Security and Internal Conflict in the Arkhidamian War
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2014-09-16
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Abstract
Thoukudides (3.81-83) reports a proliferation of internal wars, or staseis, during the
Arkhidamian War (431 – 421), and argues for a causal relationship between the outbreak
of external war and large-scale violence within polities in the Hellenic world.
Thoukudides’ hypothesis is vague and incomplete, and its explanatory power has seldom
been critiqued. I apply basic concepts of security theory to the internal conflicts that
occurred in Mutilene, Korkura, and Leontinoi during this decade, and find that
Thoukudides’ hypothesis inappropriately describes staseis as grass-roots occurrences
naturally proceeding from the condition of war in the region. On the contrary, it is
apparent that stasis generally arises when leaders, responding to the developments of the
war, adopted deleterious security policies which themselves made their cities less secure.