Adaptability of societal structures has driven the progress of cultural evolution. From the harsh Paleolithic planes of Africa to the height of Roman civilization, the ability of a culture to adapt to both external and internal changes played a major role in its survivability. Unlike other social species, the human ruling class directs societies, at least in part. Out of self-interest and special levels of social intelligence found only in great apes, the leading individuals have guided the great cultures into cataclysmic battles for not only their own survival, but also the very culture they shape. Through the horrors of war, human societies found either survival in glorious victory, or they disappeared into the pages of antiquity.
The duality of culture and warfare seem at odds, although they often walk the same path. Cultural views, like those of some religions, sometimes condemn violence and the dogs of war starve themselves without cultural backing and a leash. Still, the greatest pinnacles of human progress have come at the end of both sword and pen. However, the greatest falls came from either the tip of a hired blade or a sip of venomous wine.
Before the great ancient states fell, they first caused numerous other, lesser states to fall. The heads of those states failed to see the approaching storm and devise a stratagem to save their own necks. So, it may be tempting to conclude that adaptability in warfare is the paramount factor in the survival of a society, but without careful examination, that conclusion would be premature.
The necessity of Culture
As Homo Sapiens Sapiens transitioned from hunter-gather societies into the Neolithic age, fundamental changes occurred that forever changed the nature of human existence. The rise in agricultural efforts required far more organized labor systems than was previously necessary. The new human landscape was dotted with fixed structures for both shelter and protection leading to the first urban environments. Trade of any excess goods moved humans to a new economic social system; crafts and written languages that had not previously been possible became a by-product of creative and intellectual processes; new specialized divisions of labor set up and administered through new government forms included the first true militaries and organized religions (Spielvogel 4-5). A new culture was developing, but this was not the beginning.
The first primate-descendants that can be fully identified as humans were a product of social organization. According to Doyne Dawson, an ancient and medieval historian, “… the most obvious factor that unmistakably distinguishes every primitive human group from every group of non-human primates is the sexual division of labour: men hunt and woman gather, and food is shared at a home base” (Dawson 39). This division lays the groundwork for the social adaptations that follow all human societies. While other primates do exercise some form of food-sharing behaviors, humans’ use of food goes beyond exchanging food for “sexual favors” as seen in apes (39).
The key factor in systematic development of human family and band structure may have been the rise of intensive big-game hunting, which made available great quantities of meat on an irregular basis, and made food sharing highly adaptive. A hunting-and-gathering group organized in that way was a superbly well-adapted social organism, living at the top of the food chain, immune from predators, with no rivals except groups like itself. (39)
So, with little risk one could forward the argument that many of the changes in the Neolithic period had prehistoric roots. While far more regular than hunting, farming may very well be based on the same food-sharing behavior seen earlier. Likewise, permanent structures simply may have been enabled by the lack of wandering and migration made necessary by the hunter-gather life-style, but essentially, it is the same as the tendency of home basing. Consequently, it could be said that the foundations of culture are progressive adaptations of behavior that helped Homo Sapiens Sapiens survive in often predator-rich and harsh environments.
However, without societal revolutions from primate-like personal aggression centered on access to food and breeding toward the beginnings of culture, human evolution could have taken a different path. The changes in social structure that led to the Neolithic agricultural revolution played (and continue to play) an important role in history. Culture became a glue that fused individuals into families, bands, tribes, clans and eventually into states.
Warfare as a force of change
Basic survival may explain the continuation and migration of the species, but it barely scratches the surface of the humans’ rise to the top of the food chain. For that, one must look forward to a behavior that is only observed in two creatures: warfare.
Dawson offers a restrictive definition of warfare, “coalitional intraspecific aggression” (25). This description explicitly excludes much of the violent tendencies of other species, such as the pack hunting and general antagonistic behaviors of hyenas, lions, chimpanzees, and the like, but does not limit warfare to a human-only endeavor (Dawson 25-32). It seems that ants also developed “genuinely coalitional aggression” that is limited to, or at least focused on, different “kin” groups of the same species (25). With upwards of 20 million sibling ants in one anthill, aggression between colonies over “territory, food stores and slaves” lead to all-out conflicts that often end only when one of the groups is completely destroyed (25-6).
