Thucydides and Internal War

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THUCYDIDES AND INTERNAL WAR In this book Jonathan Price demonstrates that Thucydides consciously viewed and presented the Peloponnesian War in terms of a condition of civil strife ± or stasis, in Greek. Thucydides de®nes stasis as a set of symptoms indicating an internal disturbance in both individuals and states. This diagnostic method, in contrast to all other approaches in antiquity, allows an observer to identify stasis even when the combatants do not or cannot openly acknowledge the nature of their con¯ict. The words and actions which Thucydides chooses for his war narrative meet his criteria for stasis: the speeches in the History represent the breakdown of language and communication characteristic of internal con¯ict, and the zeal for victory everywhere led to acts of unusual brutality and cruelty, and overall disregard for genuinely Hellenic customs, codes of morality and civic loyalty. Viewing the Peloponnesian War as a destructive internal war had profound consequences for Thucydides' historical vision. j o n a t h a n p r i c e is Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Tel Aviv University.

THUCYDIDES AND INTERNAL WAR J O N A T H A N J. P R I C E Tel Aviv University

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          The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom    The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Jonathan J. Price 2004 First published in printed format 2001 ISBN 0-511-04088-1 eBook (netLibrary) ISBN 0-521-78018-7 hardback

For Naomi

Contents

Preface part i: 1

page ix the model of stasis

Introduction

3

Beyond Corcyra

6

Corcyra A model of stasis: purpose and method The genesis and e¨ects of stasis The problem of stasis The pathology of stasis Stasis and polemos Stasis and the Peloponnesian War

part ii: 2

logoi

The transvaluation of words

81

Hellenic states rede®ne the community of Hellas The Peloponnesians The ``Liberation of Hellas'' Inherent natures Ethnic arguments Athens' world Athens' response to the ``Liberation'' theme The Periclean speeches

4

6 11 22 30 39 67 73

79

Corcyra and Corinth: justice and expediency Athenian justice: Cleon and Diodotus and their successors Stasis and rhetoric in Boeotia

3

1

The failure of communication Athens at Sparta The Melian Dialogue

82 89 103

127 128 128 147 151 161 161 171

190 190 195

vii

viii

Contents

part iii: 5

erga

The ``greatest kinesis'' Brutality and barbarity; moral and ethical violations Religion Individuals The Peace of Nicias

6

The Peloponnesian War and stasis The ®rst aitia The beginning of the war Staseis as organizing points of the History Athens' stasis Conclusion

part iv: 7

thucydides and hellas

The Archaeology, the Pentekontaetia and the Persians The Archaeology The Pentekontaetia and the ``truest reason'' for the war The Persians Thucydides' Hellas

List of works cited General index Index locorum

205 207 210 217 236 263

274 274 277 289 304 327

331 333 333 344 363 371

378 397 402

Preface

The commentaries by Gomme (and his successors) and by Hornblower have been my constant companions during research and writing; full acknowledgment of their in¯uence cannot be represented even by my many references to them. A fortiori I have by no means intended to provide a survey of all literature on Thucydides. I have not felt compelled to react to or account for everything I have read, nor have I read every word written (which would have been an unwise use of time). My practice has been to cite works which I have found particularly useful and which have helped me to sharpen my thinking or ask better questions. Most works cited are those from which I have learned positively and cite with approval; the exceptions are either those compelling and intelligent interpretations, disagreement with which has greatly clari®ed my own thought, or those works which have been so in¯uential that they must be mentioned and either explicitly or implicitly answered. Nonetheless, many readers may still ®nd that too many works have been cited, and I would have di½culty disagreeing with that judgment. I ®nished writing and researching this book by the end of 1998, and despite the appearance of two 1999 journal articles in the bibliography, I have not been able to incorporate scholarship which has appeared ± or fallen into my hands ± since then. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many personal debts accumulated during this project. Martin Ostwald read the entire manuscript with his famously sensitive eye, profound learning and wise judgment. His in¯uence is present throughout the work, but particularly in the discussions of gnw mh (Chapter 1), ``self-interest'' (Chapter 5) and the relations between Sparta and Thebes, in relation to Thuc. 2.9 (Chapter 6). I have also learned immeasurably ix

x

Preface

from him in numerous conversations on many other matters, and from sitting at his elbow as we co-taught two graduate seminars at Tel Aviv University. wÿ v ai eiÁ toÁn oÿ moiÄ on a gei qeoÁv e v toÁn oÿmoiÄ on ± in this case in temperament and interests, if not learning and wisdom. Without a sabbatical year at the Center of Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. in 1997±1998, I might never have ®nished this book. Kurt Raa¯aub and Deborah Boedeker ensured optimal conditions for both work and rest, and managed remarkably each to play the dual role of mentor and colleague. I thank them both, as well as the other junior fellows at the Center that year, particularly Yun Lee Too, who read and critiqued Chapter 1. I am grateful also to Tel Aviv University for releasing me from my duties that year. Other friends read parts of the manuscript in earlier versions and o¨ered helpful comments and criticisms. W. R. Connor, with whom I ®rst studied Thucydides, challenged the premises of Chapter 1; in addition, his learning and teaching, in the form of his book (1984), have been a constant source of inspiration. Likewise, I thank Benjamin Isaac, who also read Chapter 1 with his usual sober judgment and whose friendship and encouragement were unstinting. Lisa Ullmann's sharp eye saved me from many mistakes. The two readers for Cambridge University Press o¨ered perceptive and informed criticism and saved me from embarrassing errors. Parts of this book were given as lectures at Tel Aviv University, Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University and the American Philological Association; I am grateful to those responsible for the invitations and to all who o¨ered criticism on those occasions. Pauline Hire of Cambridge University Press encouraged the project in its initial stages and expertly oversaw its development into a publishable book; Michael Sharp competently brought it to completion. Susan Kennedy patiently and carefully edited the entire manuscript; I am grateful to the Department of History and the School of History at Tel Aviv University, who kindly paid her fee. Adi Cohen contributed vitally to the preparation of the indices. My thanks are due to UniversitaÈt Hamburg for sending me a photocopy of H. G. Saar's dissertation (1953). Seth Altholz generously donated his ideas, talents and artwork for the design of the jacket cover. I wish also to acknowledge the help o¨ered in various forms

Preface

xi

by: Hannah Cotton, Uri Yiftach, Israel and Nathalie Friedman, Elmer and Madelon Price. My book is better because of the help of all of the above, none of whom is to be held accountable for the faults which remain. Finally, I am grateful, beyond the ability of words adequately to express, to my family ± Naomi, Danny, Shlomit, Yishai and Micha ± who have patiently and with good humor endured my many absences arising from this labor.

part i

The model of stasis

Introduction

This book is an interpretation of one of the great works of western literature, Thucydides' History. The scholarship on Thucydides may cause despair and fatigue by its sheer mass. If I have ventured to add this book to that mass, it is with the conviction that despite ± or rather, because of ± all of the previous work, original and useful insights are still possible, and always will be. It is a sign of Thucydides' greatness that, despite the di½culty of his language and thought, the generations have not ceased reading and writing about him with sustained passion. His text, un®nished as it is, still serves as a basic textbook for history and political science, as a reference point for political controversy of the present day and as a vehicle for travel to the higher realms of historical understanding and speculation. The sum of generations of comment and discovery approaches, yet never overtakes, the masterworks of style and thought. Every generation of course has its peculiar biases. It may be that the past decade, or even the past century, has made understanding the di¨erence between war and civil war more urgent, yet at the same time it has also made that di¨erence more vague, attenuated and insigni®cant. Thucydides' re¯ections on internal war, from our perspective, seem to point to that conclusion. I believe that the two main innovations of the present research, namely an explication of Thucydides' ``stasis model'' (3.81±3) and the thesis that he narrated the Peloponnesian War as a fundamentally internal con¯ict, are worth presenting in some detail, although I cannot match the con®dence Thucydides expressed about the usefulness and permanence of his own work. The present study has consumed less than twenty-seven years but nonetheless evolved and developed over a long period of time. It began as an article which turned into the ®rst chapter, an 3

4

The model of stasis

analysis of the stasis model. There I explain that Thucydides o¨ers an original de®nition of stasis according to its observable symptoms, that is, disturbances in the words and actions of people, indicating an internal disturbance in individuals and states. This diagnostic method, adopted by no other theorist ancient or modern, resolves two paradoxes plaguing standard de®nitions of stasis, namely that the entity within which the con¯ict takes place ceases to exist as such with the onset of the condition, and that the fact of stasis, if gauged by the status of the political setting, is usually con®rmed only after the con¯ict is over. An observer who understands the genesis of stasis and its pathology will be able to identify the a¿iction in other less well-de®ned con®gurations than the polis, and before it has run its course. A Thucydidean investigation of stasis thus poses questions in a certain order: ®rst, whether a condition matches the criteria of stasis and only then, how to de®ne the identity and nature of the corporate entity which is a¨ected. The next ®ve chapters (2 to 6) demonstrate that the words and actions which Thucydides chooses to narrate, i.e. the logoi and erga of his actors, meet his criteria for stasis. The speeches in the History represent the breakdown of language and communication characteristic of internal con¯ict, and the zeal for victory everywhere led to acts of unusual brutality and cruelty, desecration of religious sites and rituals, and overall disregard for the genuinely Hellenic customs, codes of morality and civic loyalty. Moderation disappeared, and the essentially psychological ``truest reason'' for the war made negotiated peace impossible; the war could not end as conventional wars often do. Moreover, beginning with the immediate causes and ®rst incidents of the war, Thucydides used individual cases of stasis as guideposts and organizing points for his narrative, so that the reader's attention remains ®xed on internal con¯ict. Finally (Chapter 7), I ask what unity or polity fell victim to stasis so de®ned, and tentatively suggest Hellas itself. Thus Chapter 1 lays the theoretical basis for the main analysis of the History in Chapters 2 to 6, and Chapter 7 takes my ®ndings the necessary, if cautious, further step. Let me stress that the extent of Thucydides' Panhellenism, which remains unclear, should not a¨ect the validity of the argument in the ®rst six chapters. I do think that Thucydides' interpretation of the war inevitably led him to reassess the nature of Hellas and the Hellenes' relation to one

Introduction

5

another, but the limits of this line of speculation should not con®ne my main thesis, which concerns the nature of the ``greatest kinesis'' and not Hellenic unity. A stasis is basically di¨erent from a polemos, and viewing the Peloponnesian War as a destructive internal con¯ict had profound consequences for Thucydides' historical vision.

chapter 1

Beyond Corcyra

corcyra In 427 bce, the fourth year of the Peloponnesian War, about 250 Corcyreans were sent out from Corinth, where they had been held since their capture in the sea battle at the Sybota Islands at the beginning of the war. They were instructed to return to Corcyra in order to induce the city to break its strategic alliance with Athens and restore its former dependence on Corinth.1 Strategic realignment implied a change in government, thus the mission well suited these Corcyreans, for most of them had been leading men in their city before their capture and therefore anticipated returning to power. They may also have been ideologically opposed to the proAthenian democratic regime which currently governed in Corcyra, but pure ideology was lost in the violent power struggle which followed. At ®rst, the returning Corcyreans tried to e¨ect the change by a legal vote. Envoys from both Athens and Corinth arrived in Corcyra to in¯uence the decision. After consultation with each, the Corcyrean assembly voted to maintain its alliance with Athens. War, as Thucydides remarked (3.82.2), creates conditions which lead people to act in unaccustomed and violent ways. Defeated in the Assembly, the freed prisoners ± whom Thucydides will presently label oligarchs (3.74.2) and their opponents democrats ± 1 The following account is based on 3.70±81.1 with 1.55.1, our only source. Gomme's sensible comment (ad 3.70.1) that the prisoners were released ``clearly not long before the sedition broke out'' was accepted by Gehrke 1985, 89, but rejected more recently by J. B. Wilson 1987 and CT i ad loc. The precise identity of the released Corcyrean prisoners is problematic. Given the circumstances of their capture they had to have had a military function; Bruce 1971, 109 and Gehrke 1985, 89 call them hoplites, but this does not take account of Thucydides' statement that ``most of them had been among the most powerful in the city'' (1.55.1), an evaluation which may not have been made for hoplites (although we know little about the internal organization of Corcyra); they were certainly not rowers, which presumably was the function of the 800 slaves captured and sold in the original sea-battle (ibid.).

6

Beyond Corcyra

7

turned to the courts, charging the democratic leader and Athenian ``voluntary proxenos'' Peithias with conspiracy to enslave Corcyra to Athens; such was the standard rhetoric of this war. On acquittal, Peithias immediately counterattacked with allegations of sacrilege against his ®ve richest accusers, who were convicted and forced to seek refuge in temples. Out of desperation they and their companions launched a violent attack on Peithias and killed him with about sixty other council-members and private citizens. The oligarchs were now in control of Corcyra, and at least temporarily had ful®lled the condition of their release from Corinth; they were joined by like-minded compatriots in the city.2 They made gestures to dampen popular alarm, but once a Corinthian trireme arrived they felt emboldened to attack the democrats whom they had usurped. The extent to which ``the demos'' at this stage in Thucydides' narrative included the population at large is uncertain, but in the ensuing stasis, when the city became physically divided into rival camps and was nearly burned down in the many skirmishes, the war perforce engulfed the entire population. One sign of the extremism engendered by the con¯ict is that both sides appealed even to slaves to join their cause (3.73). As the democrats were prevailing, the Corinthian ship slipped away and an Athenian ¯eet of twelve ships, carrying 500 Messenian hoplites, arrived. The Athenian commander, Nicostratus, managed to negotiate a peace between the factions, but this soon fell apart. For as he was about to sail away, the Corcyrean democrats persuaded him to leave ®ve of his ships for their own protection, o¨ering ®ve of their own as replacements; on these they planned to embark their enemies, who, however, scented mischief and took refuge in the temple of the Dioscuri. Nicostratus barely restrained the democrats from murdering these suppliants in the temple, and when other oligarchs in the city saw this they ¯ed to the temple of Hera, but were soon removed to a nearby island by the democrats. A new stage in the stasis commenced when the great powers became involved on a larger scale. The arrival of ®fty-three Peloponnesian ships threw the Corcyrean democrats into a panic, and 2 In 3.75.5 the suppliants in the temple of Hera number at least four hundred, which does not seem to include, at least from a literal reading of the text, the suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri (see Gomme's comment and Hornblower's critique, ad loc.); ®ve hundred are mentioned in 3.85.2.

8

The model of stasis

the ¯eet they launched in response was hastily and haphazardly organized, uncoordinated and further hampered by in®ghting on board the vessels. The twelve Athenian ships managed to save the Corcyreans only by brilliant seamanship. They were spared further attack only by the Peloponnesians' lack of initiative to follow up success. In alarm, the Corcyreans moved their oligarchic prisoners on the island back to Corcyra as a precaution, and temporarily reconciling with the oligarchs they manned thirty ships. But the Peloponnesians never attacked; they abandoned the scene on the approach of sixty Athenian ships under the command of Eurymedon. This induced the democrats in Corcyra to forget the temporary reconciliation and proceed to drastic action against their perceived enemies. As Thucydides tells the story from this point, his narrative of events turns almost imperceptibly into his famous generalized model of stasis:3 3.81.2. The Corcyreans [ˆ the democratic faction], when they became aware that the Attic ships were sailing towards them and their enemies' ships [ˆ Spartan] were gone, brought inside the city the Messenians who had previously been outside, and ordered the ships which they had manned to sail around to the Hyllaic harbor; while these were making their way around, they killed any of their foes they could lay their hands on. And those whom they had persuaded to embark they now removed from the ships and destroyed, then proceeding to the temple of Hera they persuaded about ®fty of the suppliants there to undergo a trial and then condemned them all to death. (3) The majority of the suppliants had not accepted the o¨er of a trial, and when they saw what was happening, started killing each other right there in the shrine; some hanged themselves from trees, while others killed themselves in the way each was able. (4) For the seven days that Eurymedon, after his arrival, remained there with his 60 ships, the Corcyreans massacred those of their own city whom they judged to be their enemies. They brought them up on the charge of attempting to subvert the democracy, but in fact some were put to death merely out of personal antagonism and others with money owed them were killed by their debtors. (5) Death in every form took place, and everything likely to occur in such circumstances happened ± and even went beyond: for fathers killed their sons, people were dragged 3 The translation is based on the OCT. Unconventional renderings will all be explained in the course of the discussion, except for the one defended in the following note. 3.84 is not included, as no modern defense of it is strong enough to overturn both the scholiast's judgment that it is spurious and Dionysius' failure to mention it; see esp. HCT ii, 382±3; Fuks 1971; Pritchett 1975, 117; CT i, 488±9 (but strongly rejecting Fuks' arguments). Maurer 1995 does not defend his belief that 3.84 is genuine (77 n. 35).

Beyond Corcyra

9

from temples and killed beside them, and some were even blockaded in the temple of Dionysus and perished there. (82.1) Such was the degree of savagery which the stasis reached, and it seemed even more so because it was the ®rst of that time (to reach such an extent),4 whereas later practically the whole Hellenic world was disturbed (by stasis), there being contentions everywhere between the democratic leaders who tried to bring in the Athenians and the oligarchs who tried to bring in the Lacedaemonians. And whereas in peacetime the parties in individual states would not have had the pretext, nor would they have been so prepared to call them in, once they were embroiled in war and an alliance was available to each side for the detriment of their opponents and their own self-aggrandizement in a single stroke, bringing in Athens and Sparta was a facile matter for them as they desired some revolutionary change. (2) Many calamities befell the cities in the course of stasis, such as occur and will always occur so long as human nature remains the same, although they will be more intense or milder and varying in form, according to vicissitudes of circumstance prevailing in each instance. For in periods of peace and prosperity, both states and individuals maintain more positive dispositions because they are not compelled to face circumstances over which they have no control; but war is a teacher of violence in that it does away with the easy provision of daily needs and brings most people's passions to match the level of their actual circumstances. (82.3) So the cities were embroiled in stasis, and in those that were a¿icted later, the mindset of the combatants, in¯uenced by knowledge of the previous instances, was revolutionized to much further excesses, both in the ingenuity of their attacks and in the enormity of their acts of revenge. (82.4) And people exchanged the conventional value of words in 4 dioÂti e n toiÄ v prwÂth e ge neto, despite near-universal opinion, cannot mean ``because it was the ®rst of the staseis'' since there were other staseis which preceded this one, at Epidamnus (serving as a casus belli ), Plataea, Notion and Mytilene. In Chapter 6 I argue that Thucydides had compelling reasons for the placement of the stasis model. The words e n toiÄ v should mean ``at that time,'' contrasted with u steron in the next clause. This still requires expansion, however, because of the problem of the earlier staseis: ``to reach such an extent'' thus seems to be the meaning, especially since Thucydides has just said that the Corcyrean stasis exceeded all bounds (kaiÁ e ti peraite rw, 3.81.5), and it was indeed more serious than the previous staseis in the war. The con¯ict drew in both the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, and may possibly have been the ®rst time in the war that ``democracy'' and ``oligarchy'' hardened into rhetorical weapons in the cities' inner con¯icts. The same thing or worse was subsequently repeated in city after city, ``in¯uenced by knowledge of the previous instances'' (82.3), but the Corcyrean con¯ict seemed the worst because it set the precedent for violence, cruelty, extremism. Connor 1984, 103 n. 61 (with bibliography) rejects the standard interpretation of e n toiÄ v prwÂth, favoring the suggestions ``among the ®rst'' and ``in the ®rst rank among the examples of stasis.'' The clause, however interpreted, ensures that the word sta siv must have a de®nite article, as KruÈger suggested; omitting the h after wmh was one of the easiest kinds of error a scribe could make.

10

The model of stasis

relation to the facts, according to their own perception of what was justi®ed. For reckless daring was now considered courage true to the party, whereas prudent hesitation was considered specious cowardice, moderation and discretion a cover for unmanliness, and intelligence which comprehended the whole an unwillingness to act in anything. Impulsive rashness was attributed to the part of a real man, while prolonged planning with a view to safety was written o¨ as a nice-sounding excuse for evasion. (5) The one who exhibited violent anger was always considered reliable, anyone who spoke against him was suspect. The one who succeeded in a plot was thought intelligent, but shrewder still was the one who suspected a plot was brewing; yet the one who took precautions to obviate the need for both plotting and suspicion was a destroyer of the faction and terri®ed of the opposition. In general, both he who anticipated another who was about to do some evil, and he who incited to evil someone who had no such intention, were applauded. (6) Moreover, blood ties became more alien than factional interest, because the latter made for a greater willingness to take risks without prevarication; for such associations were formed not for mutual bene®t in conformity with established laws, but for greedy pursuit in violation of convention. Pledges among partisans were con®rmed not so much by the sanction of divine law as by their shared transgression of the law. (7) Fair proposals from the opposition were received with actual protective measures by the faction which felt itself to be superior, and not in a noble spirit. Revenge was valued more than avoiding injury in the ®rst place. Oaths made in support of any reconciliation had only momentary validity, as they were made by each side only in the absence of any other source of strength to get out of an impasse; but whoever found the opposition o¨-guard at a given moment and seized the ®rst opportunity for a bold strike, enjoyed a revenge sweeter for having exploited good faith than winning in an open ®ght, and such a one calculated the advantage both of the safety of such a course and of the accolades for intelligence to be won for having scored victory through guile. The majority (in stasis), being malfeasants, accept the title ``clever'' more willingly than the title ``stupid'' if they were good, and they are ashamed of the latter and glory in the former. (8) The cause of this entire condition was the hunger for power inspired by greed and personal ambition, and from these resulted the zeal for victory once they were engaged in the con¯ict. For the faction leaders in the various cities used specious names on each side ± professions of ``political equality for all under the law'' and ``wise and temperate government by the best'' ± and while paying lip service to the public interest in fact made it their prize, and using every available means in their competition to get the better of each other they ventured to perpetrate the worst atrocities and went to even further extremes in executing revenge: they did not restrain themselves at the boundary of justice or the

Beyond Corcyra

11

city's true interests, but limited their actions only by what their own immediate grati®cation required, and they were ready to satisfy their lust to dominate by seizing power either through an unjust vote of condemnation or through brute force. As a result, both sides abandoned all religious scruple but admired rather those who managed to accomplish some invidious act under the cover of a specious phrase. Citizens who maintained neutrality were destroyed by both sides, either for their refusal to join in the ®ght or out of envy of their survival. (83.1) Thus every form of wickedness arose in the Hellenic world because of the staseis, and that simple goodness which is a major part of nobility was derisively mocked out of existence, while the ranging-up of opposing camps on the basis of mutual distrust prevailed far and wide. (2) For no word was reliable enough, nor any oath formidable enough, to bring about reconciliation, and all who found themselves in a superior position, ®guring that security could not even be hoped for, made provisions to avoid injury rather than allow themselves to trust anyone. (3) Those with a weaker intellect for the most part survived since they rushed precipitously into action, fearing that both their own de®ciencies and their opponents' intelligence would cause them to be worsted in an argument of words and, as a consequence of their opponents' versatility of intellect, be outstripped in plotting. (4) On the other hand, the others contemptuously presumed that they would foresee any danger and had no need of practical steps when they could use their intellect to deal with all contingencies, and so with their defenses down they were more frequently the ones destroyed.

a m o d e l o f s t a s i s: p u r p o s e a n d m e t h o d The analysis of stasis contains Thucydides' own fullest, most concentrated and profoundest re¯ections on historical truths.5 Most other comments on the human condition in the History are contained in the speeches and the Melian Dialogue, from which the historian's own voice cannot be reliably recovered. In his study of stasis, we hear Thucydides' voice clearly, and we ®nd, as in only a few other places in the History ± e.g., the Archaeology and his description of the epidemic in Athens ± indications of his own deeply held convictions on historical processes not connected exclusively to the Peloponnesian War, or any particular time or place. 5 The most sustained treatments of the passage as a whole are Gomme's and Hornblower's commentaries, Wasserman 1954, Macleod 1979, Loraux 1986b, Orwin 1988 and 1994, 175¨. On the meaning of the Greek word stasis and its distinction from other terms like polemos emphylios, see Gehrke 1985, 6±8, a work now essential to any study of the topic, and Loraux 1987.

12

The model of stasis

The language of the passage is perhaps the most di½cult in the entire work. Native Greek speakers in antiquity had trouble with it, and modern interpretations vary to an absurd degree. Yet Thucydides chose each word with great care, and constructed each sentence with great precision. He tried to pack large and complex thoughts into a small space, not in order to be obscure or perverse but to impart both force and elegance to his ideas. The ideas he attempted to convey strained the capacity of ancient Greek.6 The result is a style which resembles poetry in its compression and power. For the serious reader, close and patient scrutiny of detail is the only way to unlock Thucydides' thought. The narrative in 3.81±2 passes from the single instance of a closely observed and carefully recorded stasis at Corcyra in 427 to a generic description of all staseis, a model for both the present war and all time. The transition from the particular to the general is unannounced, and the seam is hardly noticeable. The later bookand chapter-divisions, which should never be used as a guide to interpretation, are misleading here, for the model does not begin abruptly at 3.82.1. Universal elements are already suggested while the focus is still on Corcyra (3.81): treachery, internecine slaughter, lethal subversion of judicial process, violation of religious places and sanctities, personally motivated crime masked by political pretext, atrocities of every form defying imagination (paÄsa ide a) ± these are all standard features of a stasis, stereotypical behavior, things which are ``likely to occur in such circumstances'' and which Thucydides will refer to and comment upon in the more generalized treatment that follows. The model has a double function. First, it will serve as a narrative substitute for all staseis mentioned in the course of the History. The internal con¯icts during the greater war, Thucydides says, followed the general patterns described, even if every detail was not precisely repeated. The previous stasis at Notion (3.34), for example, is told in briefest form, and the later civil con¯icts at Rhegion (4.1.3), Leontini (5.4.3) and Messene (5.5.1), to name just three, are mentioned only in passing. The reader may refer to the 6 Cf. Wasserman 1954, 53: Thucydides ``has to work with a linguistic raw material not yet fully ready to express the rational and emotional concepts and overtones of political and psychological phenomena.''

