All wars have causes; some have pretexts. When Polybios distinguishes between the cause, the pretext, and the beginning of war, his language sounds curiously modern. When he summarizes the causes of the Second Punic War the modern reader is not so satisfied. The war was due, in his opinion, to the indignation of Hamilcar Barca, who had to accept peace when he could have continued fighting in Sicily; to the anger of the Carthaginians, when they were forced to surrender Sardinia; (...) and to the good fortune which attended their armies in Spain. A more recent account differs from Polybios not only on matters of detail. ‘It is true that it was Hannibal's attack on Saguntum, undertaken in full knowledge of the almost inevitable consequences, that precipitated the war, but the historian must decide that, so far as attack and defence have a meaning in the clash between states, the balance of aggression must incline against Rome.’. (shrink)

According to Livy (26.18.3–26.19.2), in late 211 Publius Cornelius Scipio was electedpriuatus cum imperio pro consuleby thecomitia centuriataand sent to Spain in charge of the legions formerly led by his father Publius and his uncle Gnaeus. This was the beginning of a new phase in the Hannibalic War, which would ultimately lead Rome to victory against its most dangerous enemy. As has long been recognized, Livy assigns Scipio a central role in the narrative development of the Third Decade. For most (...) critics, this centrality coincides with (and is the result of) Livy's admiration: in his view, Scipio is thefatalis dux, the commander sent by Providence to lead Rome to victory; he is Hannibal's rival par excellence, the only leader capable of matching the enemy's military genius and blocking his relentless advance against the Republic; he is, above all, the most shining example of the Roman virtues. (shrink)

Riassunto La punizione inflitta, nel 211 a. C., ai Campani, municipes sine suffragio, per la loro defezione ad Annibale, era stata assunta da una parte del senato a paradigma anche per i soci Tarentini, nel 208 a. C., rei allo stesso modo. Tale valutazione politica poggiava sull’assunto che la pena dovesse essere commisurata alla colpa, indipendentemente dal differente statuto giuridico dei defezionisti. Questa è espressione della linea rigorista perseguita contro i traditori, tra alti, da Q. Fulvius Flaccus, all’opposto di quella (...) moderata e pragmatica sostenuta da Q. Fabius Maximus. (shrink)

Hannibal's trek through western Europe has fascinated ancient and modern historians alike. Although most attention has been focused on determining his route through the Alps, a less popular question, the site of his Rhône crossing, has been by no means neglected. Many scholars have offered differing solutions to this problem, but all agree on one point: that Hannibal transported his elephants across the Rhône by raft. No doubt this consensus stems from the fact that both Polybius and Livy, who give (...) almost identical versions of the crossing, agree on this mode of transport. But an analysis of their accounts will show that the use of rafts was neither necessary nor desirable and that a more likely method is contained in an alternative version that Livy records, then rejects in favour of Polybius' account. (shrink)

This article deals with the fight between the river Trebia and Scipio the Elder in Silius Italicus’ Punica (4.525–703), notoriously based on the Homeric battle between Achilles and Scamander (Il. 21.1–382). By means of a close reading of the geographical details of Silius’ account, this article aims at highlighting the peculiar role given to the landscape in this episode. By intertwining well-established epic topoi and historiographical reflections, the poet imbues Italy's landscape with a profound ideological meaning. His depiction of the (...) natural environment thematizes key issues relating to the Second Punic War, such as the disruptive effects of Hannibal's invasion on the bond between Italian communities, the problematic nature of shared Italian identity, and the contagious nature of rebellion. (shrink)

