entire moral vocabulary was turned on its 00:16:42.210 --> 00:16:45.929 head to justify atrocities. So in a crisis, morality 00:16:45.929 --> 00:16:48.129 isn't just forgotten, it's actively corrupted. 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:52.110 Language is twisted to serve the conflict. Precisely. 00:16:52.110 --> 00:16:53.950 And this ties back to the intellectual climate 00:16:53.950 --> 00:16:56.490 of his time, specifically the influence of the 00:16:56.490 --> 00:16:58.730 sophists. We mentioned them briefly, but they're 00:16:58.730 --> 00:17:01.149 key to understanding his framework. Remind us 00:17:01.149 --> 00:17:02.970 about the sophists. What was their core idea? 00:17:03.419 --> 00:17:05.660 The Sophists were philosophers and rhetoricians 00:17:05.660 --> 00:17:08.099 who questioned traditional values. Their famous 00:17:08.099 --> 00:17:11.500 line was, man is the measure of all things. They 00:17:11.500 --> 00:17:14.019 argued that concepts like justice weren't universal 00:17:14.019 --> 00:17:16.400 God -given truths, but were simply conventions 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:18.940 rules made by people to serve their own interests. 00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:21.160 Which is exactly what the Athenians argue in 00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:23.660 the Melian Dialogue. Justice is a convention 00:17:23.660 --> 00:17:26.940 that only applies when power is balanced. You 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:29.460 can see the direct line. Thucydides took that 00:17:29.460 --> 00:17:32.299 sophist skepticism and applied it to international 00:17:32.299 --> 00:17:35.640 relations. He used their tools to show how leaders 00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:38.559 use words like justice and honor when they're 00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:40.559 weak, that throw them away when they're strong. 00:17:40.759 --> 00:17:43.519 He also had this amazing psychological insight 00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:46.299 during the plague, something about how suffering 00:17:46.299 --> 00:17:49.089 affects memory. You called it... The learner's 00:17:49.089 --> 00:17:51.349 fallacy. It's a brilliant little passage that 00:17:51.349 --> 00:17:54.309 shows how critical his mind was. During the plague, 00:17:54.329 --> 00:17:56.450 some people recalled an old prophecy that said 00:17:56.450 --> 00:17:59.309 a Dorian war would one day bring a loimos plague. 00:17:59.670 --> 00:18:02.549 Okay. But a debate started because other people 00:18:02.549 --> 00:18:05.349 insisted the prophecy actually said limos famine. 00:18:05.670 --> 00:18:08.849 Loimos versus limos. Plague versus famine. The 00:18:08.849 --> 00:18:11.329 difference of a single vowel. And what does Thucydides 00:18:11.329 --> 00:18:14.049 conclude? He says people just adapt their memory 00:18:14.049 --> 00:18:16.630 to fit what they're currently suffering. He writes 00:18:16.630 --> 00:18:18.609 that if another war came and it brought a famine, 00:18:18.750 --> 00:18:20.869 people would conveniently remember the verses 00:18:20.869 --> 00:18:24.750 saying limos. So we basically rewrite the past. 00:18:25.309 --> 00:18:28.130 even prophecy, to match our present paint. It's 00:18:28.130 --> 00:18:30.630 a stunning observation about confirmation bias, 00:18:30.789 --> 00:18:33.650 centuries ahead of its time. It shows his deep 00:18:33.650 --> 00:18:36.109 skepticism, not just about the gods, but about 00:18:36.109 --> 00:18:38.769 the reliability of human perception itself. Okay, 00:18:38.849 --> 00:18:40.569 so let's bring this back to his own politics. 00:18:40.829 --> 00:18:43.849 He was an Athenian general, an elite, but he 00:18:43.849 --> 00:18:46.609 was exiled by the democracy. Did that personal 00:18:46.609 --> 00:18:49.849 history bias his view of that system of government? 00:18:50.210 --> 00:18:52.230 I think it has to have. He walks a very fine 00:18:52.230 --> 00:18:55.279 line. On the one hand, he deeply admired Pericles. 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:58.299 He saw him as a leader of incredible wisdom and 00:18:58.299 --> 00:19:01.519 foresight, the perfect first citizen. He approved 00:19:01.519 --> 00:19:04.119 of Pericles' power over the people. He basically 00:19:04.119 --> 00:19:06.180 thought democracy worked, but only when it was 00:19:06.180 --> 00:19:08.819 guided by one exceptionally good leader. Right. 