While strikingly similar to the human stories that unfold countless times, there is no direct evolutionary link that leads from ants to humans. That is not to say that the comparison is not without use. “Humans did not practice the ant kind of warfare until they lived in communities that resemble anthills – sedentary, densely populated, rigorously organized, highly territorial” (Dawson 26). The combination of kin groups and anthill-like cities in the early Neolithic period gave humans a new form of direct competition where relatively minor social changes might lead to victory, and thus survival, or decimation. “The extinction of entire tribes is a fairly common event in the tribal world. … A recent study estimated that 10 per cent of the ethnic groups in New Guinea have become extinct through warfare in every generation” (57-60). This view can be likened to the theory of group selection where the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection is transferred from the individual to groups.
Group Selection or Cultural Exchange?
Even with historic examples of this, like the brutal practices of the Assyrian kings laying waste to entire populations of cities that resisted their control, or the absolute destruction of Carthage by the Romans (Spielvogel 31, 83), human civilization became far more complex than anthills before cities began to resemble them. One of those complexities was the emergence of religion.
The exact roots of religion and the cultural communication of one belief structure into another are widely debated, but the process of synthesis is well known even today. All major Western religions have ideological roots from pre-existing beliefs. Christianity and Islam both stem, at least partially, from Judaism. In turn, the Hebrew belief structure shows evidence that it evolved during the Babylonian exile (Spielovgel 27). After all, the Babylonians practiced the earliest known monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism (37), during the Israelites’ captivity and the Bible repeats some of the stories first found in the Epic of Gilgamesh (12). So, the relationship between conquerors and the vanquished is not always the same as the ants’ victory by decimation because human adaptability allows for cultural exchange.
Still, the effect of cultural domination can at times have similar effects to total war. One case of this is the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel. The resulting captivity of the surviving Israelites led to atrophy by assimilation and, consequentially, the 10 lost tribes somehow abandoned their cultural identity (26). The result of combining two cultures at this early stage of human history is hard to gauge by the scant surviving written evidence. The mystery of the lost tribes will remain as such, unless some fortunate archeological discovery sheds more light on the subject.
Along with warfare leading to religious and cultural exchange, there are other factors at work. Trade and colonization have lent a shaping hand to the world as well. For example, the Phoenicians, the sea-faring people from the Near East, managed to do more at spreading Mesopotamian culture through exploration and had a more lasting impact than any army from the Fertile Crescent had. By shipping trade goods around the Mediterranean, they exported not only the products of the Near East but also their alphabet (30). It is even possible that the reach of their ships far exceeded that of Alexander the Great or even mighty Rome at its height.
One intriguing possibility is that as early as 750 B.C.E. the Mayan civilization in Mesoamerica came into direct contact with the Near Eastern masters-of-the-sea, leaving in their wake the inspiration for monumental stone heads that “may be realistic portraits of West Africans, perhaps part of the Phoenician group,” as indicated by anthropologist Ivan Van Sertima (qtd. in Loewen 43). The theory, first conceived in 1862, has continually been questioned and, like the lost tribes, may remain a mystery (43).
Warfare’s function in group selection
The violent clash of nations taking up arms against nations stands in stark contrast with the subtleties of cultures sculpting features of themselves on their neighbors. In warfare, there is little doubt as to what concept came from whom or what ultimately happened to the people never heard from again. Even in antiquity, kings scribed upon the walls of their palaces the story of their conquests, erected monuments to their victories and provided historians with one-sided accounts. The missing records from the other participants often show their fate.
So, even when taking into account other factors of the complex systems of human interaction, group selection may still be a real determining factor in the rise and fall of tribes and nations.
A tribe with a stirringly belligerent ‘god of battles’ wins wars against rival tribes whose gods urge peace and harmony, or tribes with no gods at all. Warriors who unshakably believe that a martyr’s death with send them straight to paradise fight bravely, and willingly give up their lives. So tribes with this kind of religion are more likely to survive in inter-tribal warfare, steal the conquered tribe’s livestock and seize their women as concubines. Such successful tribes prolifically spawn daughter tribes that go off and propagate more daughter tribes, all worshipping the same tribal god. The idea of a group spawning daughter groups, like a beehive throwing off swarms, is not implausible, by the way. … Those of us who belittle group selection admit that in principle it can happen. (Dawkins 170)
Dawkins explains that his reasons to “belittle” the group selection theory stems from a weakness in the above scenario. If a self-interested individual were to withhold his own personal sacrifice while allowing others of his tribe to become martyrs, he would be “only slightly less likely to end up on the winning side” and then would have a better opportunity to procreate (171). Dawkins admits that some of Charles Darwin’s work suggests something like group selection with tribe-level cooperative and altruistic behavior helping one group to grow in numbers, but not in terms of forming daughter groups “like a beehive throwing off swarms” (170-172). Again, humans became more complex than bees or ants, and the intricacies of culture have a major impact on how human groups evolve.