Finley’s life during and just after World War II, although neglected by biographers and others interested in his career, was a formative period for him. A successful activist for Soviet-solidarity organizations, he learned lessons in public outreach that would affect his teaching and later public activity, and absorbed experiences that found their way into his first well-known book, The World of Odysseus. During this period he changed his name from Finkelstein to Finley, a shift emblematic of his adjustment to a (...) postwar situation that would prove professionally difficult for him, yet intellectually fruitful. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Characterization of Hanno in Plautus’ PoenulusGeorge Fredric FrankoPoenulus commands our attention because it is the one specimen of Roman New Comedy in which the main characters are not Greeks. Although the action takes place in the Aetolian city of Calydon, the young lover Agorastocles, his beloved Adelphasium, her sister Anterastilis, and the title character Hanno are all natives of Carthage. While the first three are represented as if (...) they were typical Greeks in Roman comedy, Hanno is represented as patently Punic in his physiognomy, dress, speech, and behavior, making him the earliest extant portrayal of a Carthaginian in Latin literature. Since the Carthaginians were the most formidable and vilified enemies of the Romans, any Roman portrayal of a Carthaginian figure holds our interest. Yet the portrayal of Hanno rouses special interest because he is not a villain. Modern readers familiar with the anti-Punic discourse prevalent throughout Latin literature are continually struck by the “sympathetic” portrayal of this Carthaginian, especially since Poenulus was composed when the Second Punic War was in recent memory. A. S. Gratwick, in his masterly chapter on Roman drama in the Cambridge History of Classical Literature (vol. 2, 94) observed that Hanno’s “portrayal is wholly (if disparately) sympathetic, and there is no trace of xenophobia, although the play was certainly produced within Hannibal’s lifetime.... that Plautus should even have envisaged its successful production tells us something of his authority in the theatre and of the openmindedness of his audience.” Others have seen more than mere sympathy and openmindedness. For example, a review of a recent performance of Poenulus observed that “the play is timely in light of the American university’s recent preoccupation with multiculturalism” and proceeded to make much ado about the sympathetic portrayal of the Carthaginian title character and the magnanimity that such sympathy reveals. The review even saw proof of “Plautus as humanitarian and social commentator” (Frauenfelder, “Plautus non manu”). Certainly the fact that an amiable Carthaginian is portrayed as neither villain nor scapegoat deserves our close attention; however, Poenulus must not be appropriated as an example of benevolent Roman multiculturalism without reflection because while there are indeed cosmopolitan elements in the play there are also powerful images of xenophobia and ethnocentrism. We must not allow our present-day preoccupations with magnanimous pluralism to influence our interpretation of [End Page 425] how the play was understood by a Roman audience. This analysis of Hanno’s characterization will reveal that the attractive aspects of his portrayal are offset by some unsavory ethnic stereotyping.We should not dismiss Hanno’s portrayal as “sympathetic” (whatever one takes that word to mean) without further comment, for his portrayal is far more complex than that, containing strongly positive and strongly negative elements which do not permit encapsulation by such a simple adjective. In fact, there are at least four distinct components or layers of Hanno’s characterization and these components constantly play off of each other. 1) Hanno is first and foremost a senex filling traditional roles in the palliata. He is primarily the father who recovers his lost children, a pater pius like Hegio in Captivi or Daemones in Rudens. He also assumes the role of senex lepidus, like Periplectomenus in Miles, and thus at times he behaves like a servus callidus (Gratwick, “Drama” 110). He is indeed the “master of many roles” (Slater, “Plautine Negotiations” 143). 2) But Hanno is unique because he is our only extant Carthaginian senex and the Roman audience must have viewed him differently from other senes because of his Punic ethnicity. The speaker of the prologue, the slave Milphio, and the soldier Antamoenides draw the audience’s attention to negative stereotypes of Punics and attribute perceived vices in Hanno’s behavior to his non-Greek ethnicity. 3) Although Hanno does display some stereotyped Punic vices, he also manages to display two peculiarly Roman virtues, namely, exemplary pietas and a mastery of Roman law. This is not a mere sidelight but a central issue of the play: Hanno uses Roman strengths, not the expected Punic or servile trickery, to recover his family and achieve a happy ending. 4) Yet Hanno also uses these Roman strengths for frivolous... (shrink)

The Other's War is an intervention into a set of contemporary moral, political and legal debates over the legitimacy of war and terrorism within the context of the so-called global War on Terror. Tarik Kochi considers how, despite the variety of its approaches âe" just war theory, classical realist, post-Kantian, poststructuralist âe" contemporary ethical, political and legal philosophy still struggles to produce a convincing account of war. Focusing on the philosophical problem of the rightness of war, The Other's War responds (...) to this lack. Through a discussion of a number of key Western intellectual traditions, Kochi demonstrates how often conflicting and contradictory conceptions of warâe(tm)s rightness have developed in modernity. He shows how a process of ordering violence around different notions of right has constantly redrawn the boundaries of what constitutes âe~legitimateâe(tm) violence. Such a process has consequences for anyone who claims to be fighting a âe~just warâe(tm). Building upon this account and drawing upon the philosophical heritage of G.W.F. Hegel and Ernst Bloch, The Otherâe(tm)s War proposes a new understanding of war, not just as a social condition characterised by violent conflict and struggles for power, but as the attempt of individuals and groups to realise their normative claims through violence. Kochi argues that both of these aspects of war are an expression of the metaphysics of human subjectivity. War begins with, and is the radical exaggeration of, a fundamental activity of human subjectivity, in which the subject constitutes its normative and material identity; realising and positing itself through acts that involve negation and violence. By drawing consideration of the problem of war back to the level of a philosophical examination of the metaphysics of human subjectivity, The Other's War develops a novel theory of war that helps us to better understand the nature of contemporary conflict as a process of recognition. From this perspective, judgment, it is concluded, needs to be constantly guided by the effort to recognise the ethics of the other's war. (shrink)

