Thucydides Roundtable, Book VII: Syracuse Through the Eyes of a Samurai
[by A. E. Clark]
The Sicilian debacle that unfolds in Book VII arises from more than one cause and offers more than one lesson: but this reader was struck by the recurring motif of timing, which the Athenians keep getting wrong while their adversaries usually get it right. An obvious approach to this subject is through the Greek word kairos, which denotes an opportune moment that must be seized promptly when it comes along. Wikipedia has an interesting overview of how this concept, which appears to have originated in archery or perhaps the craft of weaving with a shuttle, came to be elaborated in classical rhetoric and Christian theology. Its military applications are obvious. In his Funeral Oration, Pericles notes, tou de polemou hoi kairoi ou menetoi: in war, moments of opportunity do not linger. (1.142.1)
Thucydides makes it clear that Gylippus, from his first entrance on the scene, is a man of kairos. “[H]e had arrived at a critical moment” (7.2.4); “at last he thought that the moment had come” (7.5.2); the word in both instances is kairos. The Athenians by no means lacked such insight, but usually they failed to act on it: it is worth reading carefully the analysis Lamachus gave at Syracuse in 415, after which he allowed himself to be overruled (6.49.1-4). The Athenians repeatedly tarry precisely when decisive action is needed. Thucydides credits Demosthenes with proceeding to Sicily “without delay,” but the account suggests otherwise: the general stops at various places to build forts, ravage territory, and collect troop increments of marginal utility (7.20.2-3, 7.26, 7.33). By contrast, in this fateful summer of 413, the Spartans begin their invasion of Attica “in the first days of spring, at an earlier period than usual.” (7.19.1)
After they have been defeated but when they can still escape, again and again the Athenians prove fatally dilatory. The generals disagree after Epipolae, and so do nothing (7.47-49). The Athenians finally decide to sail away when the enemy brings in a fresh army, but a lunar eclipse persuades the superstitious Nicias to defer the departure by 27 days (7.50.4). They let themselves be cheated of their last chance to slip away by land when they uncritically accept a spoofed message of disinformation telling them to wait (7.73.3-7.74.1).
The very Greek theme of kairos, then, reverberates through this drama: the Spartans and the Syracusans know how to seize it, while the Athenians don’t, and that spells the difference between victory and defeat. But I will confess that this is not what first occurred to me as I read Book VII. Instead I heard echoes of a work of strategy by an author who certainly never read Thucydides and was steeped in a profoundly different culture. Go Rin No Sho, the “Book of Five Rings,” by a masterless samurai of the early seventeenth century, subsumes both individual dueling and large-scale warfare under the same “art of the advantage.” Miyamoto Musashi knew about kairos, but he called it Crossing at a Ford. Of particular relevance to students of Book VII, he explores with Delphic intensity the role of hyoshi: timing (or ‘rhythm’).
The way to win in a battle according to military science is to know the rhythms of specific opponents, and use rhythms that your opponents do not expect, producing formless rhythms from rhythms of wisdom. (transl. Cleary)
If that key passage from near the end of the Earth Scroll sounds too much like a fortune cookie, be assured that Musashi explores the matter in greater detail. He stresses pre-emption, the seizure of the initiative by attacking suddenly, or by interrupting the enemy’s attack at its very inception, or by exploiting momentary imbalances when you are attacking each other more or less simultaneously.
Unfortunately, I do not know Japanese, and the language of Musashi presents difficulty even for those who do. Go Rin No Sho was probably a set of notes meant to supplement allusively an oral teaching that is unavailable to us. The translations by Thomas Cleary and William Scott Wilson are both respected by experts, but they differ from each other enough to indicate that the text must not be entirely clear. Here are two fine articles by Musashi enthusiasts that unpack some of the subtleties:
http://kenshi247.net/blog/2012/07/20/hyoshi/
http://ichijoji.blogspot.com/2013/07/hyoshi-timing-rhythm-and-translation.html
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