00:19:08.900 --> 00:19:11.339 It was democracy in name, but rule by the first 00:19:11.339 --> 00:19:13.599 man, in fact. He did not have that same admiration 00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:16.440 for the common people, the demos, or for the 00:19:16.440 --> 00:19:18.420 more radical form of democracy that took hold 00:19:18.420 --> 00:19:21.099 after Pericles died. And you can feel his distaste 00:19:21.099 --> 00:19:23.420 for the leaders who came after Pericles, the 00:19:23.420 --> 00:19:25.839 demagogues like Cleon. His descriptions of them 00:19:25.839 --> 00:19:28.579 are just scathing. Absolutely scathing. He paints 00:19:28.579 --> 00:19:30.519 them as self -interested populists who manipulate 00:19:30.519 --> 00:19:32.720 the emotions of the mob. And there's probably 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:34.980 a personal element there, too. Some historians 00:19:34.980 --> 00:19:37.859 connect Cleon directly to the political maneuvering 00:19:37.859 --> 00:19:40.559 that led to Thucydides' exile. So his personal 00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:43.200 grievance might be coloring his supposedly objective 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:46.640 analysis? It almost certainly is. But that entanglement 00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:48.740 also fed into one of his bigger philosophical 00:19:48.740 --> 00:19:52.839 interests, the role of fortune or chance in history. 00:19:53.079 --> 00:19:56.019 For all his scientific analysis of cause and 00:19:56.019 --> 00:19:58.440 effect, He was obsessed with how unpredictable 00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:01.279 events can derail even the most rational plans. 00:20:01.619 --> 00:20:04.019 The plague is the ultimate example. It was just 00:20:04.019 --> 00:20:06.819 sheer bad luck, a random catastrophe that destroyed 00:20:06.819 --> 00:20:09.759 Pericles' entire war strategy. So even in his 00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:12.180 rational world, there's still room for the incalculable. 00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:14.630 A huge amount of room. He ultimately seems to 00:20:14.630 --> 00:20:17.109 believe that history is too irrational and unpredictable 00:20:17.109 --> 00:20:19.710 to forecast because human judgment is flawed 00:20:19.710 --> 00:20:22.289 and fortune is always waiting to intervene. To 00:20:22.289 --> 00:20:24.849 really get a sense of how revolutionary Thucydides 00:20:24.849 --> 00:20:27.730 was, you have to place him side by side with 00:20:27.730 --> 00:20:30.789 his predecessor, Herodotus. Herodotus was called 00:20:30.789 --> 00:20:33.720 the father of history. Then Thucydides comes 00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:35.980 along and basically invents political science. 00:20:36.480 --> 00:20:38.920 It's the original rivalry in how we write about 00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:41.539 the past. It really is. And Thucydides, you know, 00:20:41.559 --> 00:20:44.420 he never mentions Herodotus' nine name, but his 00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:46.960 introduction is one big subtle swipe at him. 00:20:47.079 --> 00:20:49.579 When he says his own work will contain no fables 00:20:49.579 --> 00:20:52.000 and is meant to be an everlasting possession. 00:20:52.490 --> 00:20:55.230 rather than something recited for a prize. That's 00:20:55.230 --> 00:20:58.029 a direct shot. Herodotus' work was often performed 00:20:58.029 --> 00:21:00.210 at public festivals. It was a form of entertainment. 00:21:00.609 --> 00:21:02.490 Thucydides is drawing a line in the sand. He's 00:21:02.490 --> 00:21:04.410 saying this isn't for entertainment. This is 00:21:04.410 --> 00:21:07.089 a tool for understanding power. So let's break 00:21:07.089 --> 00:21:09.529 down Herodotus' approach. You can call him the 00:21:09.529 --> 00:21:12.660 moralist or the ethnographer. Definitely. His 00:21:12.660 --> 00:21:15.259 histories are this sprawling, amazing work. They 00:21:15.259 --> 00:21:17.779 cover the Persian Wars, yes, but they also include 00:21:17.779 --> 00:21:20.079 geography, stories about different cultures, 00:21:20.359 --> 00:21:22.799 fables, legends, personal anecdotes from his 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.779 travels. And his view of history is fundamentally 00:21:25.779 --> 00:21:29.759 moral. He sees conflict as arising from acts 00:21:29.759 --> 00:21:32.980 of injustice. There's this cycle of hubris human 00:21:32.980 --> 00:21:35.359 arrogance, which invites punishment from the 00:21:35.359 --> 00:21:38.730 gods. History is a series of moral lessons. Right. 