This article examines the forces that have made federal scientific publication an essentially private enterprise. Particular attention is paid to the rise of the scientific community in the American political system. The period under review begins roughly with 1941 and American involvement in World War II, which coincides with the establishment of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (ORSD). The article examines OSRD's method of conducting federal scientific research, its contractual system, and the new publishing paradigm that it engendered. (...) The article concludes in the 1960s with congressional efforts to revise provisions in Title 17, the. (shrink)

The concept of apocalypse is well established in all the major religions of the world, be they Semitic religions or Hinduism. The underlying idea behind the concept in all the religions remains the same, that is, the world will come to an end. The end itself, which has been called the Judgment Day, Day of Resurrection, or the Day of Retribution or Reckoning will be preceded by some signs. It has also been called the day of Apocalypse, the day when (...) the whole world will be destroyed. One of the distinct forms of it is Muslim Apocalypse about which a lot has been written. However, the argument of the present research paper shall be to examine the concept of the Mahdi primarily from the Shi’te Muslim point of view. The premise of the argument is that Shi’te argument or concept of the Mahdi is far more substantial having a solid theoretical foundation than the other perspectives about it. No wonder, therefore, the concept of the Mahdi has manifested itself in literature across cultures and ages. There are so many poets, primarily, Muslim poets who have highlighted this concept in their poetry and thus the research paper shall make an attempt to look at some of those poets and their understanding of it. (shrink)

Russia's war against Ukraine has had devastating human consequences and destabilizing geopolitical effects. This roundtable takes up three critical debates in connection with the conflict: Ukraine's potential accession to the European Union; the role of Ukrainian nationalism in advancing democratization; and the degree of human rights accountability, not just for Russia, but also for Ukraine. In addition to challenging conventional wisdom on each of these issues, the contributors to this roundtable make a second, critically important intervention. Each essay explores the (...) problem of concealed political and normative commitments within much of the research on Russia's war against Ukraine by unearthing biases intrinsic to particular conceptualizations. The collection also questions the perceived separation between “interests” and “values” that permeates policy analysis. This roundtable further draws attention to the ethical problems that scholars and policymakers bring to policy debates through the occlusion of their preexisting political commitments. It argues for greater transparency around and awareness of the ways in which values, not just evidence, inform research findings and policy positions. (shrink)

This article shows how Schmitt’s work is animated by a fundamental conflict between two concepts of conflict: the one is Schmitt’s own, war, polemos, and the other one is discussion, dialogue, conversation or polemics, which may be said, accordingly, to be Schmitt’s foe. Schmitt’s project is thus described as a conflict between war and discussion: polemos vs polemics, an inner war within the notion of war. The article contemplates this basic configuration and points at some of its major significations for (...) Schmitt’s political theology and theory of state and international law. (shrink)

A short discussion on how photography can capture the sturdiness lent to our personality by our long-term policies structuring our reasoning, even during times of war and other cataclysms.

Review of: Dialogue derailed: Joseph Ratzinger's war against pluralist theology, by Ambrose Ih-Ren Mong, pp. 325, paperback, 30; pdf, 26.50.

WE SCHOLARS WHO WRITE ABOUT THE Republic have found much to say about the education of Plato’s warriors. We carefully and thoughtfully relate their virtues to those of the Republic ’s philosopher-kings, and even to those of Plato’s Socrates. We have found much less to say about Plato’s peculiar account of that for which they are educated— war. I agree with Leon Craig that war and spiritedness are central to the argument of the Republic. Indeed, I will contend, Socrates’ three (...) different accounts of war reflect and, in a way, complete the central argument of the Republic. Yet Craig and other modern scholars of the cultivation of Plato’s warriors have very little to say on Socrates’ three accounts of the city at war. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 457-472.

This book discusses how rational choice theory grew out of RAND's work for the US Air Force. It concentrates on the work of William J. Riker, Kenneth J. Arrow, James M. Buchanan, Russel Hardin, and John Rawls. It argues that within the context of the US Cold War with its intensive anti-communist and anti-collectivist sentiment, the foundations of capitalist democracy were grounded in the hyper individualist theory of non-cooperative games.

From the concrete experience of war, Michael S. Yandell constructs a phenomenology of “negative revelation” in which false or distorted claims of goodness and justice disintegrate and become meaningless, adding depth to the term moral injury.

