REALPOLITIK, PUNISHMENT AND

CONTROL: THUCYDIDES ON THE

MORALIZATION OF CONFLICT
Alek Chance
Stockdale Center For Ethical Leaderhip, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, USA
The pages of Thucydides show us many expressions of what one might call the amoral doctrine in
international politics, namely, that politics between political communities are not properly subject
to ethical evaluation. This article traces Thucydides understated critique of this idea. I first show
that concerns about transgression and punishment inexorably influence political action. Moreover,
Thucydides suggests a connection between the aspirations of realpolitik and the desire of the
political community to preserve the freedom to effect justice and not subordinate its will to the
dictates of necessity especially necessities imposed by other political bodies. I then describe
Thucydides explanation for why political communities persist in regarding themselves primarily as
moral agents rather than security-maximizers. I finally describe what Thucydides regards to be a
more genuine realism. This truer realism maintains the possibility of constrained moral choice
while still engendering a prudent pessimism about controlling human affairs. In the end,
Thucydides, while sharing in much of the realist traditions moral skepticism, disagrees with its
frequent subsequent focus on the theoretically unlimited acquisition of power.

KEY WORDS: Thucydides, realism, realpolitik, Hobbes, Machiavelli, punishment, power

it is generally the case that men are more willing to be called clever rogues than
good simpletons and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being
the first.
Thucydides 3.871

Introduction
Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War provides us with some of the first examples of
what one might call a doctrine of amoralism in international politics. We hear from various
speakers in the History that the rule of the weak by the strong or that violent action taken
out of impulse are simply natural, ordinary, and thus, inevitable. It then follows, according
to this line of reasoning, that ethical judgment is misplaced in international affairs, for it has
no purchase on inescapable behavior.2 The most overt expression of these ideas comes
from the Athenian envoys to Sparta prior to the war, who claim that Athens expanded its
empires influence chiefly by fear, then by honour also, and lastly by self-interest as well
no man is to be blamed for making the most of his advantages when it is a question of the
gravest dangers (1.75). These conjoined ideas have echoed through the history of political
Journal of Military Ethics, 2013
Vol. 12, No. 3, 263277, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2013.848092
2013 Taylor & Francis

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A. CHANCE

thought ever since.3 Machiavelli repeats Thucydides Athenian ambassadors nearly

verbatim when he asserts truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire,
and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed (Machiavelli
1998: 14, 61). Given that this is the inexorable state of humanity, one must learn to be bad
or fall to ruin. Hobbes (1985: 184, 188) finds that the quest for security takes priority over
questions of justice, and that where safety cannot be guaranteed, natural right justifies any
behavior, such as preventive attacks, taken in the name of security. More recent
formulations of realism likewise seek to purge the realm of international politics from
ethical influences on decision-making. Hans Morgenthau (1950, 1985: Ch. 1) wishes
separate the allegedly autonomous ethical and political spheres, recognizing both a
source of weakness in idealism and grounds for immoderation in a crusading spirit. George
Kennan (1951: 87) laments the prevalence of the view that state behavior is a fit subject for
moral pronouncement, and even contemporary neorealism, with its focus on behaviorism
and structural causation rather than unit-level characteristics, results sometimes in the
maxim that there are no good or bad states.
From the foundations of this ethical pessimism, realism typically turns its attention to
the cultivation of power as the only true source of organization, restraint and relative
certainty in a dangerous world, often resulting in the doctrine of realpolitik, which claims
that force is the only truly reliable means for negotiating world politics. Thus, Hobbes
(1985: 161) claims under conditions of uncertainty that it is inevitable and justified that life
becomes a quest for power after power. Machiavellis (1998: 101) bold plan to reorganize
political affairs according to how things are rather than how they ought to be ends in
nothing more modest than a plan to master fortune.
Because of its great comprehensiveness and its seminal nature, the History is a prime
place to begin any reassessment of the amoral doctrine in international politics. As it turns
out, while characters in Thucydides world at times promulgate such a doctrine, it is
frequently incomplete, self-serving and ultimately belied by the tendency of political
communities to moralize their relationships with one another, even where a detached
realism would be most appropriate. Because of the attention Thucydides gives to
connections between domestic and international politics, we are also able to begin to
understand the origins of this tendency to moralize political relationships. In the end, a
close study of the History shows us the inadequacies of the amoral doctrine and the
genuine proclivities of ambitious states. He shines light on the elsewhere obscure
connections between moral skepticism and a Hobbesian or Machiavellian emphasis on
control through force. Finally, Thucydides guides us to a more honest and realistic
standpoint that is less rigid and dogmatic about the relationships between pessimism,
uncertainty and power.

The Amoral Doctrine in Thucydides History

Just prior to the outbreak of war between Sparta and Athens, an impromptu embassy of
Athenians attempts to dissuade Sparta from war arguing that Athens rise to hegemonic
status does not amount to a transgression worthy of war (1.73 ff.). According to these
speakers, they have done nothing remarkable or inconsistent with human nature just
because [they] accepted an empire when it was offered and then, yielding to the
strongest motives honor, fear, self-interest declined to give it up (1.76). The word
here rendered as motive in the Greek connotes overpowering impulses, thus in effect, the

