Thucydides and Homer - Two Views of War
What interests me most in comparing this work to The
Iliad is the justitification for behaviour and what seems to me to be a difference in status.
In The Iliad, Honor is predominantly the catalyst for action, or rather, it is the measure by which one decides their action. Everything is about gaining or losing honor, or have a neutral honor status. This, in many ways seems foreign to us now.
Take for example anyone supplicating a warrior to spare his life, In The Iliad, there is a choice to be made, either choice having a neutral honor effect. The capturing warrior can either spare the life and ask for ransom or kill the suppliant on the spot. The Iliad has many examples of this, the most illustrative being the scene where Agamemnon kills the suppliant of Menelaus.
However, in Thucydides, there seems to be a different set of values judging people. The gods are rarely mentioned (and this is a big point of contention), and honor seems to be implied rather than stated. What makes Thucydides writing seem so much more in tune with our modern thinking are the many references to law.
This one sentence struck me:
"...if you remember that you received us by our voluntary submission with our arms held out as suppliants (for the law in Greece forbids killing people who do that)."
This statement by the Plataeans, in defense of their own lives (that fact is not lost on me) is far from the realm of honor in battle, which is most vividly described in the Iliad. The fact is, however, that this is interpreted as law and not as a choice.
I can reconcile this discrepancy between the two values systems this way perhaps. As today, there seems to be a political or social value system that morphs to fits the need of the battlefield, war brings with it it's own justice and it's own set of mores.
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