Piety, Justice, and the Necessities of War: Thucydides' Delian Debate

Political philosophy or science first emerged in response to certain contradictions in political life that thoughtful citizens could not but face. Nowhere is this process better portrayed than in Thucydides, who of all great students of politics remains closest to the perspective of practice, at the same time showing how practice points us toward a place of critical distance from politics. The Greek political world, like all prescientific worlds, acknowledged certain gods who, as rulers, made demands on humankind. But because these were neither the only, nor in practice the most insistent, demands made on humankind, the question necessarily arose as to the gods' status in the event of conflict—as to the relative necessity of these divine demands. From this followed the further question—crucial for the emergence of political science or philosophy—as to whether the political world was ruled indeed by the gods or by necessity.