Beyond Corcyra

13

model to ®ll in some of the major features of these other con¯icts and in general assume that the combatants in each instance behaved according to the patterns described in the model.7 This is a variation of a known narrative technique of Thucydides, by which he relates one instance of a recurring event in great detail so that it may serve as an exemplar for all similar instances in the narrative.8 For example, the vivid detail of the siege of Plataea in Books 2 and 3, and the battle at Mantinea (5.65±74), serve as models for sieges and hoplite battles, respectively. The di¨erence in the case of stasis is that, by describing one typical episode in detail, Thucydides intended to create an abstract model for an event which will recur not only in the Peloponnesian War, or even any war in Greek history, but all human history. This is the second purpose of the stasis model: to serve as a diagnostic (but not prognostic) prototype for observers of stasis in the future. While the battle at Mantinea exempli®es a peculiarly Greek style of warfare, Thucydides understood stasis to be a phenomenon which would recur in substantially the same form in other times and places, so long as human nature remained the same (3.82.2). Thus he focused his sharp eye not on speci®cally Hellenic features, but on more general aspects of developed human society ± language, family ties, and political, legal and religious conventions. This will ensure intelligibility for future readers. The method is implied in the purpose and revealed in the exposition: pertinent details are rigorously selected and accurately de®ned to provide the basis for precise yet generalizing interpretations of human behavior. The stasis model is a good demonstration of the principle of strict and accurate observation enunciated by Thucydides in his two famous methodological statements, one at the beginning of the History, where he claims to have investigated every detail ``as accurately as possible'' (1.22.2), and the other in the so-called ``second introduction'': ``I was at an age to understand what I observed (aisqano menov), and I directed my mind to an accurate ascertainment of what happened'' (5.26.5). In 7 We will see in Chapter 6 that other staseis are related in considerable detail when they exhibit an important variation, or themselves held special importance in the course of events. 8 Rawlings 1981, 210±15; Connor 1984, 144; and the illuminating discussion of de Romilly 1956a, 123±79. Solmsen's chapter (1975) on ``rational reconstruction'' is relevant in this respect.

14

The model of stasis

both cases Thucydides stresses personal observation (ai sqhsiv) and painstaking accuracy (akri beia),9 which are abundantly evident in his account of stasis. These two faculties imply a third, which is not explicitly stated but is amply demonstrated in the model: strict selection. Not everything that can be accurately observed is worth recording. While ``death in every form took place'' (3.81.5) and ``every form of wickedness arose'' (3.83.1), the degree or number of these forms ± which Thucydides cannot, or sees no reason to catalogue entirely ± should not mislead the identi®cation or understanding of the underlying condition. On a larger scale, the ``form'' (ide a) of the entire stasis: Thucydides notes that later outbreaks of stasis in the Peloponnesian War, like episodes in a widespread epidemic, were more severe than the ®rst ones (82.3); they should not be mistaken as a di¨erent condition because of this di¨erence. Thucydides' declarations of method and their application in the stasis model re¯ect the intellectual trends and discoveries of his day. The investigations of the physical and biological world during the ®fth-century ``Greek Enlightenment'' centered on close, meticulous observation of nature, followed by rational analysis of and deduction from the observed phenomena.10 This is the approach Thucydides takes to the raw data of human history, or more speci®cally certain recurring episodes in history like stasis. His method has most often ± and most usefully ± been compared to that described in the literature of the new medicine (te cnh iatrikhÂ), which was the least speculative, most empirical science 9 See the Hippocratic work Ancient Medicine 9, 12 for ai sqhsiv and akri beia; for akri beia in Thucydides, cf. TreÂde 1983, and now Crane 1998, 38¨. 10 For Greek rationality, one should start with the Hippocratic work, On the Sacred Disease and Aristotle Met. 983b 20¨. Among modern treatments of ancient science in general and its empirical and rational aspects in particular, see Guthrie 1962, 26±38; Lloyd 1979 and 1987; and for a convenient review of the main scienti®c and philosophical ®gures in Athens in Thucydides' time and their in¯uence, Ostwald 1992, 338±69; and see Hornblower 1987, 110±35 on Thucydides' ``intellectual a½nities,'' esp. 131±5 on medical writers. Naturally, any one-sentence characterization, such as mine above, of emergent scienti®c method, even only that of medicine, will be insu½cient and objectionable, and I do not mean to ignore the complexity and diversity of ancient science, nor some ancient scientist/ philosophers' severe doubts about the reliability of perception (e.g. Parmenides), the alleged lack of quantitative assessment by Greek scientists, and similar issues which, while important, are super¯uous to the present investigation; see particularly Lloyd 1979, chapters 1±3 and 1987, chapters 5±6. The superstition and irrationalism which existed and even thrived alongside Greek science (even among the scientists themselves), as well as the excessive uses which the sophists later made of scienti®c models and methods do not illuminate Thucydides' historical method as he conceived it.

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of that time.11 The practitioners of the new medicine produced thoroughly detailed records of diseases and their peculiar symptoms, or tekmeria.12 The Hippocratic accounts of diseases were necessarily selective, and therein lay the art (te cnh). A physician with a trained eye and full knowledge of previously recorded instances was supposed to distinguish symptoms of one disease from unrelated phenomena, as well as understand variations in the symptoms of a single disease among di¨erent patients and the various stages of a disease as it progresses. A disease which breaks out in di¨erent places and in di¨erent times will not appear identical in each case; a competent physician discerns the underlying similarities and disregards surface variations.13 Similarly, in his account of stasis, Thucydides describes how the condition ``befell'' or ``a¿icted'' the cities (e pe pese)14 and how it ``progressed'' (proucwÂrhse), using words which medical authors used to describe the development of disease.15 His account will necessarily be selective: the calamities of stasis ``will be more intense or milder and varying in form'' (ei desi), according to varying circumstance (82.2):16 ¯uctuations in the outward manifestations of the underlying disease should not fool the experienced observer. One should not overwork the comparison between the nascent medical science of the time and Thucydides' historical method. A technical medical glossary, in the modern sense, had not fully de11 Hankinson 1992. Major discussions of the intellectual in¯uences, particularly medicine, on Thucydides include Cochrane 1929, J. Finley 1942, esp. 67¨., Weidauer 1954, Lichtenthaeler 1965, Longrigg 1992; and now Rechenauer 1991 and Swain 1994, both of whom can be consulted for the mass of previous literature (Rechenauer is oddly absent from Swain's extensive citations). 12 This is the word Thucydides uses elsewhere for indications of certain facts or ®ndings, thus his use of the word does not correspond literally to ``symptom'' but reveals the same use of evidence and mode of analysis as Greek science, particularly medicine; see Hornblower 1987, 100¨. 13 Cf. Phillips 1973, 28¨. The problems with Thucydides' selectivity and use of evidence in other parts of the History are well known, see Hornblower 1987, chapters 2 and 4, and below, pp. 210¨. 14 Cf. the use of the word in connection with the epidemic, 2.48.3, 2.49.6, 3.87.1. 15 CT i, 480; Swain 1994. The word wmoÂv is also a favored word in the Hippocratic corpus, as Hornblower points out. For paradoxical elements in the choice of wmh and proucwÂrhse, see Connor 1984, 103. 16 eidov (and the closely related i de a) in Hippocratic literature was used to distinguish different indications of the same general phenomenon, see Weidauer 1954, 21¨. and CT i, 173±5 (brief but excellent). For Thucydides' use of the word, see 2.50.1, 51.1, cf. 47.4, 48.3; also 1.109.1, 3.98.3, 7.29.5. Flory's argument (1988) that paÄ sa i de a in Thucydides is an expression of hyperbole and contradicts Thucydides' expectations regarding the war misses the point.

16

The model of stasis

veloped by Thucydides' day; there is nothing exclusively medical about Thucydides' words translated as ``a¿ict,'' ``progress'' and ``form'' in the stasis model.17 The comparison has been suggested, of course, because of Thucydides' clear demonstration of medical knowledge in his description of the epidemic at Athens (2.47.3± 2.54). In that passage, vocabulary and modes of expression common in medical texts, as well as his frank avoidance at 2.49.3 of ``all the names assigned by doctors'' to vomiting, leave little doubt that he was more than casually acquainted with some of the more technical ± and by implication, general ± aspects of the ¯edging science.18 Moreover, his account of the epidemic itself contains the basic principles, modes of description and underlying assumptions of contemporary medical literature: he describes the setting, records the indications and course of the disease in some detail, and notes fatality rates, taking su½cient account of the fact that outbreaks of the plague varied in both magnitude and particulars in di¨erent places (cf. 2.47.3, 2.51.1). The account does contain imprecisions and inaccuracies, and not all of the symptoms Thucydides records are relevant;19 and it is true that the account does not exactly resemble ancient diagnostic accounts, but it should not be expected to. No one should think, for instance, that if the historian's description of the epidemic cannot be slipped in, undetected, between the pages of the Hippocratic work Epidemics 1 and 3, it was not in¯uenced by medical literature. The level of Thucydides' medical skill is not the important question. The extent of Thucydides' medical knowledge ± or his knowledge of any other science of his day ± is not really an accu17 Weidauer 1954; Parry 1969. 18 Page 1953, accepted by Gomme, ¯eshed out further by Lichtenthaeler 1965, 34±72; now supported further in a computer analysis by Morgan 1994, 198±9, and argued at length by Swain 1994; see Page 1953, 97 n. 1 on the immense bibliography on this subject already at that point. Parry 1969, in an in¯uential article, rightly criticizes earlier scholars, above all Cochrane and Weidauer, for excessive claims, such as an exact and exclusive correspondence between Thucydides and medical texts, and certain insupportable biographical speculations; yet by o¨ering a semantic adjustment of the word ``technical'' and citing numerous indisputable but irrelevant examples of poetic phrases and strikingly unusual syntax, Parry refutes an argument which was not made by Page and which should not have been inferred by Page's admirers. 19 A modern physician (Morgan 1994, 204) has compared Thucydides' description of the epidemic to ``the `head to toe' listing of symptoms and signs gathered by a neophyte medical student when ®rst presented with a complicated diagnostic problem''; in fact, Thucydides omitted or left vague other things which modern doctors would have wanted for a more precise diagnosis.

Beyond Corcyra

17

rate indicator of methodological and conceptual in¯uence. He himself disavowed any claim to medical expertise, especially in a case which ba¿ed the experts. The epidemic in Athens was kreiÄ sson lo gou, ``beyond explanation,'' that is, impossible to identify and overwhelming rational analysis.20 His purpose was to provide what even experienced medical writers did when at a loss, namely an accurate record (the gnwÄsiv) of the condition: ``I shall describe its actual course, explaining by what indications an investigator, with such foreknowledge of it, might best be able to recognize it should it break out in the future'' (2.48.3).21 This is the method and approach to natural phenomena which Thucydides brought to his description and analysis of stasis. While a tentative and amateur student of medicine, Thucydides was a keen and perspicacious historian. After his account of the epidemic's most important symptoms, Thucydides wrote with authority and at commensurate length (2.48.1±51.3 vs. 2.51.4±53) about the drastic psychological and social consequences of the epidemic, in terms very closely resembling his pathology of stasis (with important di¨erences, discussed below). Historical processes are more complicated than the course of a disease in the human body, yet Thucydides shows no uncertainty when describing and analyzing the cause, course and e¨ects of stasis. He chose precisely those features he judged inherent to the condition and described them as accurately and methodically as possible. Thus his rigorous selection of facts, for which he has been severely criticized by modern readers, was the only intellectually honest way to proceed, given his original methodological decisions. Moreover, in the case of stasis, Thucydides was able to explain the cause of the a¿iction, which he was unable to do for the epidemic. For him, stasis was not kreiÄ sson loÂgou, ``beyond explanation,'' despite the fact that one of its symptoms is fundamental changes in language. In his accounts of both the epidemic and the stasis, Thucydides di¨ers from the medical experts in at least one important aspect. 20 Not ``impossible to describe,'' as some have thought, for Thucydides describes it in some detail, e piÁ paÄn thÁn i de an (2.51.1) 21 Parry 1969 interprets this sentence as re¯ecting a non- (or anti-) scienti®c ``pessimism''; yet while it is true that Thucydides did not believe in prognosis, his method was no less ``scienti®c'' as a result (see next two notes below). I also cannot agree with Rusten 1989 ad loc. that Thucydides' note that doctors were unable to help indicates his distance from the ¯edging medical science. See Rutherford 1994 on the ``usefulness'' of the History.

18

The model of stasis

Nowhere does he intend to provide future generations an instrument for prognosis, much less treatment.22 His programmatic statement in 2.48.3, quoted above, stresses cognition (skopwÄ n, proeidw v, agnoeiÄ n, i dwÂn), nothing more, just like his assertion that the characteristics of stasis so carefully described ``occur and will always occur so long as human nature remains the same'' (3.82.2). No possibility, much less intention of prediction is suggested here, in sharp contrast to the Hippocratic authors. In this aspect, then, Thucydides di¨ers from his medical models, as well as from modern criteria which (for most sciences) require reproducible results ®tting a predictable pattern; only his method ®ts the term ``scienti®c.''23 Even a work such as the Hippocratic Epidemics, which o¨ers no explicit guidance for prognosis and seldom suggests treatments but is devoted almost entirely to a detailed account of several a¿ictions, implies the use of the information as a prognostic instrument.24 Thucydides writes to impart to future generations no practical bene®ts other than knowledge itself. This knowledge, if acccurately recorded, will help future readers to understand events of their time. The tasks of recording and understanding were hard enough, as Thucydides acknowledges at the beginning of his History (1.22.2± 3). Even the author of Ancient Medicine thought that ``perfect accuracy is to be seen only rarely'' (ch. 9), and that the scientist must aim for only ``nearly perfect accuracy'' (toÁ e gguÁ v touÄ a trekestaÂtou, 12).25 Thucydides states his purpose succinctly: ``those who wish a clear view (toÁ sajeÁ v skopeiÄ n) both of past events and of future events which, given the human condition, will be identical or similar ± if these judge my history useful, it will be enough for me'' (1.22.4). As a record of the past for future generations seeking 22 This point was set right by de Romilly 1956a and in fairly strong terms by Parry 1957 and 1969, 106¨., although they have not always been heeded since. See Stahl 1966, 15±19, and the critique of Lichtenthaeler 1965, 151¨. by Rivier 1969; and Hussey's view (1985, 134) that Thucydides prescribed a cure for stasis (!). 23 Syme 1962, 139: ``the notion of scienti®c history is an absurdity unless by `scienti®c' we simply mean being as accurate and comprehensive as possible.'' While some modern sciences rely more on reproducibility and predictability than others (biology and physics vs. geology and astronomy), all assume regular patterns resulting from laws of nature. On ``scienti®c history'' in modern practice, see Evans 1997, 45±74. 24 Cf. now Grmek 1989, 292±5. 25 Cf. also the statement, which sounds so much like Thucydides in thought if not style: ``Everything will be discovered if the researcher is competent and makes his inquiry by starting out from knowledge (ei dwÂv) of the discoveries already made'' (ch. 2).

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knowledge about both the past and their own time, Thucydides' History will be a kthÄma e v ai ei , a ``possession for all time,'' permanently ``useful.'' Thucydides is dealing with historical truths, which are more susceptible to investigation than the nature of the gods or men's souls or a supersensible reality of Nature, or even the physical nature of the universe.26 Two more points should be made before closing this discussion of Thucydides' method in the stasis model. First, we should take account of the learned controversy on the question: to what extent did Thucydides, under the in¯uence (the spell, some would say) of science, actually write his entire History according to the same principles declared in 1.22.2 and 5.26.5 and demonstrated par excellence in his accounts of the epidemic and stasis, and consequently to what extent can he and his entire composition be considered objective and rational? The scholarship on this question is so massive as to daunt even the most enthusiastic reader of Thucydides. The debate as such began when the view of an utterly truthful, precise, detached and rational Thucydides, developed primarily by German scholars in the nineteenth century, was challenged in 1907 by Cornford, whose thesis is implied in the title of his book, Thucydides Mythistoricus. Cornford was answered by Cochrane (1929), who in the English-speaking world has remained the best-known representative of the view that Thucydides applied to history the scienti®c method of his time, particularly that developed by the medical experts, thus inventing ``the science of history.'' Cochrane's argument, while su¨ering from both excess and error, rests on the essentially correct observation that Thucydides learned much about method and technique, and approach to nature, from the science of his day, and was the ®rst to attempt ± or presume ± to apply what he learned to history. A distinction must be made between how Thucydides thought or said he was writing history and what later scholars identify as his real method and purpose, or his success in maintaining ``objectivity'' in modern terms. If an unequivocal demonstration of adopted method and intended purpose is recognized in the stasis model, that will su½ce for the present investigation. 26 Thucydides exhibits the ``robust empiricism'' (FraÈ nkel 1974/1925) of Xenophanes, but greater con®dence that exact observation can lead to exact understanding (contrast Xenophanes, DK 21 b34); compare Alcmaeon DK b28. Similarly, the medical thinkers also shunned over-arching theory. Note, for example, the criticisms of uÿpoÂqesiv at the beginning of Ancient Medicine; this attitude toward a priori theory would later change.

20

The model of stasis

Cochrane has endured much revilement down to the present generation, and the emotional level of the criticism reveals that more is felt to be at stake than an understanding of one ®fthcentury historian. The debate has practically polarized around labels: Thucydides is either the least or most objective of all ancient historians, a scientist without emotion or a passionate artist without science, a promoter of rational and intelligent control of human a¨airs or a propounder of the irrational and unpredictable in history as bounds to the power of intelligence, even an absolute truth-teller or a tendentious fabricator.27 The categories which have developed and are still developing are not necessarily contradictory or mutually exclusive, and ironically betray a rather outdated notion of ``science'' and its relation to the emotions. Thucydides may adopt an empirical and analytical approach to historical data learned from medical treatises of his time, while at the same time adopting an artistic narrative style and maintaining an emotional investment in his subject. The Peloponnesian War was not assigned him as a topic for a ``prize essay,'' but was chosen by himself as the most signi®cant event to investigate and interpret. That in itself indicates deep personal involvement without re¯ecting negatively on the quality of the investigation. Are theoretical physicists searching with excitement for a ``Theory of Everything,'' or biological researchers deciphering the codes of nature or trying to abolish epidemics, required to suppress emotion (much less individual creativity) in order to remain objective enough to pursue their science?28 Thucydides wrote history. That is a simple enough statement, but one which excludes science, art, ethics and philosophy as his 27 Among the more important recent demonstrations of the more artistic, emotional and subjective sides of Thucydides are, ®rst, de Romilly 1956a and Stahl 1966, to whom most of the following criticisms do not apply; Edmunds 1975a and 1975b, Parry (all titles cited in bibliography), Grant 1974, Hunter 1973. For an illuminating discussion, as well as reference to other works not mentioned here, see Ostwald 1988, 56±7, also Connor 1977, whose coinage ``post-modernist Thucydides'' has now gained considerable currency; Connor's thoughtful essay of 1985 points the way to a more nuanced appreciation, and see in a parallel vein Hornblower 1994. 28 The plethora of books in the past two decades by natural scientists for lay audiences contains ample enough evidence that emotional involvement, creativity, artistry and philosophical speculation ± in short, the attributes which are supposed to have con¯icted with Thucydides' scienti®c pretensions ± accompany the practice of ``pure'' science. Two of the best writers have been H. Pagels (see e.g. The Dreams of Reason [1988], passim) and L. Thomas (e.g., Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony [1980], esp. 68± 80, 143±55).

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21

primary occupation. Surely his composition contains elements of all of these, but cannot be singularly de®ned by any one of them. My claim here is also fairly simple: in his model of stasis Thucydides adopted a method and conceptual framework learned from contemporary science. Moreover, Thucydides maintains a ®rm command over both facts and language ± the raw material and technique of his art ± in the stasis model. The historian even of contemporary events cannot always rely on his own observations, but must gather information from a variety of sources, the most troublesome being human witnesses. This limitation is admitted at the outset of the History (1.22.2±3) and is repeated on other occasions (5.68.2, 7.44.1, cf. 7.71). But, again, such uncertainty is nowhere evident in Thucydides' un¯inching account of stasis, and one may assume that since the historian had numerous opportunities personally to witness staseis in the Hellenic cities, he relied primarily on his own observations, con®rmed by those of other informants, when constructing his model. Second, it should be noted that another component of medical theory is conspicuously absent in the model of stasis, namely the de®nition of health as an equilibrium of forces. This departure is surprising because the direct connection between a medical and a political theory, one imagines, would have appealed to Thucydides. The idea, developed by natural scientists and political philosophers both before and after Socrates, is that a proper balance of forces ± in an organism, political system, the cosmos ± produces health (or even the act of creation itself, as Empedocles thought), and a disproportion characterizes illness. A prominent example is Alcmaeon of Croton, whose teachings would probably have been known to Thucydides. In one fragment he is quoted as saying (DK 24 b4): The essential bond of health is the ``equal rights'' (i sonomi a) of the forces, moist and dry, cold and hot, bitter and sweet, and the rest, whereas the single rule (monarci a) [of one element] among them is the cause of disease; the single rule of any of them is harmful.

Alcmaeon goes on to explain that the imbalance can arise from both internal and external sources. Unlike medical writers, who use the word krasis to signify the proper balance of powers in a healthy system, Alcmaeon uses a political metaphor which philosophers of his time had adopted to understand the cosmos; political real-

22

The model of stasis

ities aided his insight into nature, and probably vice versa. As in Heraclitus and Anaximander, Democritus also wrote along the same lines.29 Thucydides was not unaware of this theory (cf. 8.97.2: metriÂa xuÂgkrasiv, on the reÂgime of the Five Thousand), but as we will see, his concept of stasis involves not the elevation of one element in a body politic above the others, that is, a disproportionate strength or weakness in one or more elements, but the corruption of the essential elements, and consequently of the entire body. the genesis and effects of stasis In four balanced, parallel sentences, Thucydides leads the reader from the extremes of the stasis in Corcyra to the outbreak of stasis in the Hellenic world, and thence to the universal human condition. The description of the events of the Corcyrean stasis is never abandoned, but it is broadened and generalized. The precisely parallel structure of these sentences (3.82.1±2) may be schematized: 82.1a 82.2a 1. Speci®c instance to general condition Corcyra ! Hellas: ``it was Hellas ! Human history: ``the the ®rst of that time, . . . later cities in stasis . . . which occur the whole Hellenic world . . .'' and will always occur . . .'' 2. Character of more general condition ``there being contentions in ``more intense or milder . . .'' each city'' 82.1b 82.2b Cause of general condition: changes produced in war a. In peacetime (e n meÁ n gaÁ r a. In peacetime (e n meÁ n eirhÂnhÎ) such behavior impossible eirhÂnhÎ ) such behavior imb. In wartime (polemoume nwn possible de ) such behavior possible b. In wartime (oÿ deÁ poÂlemov) such behavior possible 29 Cf. Hussey 1985. For the idea of proper balance and mixture, see further Ancient Medicine 14 and 19, Nature of Man 4; and cf. Ar. Pol. 5 1301a. McKinney 1964 provides a critical survey, as well as an explanation for the absence of the term, if not the concept, of isonomia in Greek medical writings; cf. also Longrigg 1993, 52. On the term isonomia in political contexts, see Ostwald 1969, 96±160, departing from the important work by Vlastos 1964 and 1953; also Raa¯aub 1985, 115±17.

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23

It seems otiose, but, given the still-prevalent trend to ®nd imperfection in every Thucydidean repetition, it is necessary to say that the a±b±a±b structure of this small section can only have been intentional, carefully planned and subtly written. The ®rst sentence of each pair broadens the focus from a speci®c instance to a more general condition, and the precise parallels demonstrate in strikingly concrete fashion that what was true for the single city, Corcyra, was true for all Hellas at that time, and will be true in all times and places. The identical underlying structures and nature of events are evident in sentence structure and sequence of thought. The perceptive eye, says Thucydides, learns to identify the essential elements and ignore the inessential, time-bound details which vary according to circumstance. The details of the feud which set o¨ the con¯ict in Corcyra were not repeated in other cities of Hellas, which, however, all called in Athens or Sparta in the name of democracy or oligarchy; and even a nominal struggle between democracy and oligarchy will not perforce be repeated in other staseis elsewhere and at other times, but the many attending calamities (pollaÁ kaiÁ calepaÁ kataÁ staÂsin), in varying degrees, will be. The reason for the predicted repetition of behavior in all staseis is given in the second sentences of each pair; appropriately, 82.1b still refers to the situation in Hellas, while 82.2b o¨ers the same analysis in general terms, free of any particular context.30 Both sentences explain the ones preceding them by showing how people behave di¨erently under varying conditions, speci®cally war and peace. In the ®rst sentence (82.1a±b),31 Thucydides says that in 30 The transitional word ``and'' (kai ) in 82.1b has practically the same sense as the transitional ``for'' (ga r) in 82.2b. 31 Which is itself in a±b±a±b form: ``no pretext'' and ``not prepared'' correspond, respectively, to ``an alliance was available'' and ``a facile matter.'' The ``available alliances'' as well as the destructive purposes described were obviously created by the war. Many have objected to the unusual syntax of this sentence, in particular the lack of a verb in the me n clause and, if the genitive absolutes remain, the lack of a copula (ontwn) for eÿ toi mwn. Among the suggested emendations has been e to lmwn for eÿ toi mwn, which creates further grammatical di½culties; Marshall's emendation (1990) of oud' eÿ toi mwn to oudete rwn is inspired by his belief that eÿ toi mwn ``does not add much to the sense,'' which I hope to disprove: it is rather a key concept. While the grammar of the sentence remains strange, and to pedants embarrassing, Thucydides' meaning is clear to all, and the genitive absolutes in the me n and de clauses lend a certain force to the intended contrast. The anacoluthon forces readers to go back over the sentence and read it more carefully. Marshall cites previous bibliography, cf. esp. Classen's note ad loc., and see also Macleod 1979, 53 and 65 n. 5.

