An ancient reason for hope in Ukraine
Europeans still hope that Ukraine can win the current shocking war. Many also continue to hope that democracy will be a major reason why the Ukrainians will be victorious. I believe that ancient history can help us to decide whether such hopes are reasonable or unrealistic.
When Russia launched this war, some feared that Ukraine was doomed. Russia is much larger and wealthier. It has many more soldiers and weapons than Ukraine. It was feared that these numbers alone would result in a rapid Russian victory.
Europe’s leaders ended up thinking differently and decided to back Ukraine militarily. In doing so, these leaders shared a hope about democracy. This is that Ukraine, as an emerging democracy, can wage war better than autocratic Russia. Europe’s leaders also assume their own democracies are able to work out how best to back the Ukrainians militarily.
History gives us the means to test such hopes. Some might doubt that the history of Greece 2,500 years ago can provide such means. But I am here in France because French ancient historians refuted such a doubt after the Second World War.
Jean-Pierre Vernant, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Nicole Loraux and Claude Mosse, among other French historians, transformed our understanding of ancient Greece. This group, which is called the Paris School, showed how ancient history is “good to think with.” For them, studying ancient Greece was always a way to test assumptions about the modern world.
Of course, the Golden Age of ancient Athens is the 5th century BC. In this century, Athens perfected democracy and was Greece’s leading cultural innovator. A less well-known fact is the other side of this Golden Age: Fifth-century Athenians quickly became one of Greece’s two superpowers and completely transformed the art of war. Their armed forces were simply unmatched in size and professionalism.
The timing of this military success is striking. It occurred immediately after Athens had become a democracy. It would be easy to conclude that 5th century Athens confirms our hope about democracy. The simple lesson would be that democratic Ukraine can also be a great military success.
However, it turns out that the history of this Golden Age is much more complex. In the 5th century, Athens had a population that was 10 times larger than an average Greek city-state. As a superpower, Athens was also able to create an empire of 250 other states. Because Athens taxed them reasonably heavily, it had an annual budget that was 10 times larger than that of an average Greek state.
Therefore, 5th century Athens was simply wealthier and larger than the other Greek states. This means that numbers alone might be the major reasons for Athenian military success. This would cast doubt on our hopes concerning Ukraine. It might even suggest that autocratic Russia could actually win the current war.
Another less well-known fact about ancient Athens is that its history has two distinct halves. After the Golden Age there was 4th century Athens. The power of 5th century Athens resulted in a huge military response from her enemies. Sparta – Greece’s other superpower – teamed up with the Persian Empire in order to crush the Athenians.
Many states in the Athenian Empire supported the military response of Sparta and Persia because they felt exploited. After a war of 30 years, which was called the Peloponnesian War, this Greco-Persian coalition defeated the Athenians. In 404 BC, Athens thus lost its empire and the great wealth that came from it. What is more, in these 30 years of war, Athens lost half of its population.
Military success over two centuries seals the case that democracy made a huge difference to Athenian war-making
The end result was that 4th century Athens was not larger nor wealthier than Greece’s other states. Nevertheless, in this second half of its history, Athens was still a democracy.
It is this postwar period that makes ancient Athens such an important lesson from history for us today. If democracy made the Athenians better soldiers, we would expect to see military success in the 4th century. Of course, democracy would be the only major reason for such postwar success. We could be confident that it had always made a positive impact on how Athens had waged war.
The Paris School famously saw no success whatsoever in postwar Athens. For decades, this pessimistic view shaped how ancient historians the world over understood the history of 4th century Athens. This Paris-based circle held that Athens never recovered from the Peloponnesian War, falling into a grave crisis.
They also agreed that postwar Athens was a complete military failure. Claude Mosse especially asserted that 4th century Athenians increasingly refused to serve in the armed forces, leaving the fighting of wars to mercenaries. Consequently they could no longer deploy adequate fleets nor armies to protect their state. The new empire that they created – Mosse argued – was much more exploitative than the 5th century one.
Mosse even claimed that democracy itself was a major reason why postwar Athens had failed militarily.
The project that I am directing in France is challenging this traditional French view. It confirms that postwar Athens followed a very similar course to that of Europe after the Second World War. Like postwar Europe, Athens recovered quickly after the Peloponnesian War.
This new French project is confirming that it was actually a military success. Fourth-century Athens was able to deploy sufficient fleets and armies to protect its vital interests. It quickly became a major regional power and once again Greece’s leading sea-power. Learning from their mistakes, 4th century Athenians founded a new empire that was much less exploitative. The percentage of them participating in the armed forces actually increased in the 4th century.
My project in France is putting beyond doubt that democracy was the major reason for this renewed military success. In doing so, it is confirming that democracy had been a major reason for the military dominance of 5th century Athens. Military success over two centuries seals the case that democracy made a huge difference to Athenian war-making.
In the end, it turns out that ancient Athens does confirm European hopes about Ukraine. There are good reasons to hope that democratization is giving the Ukrainians a critical advantage in this terrible war. As democracies, European states can indeed make sound decisions about how best to support the Ukrainians militarily.
David M. Pritchard, an Australian ancient historian, is a research fellow at the Nantes Institute for Advanced Study (France) where he is co-organizing a conference on 4th century Athens and Claude Mosse from July 4 to 6, 2023.
