Destructive state interest and panhellenism in Thucydides
- Oct 17, 2010
- 2 min read
Destructive state interest and panhellenism in Thucydides
William Burghart
University of Missouri-Columbia: Master of Arts, August (2008)
Abstract
Thucydides in his text about the war between Athens and Sparta derides individuals, either members of a community or states in an international system, acting to increase their own power at the expense of others and promotes the same individuals to act in ways that support the community.
This critique is not unique to Thucydides as it was a common topos among other classical Greek authors of the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC. Thucydides constructs his history in such a manner as to emphasize that when individuals act in this manner, they merely hurt the community and endanger themselves. Not only does Thucydides demonstrate the danger of individuals (either people or cities) acting in such a fashion through his description of the Corcyraean stasis and other episodes, he also promotes actions taken to support the community.
In the Mytilene Debate and Hermocrates’ speech at Gela, the writer shows the alternative possibilities to states acting on their own and portrays how profitable such actions can be. In this manner then, Thucydides promotes a form of Panhellenism seen in contemporaries like Aristophanes and Isocrates.
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Introduction
Thucydides through his critique of destructive self-interest on the international level provides a message of Panhellenism in his work. Thucydides’ narrative, first and foremost, is a history of the Peloponnesian War. The history, however, includes an analysis of human nature (1.76.2) and demonstrates that human nature drove the events of the war, especially evident in the Corcyraean stasis (1.22.4, 3.84.2). Thucydides at 1.76.2 defines human nature as being driven by three factors: fear, honor and interest. This thesis investigates the third factor, interest, to see how the author portrays it throughout the history. I differentiate between two forms of interest: destructive self- interest and enlightened self-interest. While Thucydides makes no explicit distinction between the two, the difference is drawn from certain speeches and discussion of them by modern authors. Destructive self-interest occurs when an entity (an individual within a community, or a state on the international level) acts to enrich itself at the expense of the community, an act sometimes characterized by pleonexia, or a want for more. Enlightened self-interest occurs when the same entity chooses instead to support the community as a whole, putting aside immediate private gain so that the majority might profit.
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