24

The model of stasis

peacetime ``they would not have been prepared'' (ou k an . . . eÿ toi mwn) to use external alliances for internally destructive purposes, the plain sense of which is that faction-members would not have been mentally disposed, that is, the idea would hardly have entered their minds, to introduce the two great warring powers into the competitions in their own cities. This seems an odd thing to say, but it is corroborated and explained further by two passages in the model: (1) the later statement that the stasiotai ``were ready (eÿ toiÄ moi) to satisfy their lust to dominate by seizing power through either an unjust vote of condemnation or brute force'' (82.8), describing a readiness to commit acts unthinkable in normal times; and closer to home, (2) its parallel in the section, i.e. the second sentence (82.2a±b): in peacetime, states and individuals have ``better gnwÄmai,'' which are overpowered when their orgai are brought down to a crude level in wartime. The word gnwÂmh here embraces the variety of meanings of the word: mental disposition, thought, judgment and purpose; that is, in line with the word's derivation from the aorist root of gignwÂskw (signifying a process of perception and cognition), a decision or conviction reached after careful thought and deliberation. By contrast, o rgai are strong emotions, passions which circumvent or overwhelm rational processes.32 Thus the focus is on what happens internally to living organisms, both states and individuals, during stasis, and the contrast is between the prevalence of mental powers and faculties of judgment (gnwÄmai) in times of security and raw emotion (orgai ) in times of stress and violence. When good gnwÄ mai prevail, the object of competing political groups is not the harm and distress (kaÂkwsiv) of their rivals, over and above their mere defeat, or the revolutionary exploitation of the system to achieve those ends (newteri zein).33 Thucydides will 32 All the examples of gnwÂmh in Thucydides as well as some other ®fth-century authors are collected and analyzed by Huart 1973. On the contrast between gnwÂmh and orghÂ, see Edmunds 1975a, 11±15; on gnwÂmh and healthy political process, Farrar 1988, 153±87. Of course, not all instances will ®t the patterns elucidated here, e.g. gnwÂmh at 6.49.2. 33 I have translated toiÄ v newteri zein ti boulome noiv not, as commonly, ``for those desiring revolution,'' but ``for them as they desired some revolutionary change,'' because the phrase is not a subset of but explains eÿ kate roiv. That is, those partisans who called in Athens and Sparta were the ones desiring to revolutionize the state; they were not existing elements suppressed in times of peace, but were created by the conditions which led to stasis.

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25

develop the theme of the deterioration of reason and judgment in stasis more fully at the end of the analysis, where the word gnwÂmh returns, although with a slightly di¨erent meaning (83.3; see below). Likewise, the theme of the take-over of crude emotional reactions will also be developed (82.7±8) when Thucydides demonstrates how during stasis revenge, which is closely related in Greek literature to orghÂ, governs all political and even interpersonal relations.34 Thus Thucydides says that war changes men internally, transforming their minds and emotions to make them capable of things which they not only would avoid in times of peace and prosperity, but which would not even occur to them.35 This is expressed in the next sentence (82.3), which serves as a transition to the careful record and analysis of symptoms: ``So the cities were embroiled in stasis, and those that were a¿icted later, in¯uenced by knowledge of previous instances, far outstripped the others in the invention of plans . . .''36 The syntax of this sentence is notoriously di½cult, and it has been ``corrected'' by critics from Dionysius to the modern cadre of emenders. Yet the text is sound, and no change is required. The main di½culty can be resolved by realizing that the ®rst neuter subject refers to the a¨airs of the cities (e stasi aze . . . taÁ twÄn poÂlewn), while the second represents the people and their actions in the cities (taÁ e justeri zonta . . . e pe jere), for only people (not events) could go to ``much further extremes, both in the ingenuity of their attacks and in the enormity of their acts of revenge.'' Thus the language is highly compressed, with a point. As Macleod astutely observes, Thucydides ``systematically avoids distinguishing persons from events. This aptly reinforces the notion 34 Cf. Thuc. 6.57.3 (Harmodius and Aristogeiton extracted vengeance di' orghÄv) and 3.38.1, and compare Ar. Rhet. 1369b 12: diaÁ qumoÁn deÁ kaiÁ orghÁn taÁ timwrhtika . Aesch. Eum. 980¨. portrays revenge as a part of stasis. Cf. Diesner 1956, 125±6. 35 Cf. Thrasymachus DK 85 b1 (apparently talking about the Athenian stasis). Cic. Fam. 4.9.3 comes close to illustrating the changed psychological state described by Thucydides: omnia sunt misera in bellis civilibus, . . . sed miserius nihil quam ipsa victoria; quae etiam si ad meliores venit, tamen eos ipsos ferociores impotentioresque reddit, ut, etiam si natura tales non sint, necessitate esse cogantur. This is the tormented voice of one who lived through a prolonged civil war. 36 e stasi aze te oun taÁ twÄn poÂlewn, kaiÁ taÁ e justeri zonta pou pu stei [Dion.: e pipuÂstei ] twÄn progenome nwn poluÁ e pe jere thÁn uÿperbolhÁn touÄ kainouÄsqai taÁ v dianoi av . . . For the purpose of discussion, my translation here is more literal than my attempt at the beginning of the chapter to bring out the meaning of the sentence.

26

The model of stasis

behind the whole passage that circumstances tend to shape human behavior.''37 Thucydides begins the sentence with events in cities, and ends with actions by men, and the lack of clear distinction between the two demonstrates the extent to which they overlap. Through his syntax, Thucydides demonstrates that cities are organisms as much a¿icted by stasis as individuals. This had already been hinted at previously: ``both states and individuals maintain more positive dispositions . . .'' (82.2). Cities may possess mental dispositions or judgment (gnwÄ mai). Thus Thucydides' investigation probes the disrupted interiors of two vitally related organisms, polities rent by stasis and the polities' inhabitants who are changed from within during the course of the illness. It is precisely in this way that war is a bi aiov didaÂskalov, a teacher of violence, since its role in stasis is to ``shape human behavior,'' to make men violent by taking away secure livelihood and introducing violence as the modus vivendi. This means that, in Thucydides' view, men are predisposed neither to tranquil existence nor to violence: when comfortable and unworried about daily survival ± diaÁ toÁ mh means the absence and not the presence of something ± they behave generously and peacefully, but when constantly threatened by violent death in many forms, they are more inclined to violence. The ``necessities'' created by war are ``involuntary'' (the a kouÂsiai anaÂgkai at 82.2): obviously, in times of peace people do not yearn for the deprivations of war; likewise, in stasis engendered by war, people do not yearn for peace but have di¨erent ends.38 This does not mean that war inevitably or always creates stasis, or that war is the only context in which stasis can develop.39 37 Macleod 1979, 61; his analysis of this sentence is altogether elegant. On states and individuals, cf. also 1.122.3, 1.144.3; also Farrar 1988, 153, and now Morrison 1994. Thucydides has two other purposes in 3.82.3: (a) to demonstrate the proposition that di¨erent cases of the condition could vary in intensity, and (b) to shift the focus from the general condition back to Hellas, the middle stage between the individual case (Corcyra) and the universal to describe the course of stasis on all three levels. Gomme (HCT ad loc.; cf. Gomme 1962, 164±5) thought that the shifts in focus indicated di¨erent layers of composition, but there are no contradictions or any other di½culties in the passage which could justify such a supposition; the arrangement is logical and integral. 38 Ostwald 1988, 59, in his discussion of anaÂgkh in Thucydides, is right to stress what Thucydides ``wants,'' as opposed to his subjects' desires. 39 Cf. already the scholiasts' remark on 1.12.2; lately, Ruschenbusch 1978, ch. 3, on which see Lintott 1982, 272±3. The concise remarks of Strauss 1964, 146±8 unravel some of the complexities. On the historical relationship between external war and stasis (as opposed to Thucydides' views and others' interpretations of them), see the thorough discussion of Gehrke 1985, 267±304; but I do not agree with the implications of his conclusion that ``der Krieg war und blieb Katalysator der Stasis.''

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The stasis at Notion, for example, was a ``private stasis'' (sta siv idi a, 3.34.1) not brought about by the Peloponnesian War, although it was exploited by the two great warring powers.40 On the other hand, Thucydides' Archidamus astutely observes that ravaging the Acharnians' land could engender ``stasis in the Athenians' policy'' (2.20.4). War is a su½cient but not a necessary condition for stasis. It is ``a teacher of violence'' (not ``grim teacher'' vel sim., as often proposed) in that it disposes men to violent acts which in a peaceful mindset they would never have contemplated. The phrase, ``War is a teacher of violence'' (po lemov . . . bi aiov didaÂskalov), is a poignant reversal of a common phrase in ancient Greek, ``learned in warfare''; that is, by reversing subject and object, Thucydides changed war from the discipline learned into the teacher itself.41 The conditions of war act on healthy societies just as unhealthy air and water contribute to, but do not invariably cause disease in healthy bodies, as the ancients properly understood; it is the premise, for example, of the early Hippocratic work On Airs, Waters, Places. Changes are systemic, morphic, organic. Thucydides' vision contradicts assumptions in other ethical systems prevalent in his time and our own, based on ®xed moral standards as well as on a conception of human nature as essentially ``good,'' ``bad'' or mixed. The vision also contradicts views on human nature and ethics expressed by some of the actors in his History.42 Thucydides assumes that ``human nature'' has no particular moral characteristics in itself, although many have wrenched one phrase from its context ± ``calamities which occur and will always occur so long as human nature remains the same'' ± and used it as evidence of a belief that stasis ``brings out'' inherent evil in human nature.43 No such notion is even implied. Logical analysis of and deductions from natural patterned occurrences would lack coherency and purpose without the assumption of an indif40 There is no reason to accept KruÈ ger's emendation of i di an to i di aÎ ; cf. Gehrke 1985, 80, 281, and CT i, 415±16. 41 Il. 16.811, didasko menov pole moio; Tyrt. 11.27, didaske sqw polemi zein; Pl. Leg. 804d; Xen. Mem. 3.1.5; Isoc. 16.11; Dem. Ep. Phil. 2. 42 Contrast, e.g., 1.76.2, 3.39.5, 3.45.3, 4.61.5, 5.105.2, and Callicles' argument in Plato's Gorgias. 43 It should be noted that the interpolated 3.84, by contrast, presents human nature as running rampant when unrestrained. Another misinterpretation, namely that the phrase ``occur and will always occur'' indicates a cyclical view of history, will be dealt with below.

28

The model of stasis

ferent ``human nature'' which will always respond similarly to similar stimuli. In the passage, ``human nature'' is as mute and devoid of independent will and character as nature itself. Just as the human body will be healthy under healthy conditions and will become ill when exposed to unhealthy conditions, so in the unhealthy conditions attending stasis human behavior will take on unhealthy forms, but human beings are not by nature predisposed to act one way rather than another. Thucydides says clearly that behavior in stasis is entirely conditioned by ``the vicissitudes of circumstance prevailing in each instance,'' and repeated patterns in that behavior occur because people are the same everywhere. The phrase ``so long as human nature remains the same'' means ``so long as my premise holds'' and not, as has also been argued,44 that Thucydides thought human nature to be changeable; inevitable variations in individual character and behavior are not such as to change the general principle. In sum, while such characteristics as greed, aggression and megalomania do emerge in stasis, they are not in Thucydides' view the root elements of human nature; on the contrary, they are functions of the forces acting on human nature in disturbed times like stasis.45 In like manner, fever and chills are symptoms of certain diseases but are neither exclusive to one disease nor the cause of disease, nor do they in any way indicate a more basic nature to which the human organism can revert. A brief return to the comparison of stasis to disease will help illuminate these mechanisms. The comparison is one which Thucydides himself invites by the verbal and conceptual similarities in the analyses of social breakdown in the epidemic narrative and stasis model. The similarities have of course been noticed many 44 Young-Bruehl 1984, 5±8. 45 Rigidity is to be avoided in semantic issues: a nqrwpei a ju siv at 2.50.1 (epidemic narrative) clearly means man's biological nature and capabilities, which it cannot mean here, although it has the same mute quality; another statement in the epidemic narrative, ``Men adjust their memory according to what they are experiencing'' (2.54.3), is a better parallel to the concept of ``human nature'' in the stasis account. I am not persuaded by Swain's attempts (1994, 313±14) to milk 2.50.1 for greater meaning; Farrar 1988, 136±7 is useful. The much-discussed term toÁ a nqrwÂpinon at 1.22.4 means ``the human condition'' (``the human thing'' is unsatisfactory on many counts, not least vagueness and inelegance), which is connected in a causal fashion to ``human nature,'' see Stahl 1966, 33±5. Among the wide literature on a ``Hippocratic'' notion of human nature in Thucydides, the most important works are Weidauer 1954, 32±46; Rechenauer 1991, 112±258; Swain 1994; see Swain and Rechenauer for more bibliography.

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times before,46 yet the di¨erences are what interest us here. It is true, and important for understanding Thucydides, that the process of social breakdown during the epidemic in Athens in 430, according to Thucydides' description, followed the same course as in stasis. The e¨ects of the epidemic, like stasis, spread outward from the a¿icted to the healthy population: ®rst, those a¿icted with the disease became despondent and hopeless (2.51.4), leading them to violate established norms regarding burial (52.3±4); second, the sick were abandoned by their families because of a similar despair, leaving only friends, who remained loyal out of a sense of shame, a quality which also eventually disappeared;47 ®nally, a general lawlessness, anomi a, spread indiscriminately to the entire population, both sick and healthy, leading to the abandonment of the standard legal, social and religious sanctions responsible for the coherence of any society (2.53). The psychological changes which at ®rst beset only those individuals a¿icted by the epidemic spread to the entire population: the deeper social illness wrought by the biological disease engulfed the entire society. Thus far the two conditions are similar, for the same progression occurs in stasis. Yet there is a key di¨erence: while social institutions, laws, piety and family loyalties simply disappeared during the epidemic, leaving chaos, in stasis all these elements continue to exist in changed, distorted forms, or are replaced by other similar but harmful substitutions. This is because the epidemic overwhelmed its victims, leaving them without strength or will to ®ght the disease or live according to social and religious norms (2.49.6, 50.1, 52.3), whereas stasis itself is a state of sickness, which so changes people that they willfully violate those same norms. Human e¨orts to combat the plague were overpowered, almost literally by violence (uÿperbiazome nou touÄ kakouÄ , 2.52.3); combatants are vigorous and purposeful in stasis, for war has instructed them in violent (if unaccustomed) ways ( bi aiov dida skalov). Thus, in a strict comparison, the disease itself serves the same function in the epidemic narrative as war (not stasis) in the stasis 46 Recently Connor 1984, 99¨.; Orwin 1988 and 1994, 172±84, whose comparison of stasis and epidemic in Thucydides yields quite di¨erent results from mine. 47 At ®rst, some did risk their own health to visit friends (2.51.5±6), but at a later stage this honorable behavior was abandoned (53.3). Another similarity with the stasis account: 2.52.4, e piÁ puraÁ v allotri av, contrasting with an implied puraÁv suggenei av, and 3.82.6, toÁ xuggeneÁ v touÄ eÿ tairikouÄ allotriwÂteron e ge neto. On social breakdown in the epidemic, cf. Stahl 1966, 79¨.

30

The model of stasis

narrative. That is, the epidemic produced the conditions for the aberrant forms of behavior so chillingly similar to those of stasis. The epidemic, like war, could be said to have destroyed ``the easy provision of daily needs'' and brought ``most people's passions to match the level of their actual circumstances.''48 The overcrowding in Athens, which as Thucydides correctly perceived encouraged the spread of the disease, also intensi®ed the social illness. While the epidemic threatened survival with quick, unexpected and agonizing death, during stasis this same threat is posed by sudden violence from enemy quarters on a daily basis. The result in both cases is the disappearance of morality and virtue in individuals ± in the epidemic because those with pretensions to virtue (arethÂ) either died as a result of their insistence on visiting the sick (2.51.5), or gave up the pursuit of virtue as vain and surrendered themselves to the pleasure of the moment (2.53, cf. 3.82.8) ± and this individual collapse is what brings on general social collapse. Both epidemic and war which bring stasis are viewed as processes of nature, not in themselves bearing any negative moral value (in contrast to the older Greek view of disease), but leading to disruptions in morality as de®ned by society. Thucydides was not the ®rst to use illness (no sov) as a metaphor for stasis; it appears elsewhere in ®fth- and (more often) fourth-century Greek.49 But he is the only writer in extant Greek literature to have explored and grasped the full implications of the comparison. the problem of stasis The acuteness and power of Thucydides' analysis obscure how odd and unexpected it really is. Thucydides provides a tool for identifying stasis based on the condition of the combatants, not their relation to each other: internal war is a state of mind and the actions and speech patterns arising from it. This approach is unusual and counterintuitive, especially for Thucydides' Hellas, where the standard, some thought ``natural'' political unit was the polis, a self-contained and sharply de®ned entity which has not been exactly replicated in any other period of history. It is no coincidence 48 Cf. Josephus' scenes of families ®ghting each other for food during the stasis in besieged Jerusalem, BJ 5.429±30. Nothing like this is mentioned by Eckstein 1965 in his study of ``the etiology of internal wars''; note the 21 hypotheses cited on pp. 143±5. 49 Hdt. 5.28; Pl. Resp. 5.470d, Menex. 243e, Leg. 1.628d, 5.744d; etc. Cf. Loraux 1986b, 97±8.

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that the word stasis, in the sense of ``factional rivalry,'' ``internal discord'' vel sim., ®rst appears in the sixth century, after the classical polis had substantially formed (even if further stages of development remained), and thenceforth is always connected with it;50 in fact, stasis quickly assumed a prominent place in the catalogue of evils which could befall a polis. The Chorus says in Aeschylus Eumenides 976±8: ``I pray that Stasis, insatiable of evil, shall not thunder in the polis'' ± a line which has many predecessors.51 The self-evident link beween stasis and the polis is assumed by every other ancient Greek author who wrote theoretically about stasis, and even by many of Thucydides' imitators among the later historians. The standard view is expressed by Socrates in the Republic, when he says that the word stasis ``as it is commonly used'' refers to ``a polis which is internally divided'' (an . . . diasthÄÎ poÂliv, Resp. 470d; this passage presents a problem which will be discussed below). Plato's review of deteriorating constitutions in Republic viii (criticized by Aristotle) is based on the Greek polis, as are the other passing references to stasis in both the Republic and the Laws. It is uncertain whether any ancient Greek writer other than Thucydides imagined stasis in any setting other than the polis.52 Aristotle's treatment of stasis in Book 5 of the Politics is the most thorough of any author of the period. He views civil con¯ict as arising from struggles over the form, or control, of the constitution ( politeia) of the polis. The existence of the phenomenon beyond the speci®c political and cultural circumstances of Hellas is not considered, even in passing (see esp. 1303a 25). He concludes that the source of stasis is the ``desire for equality'' (toÁ i son zhtouÄntev stasia zousin, 1301b 29),53 a notion which is far from Thucydides'. 50 Gehrke 1985, 1¨. and esp. n. 4. A study of the word staÂsiv is a desideratum. 51 Solon fr. 4, 19±20; Theognis, 50±2 and 1081±2, cf. 780±2; Alc. fr. 130, 26; Pind. fr. 109 and Paean 9, 15; Bacch. fr. 24; Soph. OC 1234. See Loraux 1986b, 97±8, although my point by contrast is that Thucydides breaks away from the strict association of stasis with polis. When Herodotus wrote that stasis arises in oligarchies because of private enmities and murderous competition among the rulers (3.82.3), he was thinking of the polis; compare 1.59.3 (Athens) and the more general statement in Plato Resp. 545d. 52 Hdt. 8.3.1 applies stasis to disruptions in the Greek alliance, but there the unconventional usage is signaled by the highly unusual addition of the adjective emphylos, cf. Solon fr. 4 West, Democr. DK 68 b249 and maybe also Theogn. 781. The only acknowledgment that Plato makes of Thucydides' stasis account is the possible imitation of Thuc. 3.82.4±5 in Resp. 560d±e. On the relation between Thucydides' text and the treatments of stasis by Plato and Aristotle, see now Hornblower 1995, 55±6; Rutherford 1995, 66±8; Lintott 1992. 53 Wheeler 1951, 148±51; O. Murray 1993, 202±4.

32

The model of stasis

There are to be sure some similarities in Aristotle's analysis of psychological motives for stasis, but the entire notion of cause, as well as the relation of stasis to historical circumstance, are fundamentally di¨erent. Aristotle identi®es causes of many di¨erent sorts (1302a 17±1307b 26), but some of these causes, psychological phenomena like insolence and contempt, would not be causes but e¨ects in Thucydides' scheme (cf. 3.82.4±5); others, namely demands for constitutional changes, would be de®ned by Thucydides as pretext but not actual cause (3.82.8); while still others, namely corrupt election practices, would be considered attendant historical circumstances (ibid.). The di¨erence in approach may be seen clearly by comparing Aristotle's account of the Mytilenian stasis in 428 with Thucydides' account of the same event: Aristotle attributes the cause to a squabble over heiresses, whereas Thucydides not only does not mention the human interest story but ascribes to the stasis deeply political origins related strictly to the larger con¯ict between Athens and Sparta.54 In fact, as we shall see (Chapter 6), Thucydides pays very little attention to the immediate cause of almost every stasis he narrates; he usually gives a brief description of the political circumstances and the relations between the warring factions and the great powers, and then shifts the focus to the struggle itself. The problem of de®ning stasis, and the originality of Thucydides' solution, become evident once we step outside the world of the classical polis. Internal war is often not so easy to identify, at least on the basis of the political relationship between the combatants, in less well-circumscribed polities. Modern social and political scientists have canvassed the world for examples of internal con¯ict in order to construct a taxonomy and theoretical model, but have achieved little progress beyond elementary if rigorous classi®cation, and even those results defy consensus. While there is general agreement that civil war, revolution, revolt, rebellion, uprising, insurrection, guerilla warfare, mutiny, jacquerie, coup d'eÂtat, putsch, riot and terrorism are all di¨erent types of internal con¯ict ± and these terms have gained the status of technical terms ± there is no agreement on how infallibly to tell one from the other, much less how to de®ne the more general phenomenon of which they are types. Even the generic term ``internal disorder,'' invented as a 54 Ar. Pol. 1304a 4¨., Thuc. 3.1¨.

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kind of compromise, does not mean the same thing to everyone. It is revealing that, in one of the pioneering volumes on the subject, di¨erent authors propose three di¨erent methods of classi®cation of internal disorder, as well as at least two general de®nitions.55 That was in 1964. Five years later the authors of a thoughtful monograph declared it ``close to impossible'' to construct a reliable typology.56 Nothing in the voluminous literature since then (at least that I have seen) has proven this assessment wrong. Why the di½culty? I do not presume to understand what a small army of researchers has not, but an observation regarding modern methods will be relevant to the current examination of Thucydides' History. The modern study of civil war proceeds, naturally enough, by ®rst gathering examples, then comparing, contrasting and classifying them, and ®nally devising an abstract scheme to describe (and perhaps explain) them. Yet there is a paradox latent in this method: the de®nition of an internal con¯ict more often than not depends on its outcome. To see the reason for this we must ®rst take one step backwards. In a polity riven by con¯ict, the identity of the polity itself will be the ®rst thing to become disturbed by, or even disappear in the con¯ict. Devisers of abstract schemes of internal con¯ict often implicitly assume a de®nition of a polity within which such a con¯ict can take place.57 The problem is more visible in systems other than the polis. In Jerusalem in the year 70 ce, Jewish rebels against Rome slaughtered each other with the conviction that they were removing illegitimate representatives of God and State, even if these were their own blood relatives; the battles were ideological and violent, and in the process the entity at the center of contention was radically rede®ned, ultimately lost.58 In the American 55 Eckstein 1964. See Eckstein's de®nition on p. 12 and Janos' on p. 130. Eckstein o¨ered yet another de®nition in his essay a year later (1965), and in his recent book of essays (1992) he describes his ®rst e¨ort as ``weak'' but cannot point to any decisive success since then (306); see the attempt by Licklider 1993, 9, and cf. Rosenau 1964 and Falk 1971. Heuss 1973 deals with some of the theoretical problems in light of examples from antiquity. 56 Kelly and Miller 1969. 57 Eckstein 1964, realizing this, proposed ``legal polity plus moral community,'' but the weakness and instability of this de®nition were apparent to him (15f.). Gehrke 1985 is particularly sensitive to the problem of legitimacy in a polis undergoing a stasis; see especially the analytical part of his work, 201±353. 58 One side of the ideological battle may be seen in the speech Josephus gives himself, BJ 5.376±419, where the central claim is that God has abandoned the Jews who are still defending the Temple.

