Blogging Thucydides (I): I don’t get it

I’m going to England for a bit, so am starting this series and will run it for a few days until I see if they have the internet there. I also will find out of they all talk like Monty Python people. 

I’ve tried, but I just don’t get Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War. I’m not proud of the fact. And yes, I know this is all my own fault, just the same as my not much liking John Coltrane or Charlie Parker. (I once got a note from a Marine in southern Afghanistan instructing me which Coltrane CD to start with — the title of the disc was  something like "Coltrane’s Ballads." I tried. But entry-level Coltrane playing gently just sounded to me like a minor league Ben Webster. Nobody plays ballads like Webster.)

Back to Thucydides. Lots of smart people have told me it is essential reading, so I figured I would give it another whack. So I am here to report that I have finished reading through Thucydides for the second time.

Alas, no better this time. When I read and re-read Clausewitz, which I have done often, lines jump out at me on every page. Not here. I know this is taught as the world war of 400 or so BC, but it just feels to me like a lot of village squabbles. (I did enjoy the section on the Sicilian expedition, but I suspect that is mainly because I love Sicily, and especially the old city in Syracuse, and have climbed all over the walls above the city. I’ve even eaten lunch twice at the spot where the Athenians first fought the Syracusans, on the riverbank about a mile west of town where there is now a World War II Italian pillbox. Mock the Italian army if you will, but their pillboxes were built to last.) 

That said, there were a few things that intrigued me, and I will mention them in subsequent posts. Maybe there is hope for me yet.