ISBN-13: 978-1934074480
Plot Summary from the book:
"An aristocratic young man, fed up with his studies, contemplates military service. His teacher is unable by any reasoning to call him back him from the path he has embarked upon. The young man enlists another youth who commits himself to the journey, dressed in military garb, and he happens upon two deserting soldiers, unsightly and ill-used both in their dress and in their hygiene. Both young men are so moved by the deserters’ (...) remarks deploring and reviling their lot in life that they return to their studies. One of the deserters, however, hopes to be welcomed back by the wife and small children he had deserted and left penniless and bereft of friends. She gives him a nasty reception, with verbal and corporal abuse, and he barely manages to have his sin forgiven and to return to her good graces."
From the Table of Contents:
Introduction
How to Use this Book
Jacobus Pontanus: Biography
Jesuit Comedy – Seriously?
The Stratocles as a Spiritual Exercise
Just War and the Morality of Military Service
A Play about War and the Real Wars of Pontanus' Time
The Characters and Their Names
Pontanus’ Use of Classical Sources
The History of the Text of Stratocles
Performance
Stratocles or War
Endnotes
Appendices
Pontanus on Humanist Studies
Pontanus on Writing Comedy
Renaissance School Hazing, called “Deposition”
Anonymous: Instructions for Deposition
Dialogue on Hazing (Progymnasma 100)
. (shrink)

Here in the Achilleid Statius catalogues the contributions of Greek towns to Agamemnon's expedition against Troy. Every item of equipment is appropriate to its origin. There is one puzzle, however: why is it that murorum tormenta are the peculiar contribution of Pylos and Messene? O. A. W. Dilke suggests that the proximity of classical Messene to Mt Ithome would have reminded Statius of the siege of that place by the Spartans in 464–59 b.c., when they were aided by the Athenians, (...) experts in siege warfare. This solution is undoubtedly ingenious but, based as it is upon association, it places this last entry in a quite different category from the previous entries: all the preceding items have been very definite products of their places of origin. K. von Barth , while noting the not unparalleled anachronism, attempts to account in another way for the siege-engines: ‘quia ibi silvae crassissimas arbores habent’. But there is no evidence to support this: Messenia features neither in the pages of Theophrastus or Pliny as a source of quality timber, nor in the poets as an area which is characterised by the stoutness of its trees. These theories pay insufficient attention to the verb tendunt, the vox propria for exerting a strain on rope, making it taut. (shrink)

This research applies John Bowlby’s (1958–63) attachment theory to analyse child–parent relationships associated with loss and security in the children’s picture book, The Journey (2016) by Francesca Sanna, to examine children’s war trauma through attachment styles. Furthermore, Hong et al.’s (2013) cultural attachment theory is employed to explore the story representation of the children’s relationship with their culture. Amnesty International UK endorses the picture book to teach children about the hardships of refugees and asylum seekers. However, children’s literature often superficially (...) represents war experiences, causing disparities between reality and the portrayal, that limits young readers from creating simulations for their socio-emotional development. The researchers argue that The Journey under-represents children’s war trauma, potentially leading young readers to misinterpret the psychological experiences of child refugees and asylum seekers. (shrink)

This edited volume focuses on the use of ?necessary condition counterfactuals? in explaining two key events in twentieth century history, the origins of the ...

The nature of the Florentine economy during the era of plague and the so-called crisi del trecento has been the subject of a great deal of study and debate. The nuanced and sophisticated discourse has proceeded, however, without proper consideration of warfare, which coincided with the other crises, but has been relegated in the Anglophone scholarship to the lonely subfield of military history. Recent studies have helped improve the status quo and blur rigid disciplinary lines. But there remains a stubborn (...) tendency among scholars to separate Italian war from its societal milieu, to follow the lead of Machiavelli in treating armed conflict in moral terms, focusing on the use by states of mercenary soldiers, who were emblematic of a lack of native martial spirit and of bad warfare. The tendency is particularly marked for the middle years of the trecento, the era of the “companies of adventure,” when states relied on foreign soldiers from outside the peninsula arrayed in large bands. This was, as a recent scholar has asserted, “the lowest point” in the history of Italian military organization, a statement that renders warfare still less appealing as a topic of serious inquiry. (shrink)

Translation previously published in: The Huainanzi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

This paper elaborates Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘war machine’ in relation to key theses in Hegel’s political philosophy, with the aim of showing how it illuminates the conditions under which politics and political institutions as Hegel understands them both emerge and are compromised. After first introducing the idea of the war machine and its appropriation by discussing it in relation to Carl Schmitt’s theory of partisan warfare, it examines both the war machine and Hegel’s theory of the State by way of (...) a focus on Hegel’s discussions of drive (Trieb) and semblance (Schein). Regarding the first, the paper explores how both Hegel and Deleuze and Guattari conceive of social structure in terms of a structure of drives even while they differ in their understandings of the drives in relation to desire and subjectivity. Regarding the second, the paper explores how moments of semblance identified by Hegel as he develops his system of Right reveal points where the war machine can emerge from within State structures. The paper argues that the war machine concept challenges understandings of politics built on friend/enemy antagonisms and the use of external conflict to secure internal unity, the former being Schmitt’s explicit political project and the second being the place at which Hegel’s project ultimately finds itself when it fails to secure the rational structure of Ethical Life. (shrink)