34

The model of stasis

Civil War, Southern ideologues went so far as to devise entirely separate genealogies for their ``people,'' and to invent a ``Civilization of the South''; private war journals by Southerners are ®lled with references to their ``country.''59 These were the psychological adjustments necessary for wars in which blood-relations fought each other; the other side must become foreign (a llo triov) in a profound sense. Similar mechanisms are in evidence in any stasis su½ciently documented. In contrast to the dynamics of violence, which modern researchers may observe, record and classify, a polity, even if formally constituted, is a subjective and unstable thing, for its legitimacy is not absolute or external to its members but a matter of perception and agreement. The laws and conventions which are the sinews of any state ± its nomoi ± and which often de®ne the state in the minds of its citizens, have no independent existence, and are what become corrupted and may eventually disappear in stasis. Acquiescence and participation by a polity's members ± whether active or passive, voluntary or coerced ± make a polity and de®ne it.60 In a typical internal war, the combatants rede®ne both themselves and their opponents, and in consequence of new exclusions and inclusions rede®ne the very political entity in which they had previously lived together peacefully. This is true even if factional lines separate blood-relations and if, as Aristotle argued, a polis is a natural (as opposed to merely man-made) union.61 Thus a polity is variously and chaotically de®ned in a stasis, or it may cease to exist altogether. The problem is not necessarily solved by introducing an outside observer. For while such an observer may perceive that a unity is being disrupted by internal con¯ict, the rede®nitions by the stasiotai of themselves, of their opponents and of their polity amount to a rede®nition of the con¯ict as well. This is the paradox, and it is, I think, what has bedeviled modern theoretical studies: the outcome of an internal con¯ict may determine its de®nition retroactively. A successful separation or takeover by one party can be termed (in the modern lexicon) revolution; an unsuccessful attempt cannot, and will most likely be classi®ed as civil war vel sim. The con¯ict in Corcyra, 59 McPherson 1988, 197, 290, 308¨., 861. See the fascinating study by McCardell 1979. 60 Gurr 1970. 61 Ar. Pol. 1253a; at 1275b 34±1276b 15 he considers what makes up the essential identity of a state, and concludes that it is neither the citizens nor the place but the politeia, on which see O. Murray 1993.

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which Thucydides called stasis and on which he based his general model of the phenomenon, would not have been called stasis by the people who were ®ghting each other there. They would have had other names for their con¯ict, since the word stasis deprives all sides of legitimacy. As Loraux has observed, ``each city preferred to place its own divisions under the all-encompassing heading of diaphoraÂ, whereas the civil wars of its neighbors were categorized as sta sis.''62 Thus, in conventional thinking, a stasis (especially in a system other than a Greek polis) may, in some cases, be perceivable as such only after the con¯ict is over and one side, or both, have su¨ered total defeat. Let us return to the two examples we have already cited. It was only in retrospect that those who were able to survive the internecine ®ghting in Jerusalem during the year 70 called it a stasis or equivalent name; a di¨erent result, that is, the victory of one side, would have been remembered and recorded di¨erently, perhaps (to borrow language from a Jewish sect of that time) a victory by the Sons of Light over the Sons of Darkness. Similarly, one may ask whether the American Civil War would universally be called a ``civil war,'' especially in the South, had the South succeeded. At the height of the con¯ict, the North's o½cial term for it was ``The War of Rebellion'' and the South's was ``The Second American Revolution.'' Both expressions satisfy ideological requirements: perpetrators of rebellion have a lesser claim to legitimacy than aggrieved revolutionaries patterned on recent successful ones. The same distinction, with the same implications, was in fact anticipated by Thucydides, who has Cleon say of the Mytilenians, ``they have rebelled [in the sense of insubordination] rather than revolted, for `revolution' belongs to those who are oppressed'';63 the de®nition would be settled only by the result. Most revealing in this regard is the comment by the dean of modern theorists, Harry Eckstein, who criticized Crane Brinton's celebrated Anatomy of Revolution for including the American Revolution and the English Civil Wars in the same study: ``oranges and apples should be 62 Loraux 1991, 49. 63 e pane sthsan maÄ llon h a pe sthsan (apoÂstasiv me n ge twÄn bi aioÂn ti pasco ntwn e sti n) . . . 3.39.2; the distinction is hardly a ``frigid conceit'' (HCT ii, 307) or ``highly arti®cal'' (HCT v, 45). My English translation is in¯uenced by the American example; some translate a poÂstasiv as ``rebellion'' (cf. Jowett), which in other contexts is the word bearing legitimacy as opposed to ``revolt.''

36

The model of stasis

distinguished,'' Eckstein warned.64 But a di¨erent outcome to the English Civil War would have changed the category into which it fell; for some parties it was and has been convenient to call the con¯ict the ``Great Rebellion,'' and it would have yet another name if, for example, by some circumstance the monarchy, whose apparent inevitability is a product of retrospection, had not been restored. Even in cases in which opponents in an internal war openly acknowledge the type of con¯ict in which they are engaged ± which, to be sure, often happens ± they nevertheless always resort to the rhetorical claims re¯ecting the required psychological shifts. For example, while Roman historians living in and after the ®nal bloody century of the Republic correctly perceived the con¯icts as staseis, or bella civilia,65 the antagonists fought huge, rancorous propaganda battles over the question of legitimacy. Julius Caesar declared, in a work which he termed simply commentarii rerum gestarum, that he was attacking the State ``to restore the Tribunes of the People to their proper o½ce, and to vindicate the freedom of himself and the Roman People who were oppressed by a small faction.''66 His personal enemies were to be perceived not as his fellow-countrymen but as enemies of the State, on the level of a foreign invader; this is the full signi®cance of the highly charged Latin word hostis, which sancti®ed civil murder. As Dio astutely observed, in conscientiously Thucydidean fashion: ``Those who succeeded were estimated to be prudent and lovers of country (jilopoÂlidev), whereas those who failed were called enemies of the country and guilty of grave o¨ense'' (46.34.5). By contrast, Cicero, who remained alert and sensitive through these cataclysmic wars, doubted after Caesar's victory in 46 whether the Republic still existed (si sit aliqua res publica . . . sin autem nulla sit, Fam. 4.8.2) and resorted to the much vaguer, even hopeful phrase patria when referring to his be64 Eckstein 1992, 306. 65 Sallust's use of Thucydidean language and thought regarding stasis reveals deep understanding of his mentor; see Scanlon 1980, 54±6, 99±102. Cf. Lucan's arresting phrase, bella . . . plus quam civilia (1.1). 66 uti se a contumeliis inimicorum defenderet, ut tribunos plebis in ea re ex civitate expulsos in suam dignitatem restitueret, ut se et populum Romanum factione paucorum oppressum in libertatem vindicaret (BC 1.22.5). Strikingly, Caesar uses the term bellum civile only twice in that work (and these are the only instances in all writings published under his name), both in carefully guarded contexts, at 2.29.3 and 3.1.4; cf. 1.67.3 and 3.1.3 where he refers to civiles dissensiones, and Ep. ad Cic. fr. 24, quid viro bono et quieto et bono civi magis convenit quam abesse a civilibus controversiis. On the political vocabulary during the Roman civil wars, see Syme 1939, 149±61.

Beyond Corcyra

37

loved country (ibid., 7.4, 9.3).67 Yet Caesar's rhetoric is repeated almost verbatim by his adopted son Augustus in the latter's description of his ®nal victory in the civil wars: ``When I was 19 years old, on my own responsibility and at my own expense I raised an army with which I vindicated the freedom of the Republic which was oppressed by the domination of a faction'' (RG 1.1).68 These examples of stasis rhetoric are familiar already from Thucydides, for at the outbreak of stasis in Corcyra certain Corcyreans were brutally massacred by their compatriots as dangerous external enemies, on charges of attempting to subvert the state (3.81.4); and during the Athenian stasis of 411 similar charges of political subversion were heard in the negotiations with the Athenian soldiers and democratic assembly at Samos, demonstrating real confusion over the terms for enemy and patriot (8.86). Innumerable parallels can be found in other periods of history. Yet they are not so mundane or routine as they seem, for they lie at the heart of the di½culty of de®ning stasis. Thucydides solved the problem by identifying stasis as a human and societal a¿iction which can be detected in certain, peculiar forms of action and speech, from which, in turn, thoughts and feelings, the subjects' internal condition, may be extrapolated. This method of de®nition resembles the identi®cation of a disease by its symptoms, as I hope to have already demonstrated. Thucydides does not de®ne the condition by the entity within which the con¯ict takes place or by the political relationship of the opponents. Moreover, far from limiting his conception of stasis to the Greek polis, he aimed at a universal description, one which could be useful ``for all time.'' In his de®nition of stasis, he took into account that political structures and historical circumstances were impermanent; what remained, he thought, was ``human nature'' and basic patterns of behavior which would recur in similar conditions quite unrelated to any speci®c political system or other variable circumstances. By Thucydides' method, the recent con¯ict in the Balkans should be de®ned as internal war not because 67 This is what Cicero said in private correspondence with M. Claudius Marcellus; in his speech on Marcellus' behalf that same year, Cicero's constant references to the Republic were a rhetorical ploy intended to shame Caesar into laying down his supreme power in the common (read: Republican) interest. 68 Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, per quem rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi.

38

The model of stasis

of the unstable, ephemeral entity called ``Yugoslavia'' but because of the internal condition of the combatants as can be judged from their reported words and actions. It should also be noted that the purpose of current theoretical studies of internal con¯ict is quite di¨erent from Thucydides'. The modern search for a comprehensive theory of internal con¯ict is motivated by an openly acknowledged practical aim, namely, to prevent internal wars, or to deal with them e¨ectively once they have broken out, above all to determine the legality, appropriateness and possibility of international intervention.69 Thus the obsessive interest in classi®cation, for a rigorous distinction between types of violent political action is a prerequisite for practical issues of international law (although practical measures by states have not always waited for agreement, or even clarity, among theorists). Beyond classi®cation, most modern theory has concentrated on the origins or causes of internal con¯icts; again, a predictive and practical purpose is usually apparent. Thucydides, by contrast, sought to understand humanity, and he shunned any easy practical application of that knowledge; his purpose was not primarily to provide a tool with which future generations could improve their lot. In sum, we ®nd in Thucydides a de®nition of stasis that rises above all particular historical circumstances and political systems; it is based solely on observed patterns of human behavior. Thucydides arrives at the de®nition in an e¨ort to understand not just the phenomenon itself, but the human condition through the phenomenon. And since stasis is not strictly a struggle within any speci®c kind of political entity, Thucydides' de®nition requires the observer ®rst to de®ne a con¯ict as stasis evident in patterns of speech and action, before asking exactly what entity is being torn apart. This conclusion will form the basis of my interpretation of the History in the subsequent chapters, where I will argue that the recorded words and actions of the Hellenes ®t the requirements of the stasis model (Chapters 2 to 6); only after that do I inquire about the nature of the entity a¨ected by the internal con¯ict. 69 For a sampling, see Rosenau 1964; Kelly and Miller 1969; Falk 1971; Luard 1972; Moore 1974; Licklider 1993; and recently McCoubrey and White 1995. Extensive bibliography may be found in Moore and Licklider.

Beyond Corcyra

39

We may now to turn to the remainder of the stasis model (3.82.4±83), in which the speci®c features of the condition of stasis ± a patholog y of the condition ± are presented by Thucydides. the pathology of stasis Language, meaning and morality The ``value of words'' The changes characterizing stasis emerge in social interactions. Every society of any complexity is structured on conventions and institutions, which Thucydides' model assumes will have common elements in all historical settings. The ®rst and most generic convention, fundamental to any society, is language. It will be convenient to repeat Thucydides' observations: (82.4) And people exchanged the conventional value of words in relation to the facts, according to their own perception of what was justi®ed. For reckless daring was now considered courage true to the party, whereas prudent hesitation was considered specious cowardice, moderation and discretion a cover for unmanliness, and intelligence which comprehended the whole an unwillingness to act in anything. Impulsive rashness was attributed to the part of a real man, while careful planning was written o¨ as a nice-sounding excuse for evasion.70

Thucydides' own unusual choice of words and compressed syntax make all the nuances of the passage somewhat obscure to us71 and di½cult to convey. A basic principle is ®rst stated in a dense but carefully worded sentence, and then illustrated by examples of qualities to which people in the grip of stasis assign di¨erent values, as follows:72 70 Although the following departs from almost all translations and commentaries, I do agree in part with the basic point in J. B. Wilson 1982, correcting J. T. Hogan 1980; see also Worthington 1982, and now Swain 1994. Perceptive analyses of the entire passage, but quite di¨erent from mine, may be found in Macleod 1979, 56±7, 60±2; MuÈ ri 1969; Edmunds 1975b; Loraux 1986b. In a di¨erent context, see the discussion of language and civilization in Segal 1981, 333±44. 71 Not just to us: cf. Dion. De Thuc. 29. 72 The ®rst pair, toÂlma a lo gistov vs. andrei a, is set o¨ from the following pairs by me n . . . de . In the me n clause, a negative value, ``reckless daring,'' is paired with a value of relative worth, whereas in the subsequent pairs (de ), unequivocally positive values (prudent hesitation, moderation, etc.) are coupled with negative values; moreover, the me n clause indicates what people in stasis praise, whereas the de clauses indicate what they condemn.

40 I reckless daring prudent hesitation moderation and discretion comprehending intelligence impulsive rashness careful planning

The model of stasis

" "

" "

II courage true to the party specious cowardice cover for unmanliness

"

"

unwillingness to act

" "

" "

manliness excuse for evasion73

in stasis was called

People engaged in stasis used the expressions in the second column to describe the behaviors in the ®rst column. Thus the semantic instability (or innovation) symptomatic of stasis is revealed only in the expressions of the second column, which were now used to describe the forms of behavior in the ®rst column. Perception of this phenomenon requires the presence of an uninvolved observer ± the historian himself ± who is able to judge the behaviors objectively and describe them with conventional language which, in turn, will be understood by the reader precisely as the historian intended. We may say that Thucydides is speaking in his own voice in column one and recording the voices of rival factions in column two. Like a doctor una¨ected by fever and able to diagnose delirium and its causes, Thucydides judges how people changed semantic conventions ``in relation to the facts,''74 in this case, forms of behavior. Thus it is further assumed that the facts which words describe (sometimes accurately and sometimes not) are also stable and objective:75 ``reckless daring'' will always be reckless daring, no matter what expression is used to describe it. The historian is able to discern (and convey to his readers) that when people in stasis praise others for ``courage true to the party,'' they are really praising behavior which, according to the conventional meaning of words, is ``reckless daring.'' In view of explanations commonly o¨ered, it is perhaps necessary to stress that Thucydides does not say that people in stasis 73 Or ``abandonment of party'' (a potrophÂ)? 74 e v taÁ e rga is to be understood with a xi wsin, see Parry 1981, 191±2; MuÈ ri 1969, 67±9. Thucydides' independent perspective is discussed at length by Loraux 1986b. 75 Ober 1993. I disagree with Parry's view (1981, 48) that Thucydides, following Gorgias, thought reality to be ultimately unknowable. The problem in internal war is that people do not perceive the facts as they are.

Beyond Corcyra

41

started using the term ``reckless daring'' to signify party loyalty, and so forth. Language did not change to that extent, or in that way. The term ``reckless daring,'' even in stasis, always describes a vice and does not suddenly become a term of praise, even though such a behavior pattern (objectively viewed) did in fact receive praise, albeit under the name of ``party loyalty,'' during the stasis which serves as Thucydides' model. We are not told what kind of actions are called ``reckless daring'' during this stasis or any other. Likewise, no one ever condemns another for ``prudent hesitation,'' even though this behavior may in fact be condemned ± again, under a di¨erent name ± during a stasis. The occasions on which the factions did in fact use the expression ``prudent hesitation'' are not recorded. Much of the modern controversy regarding the meaning of this crucial passage arises from ambiguities and nuances in the commentators' own languages. Most notably, Thucydides is usually thought to be saying that people ``changed,'' in the sense of transforming or distorting, the ``meaning'' of words. But there are good, precise expressions in ancient Greek for both ``change'' and ``meaning,''76 and Thucydides actually says that people ``exchanged the valuation'' of words (a xi wsin . . . anth llaxan). Such a translation seems quite strange in English, and in ancient Greek as well this is an expression so unusual as to make a ®fth-century reader pause to consider the author's exact intention; not only the particular use of the word a xi wsiv, but its combination with a word meaning ``exchange,'' are so far as I can tell unparalleled in Greek literature through the fourth century. Thucydides means that during stasis words retain their agreed-upon meaning but the value assigned to them, that is, how their meanings were enacted in society, changes.77 In the example, ``courage true to the party'' did not change its basic meaning in stasis: it still signi®ed, as in normal times, a personal virtue bene®cial to a delimited whole, by which personal interests are subordinated to those of the group, leading an individual to undertake dangerous action on behalf of that group. But the set of actions exhibiting this kind of courage, 76 A word's meaning was its duÂnamiv or dia noia, see, e.g., Pl. Crat. 394 and 418a, Phaedr. 228d; Lys. 10.7. 77 Cf. Dionysius' paraphrase, which comes near to (but ultimately misses) the point: ta te ei wqo ta ono mata e piÁ toiÄ v pra gmasi le gesqai metatiqe ntev allwv hxi oun au taÁ kaleiÄ n (29).

42

The model of stasis

its value, changed during stasis from a constructive to a destructive one ± without acknowledgment, of course, by the participants in the stasis. Similarly the attribution of ``intelligence'' to certain behavior which by Thucydides' own standard is clearly not ``intelligent'' (see below) indicates that words were not deliberately or knowingly distorted, even for the purpose of self-preservation: ``the one who took precautions to obviate the need for both plotting and suspicion was a destroyer of the faction and terri®ed of the opposition.'' Rather the ultimate end of the factionalists was to promote what Thucydides calls ``evil'' or ``malice'' (kakoÂn), although of course his subjects would not use that term of disapproval: ``both he who anticipated another who was about to do some evil, and he who prompted to evil someone who had no such intention, were applauded.'' This praise ± societal approval ± indicates the ultimate transformation of society's values, a change evidenced in but not con®ned to the applications of language. Thus people in stasis, instead of following convention or criminally violating it, make new convention opportunistically, ``according to their own perception of what was justi®ed''78 ± that is, not with deliberate, malicious intent. Given that, as we have seen, aberrations in both word and action indicate internal changes within the participants in stasis, the linguistic applications described here do not reveal calculated distortion but fundamental transformations in what forms of behavior society holds up for special praise or blame, using the old terms for both those judgments.79 Thucydides seems to have been the ®rst to consider that people can ``exchange valuations'' of words. Dionysius (De Thuc. 29) deemed it a ``poetical circumlocution'' (peri jrasiv poihtikh ). Circumlocution it certainly was not, for perhaps no other expression could have conveyed so economically that not a word's root meaning but its societal manifestation was what changed, as in the case of other culturally determined values like honor or reputation, which 78 Jowett o¨ers two translations of thÄÎ dikaiwÂsei: ``in their estimate'' and ``as they saw ®t''; the second comes closer to the intended meaning; cf. MuÈ ri 1969, 67, 71, disputed by Loraux 1986b, 103f. J. B. Wilson 1982 rightly notes that the term conveys the new moral assessments assigned to behavior like ``reckless daring,'' but it is important to stress also the opportunism intended by Thucydides. 79 Thus the changes in words do not represent the phenomenon of uÿ pokorismoÂv as explained in Ar. Rhet. 1.9 1367a ¨. On the attachment of praise and blame, see Loraux 1986b, 104±7.

Beyond Corcyra

43

may, as society changes, be used to describe di¨erent behaviors without undergoing any semantic shift. In this as in other matters Thucydides' insights were not registered by the sophists and philosophers of the fourth century ± a fact which should probably not be attributed to the happenstance of textual survival. Slightly before Thucydides' time, a debate had begun concerning the relation between words and perceived reality. The nature of the debate is laid out in general terms in a later work, Plato's Cratylus (383a±b, 384d). Cratylus tries to prove a natural connection between names and things: ``each thing has a correct name of its own which comes by nature, and a name is not whatever people call a thing by common agreement, a piece of their own voice which they pronounce on the thing, but there is a correctness in names which is the same for all, Hellenes and barbarians alike.'' In opposition to this, Hermogenes argues that names are solely a matter of convention and have no inherent link to their objects: ``whatever name is given a thing is the correct name, and if it should change to another, the former name should no longer be used, the new name being no less correct than the former one; . . . for the name of each thing arises not out of nature but convention and custom, according to common usage.'' The dialogue is the most complete and coherent ancient text devoted to the question.80 Socrates questions both opinions ± Hermogenes collapses under interrogation but Cratylus stubbornly holds his ground ± and ®nds a middle way by proposing that names are vocal imitations of their objects, which in turn leads to a brief exposition of the theory of Forms. That was Plato's view. Judging from the stasis model, Thucydides would have found more to favor in Hermogenes' opinion than the other two, but as a historian he wrote not about abstract relationships between words and things, but about the social implications of language: a word's meaning may be ®xed by convention, but the social value assigned to it, its societal manifestation in human action, may change, especially in 80 Apparently Protagoras also argued a version of the theory of a natural basis for words' meanings (Crat. 391c). For a history of the question, see Kerferd 1981, 68±77; Guthrie 1971, 204±25; earlier bibliography noted in Kennedy 1963, 35 n. 19. Other aspects of this debate, such as the semantic distinctions pioneered by Prodicus, which were supposed to have impressed Thucydides (Marc. Thuc. 36), have not in my opinion left their mark on the stasis model (Guthrie, 224 lists possible instances of Prodican in¯uence, cf. also Solmsen 1971 and 1975, 92¨.).

44

The model of stasis

times of severe disruption; the evaluations of words may be used as indicators of a society's health. Let it be noted that people in stasis do deliberately misuse words ± so Thucydides seems to say further on, and in any case there is no reason to expect that lying would go out of fashion in so criminal a time as stasis. In 3.82.8 Thucydides says twice, using almost identical expressions, that people in stasis veiled their crimes in attractive words: The faction leaders in the various cities used specious names (metaÁ onoÂmatov eu prepouÄ v) on each side . . . and while nominally (loÂgwÎ ) tending to the public interest in fact [an implied e rgwÎ ] made it their prize . . .

and Both sides abandoned all scruple but admired rather those who managed to accomplish some invidious act under the cover of a specious phrase (euprepei aÎ loÂgou) . . .

It should be clear by now that the ``specious'' or ``falsely attractive names'' in the ®rst sentence are not examples of ``exchanged values'' ± they were political slogans expressing ideals, like all political slogans. It would be absurd to say (although many have) that these phrases were ``hiding'' the real aims which the faction leaders would not express openly, that is ``democracy'' on the one hand and ``oligarchy'' on the other. As Gomme points out (HCT ad loc.), democracy is not really a dirty word and there was no reason to avoid it. Neither faction aimed for any particular form of government expressed in the ideal, but they were all aiming for power by any means, as Thucydides says quite clearly. We are supposed to see that the political techniques ± the ``specious phrases'' ± employed to accomplish that aim were identical in essence, di¨erent only super®cially. To what extent, then, was language deliberately abused in these two instances? The repeated word ``specious'' (euprep-) seems to indicate that the speakers knew that they were using words deceptively.81 But given Thucydides' views on the vicissitudes of language during stasis, the text may be read in another way ± an extreme way, admittedly, but in a situation itself extreme and unnatural, and therefore tolerant of the unusual. When an invidious act is admired, it is admired because it is thought to be admirable, 81 Compare use of same word in 3.82.4, in the mouths of the combatants, not Thucydides. For a new translation and interpretation (not adopted here), see Graham and Forsythe 1984.

Beyond Corcyra

45

not invidious, and it is described in positive language; an outside observer may regard the action as invidious, but the perpetrators regard it as admirable. Given the ``exchanged valuation of words'' characteristic of stasis, it may not necessarily be correct to assume that the ``specious phrase,'' even if e¨ective on the victims of invidious acts, was disbelieved by the perpetrators. The word eu preph v, which I have translated as ``specious,'' can mean ``attractive'' in either a positive or a negative sense; that is, either appealing by virtue of genuine qualities, or falsely attractive. Thus there is some doubt about the translation of euprephÂv and the exact interpretation of the sentences above. Their surface meaning is clear (and acceptable), but they may also be intelligible as illustrations of what Thucydides describes as shifts in societal values and behavior as re¯ected in the use of language: an invidious act of ``reckless daring'' was described attractively as ``courage.'' In their speeches (lo gwÎ ), the faction leaders used familiar political slogans, but the reader cannot be entirely certain that they did not believe their own rhetoric, or that they knew that their real purpose was to make the public interest their ``prize.'' Of course, if these sentences did not appear in a pathology of stasis, these doubts would not exist. Logos and ergon The condition which Thucydides describes can be understood, in ®fth-century terms, as a disruption or irregularity in the relationship between logos (speech and thought) and ergon (fact, reality). This disruption may be seen and felt in the distorted forms which the standard logos±ergon opposition takes in the analysis of stasis. By Thucydides' time, the terms logos and ergon were routinely paired in either a complementary or an antithetical relationship; context determined the author's intention. As complements, the two elements represented ``di¨ering but positive constituents of human experience'':82 word is joined to deed. There are thousands of such examples in Greek literature. ``He said these things, and 82 Parry 1981, 15, and see 15±61 for the history of logos/ergon in Greek literature. This chapter from Parry's doctoral dissertation remains the fullest treatment of the logos/ergon opposition; in these days of electronic TLG and other conveniences, a thorough treatment of this important subject can be expected. I have adopted Parry's ®rst two categories (complementary and antithetical) and used some of his examples, while rejecting others and adding some of my own. A third category identi®ed by Parry ``regards lo gov as true reality, and puts [e rgon] in the category of the delusive appearances of the sensible world'' (18). This category remained in the preserve of the philosophers and does not come into play here, for Thucydides was exploiting common knowledge of the formula to make his point.

