Thucydides - Book VI

Thucydides - Book VI, edited by K. J. Dover and published by Oxford University Press in 1971, takes us to one of the great moments in classical history when Athens looked at an already complicated war and decided what it really needed was an enormous military expedition to Sicily.

This is, therefore, the beginning of one of history’s more instructive examples of strategic overconfidence.

Book VI of Thucydides covers the planning and launch of the Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War, with all the political argument, ambition, persuasion, uncertainty and spectacularly questionable decision-making that came with it.

Athens was already engaged in a major war with Sparta.

Naturally, somebody suggested invading Sicily.

The proposal was debated, opposed, encouraged, reconsidered and eventually approved with enough enthusiasm to remind modern readers that large institutions have always been capable of confusing momentum with wisdom.

Thucydides is especially good on this sort of thing because he is not content merely to record battles and dates. He is interested in motives, rhetoric, power, fear, ambition and the ways in which intelligent people can talk themselves into courses of action that later appear astonishingly reckless.

In Book VI, the debates surrounding the Sicilian campaign provide some of his finest material.

Nicias argues against the expedition.

Alcibiades argues for it.

The Athenians listen carefully.

And then, because history enjoys dramatic structure, events proceed toward the catastrophe described in Book VII.

K. J. Dover was one of the most distinguished classical scholars of the twentieth century, and this Oxford edition is intended for serious students of Greek, with the sort of scholarly support required when Thucydides decides that a sentence could comfortably contain enough grammar for an entire afternoon.

This is not a simplified school retelling.

It is the real thing.

Ancient Greek.

History.

Commentary.

And the occasional moment when the reader realises that the sentence they began ten minutes ago has not technically finished.

There is something rather admirable about classical editions like this. They assume the reader is prepared to work.

No interactive exercises.

No animated map.

No cheery box saying “Quick Fact!”

Just Thucydides, Dover and the quiet expectation that you will keep going until it makes sense.

And eventually, usually, it does.

Book VI is particularly rewarding because the political drama is so recognisable.

Leaders make speeches.

Rivals attack one another’s motives.

Public opinion shifts.

Warnings are dismissed as pessimism.

Ambition is presented as necessity.

The entire machinery of democratic decision-making is visible in motion.

Fortunately, humanity learned from all this and never again launched an ambitious foreign expedition based on optimism, political pressure and uncertain strategic assumptions.

Still, the comparison is available.

Published in 1971, this edition also belongs to a strong tradition of British classical education, when Greek and Latin texts were routinely published in compact scholarly formats for schools and universities and nobody felt compelled to apologise for the difficulty.

It is exactly the kind of book that has spent decades on reading lists, desks and bookshelves, quietly waiting for another student to discover just how much meaning can be packed into one paragraph of fifth-century BC prose.

For students of classics, ancient history, military history, political thought or the Peloponnesian War, this is an excellent working edition of one of Thucydides’ most important books.

It is also useful for anyone wishing to examine the early stages of a disaster before moving on to Book VII to see just how thoroughly things can deteriorate.

Condition: Good. A sound used copy with normal signs of age and handling. Published in 1971, it has survived rather better than the Athenian expedition it describes.

ISBN: 0198318324.

A serious and rewarding classical text covering the launch of the Sicilian Expedition, complete with political calculation, military ambition and the reassuring knowledge that we already know this does not end well.

Sold by Crappy Old Books — where the campaigns are ancient, the Greek is difficult, and hindsight remains undefeated.

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