Athens came to grief. Trump, too.

Athens gave the neutral city of Melos the ultimatum: join us or die. 

Thucydides

Melos said: The gods will be offended by so unjust an act against a small state trying to be neutral. 

In twelve years Athens lost the war to Sparta. The smaller states like Melos argued that everyone in Athens should be executed.

Karma.

Trump's political operation gave Ukraine an ultimatum. Ukraine had new leadership, elected on an anti-corruption platform. It wanted to stay out of American domestic politics. Trump wanted them to announce, publicly, they were investigating Joe Biden. The effort got exposed as a political operation directly contrary to American policy. Career foreign service officers gave persuasive testimony.

No analogy is perfect, including this one between the Athenian ultimatum to the neutral island-state of Melos and the Trump ultimatum to Ukraine. But there are some parallels.

In the famous "Melian Dialog," historian Thucydides' report of the supposed back and forth between Athens and Melos, Athens famously argued that might made right, and that in the real world of states and warfare there were no rules. The strong does what it will and the weak suffer what they must. This is, in effect, the primary position being taken by GOP defenders of Trump, that the Trump ultimatum is no big deal because it is the way of the world. As Mulvaney put it, "get over it."

Melos said that the gods would be offended by the injustice and would favor them. Athens said the gods favor the strong. 

The loop widens

It is turning out the gods are angry. The ultimatum created an impeachable offense against Trump and it is pulling more and more people into the mess. Gordon Sondland said "everyone is in the loop" and the loop is growing. Lev Parnas, the indicted Ukrainian-American associate of Rudy Giuliani, wants to come to Congress to testify that Devin Nunes went to Vienna to meet with the prosecutor that American and European officials all agreed was corrupt, in an effort to get dirt on Biden. Nunes has explaining to do, since his public position had been that the investigation of Ukraine corruption had nothing to do with Biden. 

Lindsey Graham is exposed as a dutiful lickspittle, noteworthy for his loyalty rather than his integrity, a disappointment to many.

Joe Biden is pulled in. The sentimental and loving father ignored the obviously terrible optics of his son, Hunter, getting the job with Burisma. What was he thinking?

The country as a whole is a victim. In defending Trump--as Republicans must, politically--they are arguing in effect that they cannot see the evidence before their eyes, or that that see it and don't care. It is setting a new standard, that a president can do anything he or she wants, so long as 34 members of the Senate are OK with it. That is the new status quo.

The consequences in America are playing out now. In a century we will know more.

It took twelve years for Athens to come to grief by losing to Sparta, but when Sparta defeated them other city-states like Melos argued to Sparta that every citizen of Athens be executed. They were all guilty, they said.

Trump: "This was not personal. This was a corporate deal."

Sparta said no. Athens survived, and then fought with Sparta to defend against the Persians. Maybe Athenians deserved to die, but Sparta made the right choice. Athenian ships were necessary in the war against Persia.

Donald Trump may well survive politically just as he survived financially. He went bankrupt multiple times and lenders and bondholders took the losses. He did not. People "in the loop" may well go to prison, but Trump personally will not. Indeed, he may well come out smelling like a rose, just like he has multiple times before. He may well be re-elected in 2020. A great many Americans agree that politics is simply about power, not about justice or process.

Even so, I expect few schools will bear his name.