Routledge (2020) h/b 220pp £120.00 (ISBN 978081536592)
‘Our nation is the greatest force for good in history.’ Ancient historians and classicists might be excused for thinking this a quotation from fifth-century Athens—an epitaphios logos (annual state funeral oration), perhaps, a tragedy or a speech from Thucydides’ History. It was, in fact, said in 2002 by George W. Bush, the then leader of what America and her satellites might call ‘the free world’, but its sentiment has been shared by imperial powers throughout history.
But can Athens be defined as an imperial power? M. begins this vital, tightly-argued monograph by addressing the nature of Athenian arkhê, drawing on tragedy and oratory as well as ‘comparative material from imperial nations geographically and temporally distant from Athens’ to demonstrate how it did indeed conform to many definitions of empire (imposition of tribute, economic and military power, the need to expand or die). Athenians’ self-image (as expressed in drama and epitaphioi) showed similar imperial tropes, as they believed themselves to be autochthonous and favoured by the Divine, to rule benignly, to be a beacon of civilization, protecting deserving suppliants and upholding justice.
Of course, many modern readers will find the very idea of imperialism repugnant, but as M. stresses, to understand Athens, we must not judge its citizens by our standards: ‘…while it is morally right to condemn imperialism, and to view any of its justifications very sceptically, it is not necessarily historically right to let modern qualms blind us to the idea that imperialism could be, at the very least, a natural state of affairs, and at most extremely attractive, at all levels of society, both economically and psychologically, and it is important to attempt to imagine the implications of this attraction as a framework for considering fifth-century Athens’. As she writes later: ‘Modern scholars can be suspicious of overtly patriotic sentiments, but we are not Athenian citizen-soldiers.’
Through close examination of speeches, tragedy and comedy, M. builds a convincing picture of how the moulding of mythology and constant repetition of a catalogue of past success and present virtue resulted in (what John Richardson calls) a ‘mental wallpaper’, which not only shaped beliefs about what it was to be Athenian but came to influence policy and action. One Athenian writer, however, is conspicuous in not toeing the party line: Thucydides, ‘the only contemporary source that focuses consistently on [Athenian power]’. M. ends her monograph by discussing why this may be so. Arguing convincingly that the notorious nexus of speeches in his History represent not what was said but what the speaker ‘really meant’, she demonstrates that he utilizes many imperial topoi familiar from other works of literature, to trace how Athens was arguably destroyed by a belief in its own increasingly hollow-sounding propaganda.
With copious chapter endnotes, extensive (30-page) bibliography and index, this vital and well-written book cannot be too highly recommended to anyone interested in what until recently was called the ‘Golden Age of Athens’—or, indeed, in empire and imperial overreach in general. To quote George W. Bush once more, its author might well observe (albeit with greater justification than he): ‘mission accomplished’.
David Stuttard