To add to Dawkins’ protest of group selection, examples of self-interested people using altruistic beliefs of their kin to better their own lot literally dominate human history. A concentration of this kind of behavior can nearly always be found in any given society. To go one step further, the dualistic effects of self-interested individuals living with altruistic individuals lends itself to the basis of class, government and religion.
The rich patrician senators of Rome sent legions of poor plebian soldiers headed by centurions of the middle equestrian class. Each, in their own self-interest, played their part, but rare was the senator that also took up gladius and pilum in defense of Rome. Nor would it be an easy task to find a priest of the imperial cult that willingly took up a post in the front and center rank of a formation, without some other motivation.
Machiavellian Intelligence
Self-interested tendencies can be ascribed to a by-product of Machiavellian intelligence; a level of social intelligence that allows individuals to suppose the thoughts and intentions of another, “picture other possible worlds and design alternative scenarios”, “empathize” and “practice deception and cruelty” (Dawson 34). According to Dawson, only through these thought processes can true coalitional behavior exist because capabilities and allegiances must be considered before a coalition can be formed (35). In the anthill, kin are nearly identical and all but single-minded, but in humans and other great apes, both ability and fidelity vary greatly. Additionally, both factors are prone to change as quickly as the environment.
In large-scale organizations that tend to resemble living organisms, like states, a malfunction of loyalty or ability can cause great harm in much the same way a disease affects a body. Both Caligula and Nero possessed a level of self-interest that far exceeded their interest in the people of Rome. The social “disease” provoked strong responses in both cases.
In Caligula’s case, his behavior sparked rumors of insanity that may not have been fully justified, but certainly did not endear him to the Praetorian Guard, which, also motivated by unspecified personal reasons, assassinated him (Fagan par. 4, 6). Nero’s “extravagances” led the legions to revolt against him (Spielvogel 99). Dysfunctions such as these led Niccelò Machiavelli, a 15th century author, to study history and the “pathology of human society” (Machiavelli xiii).
The Roman republic fascinated Machiavelli for a variety of reasons: for one thing, there was a suggestive analogy with his native Florence as it declined from the vigour of its republican ideals into the mid-fifteenth century to become a Medici fief. In the Roman history, particularly in Sallust, he could trace a comparable process which lead inexorably to the ignominy of imperial rule. (Machiavelli xiii)
In 1513 he penned a book that would concrete his name into the lexicon of Western civilization, The Prince. The term Machiavellian is now defined as “… the principles of conduct laid down by Machiavelli; specifically: marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith” (“Machiavellian”).
Despite the modern commentary of ethical and political vernacularism, Machiavelli’s understanding of history gave him a perspective on the paths to gaining and maintaining power. In fact, he wrote The Prince as a sort of primer for the “newly restored Medici regime in Florence” in the hope that the book might help establish a solid government in central Italy (Machiavelli xi). Italy, like most of Europe, had been in an often-violent state of political flux and turmoil with kingdoms and principalities sometimes lasting mere generations rather than the centuries of relative stability it had enjoyed under the Roman Republic and Empire. In Machiavelli’s own lifetime, the armies of France and Spain had turned Italy into “a convenient arena for fighting battles”, “a pawn for the two great powers” (Spielvogel 220). As with tribal wars and ants, examples of state-level cultures disappearing through conquest, assimilation and decimation provided motivation for him to help a government rise in strength enough to stop the process.
Into this world, with the hope of seeing a steady sovereign rise out of Florence, Machiavelli committed The Prince to print. His approach to political commentary relied heavily on the trends he saw in history. Citing the lives of people like Darius III, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar, Machiavelli conveys a deep understanding of the archetypes of government. To him, there were two main categories: principalities and republics. Of those, two types of principalities, “hereditary”, which were difficult for a prince to lose; and “new”, which suffered from a wide variety of weaknesses and instabilities (Machiavelli 3).
Darius III, lost power over his Persian empire when Alexander the Great defeated him at the battle of Issus in 333 B.C.E. (Spielvogel 62). Darius’ great Persian Empire stretched back many generations, but Alexander’s in Greece was only dawning.