THUCYDIDES ON THE MORALIZATION OF CONFLICT

Athenians suggest that the desires to acquire and then maintain power are not only
natural but impinge upon voluntary action. Ethical judgment typically presupposes
voluntary action, and as the Athenians imply, in the realm of natural necessities it is quite
out of place. One might say that the Athenians here argue for a philosophy of tout
comprendre, cest tout pardoner (Forde 1995: 151). The inoffensiveness of Athenian action,
explained away by dint of the exculpatory nature of fear and other impulses, is repeated by
the aptly named Athenian Euphemus in his speech to the Sicilians (6.82 ff.). To Euphemus,
the prospect of Athens being dominated by others necessitates (or perhaps justifies)4 their
own dominance.
In the famous Melian dialogue, a group of Athenian envoys give their most
unabashed and unpitying statement of their theory about the compulsory nature of the
appetites and the subsequent limits of justice and honorable action in the world the socalled Athenian thesis. At its core, the thesis claims that it is simply the nature of things
that the strong do what they will; the weak suffer what they must (5.89);5 therefore it is a
natural fact that Athens will rule over Melos. They attempt to convince the Melians that
acquiescing to this reality is in their true interest, for futile expectations of justice can only
lead to danger. The Athenians wish to portray their need to subjugate Melos as inexorable
and then forbid the Melians to even discuss the issue of right (5.89). According to the
Athenian argument, however, there is an upside to this amoralization of their political
relationship. In fact, the Melians should not be ashamed of subjugation at all, for shame
and honor only apply between equals (5.101). In other words, Melos simply should not
conceive of itself as a moral agent, at least vis--vis the much stronger Athens. The
language of nature and necessity would excuse Melian capitulation just as much as it
justifies the aggression of Athens. Moreover, the Athenians argue, the false prospects of
justice and equal respect can only lead the weak astray, and if only the Melians could
relinquish hopes for such basic moral goods, Athenian rule in the Aegean, and Melian
safety can both be assured (5.103).

The Corruption of the Amoral Doctrine

Unable to accept subordination and hopeful that the justice of their cause can help them
prevail, the Melians risk everything to preserve their liberty. The Athenians Newtonian
picture of human relations clearly takes no hold upon the Melians minds. In their refusal to
accept either the Athenians argument or their ultimatum, the Melians show the limits of
such naked talk of power and the limits of power itself. For Athens, it is critical to convince
Melos that it has no pride on the line as a much weaker state, the question of national
honor cannot be on the table at all. The only relevant issue, as the Athenians would have it,
is power, yet the Melians will not reconceive of their political relationship in this amoralized
manner. Melos will not relinquish its claim to the worthiness that attends asserting ones
freedom even in vain over exigent circumstances, nor will it treat Athens as the
impersonal force of nature it wishes to present itself as. Despite the great disparity in
power between the two, Melos regards Athens in human terms, as something to be
reasoned with, appealed to, and to whom it would be shameful to willingly become
subject. In so doing, it implicitly asserts a sort of moral equality that in the end clearly galls
the Athenians.
Thus, even while the Athenians portray the Melians hopes to be folly natural and
typical human errors and even while they argue that honor and shame are irrelevant

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factors in their relationship, the Melians intransigence clearly touches a nerve. After
putting down the brief ensuing revolt, Athens massacres the surviving men and enslaves
the rest of the population. While such a ruthless decision may not have been taken by the
men who are portrayed in the dialogue, one can nonetheless see the dialogue as
becoming infected with a certain punitive tone (see Orwin 1997: 117 ff.). For all of the
debunking of moral concerns in the generals speeches, the assertions about Athenian
power cannot help but become an assertion about a broader Athenian superiority.
Consequently, Melos tacit assertion of equality comes to be regarded as an act of hubris
that elicits Athenian indignation, rather than as an inconvenience or pitiable error. If power
is thus connected with deeper aspirations for worth or superiority, then the amoral
doctrine becomes corrupted. Upon reflection, perhaps we should not be surprised to see
the Melian affair end in a punitive rage, for even Athens initial statement of the amoral
doctrine to the Spartan assembly was immediately corrupted by talk of superior Athenian
worthiness, proven in part by its willingness to run great risks (1.73). The claim that Athens
deserves to rule because it is accepting of risk is rather problematically at odds with the
idea that Athens imperialism is excusable because it is the unavoidable product of an
overpowering fear.
Thucydides remarkable recounting of the debate within Athens concerning the fate
of another rebellious city, Mytilene, (3.373.48) constitutes yet another example of how the
amoral doctrine and the tout comprendre thesis are susceptible to self-serving and
disingenuous application. The free Athenian ally Mytilene, having grown apprehensive
about Athenian expansionism, had defected but was quickly retaken, due in part to the
ultimate refusal of the people to participate in the revolt (3.27). At first the Athenian
assembly, caught up in the passionate wrath of the moment,6 condemns all the men of
Mytilene to death and the women and children to slavery. The passage of time diminishes
their anger, and the following day the Athenians decide to reconsider their decision (3.36).
Cleon, the most powerful man in Athens, speaks in favor of upholding the previous
days grim decision, and in so doing, shows the extreme weakness of the amoral doctrine
in the face of anger, indignation and expectations of controlling events. Schooled in the
Athenian brand of realpolitik, Cleon does embrace the idea of the exculpatory nature of
necessity but works to limit its applicability. Were the circumstances of Mytilenes revolt
different, an examination of the citys freedom of choice would in fact be relevant. Cleon
tells the Athenians, for example, that he can make allowance for men who resorted to
revolt because they were unable to bear your rule or were compelled by your enemies to
do so (3.39). However, he cannot find that Mytilene was burdened by such necessities, but
was in fact treated by Athens with the highest consideration7 (3.39). To Cleon, the relative
ease of the Mytilenians subordination not only renders the question of necessity moot, but
turns their revolt into a rebellion,8 and one of particularly heinous proportions. Invoking
the logic of the Athenian thesis, Cleon even suggests that the pursuit of power as such is
excusable. Yet he pushes his charge against Mytilene to the point where he presents it as a
gratuitous act of spite towards its hegemon. As a result, it would behoove the Athenians to
punish in proportion to the sheer gratuitousness of Mytilenes transgression, not only to
satisfy justice, but to deter future revolts. Thus to Cleon, the harshest and most
impassioned vengeance overlaps entirely with the dictates of an expedient deterrent.
Cleons claim about the utility of indignation reminds us of a similar statement about
action and justice given by Corinthian ambassadors urging Sparta to attack Athens: peace
stays longest with those who are not more careful to use their power justly than to show

