Doing Justice to Others 29invoke what would later be termed the principle of necessity. Th ey conceded
that their occupation of the temple was wrongful in principle— but that it
was nonetheless justifi able as “a case of necessity” and not out of “any lack
of proper religious feeling.” Th e temple’s deity, they confi dently asserted,
would look with indulgence on “any action done under the stress of war and
danger.” Th e act would be unlawful, the Athenians contended, only if there
had been no necessity for the occupation.
Having defended their action at the temple, the Athenians then proceeded,
in turn, to accuse the Th ebans of denying to them the traditional right of
burial of dead aft er a battle. Th e Th ebans denied wrongdoing by contesting
Athens’s version of the content of the rule. Th e right of burial applied, they
asserted, only when the dead were located in their home territory (in this in-
stance, they were not). An invading force, such as the Athenian one, was en-
titled to recover its dead only aft er withdrawing from the invaded territory.
Th e Th ebans, though, went on to propose a settlement: that they would
allow the burial of the Athenian dead, in return for Athens’s evacuation of
the temple. Th e Athenians refused this, on the ground that they were enti-
tled, as a matter of right, to the burials; consequently, they did not need to
give anything in return. Th e result of these negotiations was a stalemate.
Athens did not recover the bodies, nor Th ebes its temple. (A few weeks later,
though, the matter was resolved, aft er a fashion: the Athenians were driven
out of the area, at which point a further request for the dead bodies was
granted by the now- victorious Th ebans.)
Alleged violations of the laws of war were also invoked in 200 bc, when
an Athenian delegation sought the aid of the states of the Aetolian League in
an ongoing war against Macedonia. Th e Athenians (in the account of Livy)
told of the devastation of their houses and crops by invading Macedonians.
But they also pointedly conceded that tactics of that sort, while harsh, were
not actually unjust, “for there are... laws of war which are legitimate sanc-
tions, whether one avails oneself of them or suff ers under them.” Quite dif-
ferent, however, was the alleged Macedonian practice of destroying religious
shrines and desecrating graveyards. Th ese were acts that, in the Athenian
view, “polluted all laws, human and divine alike.” In the event, the Aeto-
lian League did enter the war on the Athenian side, but for reasons of strate-
gic self- interest and security, rather than of umbrage over legal or moral
transgressions.