Thucydides and the British reaction to the French Revolution

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ancient Athenian historian Thucydides’ account of the civil and interstate wars of classical Greece proved particularly illuminating for British commentators writing at the time of the French Revolution (1789–99). However, despite a growing scholarly interest in Thucydides’ Nachleben in historical and political thought, little has been said on this period of his reception. This paper aims to address that gap. It suggests that, while Thucydides remained something of a minority interest, a curious mix of historians, journalists and political commentators turned to his History to explore the possibility that it might illuminate contemporary events. They were particularly interested in Thucydides’ account of the stasis on Corcyra (modern Corfu), and its role in spreading instability, civil strife and war throughout Greece. These commentators used Thucydides to think through the similarities and differences between ancient and modern iterations of political violence and sometimes appropriated his language to existing political vocabularies and categories of thought. This resulted in innovative interpretations of Thucydides’ text that emphasized the affinities between stasis in Antiquity with the idea of civil war, sedition, political instability and decline and fall in the contemporary world. It also led to the emergence of nuanced ideas of the lessons and warnings that could be drawn from Greek history as presented by Thucydides and how they could be applied to the turbulent politics of the 1790s.