THUCYDIDES ON THE MORALIZATION OF CONFLICT

their determination not to submit to injustice (1.71).9 According to this view, sensitivity to
slights promises to be a more effective deterrent than attempting to uphold common
restraining principles.
Cleon chides the assembly for displaying an untenable democratic softness,
reminding them that their rule constitutes an empire that is maintained by force and
not goodwill, thus expediency dictates that they must discourage defection in the harshest
manner possible (3.39). Athens must try to recapture the lost moment of wrath, which is
portrayed as the touchstone of justice, and avoid the real transient passion: the
momentary pleasure of leniency (3.40). Cleon argues that the anger felt at that moment
was the most suitable standpoint from which to view the situation, for otherwise, the
edge of the victims wrath is duller when he proceeds against the offender, whereas the
vengeance that follows upon the very heels of the outrage exacts a punishment that most
nearly matches the offence (3.38.1). To Cleon, speech and deliberation, then, can only
work against both prudence and justice what is needed, rather, is a kind of automatic
reaction to the adversarys actions. Cleon thus promotes a remarkable inversion of the
conventional wisdom about the relationship between passions, prudence and the passage
of time.
Cleons contamination of realpolitik calculations with visceral emotions can be but
one instance of a broader pattern of Athenian indignation to the perceived hubris of its
subordinates. Just as Cleon seems to derive his wrath from a sense that Mytilene has bitten
the hand that feeds it,10 so too do the Athenian envoys to Sparta lament that their citys
liberality has rendered it vulnerable to ungrateful weaker cities (1.77). Even beyond the
Athenian empire, we see Corinth responding to the hubris of its former colony, Corcyra,
with a wrathful pronunciation of hard-line principles (1.71), and more generally, the
prevalence of vengeance, anger and sensitivity to honor throughout the History cannot be
ignored.11 This admixture of wrath and indignation to a purportedly detached realpolitik
may not prove fatal to the idea of a rational realism. Yet readers of Thucydides must
certainly question whether the repeated pronouncements of the deterrent virtues of
punishment spring from rational calculation or a personalized animus.
Taking Cleons speech as a whole, we see that even the speaker is not entirely
convinced of the harmony between vengeance and a rational policy of expedience. Cleon
effectively tips his hat to such notions that interests compel or that necessity constrains
voluntary action, yet his disingenuousness comes through in the end. Seeking mainly to
punish the Mytilenians, he must move away from language that amoralizes political
relationships and restore an element of punitive justice and collective guilt. This is done by
taking the personalization of political relationships to the extreme, resulting in a patently
absurd claim: Mytilene did not act out of its own interests but was instead bent solely on
harming Athens it acted out of spite. The language of inexorable interests and necessity
is affirmed in theory only to be discarded in his analysis, as Cleon attributes a personal
slight to Mytilene that demands an equally personal act of retribution from Athens. Even
after toying with the idea that such punishment may not, in the last analysis, be fair, Cleon
still retains the connection between expediency and vengeance thus continuing to hew
to a one-sided justice shown by the Corinthians that is perhaps best described as a
sensitivity to slights and a proclivity to indignation.12 These features combine in an
aspiration to true control over human affairs that simultaneously rejects the need to
consider the compelling interests of others.

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Pericles and Moralized Politics