46

The model of stasis

he made his word as good as his action,'' writes Herodotus,83 describing Darius' decision to act in a certain matter. This particular phrase is a formula found even in Thucydides, who says, e.g., of Phrynichus: ``as he advised, so he acted'' (wÿ v deÁ e peise, kaiÁ e drase tauÄ ta, 8.27.5). Thucydides uses another stock phrase indicating the joining of word and deed when he says that, at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, everyone wanted to assist Sparta ``in both word and deed'' (kaiÁ lo gwÎ kaiÁ e rgwÎ xunepilamba nein, 2.8.4). When logos and ergon are antithetical, logos represents either misconception or deliberate falsehood, while ergon represents reality: language and belief are inexact, slippery and deceptive, reality is ®rm and knowable. ``My parents loved me only in word, not in deed,'' laments Admetus in Euripides' Alcestis (loÂgwÎ gaÁ r hsan ouk e rgwÎ ji loi, 339). Thucydides' Hermocrates admonishes the Camarineans, ``One might suppose (lo gwÎ me n) that he is protecting our power, but in fact (e rgwÎ de ) it's his own preservation'' (6.78.3). There are probably more instances of this usage than of the ®rst, given the Hellenes' inherent suspicion of deceptive language which only grew as their culture became more sophisticated. As antithesis the opposition is often found in political contexts, a typical example being the prosecutor's complaint, in a bitter trial of the early fourth century, against ``a nominal o¨er of peace which in fact spelled the dissolution of the democracy.''84 A famous Thucydidean example of antithetical logos/ergon is his pronouncement that Athens under Pericles ``was in name (lo gwÎ me n) a democracy but in fact (e rgwÎ de ) the sole rule of its ®rst citizen'' (2.65.9).85 More sinister, if one knows the sequel, is the sentence with which Thucydides opens his narrative of the stasis at Corcyra (3.70.1): the Corcyrean exiles were released by the Corinthians ``allegedly (twÄÎ meÁ n lo gwÎ ) because of a bail of 800 talents paid by their proxenoi, but in fact (e rgwÎ de ) they had been persuaded to bring Corcyra over to the Corinthians.'' Both approaches to logos ± as complement and antithesis to ergon ± can be found in the space of ten lines in Euripides Phoenissae 494±503, where Polyneices as83 tauÄta eipe kaiÁ ama e pov te kaiÁ e rgon e poi ee, 3.134.6. I am not convinced that Herodotus' use of the opposition here is ``heedless of its implications,'' Parry 49. 84 onoÂmati meÁ n ei rhÂnhn legome nhn, twÄÎ deÁ e rgwÎ thÁn dhmokrati an kataluome nhn, Lys. 13.15. 85 Cf. the Corinthians' charge against the Spartans that their reputation exceeds reality, oÿ loÂgov touÄ e rgou e kra tei, 1.69.5. On logos/ergon in Thucydides, see, in addition to Parry, HCT ii, 136 and Rusten 1989 ad 2.41.2, 42.2, 40.2, 43.3.

Beyond Corcyra

47

serts the truth of his words, and Eteocles denies the connection between names and reality. These standard categories of the logos/ergon opposition collapse in Thucydides' model of stasis. Let us return to a sentence we have already examined: people exchanged the conventional valuation of words (o noÂmata) in relation to the facts (e rga), according to their own perception of what was right.

Here language and reality are neither complementary elements (linguistic and practical) of the same thing, nor direct opposites (untruth vs. reality). The practice of ``exchanging the value of words'' is not the same as lying or deliberate and willful deception, for in stasis people mean what they say: they sincerely praise reckless daring as ``courage true to the party.'' Nor does logos (onomata here) represent mistaken perception, for there was no deeper unperceived reality underlying their words, in contrast, e.g., to the description of Periclean Athens as ``nominally (loÂgwÎ) a democracy but in fact (e rgwÎ) the sole rule of its ®rst citizen.'' In normal times, the relationship between logos and ergon is constant, even when words are used to deceive; for conventional, agreed-upon meanings are perforce assumed, otherwise the target of the deception would be missed and chaos and confusion would ensue. In stasis, however, it is just that chaos which prevails, for the relationship between words and reality, which rests on convention, is undermined. Thucydides' ®rst example of the transvaluation of words in stasis is toÂlma a loÂgistov, which I have translated ``reckless daring'' but which literally means ``daring without logismos'' (cf. 6.59.1), that is, ergon without logos, since action unguided even by self-interested calculation (logismos) suggests a fortiori the absence of logos, in this case not ``word'' or ``speech'' but rational process. The full implications of this are revealed in other instances of the logos/ergon opposition which are jarringly dissonant with regular usage. At 3.82.7, we ®nd the following: ta te a poÁ twÄ n e nanti wn kalwÄ v legoÂmena e nede conto e rgwn julakhÄÎ , ei prou coien, kaiÁ ou gennaio thti. Fair proposals from the opposition were received with actual protective measures by the faction which felt itself to be superior, and not in a noble spirit.

48

The model of stasis

Translation once again obscures di½culties by being forced to solve them.86 Above all, the unnatural phrase e rgwn julakhÄÎ (``with actual protective measures'') has caused perplexity. Commentators have wondered what kind of genitive e rgwn can be,87 yet we may ask a more basic question: why did Thucydides write the word in the ®rst place, much less make an obscure genitive out of it? He could have said ``protective measures'' in one word or a simpler phrase. Yet if Thucydides wrote e rgwn in deliberate contrast to lego mena (``proposals''), which seems the most likely explanation, the Greek reader is left with an uneasy feeling, for e rgwn and legoÂmena do not go together as they should. The phrase kalwÄv legoÂmena (``fair proposals'') is common in ancient Greek, and especially frequent in Attic tragedy. It probably re¯ects the practice, or at least the theory, of the Assembly, where it was assumed that reasonable action or reasonable counter-proposals would follow from reasonable proposals (kalwÄv legoÂmena). Examples are again abundant. In Eur. Hipp. 297±9, the nurse says to Phaedra: ``you should not keep silent, child, but either criticize me if I do not speak well (kalwÄ v le gw) or yield to words reasonably spoken (eu lecqeiÄ si loÂgoiv).''88 Similarly, the Chorus says to Electra in Soph. El. 252±3, ``If I do not speak well (kalwÄ v le gw), then have it your way,'' i.e., if I do speak well, then you should act accordingly, which is exactly what Menelaus says at Eur. Helen 441± 2: ``all these things you say well (kalwÄ v le geiv); so be it; I will obey; just refrain from your wrath . . .''89 These examples are su½cient to demonstrate the principle that reasonable action or even reasonable argument (fair counter-proposal) is the expected and proper response to reasonable words (fair proposals): or, as Creon's son says in the Antigone, ``learning from others who speak well is 86 In addition to the problem discussed, it is not at all clear in the Greek exactly which side ``felt itself to be superior,'' those who requested or those who granted a hearing. It seems most natural grammatically, ®rst of all, that the subject of the verb prouÂcoien would be the same as that of e nde conto, which is the party which accepts the peace proposals. This is also perhaps the most logical interpretation: only the weaker party (or the party which considers itself weaker) proposes peace, and the stronger party accepts the proposal opportunistically at best. Besides, as an earlier commentator (quoted by Marchant ad loc.) remarks, ``How can anyone conceive that generosity (gennaioÂthv) should lead the weaker side to accept them?'' But one is left wondering. 87 Gomme, HCT ad loc. rightly determines it to be a genitive of de®nition: ``precautionary action, not `precaution against action by others'.'' 88 Phaedra's remarks to the nurse are in a similar vein: 503±6, 706±7. Cf. Thuc. 6.68.2. 89 In his new edition Diggle obelizes the words tauÄ ta tauÄt' e ph kalwÄv le geiv.

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an honorable thing.''90 This is not empty moralizing but an expression of what was considered normal political process. Yet in parodic contrast, Thucydides writes that, during stasis, fair proposals are answered with ``protective measures,'' i.e., an unreasonable and un®tting response, and an indication of the depth to which violence penetrates people's thoughts and instinctive reactions during stasis. This strikingly unconventional relationship between logos and ergon is not a standard complementary or antithetical relationship but a disjunction between the two, illustrating how political procedures become dysfunctional in stasis. Normal political processes are also mocked in Thucydides' observation that ``anyone who spoke against [the display of violent anger] was suspect '' (3.82.5), where a ntile gein, which in context means to speak in opposition to a proposal, is strikingly juxtaposed with upoptov, ``suspicious,'' a wholly improper response. Moreover, the term for normal political deliberation, bouleu ein, appears in the stasis model only in compound forms: ``succeeding in a plot'' (e pibouleuÂsav) and ``took precautions'' (probouleuÂsav).91 Violent actions respond to reasonable words, contrary to the expected precedence of true erga over false logoi, or true logoi over false erga. Not only do logoi and erga arise from di¨erent and opposing sectors, unlike in the Assembly, which is the scene of di¨ering opinions but common action, but one is completely unmatched to the other. It should be repeated that the reader must rely on Thucydides' own stability in order for the presentation to make sense. Just like the claim that words acquired new valuations, the disjunction between logos and ergon in stasis can be communicated only through the same linguistic conventions which are distorted during stasis. Thucydides' own purpose as an historian is to make logos and ergon correspond. As he says famously in the introduction to his history (1.22.1±2), he records both what was said (osa meÁ n lo gwÎ ) and what was done (taÁ d' e rga), but di¨erent methods had to be employed 90 kaiÁ twÄn legoÂntwn eu kaloÁ n toÁ manqaÂnein, Soph. Ant. 723 (Creon's son). In 1045±7, Creon tells Tiresias that clever men fall the furthest when they plead a bad case well out of hope for pro®t. Cf. also Eur. Suppl. 247, 299±300; Tro. 967±8; Antiope fr. 32; Elec. 945± 6; Or. 901±2; Bacch. 266¨.; IA. 1206 and 1377; Soph. OC 1000±2. 91 Confusingly, toÁ e pibouleuÂsasqai in 3.82.4 is used in a neutral sense (cf. 3.20.1 and 109.3), two sentences before e pibouleu sav appears in a clearly negative sense. I do not think that the middle voice of the ®rst instance can explain the di¨erence. Thucydides can use the same word in di¨erent meanings even in the same sentence, see HCT i, 249.

50

The model of stasis

because of the di¨erent nature and function of logos and ergon. The usual organic link between them becomes severed in stasis.92 The disappearance of intelligence The disjunction between logos and ergon is most striking in the last two sentences of the stasis model (3.83.3±4): (3) Those with weaker judgment (gnwÂmhn) for the most part survived, since they rushed precipitously into action (proÁv taÁ e rga), fearing that both their own de®ciencies and their opponents' intelligence (xunetoÂn) would cause them to be worsted in an argument of words (loÂgoiv) and, as a consequence of their opponents' intellectual versatility (toÁ polu tropon gnw mhv), be outstripped in plotting. (4) On the other hand, the others contemptuously presumed that they would foresee any danger and had no need of practical steps (e rgwÎ ) when they could ®gure out (gnw mhÎ ) how to deal with all contingencies, and so with their defenses down they were more frequently the ones destroyed.

These sentences contain many di½culties, for which many solutions have been proposed. The translation and phrasing of the main problem largely determines interpretation. In particular, Gomme's formulation has greatly in¯uenced subsequent debate: Have we in the last two sentences the con¯ict between two sets of rascals, the brutish and the cunning, both, that is, aiming at power diaÁ pleonexi an kaiÁ jilotimi an, or an explanation how, in a stasis of this kind, men of second-rate intelligence get the better of the intelligent, who, as intelligent men, wish to end the strife in a sensible manner (82.5)?93

Discussions have focused on an answer to Gomme's question. But the question is unsatisfactory, for there are more possibilities than the two Gomme o¨ers as exclusive alternatives. Thucydides says 92 I have not found any exact parallel to this phenomenon outside Thucydides. Even examples of real hostility between logos and ergon are fundamentally di¨erent. E.g., Hdt. 3.72.2: polla e sti taÁ loÂgwÎ meÁ n ou k oi
a te dhlwÄsai, e rgwÎ de ´ alla d' e stiÁ taÁ loÂgwÎ meÁ n oi
a te, e rgon deÁ oudeÁ n a p' au twÄn lamproÁn gi netai (and cf. Macleod 1979, 67 n. 34). Aristoph. Nub. 419: nikaÄn praÂttwn kaiÁ bouleuÂwn kaiÁ thÄÎ glwÂtthÎ polemi zwn. Cf. Parry 1957, although in a di¨erent line of argument from the present one: ``e rgon without loÂgov is disastrous and meaningless. . . : it is the confounding of civilization'' (esp. 86±7, 103±13). 93 HCT ii, 382, based on his translation: ``Men of more common mind were on the whole the survivors; for fearing their own defects and their adversaries' intelligence, afraid of getting the worse of argument and lest the others by their abundant cleverness might deal some cunning blow ®rst, they boldly went to work with deeds. The others, contemptuously sure that they would foresee an attack and not thinking it necessary to get by force what they might secure by wit, were often caught o¨ their guard and destroyed.''

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neither that ``men of second-rate intelligence'' had any interest other than personal survival ± that is, they may even have been good men, but resorted to rash action simply to survive ± nor that the ``intelligent'' had any concern for ``sensible'' peacemaking, or really anything other than their personal survival, like their less intelligent rivals.94 The real purpose of these two sentences may be found, I think, by paying close attention to the precise meaning of the words for intellectual faculties, and to the relation between these words and the opposition between logos and ergon. Just as the verb gignw skw means ``come to know'' through a process of perception and cognition,95 so gnw mh indicates the result of a mental process in which one examines the particulars of a situation and then forms a judgment, opinion or policy about it. When politicians stand before a wavering citizen-body and insist that their gnw mh has not changed, they mean that their judgment has not been so in¯uenced by circumstances as to a¨ect their policy.96 When rebellious imperial subjects protest that their friendly reception of the imperial power was paraÁ gnw mhn, they mean that their actions went against their better judgment.97 And when Thucydides says that ``the Athenians accepted the Corcyreans into an alliance on the basis of this gnw mh,'' he refers both to the policy adopted and the deliberations through which it was decided (1.45.1). The concept gnw mh may imply but is not equivalent to either 94 3.82.5, cited by Gomme, is not relevant, for there Thucydides discusses the meaning of the word xunetoÂv as used by stasis rivals, whereas in the present passage he uses the word in his own voice. 95 But of course e gnwn, from which gnwÂmh is derived, can mean ``know,'' like oida. The word gnwÂmh obviously has more than one meaning in the History (where it occurs 175 times), but I concentrate on those examples relevant to its quite speci®c use in the stasis model and con®ne comparative examples to Thucydides' text (but see Isoc. In Soph. 2), because he was struggling with conventional language to bring across as precisely as possible an original insight. On gnwÂmh in Thucydides and contemporary authors generally, see Huart 1973, although I cannot agree with his conclusion (78) that gnwÂmh and xunetoÂn are used interchangeably in the stasis model to signify ``intelligence''; see also Edmunds 1975a, 9¨. for a di¨erent discussion on the connection between gnwÂmh and intelligence (xuÂnesiv); and above, pp. 24¨. 96 1.140.1 and 2.61.2 (Pericles); 3.38.1 (Cleon), cf. 37.1, e gnwn. Note Pericles' criticism that people ``modify their gnwÄmai according to circumstances'' (1.140.1), and Nicias' declaration that he never speaks paraÁ gnwÂmhn (6.9.2). This informs the di¨erently nuanced use of the word in Thucydides' claim that he recorded e gguÂtata thÄv xumpaÂshv gnwÂmhv twÄn alhqwÄv lecqe ntwn (1.22.1; see Chapter 2). 97 3.12.1 (Mytilenians at Olympia). Cf. 1.70.3; 3.42.6, 60.1; 4.19.4, 123.2; 6.9.2; the word seems to mean ``contrary to expectation'' at 4.40.1, 127.2; 5.14.3; 6.11.5, 34.8; 7.13.2.

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The model of stasis

``knowledge'' or ``intelligence.'' The latter su½ciently translates xunetoÂn and xuÂnesiv, although as in all translations the compromises involved should be made clear. The Greek words are more limited; they literally mean the ability to put things together, to perceive and comprehend; they denote intellectual sharpness and insight. Thus, while gnw mh is not intelligence per se, the two are clearly linked, for intelligence can naturally improve the quality of one's judgment and policy. That is, a more intelligent person is better equipped to assess any situation, and a stupid person will exercise poorer judgment. As Thucydides remarks on Themistocles' intellectual capacities: ``by virtue of his native intelligence (or insight: oikei aÎ xune sei), without adding to it through study beforehand or at the time, he was best able after the briefest deliberation to ®gure out (gnwÂmwn) what needed to be done in present circumstances and he was also most talented in conjecturing what was going to happen'' (1.138.3). Moreover, by force of his agile intelligence, Themistocles was able ``to improvise what had to be done,'' that is, he was a man who joined word to action, a man of both logos and ergon in healthy combination. The Athenian ambassadors at Sparta praise their forefathers' gnw mhv xuÂnesiv, literally ``intelligence of judgment'' (1.75.1), in order to stress that the considerations guiding the Athenians' action at that heroic hour showed intelligence, perceptiveness and insight, with the implied criticism of the less brilliant and ultimately less e¨ective policies (gnwÄ mai) advocated by other less daring states. In the same way, Thucydides says that the speaker of the annual state eulogy over the war dead at Athens was someone ``who seemed not unintelligent (axu netov) in his judgment (gnw mhÎ)'' (2.34.6). Intelligence is a quality which Thucydides values most highly and can de®ne precisely.98 He attributes it to only a few leaders whom he admires, and signi®cantly in each case, the individual's intelligence is said to be complemented by capacity for action or actual accomplishment: Themistocles, as we have noted, could foresee what needed to be done and do it (1.138.2±3), Theseus was ``both powerful and intelligent'' (metaÁ xunetouÄ kaiÁ dunatoÂv) and acted vigorously to reorganize Attica (2.15.2), the Peisistratid tyrants governed with virtue and intelligence (6.54.5), the Syracusan gen98 CT 's note ad 1.79.1 quotes Zahn 1934, who argues that xuÂnesiv in Thucydides is usually joined to another quality, such as swjrosuÂnh.

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eral Hermocrates combined intelligence with experience in war and courage (6.72.2), the Athenian oligarchic revolutionaries Antiphon, Phrynichos and Theramenes succeeded in their takeover because of their innate intellectual talents (8.68).99 Pericles is perhaps the individual most admired by Thucydides. That he is not speci®cally called xuneto v, intelligent, is irrelevant, for all the qualities of intelligence are ascribed to him. Pericles not only had the reputation for intelligence (2.34.6), but in Thucydides' famous assessment of him in 2.65, he is said to possess foresight and the ability to perceive what will be needed in the future (prognouÂv . . . proÂnoia), precisely those features which distinguish Thucydides' Themistocles. In 1.139.4, Pericles is said to be most powerful in both speech and action,100 and in 2.59.5 he says of himself that he excels in ®guring out from present circumstances what policy to adopt, and then in explaining it (gnwÄ nai te taÁ de onta kaiÁ eÿ rmhneuÄ sai tauÄta). The statesmen, generals and politicians whom he calls intelligent use their intelligence for constructive ends; they join logos to ergon. The only place in the History where Thucydides speaks of intelligence abstractly, unattached to any particular personality, is in the stasis model. An ``intelligence which comprehended the whole'' (toÁ proÁ v apan xunetoÂn, 3.82.4) is the kind of intelligence he admires in Themistocles and Theseus, for it means the mental quickness and agility to see a situation from all angles and think some steps ahead. This quality is reviled in stasis as ``an unwillingness to act in anything'' because factional interests usually require the situation to be seen from only one angle. By the same token, ``impulsive rashness was attributed to the part of a real man, while prolonged planning with a view to safety was written o¨ as a nice-sounding excuse for evasion'' (3.82.4). These two ideas are the same: ``unwillingness'' is the contrary of impulsiveness. The 99 Curiously, the Scythians are also praised for intelligence (2.97.6). 100 A mention of this same capacity for decisive and important action is absent from the passages in which other individuals are said to possess the reputation for intelligence, that is, without strict agreement or disagreement by the historian himself: Archidamus (1.79.2), Brasidas (4.81.2); also Phrynichus (8.27.5), but see 8.68. With more certainty, I have excluded from the above list instances of intelligence being praised or criticized in speeches: 1.74.1, 75.1, 84.3, 122.4, 140.1; 2.62.5; 3.37.4, 37.5, 42.2, 42.4; 4.10.1, 17.3, 18.5, 85.6; 6.39.1. See MuÈri 1947, 258±60; Syme 1960, 51¨.; Huart 1968, 279±90; Edmunds 1975a, 9¨.; de Romilly 1956a, but see the review by Gomme in Gnomon 30 (1958), especially p. 19.

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The model of stasis

word for rashness, oxu , which may also have a positive sense, ``sharpness of mind,'' has turned into what Gomme (HCT ad loc.) poignantly calls an ``intellectual vice.'' Logos is opposed to a true intellectual virtue, thoughtful deliberation, reaching a careful decision (asjalei aÎ toÁ e pibouleu sasqai), which to a mind a¨ected by stasis is nothing more than a specious excuse ± literally, an excuse cloaked with an attractive logos (eulogov) ± for evading action, ergon. The stasiotai do not condemn intelligence per se, only intelligence as Thucydides understands it. Intelligence in stasis remains a prized quality, but the stasiotai rede®ne it according to their distorted views, and what they consider intelligence is not real intelligence. They consider, for instance, success in a violent plot to settle petty accounts to be the mark of intelligence (3.82.5) and a victory in a ``competition of intelligence'' (xune sewv agw nisma, 82.7), which is an outlook far from Thucydides' own and is reminiscent of the stasis-a¿icted Athenians' mistaken perception of Antiphon's true intelligence as mere cleverness (8.68.1). Defeat in the ``competition of intelligence'' means death, but the surviving victors are not the most intelligent (in Thucydides' view). On the contrary, ``those with weaker judgment'' (jauloÂteroi gnwÂmhn), i.e. those who are less able to judge quickly and e¨ectively what to do, are more likely to survive. In normal times, those with ``versatility of gnwÂmh'' (toÁ poluÂtropon gnwÂmhv), which I have perforce imperfectly translated ``intellectual versatility,'' are more likely to prevail because their quick wit and ¯exible intellect allow them to respond rapidly, creatively and e¨ectively to various situations as they come up. Similarly, Thucydides says (3.82.2) that in times of peace cities and people have amei nouv gnwÂmav, ``more positive dispositions'' or literally ``better faculties of judgment,'' that is, their judgment is not distorted by any external pressures, such as hunger or disease brought on by war; in this way they are better ``disposed.'' But during stasis, when the most profound gap between logos and ergon prevails, those with a weaker ability to reason, a weaker logos, proceed to erga with deliberate avoidance of logoi, for they fear101 being out-maneuvered in the ®eld of words and intellect, whereas the more intelligent, who possess logos, neglect erga out of over-reliance on logoi. The opposition between logos and 101 In Thucydides, deos is a more rational fear, phobos more emotional; see de Romilly 1956b; Crane 1996, 38¨.; Huart 1968, 337¨.

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ergon in such cases is not one of mutuality, relative value, or falsehood vs. truth ± complementary or antithetical sides of reality as in the conventional formulation; they meet, if at all, in violent confrontation. The only weapon against skillful (not necessarily deceitful!) words is precipitous attack. Thus intelligence disappears in stasis, both because intelligent people are killed and because the faculty of intelligence itself is put to corrupt use and so itself becomes corrupt.102 Thucydides is not content with merely noting the corruption of intelligence in stasis, but tries to explain the nature of this corruption as well. The explanation comes, however, in a notoriously di½cult sentence (3.82.7): rÿaÄÎ on d' oiÿ polloiÁ kakouÄ rgoi ontev dexioiÁ ke klhntai h a maqeiÄ v a gaqoi , kaiÁ twÄÎ meÁ n ai scu nontai, e piÁ deÁ twÄÎ a ga llontai. The majority, being malfeasants, accept the title `clever' more willingly than the title `stupid' if they were good, and they are ashamed of the latter and glory in the former.

As the ancient critic Dionysius remarked (De Thuc. 32.2), ``the meaning lies hidden in obscurity.'' The reader's patience is once again taxed both by the opacity of the sentence and the multiplicity of interpretations o¨ered for it. Dionysius correctly identi®ed one of the main problems: ``it is di½cult to know whom he means by `stupid' and `good'.'' He goes on to illustrate that the meaning of the sentence depends on the solution of some rather technical points, above all, what the participle o ntev goes with, which adjectives go with which and whether the arrangement is chiastic or not ± and, we would add, what the word rÿaÄÎ on means. Dionysius was content with merely pointing out the problem. Later critics have o¨ered solutions ranging from textual emendation to rather drastic readings of admittedly obscure Greek. Yet deciding these points can be made easier by ®rst correcting an unstated assumption common to all interpretations known to me: the sentence, despite the perfect and present tenses and its gnomic nature, is not a general statement but applies only to the conditions of stasis. Otherwise Thucydides would be saying 102 In this light, 3.83.3±4 may not be so weak an ending as most have thought (see HCT ad loc.), although the ®rst sentence of 3.85 provides a fairly rapid, not altogether successful transition from the detour into abstraction back to the concrete narrative of events at Corcyra.

56

The model of stasis

that most people, even in normal times, are malfeasants, kakouÄ rgoi, a bleak notion which can be found nowhere in his History and in fact contradicts his view of human nature (see above). In any case, there is no reason to isolate this sentence (or any other!) as if it were an aphorism slipped in without regard to context. Rather, it follows directly from the sentence before, in which Thucydides says that the ``prize for intelligence'' in stasis was granted to the one who used mental agility to outwit an opponent by violating his trust: intelligence transforms from a faculty of understanding to a mere ability to maneuver treacherously and dishonestly. With this in mind, we may unravel the sentence by again distinguishing the historian's perspective from that of his subjects: Thucydides says malfeasants good and honest

People in stasis say clever stupid

The contrasts are thus presented in chiastic order: people in stasis, who are marked out by Thucydides as bad or good, respectively pursue the glory of cleverness and shun stupidity. Thucydides is thus merely quoting those a¿icted by stasis. He himself would never call the plotting and treachery described in the previous sentence a mark of ``intelligence.'' This is another example of words gaining new ``value'' or ``valuation.'' Breaking pledges for the sake of revenge is ``clever'' behavior in the eyes of the evildoers, who are the majority in stasis, and ``stupid''103 to be good, who are an endangered minority; just so, avoiding such treachery is considered ``stupid'' by the evil majority. It is true that all men normally glory in intelligence and are ashamed of stupidity. But here the alternative to stupidity is not intelligence but a wholly di¨erent quality, consisting in a cunning which exploits trust to exact cruel revenge. The result is that, while the evil majority are ashamed of stupidity, as even (especially) good men always are, the ``stupidity'' of which they are ashamed is one which is exhibited by the few really good people who can survive for a while in stasis, i.e. the ``stupidity'' of honoring pledges, avoiding plotting, and so on. The malfeasants, precisely because they are malfea103 Or ``unlearned,'' ``boorish,'' behaving in society as an educated and cultured person never would, as emerges by comparison with 1.84.3.

