Athenian Realpolitik and Its Origins

Hardy Fredricksmeyer

Never Trust a Greek:

Athenian Realpolitik and its Origins

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. (Aeneid 2.49)

Introduction

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (431-404): reasons for the Athenian loss, included:

2-front war

failure to control Megarid

overextension

aggressive support of radical democratic elements

Athenian Realpolitik

I. Athenian Realpolitik

A. examples from Thucydides (460-400 BCE)/Hanson

Mytilenean Debate (428): self-interest, not morality; might makes right

Cleon and Diodotus

Melian Dialog (416): might makes right

Athenians and Melians

B. how contributed to ultimate Spartan victory

II. Origins of Athenian Realpolitik/Greek Moral Relativism (see table)

A. Homeric epics: Achilles vs. Odysseus (and Ajax)

biê (open and direct force) vs. mêtis (deception)

Iliad vs. Odyssey

mêtis and moral relativism

B. “New Learning”

anthropocentric rationalism

astronomy: Thales (635-543)

physics: Democritos (460-370)

medicine: the Hippocrates (460-380) and the Hippocratic corpus

moral relativism and amorality

rhetoric and philosophy: the sophists

Protagoras (481-420): “man is the measure of all things”

Thrasymachus (459-500): “justice is the advantage of the

stronger”

compare with the Mytilenian Debate and Melian Dialog

III. Latin epigraph (at top)

Laocoön on the Greeks at Aeneid 2.49

Table: Origins of Athenian Realpolitik/Greek Moral Relativism

biê: Greek heroic code mêtis:

open and direct force deception

Achilles Odysseus

Iliad Odyssey

“New Learning”:

anthropocentric rationalism

sophists: moral relativism

Athenian Realpolitik