The rhetoric of the Athenian leader Pericles gives us many clues as to the origins of the
difficulties of maintaining the amoral doctrine. Pericles, like Cleon, hedges around a central
ambiguity related to the question of compulsion and volition. In Pericles case, this
ambiguity can be summed up in the question: is imperialism a freely chosen project, or a
response to a dangerous environment? In some sense, both views are correct: Pericles
ultimately portrays empire to be contingently necessary. If Athens wishes to be a great
power rather than a vassal state even one enjoying unmolested servitude13 then
empire is indeed necessary (2.63). Pericles roots the imperial drive in the quest for honor
and glory, yet given that the pursuit of honor at the level of interstate politics is so deeply
problematic and unlikely to be consummated,14 the true source of the concern must be
located elsewhere. An alternative locus is obvious given the function of Pericles oratory:
Pericles main objective is to maintain political cohesion, and all three speeches encourage
perseverance. As we see in his final speech, this task of statesmanship may be grounded in
the utmost necessity, but Pericles emphasis on perseverance nonetheless focuses
attention on higher things.
Thucydides often portrays politics as a kind of chaos, and political man as
fundamentally unruly.15 With such anarchic, indeed anti-archic dynamics in the Thucydidean world, the statesmans task of reconciling private desires with public goods and
constraints is indeed difficult, and this difficulty is met in part by an emphasis on the
political body as being a conduit for the peoples desire for honor. Pericles does initially put
forward a vision of political cohesion that is based more on self-interest. He argues that no
matter how well-off a man is, he cannot survive without his city, whereas if his city falls, he
will follow suit (2.60). Yet neither of these things is entirely true. Cities engage in conflict
over their right to rule themselves, something that may or may not matter to the private
individual, and we see many reasons to doubt that the city monopolizes the space in which
people can act. Like Hobbes, although in a different way, Thucydides is concerned about
the degree to which men will by nature be bound to their political communities. Quite
contrary to Hobbes, for Pericles the solution to this problem lies in the communitys
attachment to honor.
Pericles recognizes the weaknesses of the argument for community based on
enlightened self-interest and consequently leans much more heavily on the moral
component of political society, stressing the idea that the actions of the city constitute a
source of pride. Pericles rewrites the social contract on terms more favorable to the
sustenance of the community as such: you may reasonably expect to support
the dignity which the state has attained through empire a dignity in which you all take
pride and not to avoid its burdens unless you resign its honours also (2.61). Thus, he calls
on the citizens not to be the dispassionate advocates of Athens interests that the
Athenians elsewhere seem to think they are (e.g. at Melos). Such calculating men would
never be above treachery because without love of a country whose power is worthy of
contemplation they can always be bought (2.60). The reflection of this glorious power
allows for perseverance to overcome fear and even seems to serve the purpose of cheering
up the people in the course of their miseries during the plague that comes with the war. It
is the promise of the honor which attends dominion or at least indomitability that
brings Athens back to Pericles and the common good, and away from submission to
Sparta.

THUCYDIDES ON THE MORALIZATION OF CONFLICT

The union arising from enlightened self-interest is notoriously weak; sharing in honor
presents a firmer bond. Unlike providing for his own needs, the glories of empire are
unambiguously goods that can be attained only via the individuals participation in the life
of his community. Moreover, honor is something intrinsically separate from the more
material concerns of fear and interest, and it can compete with and take precedence over
them insofar as it stands above the calculus of such interests. As Hobbes knows, among
men who do not embrace any goods beyond those of security or gain, the only way to get
citizens to make necessary sacrifices for their political community is for it to become more
fearsome than the enemy. Pericles accomplishes a more substantive transcendence of selfinterest with what is ostensibly a transcendent good. Insofar as men are seekers of honor
rather than simply concerned with security and gain, the city provides the opportunity for
them to immerse their individuality into a potentially greater whole.
What precisely is this transcendent good of which political community is the sole
provider? In Pericles three speeches, honor is closely associated with freedom, and freedom
is arguably at the heart of each speech. The first speech stresses the single principle of
refusing concessions and equates backing down from an equal with slavery. His famous
funeral oration focuses on the internal liberal character of Athens as a source of pride
sufficient to demand the sacrifice of its citizens, and the third speech exhorts persistence in
the face of difficulty, the highest expression of liberty. Returning to the theme of opposition
to concessions, Pericles here notes that if the necessary choice was either to yield and
forthwith submit to their neighbors dictation or by accepting the hazard of war to preserve
their independence, then those who shrink from the hazard are more blameworthy than
those who face it (2.61). Again prioritizing freedom over security, Pericles suggests that
liberty and danger go together more often than not. This emphasis on the issue of freedom,
particularly vis--vis others, is repeated by many other speakers throughout the History.
Corinthian envoys to Sparta claim that taking dictation from Athens is essentially slavery
(1.122). The Spartan general Brasidas follows Pericles (2.63) in admitting that losing to
Athens does not necessarily imply death or (literal) slavery at all (5.9), but something just as
bad: subordination (5.9). The Syracusan Hermocrates also admits the possibility of what
Pericles calls unmolested servitude, noting that while his fellow Sicilians subordination to
Athens may be the safe policy, it is also the shameful one (6.80).
Both Pericles and Hermocrates stress agency when exhorting their respective publics
to persist in the maintenance of their free and powerful statuses. For Pericles, Athens
garners honor from the fame of her actions both good and bad (2.41). To Hermocrates, a
policy of resistance to Athens will preserve the freedom of the Syracusans, allowing them
to remain arbiters of [their] own destiny, able to [requite] good or bad deeds with equal
effect (4.63). The ability to administer punishment and reward are then intrinsic elements
of liberty. In contrast to the Melians, who are expected to view the actions of others as a
part of a given, unalterable and natural strategic environment, great states such as
Syracuse or Athens afford their citizens something that is likely otherwise to be impossible:
the ability to pursue justice and exercise moral agency, the ability not to be playthings of
fortune or the wills of others. As the Athenian generals at Melos indicate, honor and moral
agency become joined through what liberty power affords. The sense of honor that
dominates here is that which appears as a spirited rejection of being subject to the wills of
others and the impingements of their interests. Power and wealth, rather than being
objects of intrinsic value, are instead in the view of a higher politics, the instruments of the
states freedom of action.

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Periclean liberty at its most extreme becomes the freedom not to regard other
people as being part of the realm of natural necessity. This is behind Pericles advice to
Athens regarding their having to endure a plague and a war at the same time: the hand of
heaven [the plague] must be borne with resignation, that of the enemy with fortitude
(2.64). Pericles outlines a particular scope of fortune, and places the plague within it and
the Spartans without. Regardless of the fact that the two misfortunes were related, and
that the coincidence of the two was certainly outside the realm of human control, the
political challenge presented by the Spartans is different in kind and requires a different
response entirely. This limitation of the scope of fortune removes political challengers from
the realm of environmental factors and places them in an inter-personalized world in
which honor and justice can be pursued. Athens seeks overall to avoid Melos conundrum
it seeks not to have to reconcile an innate expectation of moral equality with an inability
to effect it. To achieve such liberty, Athenians must focus intensely on the idea of the city
as providing moral agency and embody it: in the end, Pericles urges that when an
Athenian soldier faces his enemy, he think of vengeance more than anything else (2.42).