00:21:38.789 --> 00:21:40.630 And he'll often present two or three different 00:21:40.630 --> 00:21:42.710 versions of a story and kind of say, you decide 00:21:42.710 --> 00:21:44.730 which one you think is true. It's a very different 00:21:44.730 --> 00:21:46.789 style. Then you have Thucydides, the political 00:21:46.789 --> 00:21:49.190 scientist. He just throws all of that out. He 00:21:49.190 --> 00:21:52.069 limits himself strictly to contemporary political 00:21:52.069 --> 00:21:54.470 and military events. He cuts out all the geography, 00:21:54.650 --> 00:21:57.170 the ethnography, the fables, and most importantly, 00:21:57.410 --> 00:22:01.259 conventional morality. plays no part in his analysis. 00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:04.200 He's not interested in who was right or wrong 00:22:04.200 --> 00:22:07.000 in a moral sense. He's just giving a clear -eyed, 00:22:07.059 --> 00:22:09.519 non -judgmental report of what happened and why. 00:22:09.720 --> 00:22:12.140 He's dissecting the mechanics of power, not judging 00:22:12.140 --> 00:22:15.160 the souls of the participants. Exactly. And the 00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:17.559 effect of that shift on later Greek historians 00:22:17.559 --> 00:22:20.039 was immense. It was a paradigm shift. So they 00:22:20.039 --> 00:22:23.480 followed his model? For the most part, yes. Historians 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:26.079 who came after him, like Xenophon or Polybius, 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:29.339 largely accepted his premise. They agreed that 00:22:29.339 --> 00:22:31.559 history should be about politics, that it should 00:22:31.559 --> 00:22:34.240 be based on facts, and that contemporary history, 00:22:34.440 --> 00:22:36.660 what you could actually investigate, was the 00:22:36.660 --> 00:22:39.940 most important kind. The Fusidian tradition of 00:22:39.940 --> 00:22:42.700 hard -nosed political history became the gold 00:22:42.700 --> 00:22:45.099 standard. It's just amazing how a book about 00:22:45.099 --> 00:22:47.460 a war from nearly two and a half millennia ago 00:22:47.460 --> 00:22:51.569 can still be shaping policy today. Let's trace 00:22:51.569 --> 00:22:53.910 how this work became that everlasting possession. 00:22:54.490 --> 00:22:57.210 How did Thucydides become the cornerstone of 00:22:57.210 --> 00:22:59.619 modern real politics? well it wasn't a straight 00:22:59.619 --> 00:23:02.059 line after his initial influence in the ancient 00:23:02.059 --> 00:23:04.539 world he was largely forgotten in western europe 00:23:04.539 --> 00:23:06.960 during the middle ages very few people could 00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:08.859 read greek so his text was basically lost to 00:23:08.859 --> 00:23:10.839 the west it had to be rediscovered during the 00:23:10.839 --> 00:23:12.980 renaissance right the first translation back 00:23:12.980 --> 00:23:15.339 into latin was done by a scholar named lorenzo 00:23:15.339 --> 00:23:18.920 vaila around 1450 but even then he didn't immediately 00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:21.569 catch on as a political thinker Another historian, 00:23:21.769 --> 00:23:24.230 Polybius, was more popular at first. So when 00:23:24.230 --> 00:23:26.589 did people start to see the connection, the modern 00:23:26.589 --> 00:23:29.190 relevance? It started when thinkers began drawing 00:23:29.190 --> 00:23:32.450 parallels between Thucydides and another icon 00:23:32.450 --> 00:23:36.029 of ruthless political analysis, Niccolo Machiavelli. 00:23:36.150 --> 00:23:38.549 The author of The Prince. The similarities are 00:23:38.549 --> 00:23:40.990 pretty obvious. Machiavelli, just like Thucydides, 00:23:41.190 --> 00:23:44.490 stripped morality and sentiment. out of his analysis 00:23:44.490 --> 00:23:47.329 of power. Completely. Machiavelli's whole idea 00:23:47.329 --> 00:23:50.609 was that a ruler's primary job is to maintain 00:23:50.609 --> 00:23:53.849 the state, the reason of state, and that might 00:23:53.849 --> 00:23:56.109 require actions that are, you know, conventionally 00:23:56.109 --> 00:23:58.329 immoral. There's a great quote from the historian 00:23:58.329 --> 00:24:01.109 J .B. Burry. He said Thucydides could have forestalled 00:24:01.109 --> 00:24:04.130 Machiavelli, that the whole attitude of Thucydides' 00:24:04.230 --> 00:24:06.930 history agrees with Machiavelli's basic idea, 00:24:07.190 --> 00:24:10.069 the supremacy of the state's interest. They're 00:24:10.069 --> 00:24:12.490 both stripping politics down to its brutal essentials. 