WAR IS A VIOLENT TEACHER

“While great progress has been made in practically everything, and nothing is similar now to the way it was before, I think nothing has advanced and improved as much as the art of war.” Demosthenes said these words in 341 BC as a warning to his fellow Athenians to not underestimate the capabilities of their enemy, Philip of Macedon. Looking back over the last few generations, many of his listeners would have agreed that war had changed – even if, in as many ways, it had remained the same.

Roel Konijnendijk

For the sake of his speech, Demosthenes overstated the contrast between the Peloponnesian War and the warfare of his own day. Greeks had been noble then, he claimed; they fought fair and limited conflicts and fielded only brave citizen militias. Philip had ruined that beautiful tradition with his year-round campaigning, his combined-arms armies, his siege trains, and his mercenaries. We should not be misled by Demosthenes’ nostalgic picture; its purpose was to paint Philip as a corrupting force and to warn the Athenians to not treat him like just another city-state rival. In reality, the Greeks had introduced all the things Demosthenes blamed on Philip. The time since the Peloponnesian War had indeed been a period of major advances in the art of war, not least those pioneered by Athens…

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Ancient Warfare (Digital) - 1 Issue, AW XVIII.1

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