Diodotus on Punishment and Expediency

Returning to the debate over the fate of Mytilene, we find a strong alternative to the
moralized vision in the speech of the Athenian Diodotus. Directly confronting Cleon,
Diodotus extends the necessity argument from the Athenian thesis to the point of
empathizing with the mistakes of the Mytilenians. In so doing he becomes, remarkably,
one of the very few characters in the History to take the trouble of applying the amoral
doctrine to explain the behavior of an adversary. Having promised only to talk of
expediency rather than justice, Diodotus does not overtly take up the cause of justifying
the behavior of Mytilene. Instead, he evaluates the benefit of punitive justice as a deterrent
and seriously doubts its utility. In his eyes, the deluding power of hope is the true root of
transgression. Hope both feeds the daring that springs from hardship and facilitates the
greed that arises from good fortune, therefore it is impossible to imagine that when
human nature is wholeheartedly bent on any undertaking it can be diverted from it by
rigorous laws or by any other terror (3.45).16
Diodotus overtly amoralizes and depersonalizes the situation between Athens and
Mytilene by widening the scope of human understanding. He includes the tendencies of
hope and desire under the concept of inexorable necessities that Cleon had so easily
disposed of. He includes no overt discussion of exoneration, but shows an understanding
that certain tendencies of human nature are in fact practical inevitabilities.17 Free people
forced into submission will naturally revolt this is to be expected (3.46). The actions of
Mytilene may not have been coerced, and thus are not explicitly excused. They are, rather,
understood, and it is from the grounds of this understanding that Diodotus assesses the
meaning of punitive justice. His entirely forward-looking discussion of punishment is on
the surface based in the principle of utility rather than guilt and punishment, and he
further removes the question of right by announcing that the Athenian assembly is not a
court of law: we are not engaged in a law-suit with [Mytilene], so as to be concerned
about the question of right and wrong (3.44).
Diodotus appeal to long-term expediency runs deeper than a simple pragmatic
amorality or positivism, or a mechanistic view of behavior. This becomes evident once the
reader has reflected that Diodotus in effect has the Athenian assembly consider the

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impulses of the Mytilenians while simultaneously containing their own punitive urges. He
goes beyond this to directly raising the problem of collective guilt, indicating that the vast
majority of Mytilenians are innocent, and that in killing them Athens would be guilty of
killing their benefactors (3.47). Maintaining his theme of expediency, he stresses both the
detrimental effect of punishing the innocent as well as the practical utility of clemency.
Given the uselessness of harsh punishment as a deterrent, it is in fact expedient to punish
as few people as possible. Such a policy will both reduce the intensity of revolts by offering
the rebels the opportunity to surrender, and maintain Athens popularity with common
people everywhere (3.46). In his distanced evaluation, one in which he looks to the future
and not the present (3.44), Diodotus takes error and transgression to be part of the natural
round of things, but so too is an appreciation for justice and clemency.
By its conclusion, the notion of justice has crept into his speech in a number of
instances. Diodotus points us towards the fact that a consideration of extenuating
circumstance and compulsion, as well as an examination of the probability of success in
retribution are all components of a more complete moral consideration. Diodotus humane
consideration of justice, compulsion and expediency takes a final transformation in turning
the deterrent logic of Cleon and the Corinthians on its head: it is far more conducive to the
maintenance of our dominion, that we should willingly submit to be wronged, than that
we should destroy, however justly,18 those whom we ought not to destroy (3.47). Cleons
claims to achieving a marriage of justice and expediency fail, primarily because of the lack
of expediency in punishment at all costs. Diodotus also firmly disputes the assertion of the
Corinthians at Sparta, who claim that peace will attend those who
are intolerant of transgression more than those who avoid sins of commission (1.71).
Both are guilty of being overly confident about the utility of firm, indignant action. His
ability to turn the other cheek allows Diodotus to escape the trap of contention that
follows from the policy of sensitivity to slights. Rather, he urges Athens to swallow its pride
and prefer to suffer the indignity of a setback than to act the clever villain19 who is
invulnerable to treachery.
Diodotus view of compulsion moderates his stance towards the Mytilenians without
denying that Athens has the moral responsibility to avoid following its own punitive
impulses. By contrast, Cleon invokes a similar notion of necessity only to deny its
applicability to Mytilenes actions while simultaneously trying to convince the Athenians
that to follow their impulses is both prudent and right. One might even say that Cleon
accepts the exonerating nature of necessity only to emphasize by contrast the outrageousness of the Mytilenians allegedly un-necessary transgression. All the same, Cleons
view overlaps considerably with that of his fellow Athenian, but he shows how the
language of interests can become appropriated by aggressive impulse. Both Cleon and
Diodotus agree, for example, that the revolt was not strictly necessary for Mytilene, as they
were not immediately threatened by any act of Athenian oppression.20 Thus, they both
agree that there was something superfluous about the uprising, but Diodotus regards the
temptations and errors of the Mytilenians to be unavoidable whereas Cleon does not.
The critical difference between the two turns on the question of control over human
affairs. Cleon hopes that violent punishment is an effective deterrent to future transgressors,
but he must also assert that there is justice in it, and that those who might plot against
Athens can ultimately correct their behavior through a prospective fear of retribution. In
other words, Cleon presumes that punitive justice works in the service of a firm control over
human affairs. Those justly punished must willfully have erred, those who might be