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sants, eagerly seek out (``more willingly accept'' is a Thucydidean understatement) the accolades attending what they view as ``intelligence,'' which they do not know how to distinguish from wicked cleverness. The sentence is another example of Thucydidean generalization and abstraction, i.e., from revenge through broken pledges to the distortion of intelligence (thus the switch in tenses).104 Logos becomes logismos, a kind of calculation for immediate advantage: ``such a one calculated the advantage (e logi zeto) both of the safety of such a course and of the accolades for intelligence (xune sewv) to be won for having scored victory through guile'' (3.82.7). Morality In the deterioration, or disappearance of intelligence, we see the extent of the tear in the fabric of culture. For in stasis, when logos becomes unchained from ergon, that is, when intelligence deteriorates into mere cunning and calculation which are applied to no purpose if not destructive, and people proceed to action without thought, there are moral consequences. A logos which is nothing more than logismos, and for which success is ``victory through guile,'' is measured by successful plotting and the propagation of kakoÂn, evil or malice (3.82.5). This is a strong word, although unexplained. Similar obscurity attends the two quite explicit moral judgments stated elsewhere in the model; in each case, Thucydides apparently has a clear notion of the moral principles to which he refers, but deliberately avoids explaining them to the reader. In the last three words of a sentence whose ®rst part we have already analyzed, we read: ``Fair proposals from the opposition were received with actual protective measures by the faction which felt itself to be superior, and then not in a noble spirit (kaiÁ ou gennaioÂthti)'' (82.7) ± that is, without the moral quality which Thucydides 104 Thus I solve the principal problems in 3.82.7 as follows: (1) The text of Stuart Jones is intelligible, requiring no emendation; as Pritchett 1975, 116 n. 5 remarks, ``it may be noted that Dionysius had our manuscript text in front of him.'' (2) The word ontev is concessive, that is, most men behave like rogues during the time of stasis. (3) The word o ntev goes with kakouÄrgoi and a gaqoi . (4) The sentence is chiastic: (a) kakouÄrgoi ± (b) dexioi ± (b) amaqeiÄ v ± (a) agaqoi : if they are evildoers they are called clever and they are called ignorant if they are honest. The (a) elements are opposites, as are the (b) elements. Macleod 1979, 67 n. 38 objects that chiasmus would be a ``wilful obfuscation'' and ``arbitrary di½cult[y]''; in fact, the opposite is the case. (5) The word raÄÎ on probably means not ``more easily'' but ``would rather,'' as Gomme suggested. For various interpretations of the sentence, see HCT ad loc., who cites earlier attempts; Macleod loc. cit.; Rhodes 1994 ad loc., whose translation of the sentence is the best I have seen.

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The model of stasis

speci®cally says disappears in times of stasis: ``that simple goodness (toÁ euhqev) which is a major part of nobility (toÁ gennaiÄ on) was derisively mocked out of existence'' (83.1).105 This moral terminology expresses strong conviction on the part of the historian, even if he must acknowledge that moral actions are, to a degree, culturally determined. I do not mean to suggest that Thucydides was a moral relativist, much less ``amoral,'' as some recent interpreters have tagged him; for the moral terms, despite their varied manifestations in di¨erent societies, will have certain common features and an identical purpose. The term toÁ euhqev means simplicity, guilelessness rather than a lack of sophistication, and it must be understood in the context of the stasis model: it is the kind of character which is essential to a properly functioning state; if everyone's characters were wicked, as they become in stasis, no state or society could function well; depravity would abound. The complement to this sort of guilelessness is toÁ swÄ jron, moderation or self-restraint, an elevation of common interests above raw calculation of self-interest; just this quality appears in the catalogue of ``exchanged evaluations'' (3.82.4 ± a cover for cowardice), and it is said to be put to corrupt use as an oligarchic slogan (82.8).106 Similarly, toÁ gennaiÄ on, nobility, signi®es the kind of character which a healthy state promotes and, by the same token, is essential for the health of a state. In stasis, these qualities disappear. The condition is all-pervasive. While it may start only with quarreling factions, it will soon spread to the entire population. Good individuals may still maintain their character in stasis and continue to act in the public interest against the murderous factions, but Thucydides' model indicates that they will be alone and will have di½culty surviving (3.82.8). The focus remains ®xed on what happens internally to human beings during the severe disruption of stasis, and the ultimate consequences of those changes. This brings us back to the starting point in our discussion of language. Most of Thucydides' examples of ``exchanged valuations'' in 3.82.4 illustrate the replacement of intellectual virtues by moral 105 On the translation of this passage, and generally on what follows, cf. Hornblower 1987, 186±7 n. 100, and de Romilly 1974; Crane 1998 argues that Thucydides' main project was to restore toÁ eu hqev to his shattered world; see also Crane 1996. 106 Sophrosyne is a quality admired by Thucydides; for references and discussion see Lintott 1992, 29±31; J. B. Wilson 1990; North 1966, 113±15.

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failures, the abandonment of the intellect to the realm of the impulses and emotions (as was said in 3.82.2). This is the case with prudent hesitation, moderation and discretion, comprehending intelligence and careful planning. The fact that these manifestations of intellectual power were branded as moral failures ± cowardice, prevarication, evasion ± during stasis indicates the moral failure of just those who used language in the way described. By the same token, the behaviors which are newly described as virtues are themselves dangerous, volatile and unpredictable: reckless daring, impulsive rashness, violent anger, treacherous plotting. Paradoxically, although members of a stasis-riven society change words in approximately the same way, the result is chaos ± both actual and moral.107 Convention and society (3.82.6±8) The same basic consensus required for the intelligibility and usefulness of language underpins all institutions of society ± political, legal, religious ± and their corruption is what Thucydides describes after linguistic changes.108 These institutions are related to language both concretely and by similarity of nature. Language is the lifeblood of all such entities in which people associate with each other, what Aristotle calls a koinwni a. Political decisionmaking, determination and application of law, communal worship, all vitally involve language. At the same time, the institutions and laws (even religious) of any society, like language, are viewed by Thucydides as possessing no intrinsic value in themselves; they are ``established,''109 that is, by a political process which both represents 107 And see Ostwald 1988. 108 I view 3.82.6±8 as a carefully constructed unit which is connected organically to 3.83, thus I cannot agree with Macleod 1979, 57 that 3.82.8 ``makes a fresh start,'' or that words repeated in 3.83 are ``echoes'' of 3.82.6±8: they are all part of the same demonstration, not so far separated as to qualify as echoes. 109 The di¨erence in Thucydides' two expressions for ``established laws'' in 3.82.6, twÄn keime nwn no mwn and touÁv kaqestwÄtav, does not seem to possess any encoded meaning; I have translated ``established laws'' and ``convention'' in order to bring out the di¨erent aspects of the word nomos. The point is that accepted conventions governing society are subverted in stasis by either neglect or misuse (such as mock trials or violent legislation); cf. 1.40.4, 2.97.4, 6.54.6, and 132.2 and 3.9.1 (noÂmimon). Ostwald 1969 and 1986, 84±136 are fundamental to any discussion of nomos. His thesis, that in Athens after Cleisthenes nomos came to mean a prescriptive norm sanctioned and enforced by popular sovereign authority and social pressure, and that this notion expanded into the religious and social spheres, would strengthen the present interpretations. On the breakdown of law in stasis, see now Swain 1995.

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and imposes a common will, and their stability and the adherence to them by the members of a society are crucial to the health of that society. As Euripides' Hecuba says: ``By nomos we believe in the gods and we de®ne justice and injustice by which we live.''110 Thucydides describes the breakdown of social, political, legal and religious convention in two extremely dense sentences. Moreover, blood ties became more foreign than factional ones because a faction-brother was more willing to take risks unhesitatingly [or: plunge into action without any excuse]; for such associations were formed not for mutual bene®t in conformity with established laws, but for greedy pursuit in violation of convention. Pledges among partisans were con®rmed not so much by the sanction of divine law as by their shared transgression of the law. (3.82.6)

He starts with the most basic organizational element in any human society, family, which is so fundamental as to predate the polis, or any civilized society. Just as Aristotle, in the opening of his Politics, traces social and political organization from the most primary association between man and woman through extended family and ®nally to the complex and (to Aristotle's thinking) ultimate entity, the polis, so Thucydides, in his analysis of the breakdown of society during stasis, begins with family relations and then proceeds to larger political processes and their relation to law and religion. Family ties, he says, become ``more foreign'' than political ones. An arresting word choice again leads the reader to discover the latent idea. The word ``more foreign,'' a llotriw teron, can mean not only foreign in the sense of strange or alien, but also, in some contexts, hostile and even unnatural.111 Obviously, family ties (toÁ xuggene v) are never alien or unnatural, yet, in peaceful times, neither are political associations (eÿ tairi ai) among citizens of the 110 Hec. 800±5, cf. Suppl. 312±13, and see Nussbaum 1986, 404 for a comparison of this passage with Thucydides 3.82, as well as discussion of the moral terms in Thucydides. Further examples in Ostwald 1969, see esp. ch. 2, and n.b. his caveat ( p. 38) regarding the Hecuba passage; in the period of the Peloponnesian War, some authors began to doubt the superiority of nomos to all other claims for allegiance. The example of Cicero is also instructive: non enim iis rebus pugnabamus, quibus valere poteramus, consilio, auctoritate, causa, quae erant in nobis superiora, sed lacertis et viribus, quibus pares non eramus. victi sumus igitur aut, si vinci dignitas non potest, fracti certe et abiecti (Fam. 4.7.2); brute force replaced any value which might hold society together. 111 Cf. 2.39.2, 3.13.5, etc.; at 3.65.3, the verbal form is contrasted with e v thÁn xugge neian oi keiouÄntev; LSJ s.v. provides the range of meanings.

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same city, and therein lies the di½culty. In Athens and elsewhere, hetairiai took an active role in the political process and, while they were normally formed ``for mutual bene®t in conformity with established laws,'' their interests could and did coincide with the city's.112 Thus if Thucydides had wanted merely to express that people felt closer to their factions than their families, a llotriwÂteron, ``more foreign'' was not the word to use, for neither relationship is ``foreign'' to any degree in normal times; both are oikeiÄ on, and Thucydides could have avoided ambiguity by saying that faction became more oikeiÄ on than family. Thucydides' choice of expression indicates that familiar ties became foreign in stasis, and loyalty to the faction created in stasis (as opposed to that created in a healthy polis) can turn family members into the ``other,'' ``(more) foreign,'' the enemy.113 Brothers ®ght on opposite sides in civil wars. The same principle is evident in a problematic passage in Plato's Laws, where a brother who kills a brother in stasis ``as if he killed an enemy'' (kaqa per pole mion apoktei nav, 869d) is absolved from pollution.114 Thucydides observed that stasiotai place supreme value on andrei a jile tairov, ``courage true to the party,'' and they reserve extreme censure for the thÄ v eÿ tairi av dialuÂthv, ``destroyer of the faction'' (3.82.4, 5). It is unclear from Thucydides' concise phrasing whether the political associations which gain undue prominence in stasis are new creations, formed to meet the exigencies of the con¯ict, or carry over from more peaceful times. Yet this question is less important than the factions' role during 112 Andrewes in HCT v, 128±31; Lintott 1992, 27±8; Ostwald 1986, 356±8; Connor 1971, ch. 2, cf. 64±5: ``friendship became a principal means of getting the business of the city attended to.'' I think that Chroust 1954, who has been in¯uential, badly overstates the weakness of civic attachment; Socrates' arguments in the Crito may not be as idiosyncratic or unpopular as some critics think. It is widely held that Thucydides here condemns hetairiai as unnatural growths, but hetairiai were not an uncommon phenomenon in a healthy polis. His apparent condemnation of such associations in 8.54.4 and 8.65.2 speci®cally relates to the stasis in Athens in 411 (see Chapter 6). In practice, political process was a more delicate matter, and the distance between healthy contention and stasis was not so great; see Loraux 1991, relying on M. Finley. 113 Poignantly, the word a lloÂtrion is also used in the epidemic narrative to suggest the usurpation of the family unit (2.52.4); note another unusual use of the word at 1.70.6. Loraux 1987 most helpfully investigates all the ancient Greek expressions for internal con¯ict and traces their connection to the family in Greek thought. Compare M. Marcellus' complaint of the disloyalty of his friends and family during the Roman civil war, Cic. Fam. 4.11.1, cf. 7.5. 114 Cf. Solon's law disenfranchising anyone who remained idle during a stasis (Ath.Pol. 8.5), which in Plutarch's view (if he understood it) was i diov kaiÁ paraÂdoxov (Sol. 20.1).

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the con¯ict: what was once a product and instrument of political health becomes the agent of political disease. The natural order of things, in fact the units on which a properly structured society is based, are subverted in stasis. Family ties, which have a prior status in nature, are replaced by more arti®cial associations (or one might even say, associations with no basis in nature, but not thereby intrinsically bad), which, though created and sustained by the polis, lose legitimate purpose when the polis in essence ceases to exist in its normal form. For (gaÂr), the political groups which dominate during a stasis ± only ``associations of this sort'' (toiauÄtai xu nodoi) in stasis, not all political associations in any context ± have as their sole purpose the greedy pursuit of their own interests as they see them, without regard for the established laws or conventions. A brutal example of such an aberration is given at the very beginning of the model (3.81.5): fathers killed sons as party ties overpowered ties of kinship. Thus we see that the subversion of the most primary social relations in stasis has severe moral implications, or as Ostwald has said, ``the legal o¨ense is at the same time a moral o¨ense.''115 It is no accident that, in Greek literature starting in Thucydides' time and continuing through the fourth century, the standard opposite to stasis was oÿmoÂnoia, unity of purpose and mind.116 This ideal does not exclude competition, which was recognized as part of a healthy city. As Thucydides' contemporary Democritus said: One must give the highest importance to a¨airs of the polis, that it may be well run; one must not pursue quarrels (jilonike onta) contrary to what is reasonable, nor assume a power which runs contrary to the common good. The well-run polis is the greatest security, and contains all in itself; when this is safe, all is safe; when this is destroyed, all is destroyed. (DK 68 b252) 115 Ostwald 1986, 120. One of the earliest principles of Hellenic society is that family members help each other, cf. already Il. 18.497¨. (the shield of Achilles). Thus Connor 1984, 99: ``The basic ethical principle of the Greeks is to help one's own philoi, families and friends. Thus for a father to kill a son is not, as it might seem in some cultures, a terrible misfortune, nor the occasional result of social tensions. It is rather the dissolution of the human basis for morality. And if in addition divine sanctions fail to operate, then no morality is possible; the only principle is the calculation of self-interest.'' Edmunds 1975b attempts (unconvincingly in my opinion) to identify Thucydides' own ethical principles by comparison with Hesiod, and ®nds an ``archaic pessimism.'' 116 See Gehrke 1985, 357±8; and Loraux 1991 on the contrast between theory and practice.

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When the object of competition is glory in battle or athletic contests, or excellence in political deliberations, the city bene®ts. But when the object is ``to gratify greed and personal ambition,'' then competition causes detriment to the city, for it turns into ``the zeal for victory'' (toÁ jilonikeiÄ n) at all costs (3.82.8), assuming that the word jilonikeiÄ n is derived from ni kh, victory, and not neiÄ kov, strife, although translating ``an eagerness to quarrel once the strife began'' would not signi®cantly change the present interpretation. The language of competition is prominent in the stasis model,117 yet it always appears in distorted or irregular phrases and contexts: ``he who anticipated another [lit. `beat him to the ®nish', oÿ jqaÂsav] who was about to do some evil was applauded'' (3.82.5), and just so, ``whoever found the opposition o¨-guard in any way and seized the ®rst opportunity for a bold strike (oÿ jqaÂsav qarshÄnai), enjoyed a sweeter revenge . . . and calculated . . . the accolades for intelligence to be won for having scored victory through guile'' (o ti apaÂthÎ perigenoÂmenov xune sewv a gw nisma prosela mbanen, 82.7). The rival factions in stasis make the public interest their ``prize'' (aqla, 82.8), that is, they do harm and evil to the public interest because ``using every available means in the competition (a gwnizoÂmenoi) to get the better of each other they boldly committed villainous outrages and took even more villainous revenge, not stopping where justice or the city's interest demanded, but limiting their actions only by their own pleasure.'' Competition is pursued with ``every available means'' in stasis, as opposed to competition in a healthy city, which is limited only to those means which are not harmful to the city. Finally, moderates were destroyed, ``either for their refusal to join in the ®ght (ou xunhgwni zonto) or out of envy of their survival (perieiÄ nai)'' (82.8). In a well-functioning city, individual desires aim at and are satis®ed by things that are bene®cial for both individual and city, or su½cient procedures for dealing with aberrations from the norm are in place, whereas the satisfaction of individual pleasures in a diseased city leads to its further harm. The competition turns ``savage,'' ®erce and cruel (w mhÁ sta siv), the opposite of civilized. 117 As Connor 1984, 98 n. 45 has pointed out; see also Whitehead 1983. Interestingly, on the subject of competition, Thucydides protests that his history is not written for competition, excellence within the city, but to stand above all contests (1.22.4); the accuracy of medicine or philosophical speculation is similarly not judged by popularity.

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The disease of stasis arises not from the introduction of a foreign element into a city, but rather from the creation of conditions in which already existing functions become distorted and corrupted. Healthy elements deteriorate into malignant ones. What destroys the city is ``the hunger for power (a rch ) inspired by greed (pleonexi an) and personal ambition (jilotimi an)'' ± that is, arch in itself is not destructive, but the kind inspired by greed and ambition is ± ``and, following from these, the zeal for victory (jilonikeiÄ n) in the heat of the con¯ict'' (3.82.8).118 The word jilotimi a, translated here as ``personal ambition,'' literally means ``love of honor'' and is used in both a good and bad sense throughout Greek literature, from the early poets to the later prose writers,119 and in fact is used positively by Pericles in the Funeral Oration (toÁ gaÁr jilo timon a gh rwn moÂnon, 2.44.4). Honor, timhÂ, is what every Hellene desired and most would strive for, usually in military or political contexts (public o½ce is timh ), but it is a relative value, for it is what society recognizes as honorable. Here jilotimi a has become a negative value because of the context and its link with ``greed'' (pleonexi a).120 In these distortions we see the full power of an earlier state118 Two problems: (a) Thucydides actually says that the ``cause (ai tion) of this entire condition was the hunger for power (a rchÂ) . . .'' Since the whole point of the model seems to be that abstract things like a rch are in themselves innocent (surely the whole of the Archaeology would argue against the notion that a rch is in itself the root of evil), rampant and uncontrolled ``hunger for power'' cannot be the ``cause'' but the e¨ect, for we have learned that stasis is what changed people's minds, making them hungry for power, etc. This di½culty has prompted attempts to emend (cf. HCT ad loc.), which are unnecessary. By ai tion Thucydides here means only what is immediately responsible for all the individual symptoms he has just been detailing (paÂntwn au twÄn). The underlying cause of the entire condition is not identi®ed, other than the connection noted earlier between war and stasis. (b) In the second part of the sentence ± e k d' autwÄn e v toÁ jilonikeiÄ n kaqistame nwn toÁ proÂqumon ± the word kaqistame nwn is universally construed to mean people engaged in stasis. But could it go with autwÄn? It would thus mean ``out of these once they [sc. greed and ambition] were established on the course of eager contention [or: victory at all costs]''; the word proÂqumon carries over from dia , and in the context means fanaticism. Or e v toÁ jilonikeiÄ n kaqistame nwn may be ``those set on eager contention,'' meaning therefore ``and out of these arose the fanaticism characteristic of those who are set on eager contention.'' The next sentence explains this (gaÂr), but the explanation really begins with pantiÁ deÁ tro pwÎ, so that, even though this de technically answers just taÁ meÁ n koina . . . , it is as if everything from oiÿ ga r to e poiouÄ nto is a me nclause, leading up to the pantiÁ deÁ tro pwÎ, which explains pro qumon. 119 Most strikingly, in a bad sense, Eur. Phoen. 531±5; cf. LSJ, s.v., and bibliography cited by CT i, 344; cf. Pl. Menex. 243b. 120 Whitehead 1983: in other contexts jilotimi a is usually a positive quality.

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ment, that ``the mindset of the combatants . . . was revolutionized to much further extremes, both in the ingenuity of their attacks and in the enormity of their acts of revenge'' (3.82.3). Lust for revenge (Thucydides' word is timwri a, not tiÂsiv) is a psychological disturbance. Aristotle associates it with passion and anger, the opposite of reason.121 So extreme is the condition of stasis that, according to Thucydides, the lust for revenge overwhelms not only any civic loyalty, but a natural concern for personal safety: ``revenge was valued more than avoiding injury in the ®rst place'' (82.7). Thucydides uses here a relatively rare form of the word for revenge (antitimwrhÂsasqai) to indicate not only revenge but a cycle of revenge.122 The order of thought in 3.82.7 warrants close attention: ®rst (te) Thucydides says, in a sentence we analyzed previously, that ``fair proposals'' were accepted only as precautions; then (te), in the sentence we have just quoted, that revenge was valued more than avoiding harm; and ®nally (kai ), in a quite remarkable sentence, that oaths made in support of treaties were merely an expedient, lightly regarded, and provided grati®cation if successfully broken. Thus we see that the sentence concerning revenge links two sentences describing political procedure, speci®cally, agreement-making between opposing parties in a city. The sequence conveys that revenge was a latent motive in making treaties and a patent motive in breaking them, and that this disturbed mindset, the lust for revenge, is such as to destroy men's ability (or desire) to trust each other in the conventional manner. When trust (pi stiv) disappears, the social conventions such as oaths, which are based on both trust and shared belief, collapse. Acts of trust are normally ``con®rmed . . . by the sanction of divine law'' but during stasis by faction-brothers' ``shared transgression of the law.''123 Thucydides left the gods out as a force in history, but not men's belief in them, nor even the vulgar superstitions which 121 Above, n. 34. 122 The pre®x a nti- is also used in 3.82.5, antile gwn, indicating the breakdown of normal political processes, and 3.83.1, a ntitetaÂcqai, indicating that this was not normal competition in the political arena but armed con¯ict in the city. 123 In this light, two more jarring juxtapositions of words are signi®cant: twÄÎ koinhÄÎ ti paranomhÄsai, 3.82.6, placing common action and lawbreaking side by side, and pi stin e timwreiÄ to, 3.82.7 doing the same with trust and revenge. Note Theogn. 77±8: ``In harsh stasis, a trustworthy man (pistoÁv anhÂr) is worth more than gold and silver.''

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he himself scorned.124 ``Divine law'' means not law in a religious sphere, but the religiously sanctioned basis of societal institutions; not (for Thucydides) transcendent, immutable law, but the laws carrying special sanctions governing human behavior; their speci®c provisions will change according to political and social circumstance. Generally speaking, pious behavior is what people in a healthy society practice as routine habit, what Thucydides calls, in an original phrase, ``making conventional use of piety'' (eu sebei aÎ e noÂmizon, 3.82.8), which highlights the connection between pious behavior and nomos. If the solidity of societal institutions depends on shared belief in divine sanction, and if the corruption of those institutions involves cynical manipulation or criminal disregard of that sanction, then the absolute validity of the original belief is unimportant in understanding and evaluating the corruption. The violation of religious institutions implies a fortiori the absence of fear of the sanctions set by men. ``No promise (lo gov) was strong enough, no oath awful enough (jobero v) to reconcile the two sides'' (83.2). When words lose or change their value, religious reverence, ``fear'' based on words also disappears. As Ostwald succinctly put it, ``Oaths are public acts, usually political or legal in nature, in which religious beliefs are utilized for legal and political purposes . . .''125 In Corcyra, those who had sought refuge in temples were sacrilegiously torn away and slain beside them, and the people in the temple of Dionysus were walled in and died (presumably of starvation). We are to assume that ¯eeing to sanctuaries for divine protection was a regular behavior in times of internal con¯ict in Thucydides' Hellas, and that violation of the sanctuaries was a typical response by those who had no other resort. Thucydides explains in the continuation of 3.83.2: ``all who found themselves in a superior position, ®guring that security could not even be hoped for, made provisions to avoid injury rather than allow themselves to trust anyone.'' The lack of security refers not only to the promise and oath of the ®rst part of the sen124 Full discussion in Chapter 5. Mikalson 1984 tries to document Thucydides' claim that the plague induced men to abandon religious scruple, but what men were thinking and feeling would not necessarily leave its imprint in the evidence, which is in any case far from full. I may also remark here that I see no point in the widely held notion that the word eu sebei a in 3.82.8 (quoted below) has no religious signi®cance; such a notion is dictated by predisposition about Thucydides' own beliefs (or lack thereof ), see Chapter 5. 125 Ostwald 1986, 94±5.

