Remarks on the Ancient Evidence for Democratic Peace
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343301038005004 |
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| Author | Spencer R. Weart |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
609
Evidence on Syracuse
What can we learn about war and democracy
from the history of ancient Greece? As
Robinson (2001) understands, the surviving
information is so limited that at most we may
find hints that could modify arguments
based on more modern evidence. Robinson
has attempted just that, moving the dis-
cussion forward usefully. However, he has
missed some key points.
Discussions of the democratic peace in
ancient Greece have mostly focussed, as
Robinson does, on the search for counter-
examples and particularly the single case of
the Athenian expedition against Syracuse.
Historians have long debated whether Syra-
cuse should be classified as a ‘democracy’ in
the Athenian sense, and most would agree
with Robinson’s impressive case for a demo-
cratic Syracuse. Yet the case is far from
certain, for all evidence from the period is
flimsy.
Consider a single passage in Thucydides
(6.32–41), which Robinson has not men-
tioned, although a significant fraction of the
historians’ debate has revolved around it. It
is no firsthand account, but a literary recon-
struction based on unknown sources
(perhaps Thucydides’ notes of talks with
Spartans who recalled what they were told
by Syracusans?). Weak as it is, this passage is
the best, indeed the only, surviving descrip-
tion of political activity in Syracuse at the
time of interest. The passage summarizes a
session in the assembly of Syracuse after
rumors arrived of Athenian plans for an
invasion. A democratic faction argued that
© 2001 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 38, no. 5, 2001, pp. 609–613
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks,
CA and New Delhi)
[0022-3433(200109)38:5; 609–613; 019471]
Remarks on the Ancient Evidence for Democratic
Peace
SPENCER R. WEART
Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics
Responding to Eric Robinson, it is argued that evidence from ancient Greece is inadequate to provide
reliable counter-examples to the democratic peace proposition, provided that the proposition is cor-
rectly defined. For the best-documented case, the Athenian invasion of Syracuse, the preponderance of
evidence does make Syracuse a well-established democracy like Athens. But there is contradictory evi-
dence not addressed by Robinson. More important, it is arguable that the decisionmaking body in
Athens (the majority of the assembly) did not perceive Syracuse as behaving like a fellow democracy.
That is what matters, according to an explanation of the democratic peace based not on institutional
or normative causes but on the decisionmakers’ perception of a shared democratic political culture. In
more modern cases where such ambiguities can be checked against primary evidence, the proposition
that this shared perception prevents war holds almost without exception. Other ancient cases cited by
Robinson, including all those tabulated by Bruce Russett and William Antholis, involve either
(1) regimes even less likely to have perceived each other as democracies, or (2) conflicts that apparently
fell below the level of 200 combat deaths, which is a threshold for violence between democracies. Finally,
Robinson fails to address the theoretically crucial finding that peace has also held with high consistency
between oligarchic republics, from ancient times to the present.
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