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punished can be convinced to avoid that fate, and those who carry out such justice can
reinforce their influence over events. The central aspect of Diodotus insight appears by
contrast to be an essential pessimism about the possibility of control, especially via the
means of punitive justice. Diodotus presents the widest range of human motivation to be
both natural and practically inevitable, without suggesting an attending banishment of
culpability. The reflexive indignation of the aforementioned Corinthians is not an option, for
punishment is not guaranteed to work in the service of control and in fact can undermine it:
Diodotus warns, we must not be such rigorous judges of the delinquents as to suffer harm
ourselves (3.46). Because he retains a deep realism about human possibility, yet does not
dogmatically reject the possibility of choice as Euphemus or the Athenian envoys to Sparta
seem to, Diodotus navigates the same moral territory as Reinhold Niebuhr (2008: Ch. 2, 4)
when he reminds us that we are both creatures and creators of our environments.

Hermocrates Normative Realism

Diodotus subtle foray into politics finds compelling support in the leadership of the
Syracusan general Hermocrates. Much more a man of action, Hermocrates still embodies
many of Diodotus insights into the scope of fortune and the necessity of demoting
punitive justice as a foreign policy ambition. This combination of features allows us to view
Hermocrates as Thucydides antidote to Pericles a man who can effectively lead and unite
people without untethering politics from the realities of human vulnerability and the needs
of everyday life. Hermocrates speech at Gela exhorts the feuding Sicilians to unite in the
face of the impending Athenian threat. An intriguing counterpart to Pericles funeral
oration, the speech presents a few striking contrasts.
Unlike Pericles, who vacillates between portraying war as a glorious act of freedom
and a harsh necessity, Hermocrates begins his speech with an unambiguous pronouncement that war occurs by choice and urges his fellow Sicilians to choose not to fight among
themselves. The various cities of the island must not regard war as a means to settle old
scores, and in particular, they certainly should not make the mistake of inviting Athenian
intervention on the island towards this end. Hermocrates deals with this problem in
language similar to that of Diodotus he emphasizes the futility of pursuing punitive justice:
[M]any men ere now, whether pursuing with vengeance those who have wronged them,
or in other cases, hoping to gain something by the exercise of power, have on the one
hand, not only not avenged themselves, but have not even come out whole, and, on the
other hand, instead of gaining more, have sacrificed what was their own. For revenge has
no right to expect success just because it is in the right, nor is strength sure just because
it is confident. (4.62)

Hermocrates pairs the pursuit of punitive justice with the attempt to control ones
environment through force, just as was the case in Diodotus discussion of deterrence.
Pursuing justice, attempting to acquire more, or exercising dominion all suggest the
possibility of mastering the sequence of events, and like Diodotus, Hermocrates posits great
limits on the human capability to do so. The Athenian mindset, shown by Pericles and the
generals at Melos, suggests that the weak are well aware that only the strong can actualize
justice. Hermocrates, by granting unforeseen events greater influence, warns that even the
powerful should not take it for granted that they can exercise moral freedom either.

THUCYDIDES ON THE MORALIZATION OF CONFLICT

Where Pericles dismisses the influence of fear and seeks to limit the scope of fortune
to the universe of nonhuman factors, Hermocrates welcomes an appreciation of
uncertainty and its attending fears: it is uncertainty that for the most part prevails, and
this uncertainty, treacherous as it is, proves nevertheless to be also most salutary; for since
both sides alike fear it, we proceed with greater caution in attacking one another (4.62).
Hermocrates in fact embraces fear and uses fear of Athens as a unifying principle for Sicily.
Affirming the value of fear in this way, Sicily can bring about the unification that Pericles
seeks at Athens, yet in a modestly constrained manner:
Let us feel assured that if my advice is followed we shall each keep our city free, and from
it, since we shall be arbiters of our own destiny, we shall with equal valour [requite21] him
who comes to benefit and him who comes to harm. (4.63)

By avoiding the temptations of mastery that an extended position of control might entail,
Hermocrates suggests that in its own limited space, a city can retain some of that freedom
of choice that Periclean Athens seeks to the extreme. To accomplish this, the cities of Sicily
in reality must forgo the opportunity to settle scores or perhaps even press their legal
advantage against one another. Fear counsels that the greater practicality of warding off
Athens outweighs these satisfactions.
Hermocrates wisdom is grounded in a sentiment that has only a weak connection to
the mainsprings of human action. Uncertainty about the future which to Hermocrates is a
vague fear (4.63) supports a policy of unity and moderate claims. But to many actors in
Thucydides work, uncertainty presents opportunity and is a spur to ambition, as is
recognized by Diodotus. Uncertainty of this kind appears as fear to Hobbes but it is
precisely the kind of fear that unsettles the state of nature, and which must be replaced by
the certain fear of negative consequences for transgression.22 Hermocrates amoralizing of
the world of international politics must be propped up by a grounded view of politics that
contrasts with that of Pericles. His attempt to eschew self-deceiving and self-destructive
indignation and impulse is to some degree normative. He takes the Periclean emphases on
honor and splendor and applies them to peace instead (4.62). Rather than anesthetizing
death,23 Hermocrates describes war as awful (deinon) (4.59). The city to Hermocrates is
vulnerable and can be injured by an aggressive score settling or the pursuit of other
spirited satisfactions. Where Pericles urges the Athenians not to condescend to making
concessions, to exile fortune from the realm of politics and think of nothing but vengeance
in warfare, Hermocrates announces:
I deem it my duty to make concessions, and not to harm my enemies in such a way as
to receive more injury myself, or in foolish obstinacy to think that I am as absolutely
master of Fortune, which I do not control, as of my own judgment; nay so far as is
reasonable, I will give way. (4.64)