00:24:12.910 --> 00:24:15.150 And that brings us to the third figure in the 00:24:15.150 --> 00:24:17.210 founding trinity of Western political realism. 00:24:17.529 --> 00:24:19.589 The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Thomas 00:24:19.589 --> 00:24:23.069 Hobbes. In 1628, Hobbes published the first English 00:24:23.069 --> 00:24:25.789 translation of Thucydides directly from the Greek. 00:24:25.970 --> 00:24:28.750 He was a huge admirer. For Hobbes, Thucydides' 00:24:28.869 --> 00:24:31.410 description of the chaos in Corsera, the breakdown 00:24:31.410 --> 00:24:33.789 of society during the plague, it was a perfect 00:24:33.789 --> 00:24:36.309 real -world example of his own theory. His theory 00:24:36.309 --> 00:24:38.960 of the state of nature. Where without a strong 00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:43.900 ruler, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, 00:24:43.900 --> 00:24:47.019 and short. Exactly. Hobbes sought Thucydides 00:24:47.019 --> 00:24:49.180 as providing the historical evidence for his 00:24:49.180 --> 00:24:51.900 philosophical claim that human beings are fundamentally 00:24:51.900 --> 00:24:54.920 self -interested creatures who need an all -powerful 00:24:54.920 --> 00:24:57.240 sovereign to keep them from destroying each other. 00:24:57.480 --> 00:24:59.660 So there you have it. The three founding fathers 00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:02.950 of realism. Thucydides provides this historical 00:25:02.950 --> 00:25:05.670 case study. Machiavelli provides the practical 00:25:05.670 --> 00:25:08.130 handbook for rulers. And Hobbes provides the 00:25:08.130 --> 00:25:10.569 philosophical foundation. And from there, his 00:25:10.569 --> 00:25:14.049 influence just grows. In the 19th century, the 00:25:14.049 --> 00:25:17.049 new scientific historians loved him. They sought 00:25:17.049 --> 00:25:18.930 his seriousness and his handling of evidence 00:25:18.930 --> 00:25:21.410 as a model for their own work. Philosophers, 00:25:21.410 --> 00:25:23.819 too. Nietzsche was a huge fan. Oh, a massive 00:25:23.819 --> 00:25:26.440 fan. He called Thucydides a cure for Platonism, 00:25:26.460 --> 00:25:29.079 for idealism. He saw him as a thinker who dared 00:25:29.079 --> 00:25:31.079 to look at the world without flinching. And in 00:25:31.079 --> 00:25:33.160 the 20th century, especially after World War 00:25:33.160 --> 00:25:35.390 II and during the Cold War, He becomes essential. 00:25:35.690 --> 00:25:38.650 He becomes the key text for the new field of 00:25:38.650 --> 00:25:42.549 international relations. Thinkers like Hans Morgenthau 00:25:42.549 --> 00:25:45.049 used his work to analyze the bipolar conflict 00:25:45.049 --> 00:25:48.089 between the U .S. and the Soviet Union. The dynamic 00:25:48.089 --> 00:25:50.990 between a rising power, Athens, and an established 00:25:50.990 --> 00:25:53.670 power, Sparta, seemed to perfectly mirror the 00:25:53.670 --> 00:25:56.650 modern world. The Thucydides trap. The idea that 00:25:56.650 --> 00:25:59.470 when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling 00:25:59.470 --> 00:26:03.049 one, war is almost inevitable. It's the ultimate 00:26:03.049 --> 00:26:05.529 framework for pessimistic great power politics. 00:26:05.789 --> 00:26:07.789 And it's why his book is still standard reading 00:26:07.789 --> 00:26:10.410 at West Point and the Naval War College and why 00:26:10.410 --> 00:26:12.750 policymakers like Henry Kissinger have cited 00:26:12.750 --> 00:26:15.069 him as essential. But for all this reverence 00:26:15.069 --> 00:26:17.369 for his objectivity, he's not without his critics. 