Thucydides 431 BCE
When Words Fail: The Breakdown of Dialogue and The Rise of Violence
From Corcyra to Capitol Hill: Political Violence Through the Ages
Civil War, Extremism, and the Lessons We Refuse to Learn
When a Country or an Empire is on the Cusp of Collapse, few ever realize what has happened in the past is happening, or will happen, now.
“That civil war happened in Greece! It’s nothing like the bombing of Fort Sumter. What bad could happen?”
In the midst of political fever, cooler heads rarely prevail. The fever, it seems, does not break until cities smolder in rubble with countless graves.
In Book Three of History of the Peloponnesian War (431 BCE), Thucydides, an Athenian general and historian, also considered “the father of the school of political realism,” considered the Civil War in Corcyra (now Corfu, an island off Greece’s northwest coast in the Ionian Sea) as a cautionary tale about the destructive nature of political extremism and factionalism.
After Herodotus, he is considered the Western world’s first historian. While many critics may question the veracity of Herodotus, few question the pin-point accuracy of Thucydides — an eyewitness…