Hermocrates policies thus aim at many of the same values as those of Pericles, but in a more
constrained manner, aware of the circumscribed nature of freedom of action. By
recommending that we eschew punitive justice in international affairs, he casts doubt on
humanitys ability to control its environment, but this acknowledgement in turn leads to a
greater sense of control over a smaller scope of events. The power to effect both good and
bad, which Pericles boasts is exercised by Athens on every sea and every land (2.41), to
Hermocrates entails simply the ability to forestall foreign interference in the affairs of Sicily
(4.63). Like the Athenian envoys at Sparta, he understands the propensity of the powerful to

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rule, yet like Diodotus he also acknowledges the other side of the coin: the powerful cannot
but expect resistance (4.61). He finds that there is something natural in both impulses. Yet
Hermocrates also seems to understand in a way that few Athenians do, that there is a certain
nobility in both the freedom to rule and freedom from rule. In short, Hermocrates does not
relinquish the aspirations of Periclean politics, but more honestly situates these aspirations in
a realistic world of necessity and compulsion. In a worthy ante litteram critique of Machiavelli,
Hermocrates discourages fighting a futile battle to master fortune, and he allows that human
factors are part of the uncontrollable natural environment in which he must operate.

Conclusion
While we encounter no sure grounds for optimism in Thucydides work, neither do we find
his pessimism doctrinaire. Enlightened views such as those of Diodotus and Hermocrates
can be brought out in deliberation to check the impulses of reflexive indignation and
punitive justice. Thucydides never claims that more moderate behavior is out of place or
dangerous in politics between states. Here he stands apart from more modern strains of
realism, many of which emphasize a positive danger in not pressing ones advantage to the
maximum,24 or at least placing a premium on the demonstration of resolve.25 This brand of
realism appears in the History, but we are given sufficient context to question its rationality.
Cleon and the Corinthian speakers both emphasize the dangers of appearing soft,
essentially invoking the Munich analogy with regard to both great power politics and
the administration of empire. Spartan inertia invites Athenian aggression, argue the
Corinthians. Cleon finds that Athenian kindness invites rebellion at Mytilene. Both speakers,
significantly, are angry and indignant about having their superiority challenged, and the
desire to punish is intertwined with and corrupts these theories of deterrence. Diodotus
critique of Cleons deterrence-through-punishment argument implies that the cause/effect
relationship between harshness and deterrence is no more reliable than the democratic
expectation of a link between fair treatment and compliance. Hermocrates continues this
line of critique and further spells out the close relationship between the desire to effect
punitive justice and the expectation of mastering causal relationships in the human realm.
Like Pericles, Hermocrates shows that freedom of action is an ennobling goal for a political
community, but also that it must be constrained lest those like Cleon saturate political
relations with a personalized animus that works against the dictates of prudence.
Prudence, to Hermocrates, entails an embrace of uncertainty and fear, which to him
intrinsically limits ambitions. By contrast, the idea of uncertainty as inspiring theoretically
unlimited aspirations to power is clearly enunciated in Hobbes (1985: 161), and is given a
contemporary voice in the theory of offensive realism.26 Former US Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara was greatly concerned by the fact that uncertainty about Soviet intentions
elicited planning based around worst-case scenarios, which in turn meant greatly expanded
conceptions of interest.27 In Hermocrates mind, uncertainty ought to have an entirely
different impact, one that undermines the logic of the Hobbesian drive for power after
power. Thucydides work as a whole suggests that expanding interests as a result of
uncertainty would be better characterized as a kind of unwarranted optimism regarding the
ability to master the causal mechanisms of human behavior. Thus, the realism of Cleon,
which focuses on the surety of deterrent effect and the coincidence between expediency and
exercising punishment, appears not to be too realistic in either sense of the word: it grounds a
disguised optimism in an unwarranted confidence in prognostication.28

