In the 1970s and early 1980s the stock brokerage firm E.F. Hutton aired a series of television commercials with the slogan, “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” Today, when renowned military historian Victor Davis Hanson warns the country to learn from past lessons of barbarism and the obliteration of entire civilizations, people notice.
“The continual disappearance of prior cultures across time and space should warn us that even familiar twenty-first century states can become as fragile as their ancient counterparts, given that the arts of destruction march in tandem with improvements in defense,” the author writes in his Introduction.
Thebes: Hope, Danger’s Comforter
In his opening chapter, Mr. Hanson analyzes in impressive fashion the destruction of Thebes by Alexander the Great in 335 B.C. Alexander’s sacking of the famed Greek city-state, a centerpiece of Hellenic culture and rival to Athens, ushered in a new Greek era. The author notes that “Thebes prided itself as an incubator of revolution.”
When Alexander’s powerful Macedonian army arrived, Thebans mistakenly thought the army would only challenge the status quo of occupied Greece and lead a spiritual rebirth of their fellow city-states.
“In the all-too-common miscalculations of the targeted, defiant Thebans looked to their impressive military, the justness of their cause, the sympathy of their allies, and their city’s hallowed reputation as an icon of eternal Hellenic culture—but not to the ruthless record of Alexander the Great,” he writes.
Alexander waited three days outside the city walls for the Thebans to accept his generous surrender terms, but when they refused, over 6,000 citizens were killed, 30,000 were captured and Thebes was plundered and razed to the ground, removing the final obstacle to Alexander’s impending invasion of Asia Minor.
Carthage Versus Rome
Mr. Hanson explains in impressive detail the lethal rivalry between Carthage and Rome that resulted in three wars between 264 B.C.–146 B.C. known as the Punic Wars. Rome feared the Carthaginian confederacy that stretched from Sicily to Spain and along the Eastern Mediterranean that included present-day Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. A thriving port and trading center, Carthage had largely been neutered by Rome as a military threat after the Second Punic war but Rome was fixated on eliminating it as an economic rival and wished to seize its wealth.The Romans used a disagreement over a treaty provision to provoke the Third Punic war, amassing a fleet larger than the American contingent that landed in France on D-Day in 1944. Like the Thebans, the Carthaginians chose against all odds to resist the invaders despite having surrendered all their weapons. Thanks partly to inept Roman leadership, Carthage managed to survive longer than Rome expected before succumbing to the third and final siege led by Scipio Aemilianus.
Delusions and Hubris
Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the fall of Constantinople and the annihilation of the Aztec empire, respectively. Unlike the total destruction of Thebes and Carthage, Mr. Hanson explains how the Christians believed that Constantinople was impenetrable due to the massive walls surrounding their city and that God would protect them from the Muslim hordes.
Regarding the Aztecs, the Spanish conquistadors manifested hubris because of their superior firepower in fighting the central Mexico peoples. But Hernán Cortés was forced to ally his greatly outnumbered conquistadors with the fierce Tlaxcalans. The Tlaxcalans despised the Aztecs because Tlaxcalan children were frequent victims of Aztec human sacrifice.
Mr. Hanson writes there are half a dozen contested explanations for why the Spanish so quickly conquered Aztec society. One of the primary reasons for their fate was that while Cortés focused more on annihilation than preservation when he obliterated the Aztec capitol of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Aztec warriors’ goal wasn’t to kill the enemy but instead to collect as many captives as possible to be sacrificed or sold into slavery for tribal recognition and rewards. Also, the Aztecs were individual warriors who didn’t coordinate offensively in battle as professional soldiers did. Consequently, their capitol city was crushed.
In his final chapter the author dissects the fine line between how the unimaginable becomes the inevitable, including present-day examples such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the threat by Russia to use nuclear weapons. Mr. Hanson also expounds on North Korea’s belligerent threats to South Korea, Iran’s persistent vows to destroy Israel and the potential nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan as flashpoints that could quickly escalate into the unthinkable.
A talented writer and historian, Mr. Hanson once again breathes life into ancient history, offers great insights into the parallels between world history and current events, and provides a provocative reminder of how fragile civilization is and how quickly it can disappear.
