Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieP
I’d rank Pericles as #1 since he was the General. Granted Thucydides wrote about it but I would rank him somewhere near the middle. But how can you leave out Socrates?
“An earlier post considered the Melian massacre and the Athenian conduct of war during the Peloponnesian War (link). Since we know that Socrates served as an armored infantry soldier during that war (a hoplite), it is reasonable to ask whether Socrates would have carried out atrocious orders involving the execution of prisoners, enslavement of women and children, and other acts of retaliation and punishment against the enemies of Athens.
In particular, would Socrates the hoplite have obeyed the order to slaughter the innocent? Ancient historian Mark Anderson offers a detailed analysis of the known context of Athenian warfare and Socrates' military history, and concludes that Socrates did not express moral opposition to these acts of war (Mark Anderson, "Socrates as Hoplite"; link). Anderson argues at length that Socrates was a hoplite during exactly these kinds of campaigns of retaliation, and that he never expressed any moral objection to them. Against the arguments of Gregory Vlastos and other scholars of Athenian philosophy, Anderson argues that the historical record of Socrates’ military service is fairly clear, and it is evident that his participation was voluntary, courageous, extended, and supportive. Anderson argues on the basis of these facts that Socrates did not offer moral objections to this dimension of Athenian military strategy.“
https://understandingsociety.blogspo...s-hoplite.html |
This really comes down to a debate on how we value value. I ranked (totally didn’t just randomly jot the first 10 leaders of the war that came to me…. I would never do that!) them based upon their contributions to the war and only the war, not their broader contributions to humanity. If we’re ranking on lifetime net WAR, I would also put Socrates #1, with 365.36482847288483 points by my advanced math whose formula I cannot share for reasons.
My formula also shows that Socrates-Plato-Aristotle is the most valuable direct lineage teaching line in world history with a hair over 1,000 WAR.