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tence,126 but also to the disappearance of all the standard safeguards of a civilized life ± religious sanctions as well as political and juridical processes. One has always to watch one's back in stasis. The lack of security is general, and therefore much more terrifying and desperate.

stasis and polemos Once we have reviewed the symptoms indicating stasis, an obvious question arises: can the patterns of behavior which Thucydides assigns to stasis, even the fate of language, not also occur, in varying forms, in a polemos against an external, truly foreign enemy? Thucydides might have had an answer to this. He could have claimed that the combination of symptoms is particular only to stasis; fever is common to many illnesses which are distinct from each other. Alternatively, Thucydides could have denied that human actions and speech habits are really the same in war and stasis. But these are only guesses: Thucydides is not present to answer questions, and he did not leave a systematic analysis of war ± its place in nature and its relation to human nature, the patterns of speech and action which characterize it ± to compare with the stasis model. His detailed narrative of a single war ± if indeed he thought of the Peloponnesian War as a polemos and not a stasis, a notion which we will contest in the following chapters ± cannot serve as a substitute for a theoretical model of polemos, just as his long and careful narrative of the Corcyrean stasis, while its details correspond to the central elements of his stasis model at 3.82±3, cannot substitute for the model. Although the stasis model and all stasis narratives in Thucydides' text are mutually informative, 3.82±3 could not be extrapolated or back-written from the narratives. Thus we will forever lack Thucydides' theoretical understanding of polemos.127 In such a dilemma, one hopes to ®nd other texts for compari126 So Gomme, HCT ad loc. Gould's claim (1973) that hiketeia ``was becoming increasingly a ritual whose binding force was weakening in face of the counter-strain of political realities'' (101, cf. 83), is true if the breakdown during the Peloponnesian War was not repaired afterwards. 127 The passing distinction at 8.94.3 between internal and external war (Thucydides is reporting the Athenians' thoughts) is not very informative. Loraux 1986b, 98¨. is the only one I know who has posed the question, but her results are radically di¨erent, as her purpose was to equate rather than distinguish the two phenomena.

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son. Yet no other ancient author avails, and modern theorists, despite their massive output on just this problem, have found no useful, universal distinction between conventional war and internal war.128 Greek literature down to Thucydides' day contains no systematic, theoretical treatment of war, much less of the di¨erences between war and stasis, and even in the changed circumstances of the fourth-century philosophers and historians did not think to ask the question directly. From at least the sixth century through the fourth century, writers considered war a part of nature, as unavoidable as the weather, not bad in itself, even possibly good as a creative force or process, and in any case a ®xture in human experience.129 Heraclitus (fr. 80) said war was xunoÂn, common, expanding on a sentiment found in Homer.130 It is instinctive to turn once again to Plato and Aristotle. Despite their basic di¨erences concerning the origins of the state, both assumed that war was a necessary component of urban culture, although one which had to be controlled for the good of the state and its citizens. They both viewed war (albeit in di¨erent ways) as an area of training and legislation; in fact, the virtues required for waging war overlap with those required in other areas of the life of the polis. As Aristotle says, ``all military pursuits are to be considered honorable,'' although war is to be considered a means to the good life and not an end in itself.131 Aristotle nowhere compares war and stasis. Plato proposes an innovative distinction between stasis and polemos in a problematic passage in the Republic, where Socrates says: It seems to me that, just as there are two di¨erent words, polemos and stasis, so in fact there are two di¨erent things which are distinguished by two di¨erent criteria. The two things are the domestic and bloodrelated, on the one hand, and the foreign and external, on the other. 128 Note, e.g., the wildly di¨erent calculations of simply the number of civil wars in recent history, cited by Licklider 1993, 5±6; he concedes (7): ``even the experts can't agree on the distinctions between civil and interstate wars.'' On what follows, compare the provocative observations of Loraux 1987, esp. 14±18. 129 See now Ostwald 1996, with some earlier bibliography. See also Momigliano 1958: ``the Greeks came to accept war as a natural fact like birth and death.'' 130 Kahn 1979, 205: ``in place of the familiar thought that the fortunes of war are shared by both sides and that the victor may be vanquished tomorrow, Heraclitus takes xynos `common' in his own sense of `universal', `all-pervading', `unifying' . . . and thus gives the words of the poets a deeper meaning they themselves did not comprehend.'' See Il. 18.109 and Archilochus fr. 38. 131 Pol. 1325a 6, cf. 1270a 5, 1334a 25, and on war in general, 1255b 37, 1256b 23, 1333b 38.

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Stasis is applied to the enmity of the domestic, polemos to the enmity of the foreign.132 (470b)

Socrates goes on to maintain that the ``domestic and blood-related'' should be de®ned as all Hellenes, the foreign as the ``barbarian,'' so that any con¯ict between Hellenes must be called stasis, whereas a con¯ict between Hellenes and barbarians, who are ``enemies by nature,'' is properly a polemos. This seems to anticipate the argument of the present book, that Thucydides presented the inter-Hellenic struggle as fundamentally stasis, but the Platonic passage, aside from being written after the Peloponnesian War, when such ideas were in the air (see Chapter 7), is in itself di½cult when read strictly in its context. Most of the open pronouncements in the dialogues are embedded in a speci®c context and cannot be taken at face value as the ®rm view of either Socrates or Plato. Socrates' words here are most certainly not ``a formal declaration of Plato's political faith in the Panhellenic ideal,'' to quote an old but still widely accepted opinion.133 Distinctions among mankind in the interest of supporting war are part of the ``noble lie'' expounded earlier in the dialogue, in similar language. Whereas the ``noble lie'' will propagate the notion that all men of one city are ``brothers and o¨spring of the Earth'' (a deljwÄn ontwn kaiÁ ghgenwÄn ± in the passage, ghÄ and cw ra are tellingly equated), who is their common ``mother and nurse'' (mhtroÁv kaiÁ trojouÄ, 414d±e), so here, all Hellenes are related by blood (suggene v) and as such, like the factions in a single polis, refrain from destroying each other and their own land, which is ``mother and nurse'' (thÁ n trojoÂn te kaiÁ mhte ra, 470c±471b).134 The same idea, expressed in the same language, is repeated in the funeral oration Socrates recites in the Menexenus (237e), where it is clear from the opening lines of the dialogue that Socrates disapproves of the mendacious nature of the entire genre of patriotic funeral speeches; this only reinforces the association of the idea with the ``noble lie,'' 132 jai netai moi, wsper kaiÁ o nomaÂzetai duÂo tauÄta onoÂmata, po lemoÂv te kaiÁ sta siv, outw kaiÁ einai du o, onta e piÁ duoiÄ n tinoiÄ n diajoraiÄ n. le gw deÁ taÁ duÂo toÁ meÁ n oi keiÄ on kaiÁ xuggene v, toÁ deÁ alloÂtrion kaiÁ o qneiÄ on. e piÁ meÁ n oun thÄÎ touÄ oi kei ou e cqraÎ staÂsiv ke klhtai, e piÁ deÁ thÄÎ touÄ a llotri ou poÂlemov. 133 Adam and Rees 1963, 323; the comment is Adam's from 1902. On what follows, see Benardete 1989, 120±3. 134 If the expression was commonplace (Laws 740a, Tim. 40b; Aesch. Sept. 16), the argument here will only be strengthened.

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as does another passage, in Politicus (262c±e), which disparages the common distinction between Hellenes and barbarians. Thus the distinction in Republic 470b between stasis and polemos, and especially the premise on which it is based, are endorsed neither by Socrates, who speaks the words, nor by Plato, who wrote them. The idea might have gained some currency among intellectuals in the fourth century in reaction to the ravages of the Peloponnesian War, but the degree to which such an idea was accepted is hard to gauge, and it certainly was not current in Thucydides' time (see Chapter 7). We can, however, accept as factual report that the common view of stasis was the condition of ``a polis which is internally divided'' (470d). A further common understanding is exploited at the beginning of Laws, where Plato wrote that stasis is merely internal polemos (cf. 628b±d). In this late dialogue polemos and stasis are ``two forms of war'' (ei dh duÂo pole mou), with stasis being ``the harshest of all wars'' (pa ntwn pole mwn calepw tatov) because it is fought within a polis (Leg. 629d). We return to Thucydides without much assistance from other classical authors. But we are not at a total loss. The very fact that Thucydides limited his analysis to stasis suggests at least that he viewed the two phenomena as quite di¨erent in nature, even if he did not speculate in the same concentrated manner on polemos. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that according to his theory polemos had a role in creating the conditions for stasis; the two are distinct entities. Whether Thucydides viewed polemos as an aberration or disease in the same way he saw stasis, or whether he adopted the view of war as a natural part of human existence, not to be prevented but controlled through state-sponsored training and political authority, cannot be answered with certainty, and we should not confuse our own interpretations, or opinions expressed by speakers in the History, with sure knowledge. To say that Thucydides thought that there were basic di¨erences between stasis and polemos is no slight thing. Of course, without Thucydides' theoretical understanding of polemos, we will not know fully or surely what those di¨erences are, even if a polemos lay at the heart of the ``greatest kinesis'' which is the central subject of his History. It is nevertheless possible to make suggestions about those di¨erences by logical extension of certain elements in Thucydides' theory of stasis. According to Thucydides, the states of mind of adversaries are

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changed in a stasis. We may surmise that this happens in ways which do not necessarily characterize adversaries in a polemos ± that is, these psychological changes do not de®ne polemos as they do stasis, but may be present in a polemos, or especially in other stressful and aberrant events such as epidemic. The psychological changes characteristic of stasis are manifested in certain behaviorial patterns, such as the pursuit of revenge (as opposed to avoiding harm), deceit and so forth, as Thucydides explains ± again, behaviorial patterns which, if they can sometimes be found in con¯icts strictly de®ned as war, would probably be directed against the external enemy and in any case are not crucial to the identity of the con¯ict as they are for stasis. On the contrary, war according to Greek thinkers, including Thucydides, may encourage virtue and bring virtuous men to the fore. Democritus included warfare among the ``great deeds'' which concord in a city ± homonoia, the opposite of stasis ± makes possible (DK 68 b250). And there are certain stasis behaviors which are normally excluded from war, like fathers killing sons.135 A stasis is characterized by the radical change and reuse, and eventually the breakdown, of social, political, legal and religious conventions, starting with language and family ties, and encompassing all communal decision-making apparatus and all areas designated inviolable by society's norms. By contrast, a war often strengthens such institutions. This is one of Thucydides' concerns in the Archaeology, where an equation is made between internal strength and the ability to carry out foreign wars. Hellenic loyalty and unity, and more importantly the strengthening of Hellenic institutions and attachment, is one of Herodotus' great themes in his account of the resistance to Persian enslavement (cf. 8.144.2), and as we shall see in our analysis of the Archaeology, the point impressed Thucydides, too. Another distinctive feature which emerges from the stasis model is that, unlike polemos, stasis is almost always pursued to the very end, i.e., the total defeat or even annihilation of one side by the other, or the expulsion of the losing faction from the area of con¯ict (which usually guaranteed further internecine ®ghting at a 135 Loraux 1986b, 100¨. and ead. 1987, where she makes the suggestion that fathers killing sons violates ``l'ordine greco del disordine'' (21). On homonoia, see Le vy 1976, 209¨., who dates its ®rst use in this political sense to 411.

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future time), or the factions' mutual destruction. The most detailed battle described by Thucydides, at Mantinea, ends with a negotiated settlement before either side is entirely crushed; and Thucydides even gives the texts of the truce and alliance beween Argos and Sparta (5.77, 79). Yet stasis is di¨erent. As one modern theorist put it: ``Once the battle has been joined, the war is total and the outcome is seen only as total victory or total defeat. Neither side at any stage can seriously contemplate any alternative to victory except death ± if not of the body then of the soul.''136 The Corcyrean stasis ended (425/4) when one party (``democratic'') won and the other ceased to exist: ``of one party there was no remnant to speak of '' (4.48.5). Whether or not this is actually an historical pattern, Thucydides' model indicates it, and his descriptions of actual staseis, with few exceptions, con®rm it.137 When peace negotiations are attempted in stasis, they are only temporary devices, untrustworthy and unsanctioned by gods or other conventions. ``Oaths made in support of any reconciliation had only momentary validity,'' according to Thucydides, ``as they were made by each side only in the absence of any other source of strength to deal with an emergency.'' In war, by contrast, negotiations may be mutually bene®cial to all sides, and adhered to not only because of that mutual advantage but also because of fear of the sanctions accompanying the agreement. Finally, neutrality, while common in war, is impossible in stasis. Thucydides says this explicitly: ``Citizens who maintained neutrality were destroyed by both sides, either for their refusal to join in the ®ght or out of envy of their survival'' (3.82.8). This is a gradual process, but if the stasis lasts long enough, both neutrality and moderation disappear entirely. The triumph of extremism at once destroys people with moderate views and so radicalizes people's minds as to make moderation impossible.138 136 Licklider 1993, 8. Plato seems to say the same thing in Laws 628b; Menex. 242b±d; Ep. vii 336e. Cf. Loraux 1986b, 101: ``pour Thucydide . . . la mort, hideuse car reÂduite aÁ la brutalite du fait, est le dernier mot de la stasis.'' 137 Gehrke 1985, 203¨., 355¨. Thucydides' account of the stasis in Athens is not complete, so that we do not know how he would have described the end of that con¯ict, see my discussion Chapter 6. 138 Cf. Democritus DK 68 b249: ``Stasis emphylios is harmful to both parties; for both to the conquerors and conquered, the destruction is the same.'' Unfortunately this is only fragmentary. On political moderation cf. Aesch. Eum. 525f., Eur. Suppl. 245.

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stasis and the peloponnesian war We have learned from Thucydides' analytical model that the de®nition of stasis concerns not external structures but internal psychological states, and that the observer of a con¯ict must ®rst recognize the indications of human speech and action characteristic of stasis before examining the political and/or social structure within which the con¯ict is taking place. This is the order I have adopted for my analysis of Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. I shall argue ®rst that the adversaries in the war, as Thucydides describes them,139 speak and act in ways more symptomatic of stasis than of conventional war. Only after that shall I discuss the identity and nature of the entity which was a¨ected. History is made up of words/thoughts and actions, logoi and erga. This is announced in the beginning of the History in an original methodological statement (1.22). What people say140 is a most sensitive (if di½cult and ambiguous) indicator of what they are thinking and feeling, which in turn discloses the meaning of their actions. In the statement in 1.22, Thucydides declares that he applied di¨erent standards when recording speeches and actions,141 explaining that for speeches it was di½cult both for him and his informants to remember accurately (or verbatim: thÁ n a kri beian) the words actually spoken, so that each speaker is made to say what seemed to me most essential for him to say, given the circumstances in each case, while I have tried to keep as close as possible to the overall intention of the actual speech.142 139 On Thucydides' conveying his interpretation of history through careful selection and arrangement of detail, see now Rood 1998. 140 A sharp distinction must be maintained between what Thucydides says in his own voice and what his actors say in speeches. In what follows I will take for granted that Thucydides speaks personally through none of the speeches; Hornblower 1987, 185±6, 189±90. See the interesting essay by P. Arnold (Debnar) 1992, on the representation in the speeches of ``the factual, ethical and psychological factors that led to crucial decisions pertaining to the war.'' 141 o sa meÁ n lo gwÎ . . . taÁ d' e rga. Among the better recent comment on 1.22 (although I do not agree with much of it) is Macleod 1983, 68±70; Rood 1998, 46±52; Orwin 1994, 207±12 (with extensive bibliography); Hornblower 1987, 45¨. (and see further in CT i, 59¨.); Swain 1993; Erbse 1989a, 131±42; Crane 1996, 34¨.; Woodman 1988, 11±23. Garrity 1998 tries to dismiss grammatical di½culties by atributing to Thucydides a tooprecious distinction between ``content'' and ``form.'' 142 wÿv d' an e doÂkoun e moiÁ e kastoi periÁ twÄn ai eiÁ paroÂntwn taÁ de onta maÂlist' ei peiÄ n, e come nwÎ o ti e ggu tata thÄ v xumpaÂshv gnw mhv twÄn alhqwÄv lecqe ntwn, ou twv ei rhtai.

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For erga, by contrast, despite the di½culty of determining what actually happened ± even those events at which Thucydides himself was present ± an e¨ort was made to achieve absolute accuracy, which is believed to be possible. He did not trust any chance report, nor even his own eyes, but both for those events at which I myself was present and from (information received from) others I have given a thorough account of each with as much accuracy as possible. And I have discovered (the truth) only with considerable di½culty, because those who were present at the various events have not given identical reports on the same events, but each person reported as he was disposed to do by his own inclination or memory.

Thucydides does not explain why he adopted di¨erent methods for speeches and actions. Why was the method for recording erga with accuracy not su½cient, or relevant, for logoi? Would the reader not have been satis®ed, and less confused or suspicious, if Thucydides had said, in parallel to his statement on erga, that for both those speeches he heard himself and those which were reported to him by others, he made every attempt to reproduce what was actually said with as much accuracy as possible? And would it not have been entirely credible to say that, as for erga, establishing the text of each speech was extremely di½cult because di¨erent hearers, who are partial or deceived by tricks of memory, remembered the same speeches di¨erently? Obviously an exact record of a speech is a somewhat di¨erent matter from an exact record of an event, but Thucydides does not say (as some have claimed he does) that he tried so far as possible to record the actual words and phrases used, ®lling out the rest according to the general tenor and purport of the speech, only as a last resort ®lling in gaps with what might or should have been said on each occasion. No such e¨ort was made.143 Instead, Thucydides states that because of the di½culty ± both for himself and his informants ± of remembering the content of speeches he abandoned literal accuracy from the start and wrote what was required in each set of circumstances, while paying due respect to the general gnw mh, or 143 Some have thought that the use of toia de and a verb in the imperfect tense when introducing some speeches may indicate that an exact reproduction is not o¨ered, but such mechanical schematism is foreign to the History; cf. Rusten 1989, 15 n. 48 and 138.

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intention, of each speaker.144 The reader is left wondering what Thucydides did when he had heard a speech himself and knew it fairly well, but thought that it did not say what was needed in the circumstances (taÁ de onta). And how did he interpret the gnw mh of each speech ± from what the speaker actually said or from what he thought the speaker, if he did not give a good speech, wanted to say? It is clear at least that with speeches Thucydides allowed himself a certain freedom or leeway which he ruled out for erga. This is curious, since in theory an exact transcript of a speech could have been produced, whereas recording an ergon, for which Thucydides reserved his most rigorous standard of accuracy, would necessarily involve selection, emphasis and judgment. Saying that he registered ``what was required by the circumstances'' or ``what should have happened'' (periÁ twÄ n ai eiÁ paroÂntwn taÁ de onta) for poorly documented erga would have been absurd (at least for Thucydides, in contrast with later topos-dependent historians); he explicitly worded his methodology to rule out such an approach. It is also clear that the problem lies not in the di¨erent di½culties in remembering words and actions. The problem is rather the imperfect connection between a speaker's actual words and his intended meaning. For each rhetorical occasion, taÁ de onta cannot be determined absolutely or by convention, even by an omniscient historian, but are decided by each speaker's perspective and purpose, which it is the task of the omniscient historian to discover. In his treatment of speeches Thucydides has not ruled out the hypothetical case in which he had an exact transcript in his hands (taÁ alhqwÄ v lecqe nta) but decided to compose a di¨erent speech according to his own interpretation of taÁ de onta and the gnw mh of the speaker. Thucydides might even have produced a di¨erent, ``better'' or ``more accurate'' version of a speech which he knew quite well in order to bring out more clearly the connection between the speaker's words, actions, intentions and circumstances. As Gomme said in a comment on the four speeches at Sparta in Book 1: ``Thucydides was anxious to show the temper of the Athenians, Corinthians, and Lacedaemonians at the time; he selects 144 Contra Plant 1988.

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and composes (with or without authority for it) [the Corinthians'] speech to throw some light on that temper.''145 Through a close study of the words and actions ± logoi and erga ± of the actors in the History, I shall try to show (Chapters 2, 3, 4) that Thucydides presents the Peloponnesian War as something di¨erent from a standard struggle between two di¨erent power alliances or even from a clash between two cultures, even though the participants strove to present the con¯ict in both those ways. The historian's ear was particularly sensitive to new and peculiar uses of language, starting before the war formally began and becoming ever more distinct as the con¯ict spread and deepened. A ``transvaluation'' of words traceable in the speeches signals the collapse or distortion of shared Hellenic values, as well as a deadly rhetorical struggle over the legitimate repesentation of ``Hellas'' and ``Hellenes.'' The speeches further document a failure by the Hellenes to understand each other: the Athenians and the Peloponnesians developed their own peculiar, mutually incomprehensible ways of speaking, and their linguistic di¨erences are symptomatic of deeper di¨erences on the conceptual plane. Similarly, Thucydides' presentation of erga (Chapter 5). The historian's eye was drawn to instances of unusual brutality and cruelty, and to violations of social, moral or religious norms: ambassadors and suppliants are murdered, sanctuaries desecrated, oaths violated, atrocities, such as the slaughter of school-children, committed. These actions, the language chosen to narrate them, and the human motives assigned them, inevitably suggest the disease of stasis. The war brought ``most people's passions to match the level of their actual circumstances'' (3.82.2), and the result was escalating violence not only within individual stasis-torn cities but in the violent encounters of Hellenes from di¨erent cities. Moreover, as in stasis, individuals exhibiting intelligence and civic virtue became rarer, along with those very qualities; moderation disappeared, and the single prominent attempt to reach a negotiated peace proved to be a sham, in fact an impossible enterprise. This ``greatest kinesis'' of history, a single twenty-seven-year war which was the consequence of a dynamic and long-developing interplay of fear and power, was most profoundly an internal war which 145 HCT i, 233.

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brought degeneration to Hellenic civilization in much the way stasis destroys the entity which it a¿icts.146 Stasis pervades Thucydides' History. Many cities were torn apart by internal con¯ict during the war. The stasis model states (3.82.3) that these con¯icts became more numerous as the war wore on, and Thucydides' narrative bears this out (Chapter 6). That they also became more violent can be neither proved nor disproved from the History, although there is no reason to disbelieve Thucydides' judgment, and I shall try to show that the greater war did bring ever more cruel and brutal, even barbaric, behavior. Thucydides' accounts of individual staseis bear out another important claim in the model, that the factions within the cities enlisted the military power of Athens and Sparta in their local battles, and that the two great powers, in turn, exploited the smaller con¯icts in pursuit of their own ends. Further examination reveals something more subtle: the staseis which are recounted or receive the merest mention have been carefully selected to guide the narrative of the larger war; they serve as organizing points for crucial stages in the story, particularly the Peace of Nicias. Thucydides arranged his other material, as well, such as his account of the war's outbreak, to bring out its deeper connection between stasis and the larger war. Stasis is kept ®xed in the reader's ®eld of vision as a guide by which to interpret the war. Finally, I shall argue that Thucydides' evaluation of the con¯ict led him inevitably to reassess the nature of Hellas, which he consequently came to view as an entity within which a con¯ict could be a stasis and whose greatness was the most important casualty of the war (Chapter 7). This view of Hellas determined the structure and selection of material for the Archaeology and the Pentekontaetia. Thucydides' conception of the war anticipated the perspective of the post-war generations which, under the impact of the Peloponnesian War and the incessant inter-Hellenic struggles which followed, proposed the idea of distinguishing Hellenic wars from wars against a ``barbaric'' enemy, even though this distinction 146 This thesis has been anticipated in passing observations by certain scholars, but my fuller treatment will, I think, yield results which were not foreseen in those previous impressionistic statements. See Wasserman 1954; Heuss 1973, 22¨.; Erbse 1989a, 93¨.; Pouncey 1980, 139±50. In Chapter 7 I cite intimations already in ®fth-century literature of the fratricidal nature of the Peloponnesian War.