THUCYDIDES ON THE MORALIZATION OF CONFLICT

The genuine realism of Hermocrates and Diodotus is cautious rather than ambitious. It
is wary of the temptation to pursue a radical freedom of action. In Diodotus case, this
pessimism is transformed into a sort of ethical realism or humanism by recognizing the
power that momentary impulse exercises over the human mind, Diodotus opens up a space
in which to exercise the human potential to see beyond it. The consequence of his embrace of
human compulsion is perhaps surprisingly a rejection of the idea that action must be met
with reaction. He discards the doctrinaire automaticity encouraged by other proponents of
realpolitik. By distancing himself from the expectation of controlling events, he gains
perspective on the relative values of punishment and clemency. Harsh treatment of
subordinates will yield no certain benefits, but Diodotus need not claim that moderation
will either. His acceptance of the limits of control allow him to acknowledge the positive side
to softness and moderation, and the recognition that such a policy is not foolproof does not
prove fatal to it, for in truth, no policy can be. This is not to say that the world is a safe place for
the inert or the scrupulously just. Rather, Diodotus seems to discourage the idea of a doctrine
of realpolitik that posits the superior reliability of force and firm action. More significantly,
Diodotus pushes us to realize that where Hobbess claim about the unavoidability of
expanding interests loses traction, so too does its normative corollary of a right to all things.
In the Mytilenian debate, the difference between the politics of control and the
politics of forbearance seems to turn not so much on a rational foresight as it does on a
kind of bias towards action. In the History, preferences for action and control however
illusory clearly preponderate, despite the security dilemmas and self-fulfilling prophecies
that ensue. Without ignoring the role that reasonable fears play in this dynamic, we can
nonetheless augment our understanding of this dynamic with Thucydides account of the
moral side of politics the spirited, Periclean side. Understanding the great stakes that the
community places in superior freedom of action helps us to understand deeply situated
drivers of power politics and the moral underpinnings of hardline stances.
In the end we are left wondering whether men like Cleon and the Corinthians at
Sparta are more afraid of having moderation insolently thrown back in their faces than
they fear the actual power of their rebellious subordinates. As Thucydides describes the
contentious men of Corcyra, slaughtering one another not from fear but out of pure
vindictiveness, he comments that they show that it is generally the case that men are
more willing to be called clever rogues than good simpletons and are as ashamed of
being the second as they are proud of being the first (3.82.7). It is tempting to think that
the true accomplishment of Cleons realpolitik lies not in a superior grasp of expediency in
human affairs, but in its ability to save his city from ever feeling the shame of playing the
good simpleton and having its liberality turned against it.

NOTES
1.
2.

3.
4.

All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from Charles Forster Smiths translation in the
Harvard Loeb edition (Thucydides 1928).
A second, more formalistic tradition seen in both Hobbes and, surprisingly, Kant finds that
the question of right is out of place prior to the establishment of the social contract;
hence relations between states are exterior to questions of right.
For a more complete discussion of this history, see Cohen (1984).
Euphemus and the Athenian envoys cannot but help make something of a moral
argument even in their talk of compulsion. Orwin (1997) and Cohen (1984) both bring out

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A. CHANCE

5.
6.

7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

13.
14.

15.
16.
17.

18.
19.
20.
21.
22.

23.
24.
25.
26.
27.

how the discussion of extenuating circumstances is indeed a relevant part of moral

discourse.
I have used Richard Crawleys more memorable translation here.
The momentary nature of the wrath is made doubly explicit by Thucydides, for not only
does orge convey a passion in the fleeting sense, the construction he uses, huporghs,
emphasizes that it is the feeling of a moment.
That is, time, or honor.
That is to say, a more intimate and moral transgression. There is a clear note of
indignation related to this consideration.
This is Crawleys translation.
For a detailed version of this argument, see Andrews (2000).
Cohen (2006) discusses the tensions between what I call visceral politics and
constructive or constraining politics.
Here we are reminded of Kants description in Perpetual Peace of the tendency in
international affairs for right to become one-sided maxims backed up by force. Likewise,
the Corinthian maxim is echoed by Englands first admirer of Machiavelli, Francis Bacon
(1985: 153), who counsels that a great state must always be prepared to be sensible (that
is, sensitive) to wrongs.
In other words, Pericles tacitly admits that subjugation is not necessarily a security threat.
The History as a whole shows virtually no instances where Athens is genuinely honored
rather than resented for its power. Pericles speeches tacitly admit this at times. See, for
example, 2.64 where we see envy as the likely response to Athenian power.
This must be qualified in some sense: it appears that humanity becomes more unruly as it
becomes more civilized, as Diodotus points out (3.45).
It is interesting to note that Diodotus here entirely rejects the underlying principle of
Hobbess political philosophy.
Diodotus speech is suggestive of deep problems in the relationship between punishment
and free will taken up by Plato. This theme appears many times in his work, for example,
in his absurd portrayal of retributive justice in Laws, which recommends punishment for
injurious roofing tiles and horses (Plato 1988: 873e).
That is justly from the simpler retributivist perspective of Cleon.
Here I refer to Thucydides maxim at 3.87 with which I began.
The speech of the Mytilenians at Sparta admits this (3.9 ff.).
Amunw means punish or reward, as in the sense of return. I have substituted Jowetts
requite for Smiths more confusing punish.
Strauss (1952) and Slomp (1990) assert the centrality of fear-as-uncertainty in Hobbess
state of nature. Thus to Strauss, Hobbess politics are ultimately about a foolproof system
more than anything else. If so, his enterprise would find little support from Thucydides.
Pericles greatest euphemism is his reference to the unfelt death of the soldier in
glorious battle (2.42).
The classic statement of this idea is found in Machiavelli (1998: 61): for a man who wishes
to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.
For example, Schellings (1966: 124) dictum that nothing is so worth fighting for as a
reputation for toughness.
For the clearest statement of offensive realism, see Mearshimer (2002).
A 1967 speech to the editors of United Press International, cited in Kegley and Raymond
(2011: 236).

THUCYDIDES ON THE MORALIZATION OF CONFLICT

28.

One is reminded here of Niebuhrs (2008: 40) critique of realism during the Cold War:
Niebuhr finds in realism a latent desire to destroy evil through force. He clearly means
some irony here, for one of twentieth-century realisms greatest laments was the liberal
aspiration to rid the world of evil by idealistic means.

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Alek Chance completed a BA from St Johns College and a PhD in political science from
Boston College. He has taught international relations and political theory at Boston
College and Loyola University Maryland. He is currently Resident Fellow at the US
Naval Academys Stockdale Center, working on problems of risk and uncertainty
in foreign policy. Correspondence address: Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership,
United States Naval Academy, 112 Cooper Rd, Annapolis, MD 21402, USA. Email
address: alekchance@gmail.com

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