00:26:17.750 --> 00:26:20.009 We have to mention the dissenting view, especially 00:26:20.009 --> 00:26:22.470 from the philosopher Karl Popper. It's a really 00:26:22.470 --> 00:26:24.980 important critique. Popper starts by calling 00:26:24.980 --> 00:26:27.700 Thucydides the greatest historian perhaps who 00:26:27.700 --> 00:26:30.759 ever lived, so he's not dismissing him. But he 00:26:30.759 --> 00:26:32.940 argues that Thucydides, for all his attempts 00:26:32.940 --> 00:26:36.259 at impartiality, had an involuntary bias. Popper 00:26:36.259 --> 00:26:38.460 suggests that Thucydides' heart was never really 00:26:38.460 --> 00:26:41.359 with Athens, his native city. Because the democracy 00:26:41.359 --> 00:26:44.420 exiled him? Because the democracy exiled him. 00:26:45.599 --> 00:26:48.500 Popper argues that his scorn for the demagogues 00:26:48.500 --> 00:26:51.059 who followed Pericles, his admiration for the 00:26:51.059 --> 00:26:53.799 aristocratic Pericles himself, it all points 00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:56.359 to the fact that he was, at heart, a member of 00:26:56.359 --> 00:26:58.940 the oligarchic party. He was an anti -democrat 00:26:58.940 --> 00:27:01.319 writing the history of democracy's failure. So 00:27:01.319 --> 00:27:04.099 the very event that gave him his unique perspective, 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:07.680 his exile, might have also embedded a deep political 00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:10.619 bias in his work. It's a powerful argument, and 00:27:10.619 --> 00:27:12.420 it highlights the tension that still exists today. 00:27:12.599 --> 00:27:15.200 You have the Thucydian tradition of hard -headed 00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:17.599 military and political history. And then you 00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:20.119 have the Herodotiner tradition, which has seen 00:27:20.119 --> 00:27:22.980 a huge comeback with its focus on culture, society, 00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:25.579 and ethnography. The debate over what history 00:27:25.579 --> 00:27:27.440 should be about really started with these two. 00:27:27.640 --> 00:27:29.880 This has been a fascinating deep dive into a 00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:32.579 mind that truly shaped the world. So to recap 00:27:32.579 --> 00:27:35.099 the key insights for you, the listener, Thucydides 00:27:35.099 --> 00:27:37.480 didn't just write a history. He invented scientific 00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:40.410 history. He did it by kicking the gods out of 00:27:40.410 --> 00:27:43.069 the story and focusing relentlessly on evidence 00:27:43.069 --> 00:27:46.349 and human cause and effect, the logos. His work 00:27:46.349 --> 00:27:48.990 has lasted because it's built on a deep and frankly 00:27:48.990 --> 00:27:51.930 dark understanding of human nature. The idea 00:27:51.930 --> 00:27:55.230 that fear, self -interest and necessity are the 00:27:55.230 --> 00:27:58.529 real unchanging engines of history. And that 00:27:58.529 --> 00:28:01.529 worldview, later picked up by Machiavellian Hobbes, 00:28:01.589 --> 00:28:03.869 became the foundation for political realism, 00:28:04.029 --> 00:28:05.970 a philosophy that is very much still with us 00:28:05.970 --> 00:28:08.519 today. But let's leave you with one final thought 00:28:08.519 --> 00:28:10.960 to consider. Thucydides suffered this immense 00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:13.460 personal and professional failure at Amphipolis, 00:28:13.579 --> 00:28:16.740 which led to his 20 -year exile. He masterfully 00:28:16.740 --> 00:28:19.220 turned that punishment into an opportunity, using 00:28:19.220 --> 00:28:21.519 it to gain a uniquely balanced perspective on 00:28:21.519 --> 00:28:24.400 the war, aiming for a new standard of non -biased 00:28:24.400 --> 00:28:26.609 reporting. And yet, as a critic like Karl Popper 00:28:26.609 --> 00:28:29.049 points out, maybe he never fully escaped the 00:28:29.049 --> 00:28:31.589 bitterness of that exile. Maybe he always carried 00:28:31.589 --> 00:28:34.009 an involuntary bias against the very democracy 00:28:34.009 --> 00:28:36.509 that had made him an outcast. So here's the question. 00:28:36.690 --> 00:28:39.190 If the man who invented the ideal of scientific 00:28:39.190 --> 00:28:41.789 history couldn't fully separate his own political 00:28:41.789 --> 00:28:44.329 story from the one he was telling, what does 00:28:44.329 --> 00:28:46.549 that suggest about the possibility of true objectivity 00:28:46.549 --> 00:28:48.829 for any historian writing about their own time 00:28:48.829 --> 00:28:51.609 and their own political failures? Is total objectivity 00:28:51.609 --> 00:28:54.180 even a real goal we can achieve? Or is it just 00:28:54.180 --> 00:28:56.740 a noble method we strive for? Something for you 00:28:56.740 --> 00:28:57.220 to mull over.