Considering the difficulties which men have had to hold a newly acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great became the master of Asia in a few years, and died whilst it was yet scarcely settled (whence it might appear reasonable that the whole empire would have rebelled), nevertheless his successors maintained themselves, and had to meet no other difficulty than that which arose among themselves from their own ambitions. (Machiavelli 17)
According to Machiavelli, Darius’ empire was not one of a series of ancestral barons that held their own lands but one with a strong, central sovereign with complete power, control and affection of the people. In this way, the effort to conquer the land was great because it was difficult to find “malcontents and such as desire a change” and thus difficult to gain an internal edge over the current ruler (19). However, his military had failed to adapt to the changes in warfare and tactics of the lethal combinations of Greek Hoplites and Macedonian Cavalry. The effectiveness of his government to maintain its borders disappeared once Darius had fled the battle of Issus.
Still, it would seem that Alexander’s premature death left the Persians an opportunity to retake a majority of their lands, if not expand into the areas left virtually unguarded by the Greeks. However, according to Machiavelli, because of a complete absence of nobles that held the support of the people, the resulting lack of leadership allowed the dawning of the Hellenistic world (18-20). In illuminating this, Machiavelli made the suggestion to Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, the new ruler of Florence, that it would be more difficult to attack the Turks than the French, but far easier to hold the land afterwards.
By the comparison of the Turks and Persians, Machiavelli affirms the concept that human civilizations evolve in similar ways, which if properly examined can be used with Dawson’s conception of Machiavellian intelligence to help rulers imagine different outcomes to real problems that they faced. In the above example, one could say that both Darius and Alexander failed to sustain their respective governments because neither anticipated the changing political, social and warfare environments.
Darius failed to adapt his military tactics and strategies to counter Alexander. Nor did he have any form of contingency in the event of his death or defeat. Likewise, Alexander failed to understand the internal political turmoil that expanding an empire so quickly generates. Even after suffering catastrophic losses on his march back from India, arriving at his Babylonian deathbed, he continued to plan future military campaigns (Spielvogel 63).
It is important to note that even with his quick rise to power and unprecedented success in conquest, Alexander’s failure to name a successor splintered the great empire he had built (Spielvogel 64). While he was alive, his own charisma pulled his country together, but failing to plan for his death insured that it would crumble. As he had put to sword the great city-states of Greece, his own state was undone, leaving new Hellenistic kingdoms that, in their own time, would fall to the Republic of Rome.
Machiavelli believed that in order to be a great leader, one must study history to avoid the downfalls of the past and to emulate the characteristics of those that succeeded (Machiavelli 68). He claimed that Alexander followed the Homeric example of Achilles and Julius Caesar followed Alexander’s (68). The legends of Alexander’s life, sleeping with a dagger and a copy of the Iliad, show Machiavelli’s belief has merit (Spielvogel 63). Likewise, a statue of Alexander motivated Caesar to step down from the position of Quaestor in Hispania in order to reenter politics (“Julius Caesar”).
Caesar was not only motivated by Alexander, but it could be said that he avoided the previous mistakes by keeping the Senate as the chief deliberative body of Rome instead of sweeping over it as Alexander had done with the Greek democracies. Despite the weakened senatorial power, they provided a measure of stability that helped Rome survive Brutus’ knife.
Also by adopting Octavian, he helped insure some continuance of his new government, although future peace required Octavian’s quick action to seize power from Marc Antony (Spielvogel 92). Octavian went on to further ensure Roman continuance by establishing a new bureaucratic order (99). So, each successful adaptation to the previous society, although likely motivated by self-interest, served the greater good of the civilization and increased the survivability of the nation.
Conclusion
While self-motivated, Machiavellian intelligence carries a heavily negative connotation, history is ripe with rulers that postulated the best possible outcome for themselves. From Alexander’s deadly obsession with conquest to Octavian’s desire for social order with him as the “first citizen,” the human narrative shows that this social “evil” has played a major role in the shaping of Western Civilization. The roots of Machiavellian intelligence trace back before Homo Sapiens Sapiens became a distinctive group. Along with that special level of social intelligence, food sharing, division of labor and home-basing led humans to build the great cities of antiquity and diverse cultures that filled them.
Stalking the darkest recesses of the collective subconscious of humanity, the dogs of war kept thrusting cultural changes upon the people with a steady rhythm that can still be felt to this day. Despite the violence those changes often brought, warfare provided rulers with opportunities to advance their own egocentric ends and in doing so tear down ancient orders that were unwilling or unable to adapt, build massive empires in the new void, and bring human civilization to the greatest heights of the age. Still, new will always become old, and failure to adapt will make any living organization outdated, ineffective and irrelevant. Somewhere just outside the firelight, the dogs of war sit, waiting for an opening, probing for a weakness and adapting new ways to tear down the old order.
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