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had little in¯uence on the Hellenes' actual behavior. In this respect the war which Thucydides de®ned as the ``greatest kinesis'' served as a watershed in Greek political and historical thinking and perception. An obligatory caution. The thesis of the next six chapters concerns an idea which I think developed in Thucydides' mind as he wrote, observed and thought. I do not, however, intend to speculate on which passages precede the crystallization of this idea, or how certain earlier passages would have been rewritten or actually were rewritten in the light of later insight. After more than a century of controversy and countless painstaking studies on the compositional layers of the History, Gomme's pronouncement thirty-®ve years ago ± ``a mass of controversy, most of it barren to the last degree''147 ± still holds true. No one can know how the ®nal work would have looked. Speculations on my part would be of doubtful value and certainly not worth the labor required to support them or the space to expound them. Despite the fact that Thucydides' work is un®nished ± only partially written and incompletely edited ± I believe, and will try to show, that his understanding of the war was a unitary conception which, whatever the di¨erent stages in his intellectual development, left a unitary stamp on the composition in its present form. The interpretation of the war which I will attempt to adumbrate is to be found in the small details and larger structures in all ``books'' of the History as we have it. There is no telling whether the whole composition would have been more strongly organized around the theme of internal disintegration, or even whether it would have been explicitly stated, but it is nonetheless clearly discernible in what Thucydides left us. 147 Gomme 1962, 92. Those interested in the ``Thucydidean Question'' should consult de Romilly 1963, 3¨.; Dover in HCT v, 361±444; Luschnat 1971, 1108±32; a powerful argument for the unity of the History is now Rood 1998. I should add that I am entirely unconvinced by Hornblower's notion (1987, 154) that the abstract nature of the stasis model indicates earlier composition. For even if the thesis, developed at length by Westlake 1968, that Thucydides took an increasing interest in the role of individuals in history, is correct (I do not believe it is: see Chapter 5), that does not mean that Thucydides lost interest in impersonal meta-historical processes unconnected to speci®c historical circumstances. Thucydides' approach to history is clear from the opening chapters of the work, and it explains his aspiration to write ``a possession for all time.'' We should also note that the abstract model of stasis is in fact based on a very detailed case-study, Corcyra, in which individuals play prominent roles.

part ii

Logoi

chapter 2

The transvaluation of words

In the last chapter we identi®ed and examined three species of linguistic change attendant on stasis which an outside observer can witness. The ®rst is explicitly and coherently stated in the model, namely that corruption in a society's values and in the institutions which represent those values is re¯ected in the transvaluation of words. The second derives from an implied problem solved by Thucydides' original approach to stasis: the members of each side in a stasis, even if related by blood, must reconceive and rede®ne their opponents as alien, ``the enemy'' and all that that implies, and the stasiotai of each side must also rede®ne the entity being fought over ± their koinwni a ± in such a way as both to de-legitimize their opponents and to con®rm their own legitimacy. The contending factions in a stasis rarely admit they are in a stasis. The third phenomenon follows from the ®rst two: there is a general breakdown in communication. Two or more contending groups, who in the past had shared language, religious beliefs and institutions, moral systems, and social and political institutions, not only stop sharing all those elements of mutual identity and purpose but also lose the ability to communicate e¨ectively once those bases for mutuality disappear. Words, aside from failing as a vehicle for mutual understanding, become another violent and especially treacherous weapon in the arsenals of the contending factions. When ``fair proposals from the opposition are received with actual protective measures by the faction which felt itself to be superior, and not in a noble spirit'' (3.82.7), then a speech will not be listened to receptively or openly and thus will be misunderstood, and conversely the one who gives a speech will not be able to ®nd the right words to persuade his hearers since he uses words like weapons. In the History, the Athenians, the Spartans and their respective subjects and allies speak in the ways described by the stasis model. No speaker acknowledges this, but no one should: Thucydides, it 81

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will be remembered, sharply distinguishes between what stasiotai and an outside observer can see, hear and explain. Each speech illustrates the ®rst two principles of stasis rhetoric, revealing an instability (and eventual disintegration) in the vocabulary of the basic standards and values of Hellas, and conveying an explicit or implied rede®nition both of the opposing side and of the connection of both sides to the source of their common identity. Thus each speech meets the psychological requirements of a Hellenic war but in the process harms Hellas by rejecting a shared concept of it. Conventional, consensual meanings of words are lost as different sides de®ne certain key concepts opportunistically, leading to the crumbling of morality, ethics and social conventions. The Hellenes express their reorderings of the world variously, in ways appropriate to their di¨erent outlooks, temperaments and purposes in the war, but the phenomenon is the same basic one. As a result, when enemies (and sometimes even friends) speak to or against each other, they more often than not fail to understand each other, with drastic consequences. The ®rst word of the ®rst speech in the History is di kaion, ``justice'' (1.32.1). By studying the use of this word from that ®rst speech through subsequent speeches in the History, I shall attempt to trace the changed and at the same time con¯icting, opportunistic uses of this and other terms which in a healthy society might be exploited in debate but would have more stable and universally accepted meanings.1 Pericles observes at 2.40.3 that the Athenians di¨er from other Hellenes in their assignment of di¨erent values to important words. This is correct, in di¨erent ways, for all Hellas in the war; the chaos in moral and ethical terminology in the History is supposed to be read as a product of the war itself. c o r c y r a a n d c o r i n t h: j u s t i c e a n d e x p e d i e n c y The Corcyreans' rhetorical contest with the Corinthians (1.32±43)2 centers precisely on ``justice'' and expediency. They argue not over the meaning of justice and expediency or whether one takes precedence over the other, but how the two concepts both apply to the 1 On what follows cf. Heath 1990, who however argues implausibly that Thucydides' Athenians dismiss arguments from justice. Havelock 1978 passes from Herodotus, in whom he ®nds that ``justice as a concept has [not] yet been achieved,'' to Plato, without consideration of Thucydides ( presumably because Thucydides uses the word dikaiosuÂnh only once, see p. 310). 2 See the line-by-line commentaries in HCT i, 166±76 and CT i, 75±86; for a di¨erent approach, Ober 1993.

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present situation. Both states present their claims to Athens as based on a perfect combination of justice and expediency. The Corcyreans argue that forming a naval alliance with them would both ensure Athens' supremacy on the sea (expediency) and demonstrate openly their willingness to help a wronged party ( justice). The Corinthians expatiate on the wrongs of Corcyra and the blame any new ally would share ( justice), and hint at the long-term danger of Corinth's enmity. Athens is presented with a choice between action and inaction as the best, most just and most advantageous course to take. Corycra's strongest point is the advantage of immediately attaching its strong navy to Athens' forces, yet this is also the most serious potential pitfall in the speech: the result of the alliance would be an immediate, uninvited war with Corinth. The Corcyreans accordingly place most of the weight of their argument on the expediency and practical advantage of a naval alliance while using unclear and scattered arguments about justice to try to smooth over the concern of an impending sea battle. This combination of expediency with justice can be seen in the ®rst sentence, where the Corcyreans tell their Athenian audience that ``it is right'' (di kaion) for them to prove the ``advantage'' (xuÂmjora) of the alliance they o¨er (1.32.1). Here the word di kaion can only mean proper or ®t; it certainly implies none of the moral or legal compunction with which the Corinthians will presently endow the word. The precedence of practical advantage over moral or legal sanction in the Corcyreans' use of the word di kaion comes out in their somewhat presumptuous warning, you will be allowing them to acquire military power from your own empire, which it is not just (di kaion) for them to have; rather (it is di kaion) either to prevent them from hiring away mercenaries from within your empire or to send us as much aid as you may be persuaded is necessary, to receive us openly as allies and help us. (1.35.4)

There is no question here that justice, di kaion, is de®ned in accordance with Athens' perceived military interests; and in fact substituting ``expedient,'' xuÂmjeron, for di kaion would not signi®cantly change the meaning of the sentence.3 3 It should be noted that at the beginning of the sentence ± hÿmaÄ v meÁ n gaÁ r kinduneu ontav kaiÁ ouk e cqrouÁv ontav a pwÂsesqe ± exactly of whom the Corinthians are enemies is ambiguous; technically it should be the Corcyreans, but the Athenians could also be understood, a suggestion stated more clearly elsewhere in the speech (see below); so that even an apparent argument about the ``justice'' of helping friends (which the Corcyreans cannot claim to be) and harming enemies turns into a cold calculation of advantage.

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The Corcyreans' rejection of any other possibility for diÂkaion can be seen in the third and last instance of the word in their speech. If they should say that it is not right (di kaion) for you to receive their own colonists, let them be made to understand that every colony which is treated well honors its mother-city, but becomes alienated when it su¨ers injustice (a dikoume nh); for they are sent out not as slaves but as equals to those who remain. And it is clear that the Corinthians have committed injustice (hdi koun), for when invited to arbitrate they preferred to prosecute their charges by war rather than equity. (1.34.1±2)

Here di kaion does have moral and legal overtones, but only as a hypothetical point which is instantly refuted. The Corinthians, in their speech, do make the argument which the Corcyreans try to preempt. This is the essence of the dispute between them: the Corcyreans maintain that ``just'' relations between mother-city and colony are contingent on ``equality'' between the two, whereas Corinth de®nes that same ``justice'' as requiring subordination of the colony to the mother-city. The Corcyreans' notion of just dealings between colonists and mother-city rests on the fact of kinship, which is ``alienated'' (allotriouÄtai, cf. 3.82.6) by injustice as they choose to de®ne it. For the Corcyreans it follows naturally that Corinth has violated justice (h di koun) by seeking to settle di¨erences by force rather than arbitration. This is not a point which Corinth can deny (see below), but it is interesting that the Corcyreans do not make more of it, quickly moving back to more familiar ground in the next sentence and warning the Athenians about the danger from Corinth's violent and arbitrary behavior which threatens them, too. Appeals to morality and legalistic quibbling were, apparently, not for them. The Corcyreans' preference for expediency, toÁ xuÂmjeron, over moral and legal concerns is prominent in a particularly murky sentence: If anyone thinks that the course we suggest is indeed expedient (xumje ronta) but fears that by following it he would be breaking the treaty, let him know that his apprehension if based on strength will rather cause the enemy to fear, but if he does not accept our proposal his bold con®dence, being as a result in®rm, will cause less apprehension among enemies who are strong; at the same time, he is now deliberating no less about Athens than about Corcyra, and he will not be making the securest pro-

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vision for Athens' interests if, when faced with a war which is approaching and has almost arrived, he focuses on matters of immediate concern and wavers about attaching a country with which close friendship or open hostility has the most momentous consequences. (1.36.1)

No commentator has, to my mind, successfully explained what a fear or apprehension ``based on strength'' (toÁ meÁ n dedioÁv au touÄ iscuÁn e con) means, or why it should cause greater fear in the opponent. If, as seems to be the case, this fear is apprehension about breaking the treaty, namely the Thirty Years Peace, and if ``based on strength'' refers to acceptance of the pro¨ered alliance, which would in this formulation amount to breaking the treaty, then accepting the alliance would amount to overcoming the fear, and the phrase ``fear based on strength'' is paradoxical. Furthermore, not the fear of breaking a treaty but the ``strength,'' i.e. the new alliance, should be what reciprocally causes fear in the opponent; any scruple about treaty-breaking which the opponent senses should encourage rather than deter him from pursuing hostilities. Nor is it clear how one belligerent's con®dence should reduce rather than raise the fear of the other. Yet if the precise thought is obscure (perhaps intentionally), the general idea is fairly simple: do not worry about the immediate consequences of breaking the treaty, for alliance with us will be more useful in the coming war than scrupulous adherence to a disadvantageous document. The di½culty of expression arises perhaps from a certain embarrassment about this suggestion, as well as a shift in the argument: up to this point the Corcyreans had been advising the Athenians to consider their immediate interests over more long-range and abstract concerns, whereas they now dismiss any fears about treaty-breaking by urging consideration of future interests in the longer term. In any case, the opaque sentence demonstrates the Corcyreans' scrambling together expediency and justice so that their use of ``justice'' di¨ers little from the conventional use of ``expediency.'' The Corinthians, in their response, must follow the Corcyreans' lead by arguing similarly for a coincidence of justice and expediency, yet also represent both those terms ± especially ``justice'' ± in a radically di¨erent manner, in order to persuade the Athenians to follow the opposite course. It is an irony, no doubt planned by Thucydides, that while the Corcyreans stress expediency yet open with the word di kaion, the Corinthians focus their remarks on justice yet begin with the word a nagkaiÄ on, necessity: we are

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compelled to prove, they say, that justice is on our side and that you Athenians, for that reason, should reject their pro¨ered alliance. The Corinthians de®ne justice from more than one point of view. In the ®rst section of their speech (1.37±9) they stridently and repeatedly assert that the Corcyreans have ``commited injustice,''4 without however providing any details or speci®c examples. The proof is rather a resort to conventional moral vocabulary in a manner which expects immediate recognition and agreement: the Corcyreans' actions are devoid of areth (1.37.2, 5), they are violent (37.4, 38.5, 40.1) and shameless (37.4), they treat their kinsmen with hubris (38.2, 5) and fail to ful®ll the common obligations a colony owes a mother-city (38). Such an instinctive display of familiar emotional themes is designed to make heads nod knowingly and tongues cluck. Yet the argument founders on facts. They must admit that the Corcyreans o¨ered arbitration at ®rst, and in order to maintain a consistent de®nition of justice they must somehow delegitimize that action. Here is how they try to do it: Now, they [the Corcyreans] claim that they ®rst o¨ered the case to be arbitrated, which surely should not have much weight coming from the side which has the upper hand and o¨ers it from a position of security; rather, (it is meaningful when o¨ered by) one who matches his actions with his words before jumping into the con¯ict. (1.39.1)

As Gomme has pointed out,5 this sentence de®es common sense and accepted notions of honor, since the side in a superior position would have more to lose in arbitration and therefore would be seen to act honorably by o¨ering it; and it is also contradicted by the next sentence, which conveys the complaint that the Corcyreans waited until they were in trouble before o¨ering arbitration. The confusion extends even deeper. The Corinthians in their indictment have just accused the Corcyreans of opportunistically judging others and refusing fair arbitration (1.37.5), which as a general charge may be true but is contradicted by the present case. Moreover, the Corinthians' mention of ``equality'' (i son) is a deceptive non-answer to the Corcyreans' correct and coherent claim that the Corinthians, when invited to arbitration over Epidamnus, ``preferred to prosecute their charges by war rather than 4 a dikeiÄ n, adi khma, 1.37.1, 2, 4 (bis), 38.4, 39.3 (bis). 5 HCT i, 174.

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a fair trial'' (twÄÎ iswÎ). The Corinthians, in response, manage to work in the concept of toÁ i son, but merely as the commonplace equation of words with deeds, which is irrelevant to the Corcyreans' use of the term and falls apart upon examination. For the Corinthians seem to suggest that Corcyra should have o¨ered arbitration before resorting to arms, but that is exactly what happened (cf. 1.28±29.1). These contradictions are the inevitable by-products of the overriding need to keep the presentation of justice consistent despite the facts. The Corcyrean o¨er of arbitration is portrayed alternately as a trick to maintain the upper hand and a desperate measure, rendering the Corcyrean claim to justice false, untrustworthy and dangerous to anyone who is deceived by it. This last point discloses how the Corinthians will attempt to combine justice and expediency: an alliance with Corcyra will be not only unjust and immoral ± ou xummaceiÄ n allaÁ xunadikeiÄ n, in their remarkable phrase ± since the Corycreans are violent and greedy (bi aioi kaiÁ pleone ktai, 1.40.1), but also dangerous, for Athens would then have Corinth as an active enemy. This strategy becomes explicit when the Corinthians shift their argument about justice from moral to legal considerations (cf. dikai wv 40.1, dikaiw mata 41.1). The Thirty Years Peace, they say, does not allow any new alliance which would bring war. Further, Hellenic convention forbids accepting a revolted ally from the other side.6 They exhort the Athenians, in a striking sentence, to prove their own justice (di kaioi g' e ste ) by not establishing a new Hellenic custom in this matter (40.4); and they insist that their ``claims based on justice are consistent with Hellenic practice and understanding'' (dikaiwÂmata . . . iÿkanaÁ kataÁ touÁv ÿ E llh nwn noÂmouv, 41.1). The Corinthians further ask the Athenians to pay back a long-standing debt, invoking another conventional idea of justice, that of requiting like with like.7 This, they argue, ®nally answering the Corcyreans with appropriate arguments, would be the right combination of justice and expediency: ``let no one suppose that justice (di kaia) is ®ne to talk about, but that if war breaks out a di¨erent course will be expedient (xu mjora),'' for war is uncertain and there is no good reason to make enemies of the Corinthians now (42.1±2). The plea is capped with a sententia: 6 This convention poses a problem for the Mytilenians, 3.9, as we shall see. 7 toiÄ v oÿmoi oiv amu nesqai 1.42.1, toÁ i son a ntapoÂdote 43.2.

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A ®rmer power consists in refraining from committing injustice against equals (a dikeiÄ n touÁ v oÿmoi ouv) than in being carried away by immediate appearances to grasp at advantage by incurring dangers. (1.42.4)

This is a ®nal demonstration of the Corinthians' resort to conventional thinking and vocabulary in the face of uncomfortable facts. They cannot deny the immediate advantage both Athens and Corcyra would enjoy from a naval alliance and are therefore forced to speak more abstractly about the current dangers of Athens' bad reputation in Hellas and the longer-term dangers of a war, which they argue can be obviated by acting ``justly.'' These disputes over the proper basis of and claims to justice also pertain to the competing claims to virtue and honor, arethÂ, which the Corcyreans boldly equate with Athens' advantage (they add the suggestion that they themselves have been oppressed, 1.33.2); the Corinthians answer that, inasmuch as the Corycreans' actions lack all legitimate claim of a rethÂ, anyone who helps them in their crimes (a dikh mata) would also be unable to make a claim to a reth (37.2, 5). The rhetorical quarrel between the Corcyreans and Corinthians pertains not to the precise meaning of justice, but to its application in the given situation and its relation with expediency, that is, choosing a course of action. The antithetical speeches invoke ``justice'' to legitimize contrary courses of action, each aimed at hurting the other. Their evaluations (axiwÂseiv) of justice are at odds. The Corinthians advocate a more conventional application, in which colonies must honor their mother-cities even at the expense of their immediate interests and safety,8 treaties must be honored, virtue and morality practiced; this bumps against certain facts, erga, such as their refusal of arbitration, and they must adjust their argument and understanding of ``justice'' accordingly. The Corcyreans, for their part, maintain that justice may exceed those traditional claims to meet the challenges and exigencies at hand; they not only want to adapt ``justice,'' di kaion, to pressing circumstance, but their argument is also hampered by certain facts, such as their aggression and Athens' prominence in a general Hellenic treaty to which Corcyra is not a party; adjustments are again made. Corinth lost the rhetorical contest at Athens because it could not make a persuasive case for restraint, and its evaluation of justice was rejected. This is only the ®rst of many times in the History 8 Note the odd argument at 1.37.5 that if the mother-city acts wrongly, the colony is bound to shame it into more just behavior.

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when arguments based on more conventionally de®ned Hellenic values are contained in an ultimately unsuccessful speech. Subsequently, in the two Peloponnesian congresses which decided on war, all of Athens' alleged o¨enses are grouped under the general charge of adiki a,9 and it is instructive to ®nd Corinthians as the main speakers at both of those congresses, invoking again ± in changed circumstances ± an entirely conventional sort of justice and appeal to the gods in support of their call for an opposite course of action, the invasion of Attica.10 As if aware of the lack of consistency with their position in Athens, the Corinthians proclaim, The most recent necessarily prevails, just as in art. Established practices (noÂmima) are best when left undisturbed for a city at peace, but for men forced to enter many [new] things, there is need for much invention (pollhÄ v thÄ v e pitecnhÂsewv deiÄ ). (1.71.3)

The Corinthians here make the same distinction between human exigencies in peace and in war that Thucydides makes in his stasis model. They acknowledge that war compels innovations and disruptions of established practices, which undergo a kinesis (in peacetime the noÂmima are aki nhta). Conventions are subjected to e pite cnhsiv, which is here put in a positive light to mean progressive invention, but perhaps looks forward to perite cnhsiv, clearly wicked contrivance, in the stasis model: as the war continued stasiotai were ``revolutionized to much further excesses, both in the ingenuity (peritecnh sei) of their attacks and in the enormity of their acts of revenge'' (3.82.3). At Sparta the Corinthians were still su½ciently self-aware to admit that their good gnwÄmai had been changed by the war, their actions now motivated by destructive emotions, orgai , anger and revenge, and this is re¯ected in their use of language. a t h e n i a n j u s t i c e: c l e o n a n d d i o d o t u s a n d their successors After hearing the Corcyreans and Corinthians, the Athenians deliberate in two assemblies and decide to make a defensive alliance (e pimaci a) with the Corcyreans. None of the speeches from those assemblies is reproduced although Thucydides does record the 9 1.85.2 (Archidamus); 1.86.1, 2, 4, 5 (Sthenelaidas); 1.87.2, 4, cf. 79.2 (the vote). 10 See esp. 1.71.5 and 123.2, where the Corinthians assert that the spondai themselves are victims of injustice (adikhme naiv). See Boedeker 1991, an interesting study of the subversion of logos by the breaking of oaths in Euripides' Medea ( produced 431).

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Athenians' reasoning (their gnwÂmh, 1.45.1), which closely resembles the Corcyreans' own arguments; the added factor, that Corinth and ``other naval powers'' would wear themselves out by the time a full-scale Hellenic war broke out, only advances the considerations of expediency (1.44). There is no indication in Thucydides' remarks that the Athenians made any e¨ort to dress up their decision as ``just'' or as a combination of justice and expediency such as the Corcyreans took pains to present. In fact, when the anonymous Athenian ambassadors speak at Sparta in the next set of speeches, they chide the Spartans for confusing justice with expediency: We think ourselves worthy (of ruling an empire) and we seemed so to you, too, until you started calculating your interests and resorting, as now, to an appeal to justice ± which no one, when o¨ered an opportunity to gain something through strength, has ever allowed to override his pursuit of advantage. (1.76.2)

While the Spartans have naturally always calculated and acted according to their interest, the Athenians say, it is only recently that they have started calling their interests ``justice.'' The Athenians further assert that the moderation and fairness they themselves show in the judicial procedures of the empire show them to be ``more just'' (dikaioÂteroi) than circumstances require. This arrogant remark would only infuriate the audience, but that was not the Athenians' aim (see Chapter 4). They address their remarks not to the assembled Peloponnesians but to the Spartans, whom they expect, as a great power, implicitly to understand their view that justice is a perquisite of the strong and a favorite appeal of the weak. These words reveal a certain disappointment in their words, as if the Spartans used to understand but have now joined the rest of humankind in misunderstanding the nature of power and its relation to ``justice.'' Pericles in his last speech acknowledges the general view that the Athenian acquisition of power was ``unjust,'' adikon, but he rejects both the validity of the notion and any in¯uence it should have over Athenian policy; the Athenians should think only about the safest course, he says (2.63.2). As we shall see, Pericles endorses few common opinions.11 11 Surprisingly no conception of justice, conventional or otherwise, emerges in Pericles' three speeches. For the most part Pericles uses di kaion and related words to mean fair or right, in a neutral or technical sense, without any philosophical or moral implications. The one or two exceptions to this suggest a conception of justice identical to Cleon's. Thus Pericles' signi®cant uses of the words for justice will presently be discussed in tandem with Cleon's.

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It is instructive to note here that the Athenians' rebuke of the Spartans for covering pursuit of their own interests with talk of ``justice'' gains new poignancy when the Spartans appear in Athens in 425 and, in a pathetic little speech, o¨er peace and friendship in exchange for the prisoners at Pylos (4.17±20). This is the only occasion in the History after the pre-war Athenian speech at Sparta in which one of the two great adversaries addresses the other in direct discourse, and it is the only occasion when we glimpse Sparta's quite ¯exible view of justice.12 The Spartans' abject appeal is preoccupied with good and bad luck, not the genuine dynamics of power. The ambassadors de®ne as di kaioi those who do not excessively trust their own success: ``justice'' or ``right'' is not a benign standard for regulating human relations, as the Athenians had suggested, but the result of sobriety and a touch of fear, for luck can change at any moment (17.5). This is the only time in the speech that the Spartans refer to what is just or right by using a word based on dik-, but it is notable as a direct contradiction of the standard the Athenians had o¨ered at Sparta seven years previously. As the Spartans continue speaking it is clear that their de®nition of justice, coupled with prudence (swÂjronev, 18.4) and intelligence (xuÂnesiv, 18.4, 5), entails consolidating one's gains and, at the height of success, giving up one's advantage and abstaining from extending one's strength even further. In a later moment of candid analysis the Athenians at Melos, using the same language, will say that the Spartans, more than any other people they know, call their own interests ``justice'' (nomi zousi taÁ xumje ronta di kaia, 5.105.4). This seems acutely to explain the Spartans' unconvincing disquisition on fortune and prudence in Athens; the virtues the Spartans extol ± justice, prudence and intelligence ± are opportunistically ®tted to the occasion. The Spartan arguments certainly had none of their desired e¨ect on the Athenians. Unlike the Spartans' changeable standard, the Athenians' understanding of justice remains remarkably constant throughout their internal debates, just as it di¨ers fundamentally from that advanced by all other speakers. Cleon and Diodotus, in what has been seen, among other things, as a debate over justice and expediency, in fact understand the terms adiki a and di kaion in the 12 Sthenelaidas quotes the Athenians in 1.86 only to dismiss their claims, but no original de®nition emerges. For a more favorable analysis of the Spartan speech at Athens than mine, see Rood 1998, 39±43.

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same way (3.37±48). Their argument is not over the meaning or even the value of justice, but over the most expedient policy. They both call the Mytilenian revolt an a diki a,13 they both equate that adikiÂa with harm to Athens, and Diodotus even says, ``the contested point, if we handle this prudently, is not their adiki a but our own best counsel (eubouli a)'' (3.44.1). This does not by itself rule out di¨erences over how to de®ne adiki a and its opposite, but as Diodotus continues to use that word it becomes clear that he, like Cleon, is thinking not of o¨ense against some abstract standard but actual harm to Athens by an imperial subject. The whole of Diodotus' speech after this statement addresses practical matters which Cleon had raised. Will harsh punishment deter or encourage more revolts? Should the whole of Mytilene or only one party responsible for the insurrection be punished? Should Athens maintain strict observance of its laws or vary their application according to circumstance and advantage? These are the central questions of the Mytilenian debate, whatever else the two speeches may represent.14 And the questions are not just theoretical problems but actual ones which other empires in history have also faced, and solved in di¨erent ways. Cleon's assertion that Athens' generous treatment of Mytilene is what encouraged rebellion and that the other allies will be spurred to rebel if the Mytilenians receive a lighter punishment (3.39.4±5, 7±8), draws Diodotus into a long proof, comprising the heart of his speech (44.3, 45±6), that the threat of death does not deter states or individuals from desired action and that moderation is the most likely means of preventing rebellions. Both arguments rest on logic and extrapolation: while Cleon supposes that a lighter punishment than death will encourage others to rebel, for their hope of freedom will be unhampered by fear of death if they fail,15 Diodotus thinks that the death penalty, which historically 13 Cleon: 3.38.1, 39.1, 6, 40.5, cf. 39.4. Diodotus: 3.44.1, 2, 47.4, 5, 48.1; cf. also 47.3. For their part the Mytilenians, in their previous speech to the Spartans, promised to talk about di kaion kaiÁ a reth (3.10.1), but they dwell not on justice but friendship; see analysis in Chapter 3. 14 Ostwald 1986, 307¨., for example, points out the nomos/physis opposition in the debate. See the excellent analysis of Macleod 1978 and the commentaries in HCT ii, 299±324 and CT i, 420±38 (q.v. for bibliography); also P. Arnold ( Debnar) (1992); Saar 1953; de Romilly 1963, 156±71; Andrewes 1962. 15 Although he makes an extremely odd admission at 3.39.3: examples of past suppressed revolts did not deter the Mytilenians; this is o¨ered as an example of their brazenness, but his argument would have been more consistent without it.

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has failed as a deterrent, will only encourage cities, which will in any case rebel even for irrational reasons, to hold out to the end, since there would be no hope of salvation by surrendering. One of Diodotus' main di¨erences with Cleon is his willingness to consider irrational factors as motivating human action, whereas Cleon's argument assumes that all political behavior is rational and rationally explicable. Both speakers envision the result of the opposing policy to be ruined cities and lost pro®t (39.8, 46.2). There is no outstanding logical ¯aw in either argument, and successful empires in history have adopted one or the other approach. Athens' usual practice was in fact harsh suppression, as Diodotus acknowledges with some frustration (46.5±6). It is notable that during the war rebellions broke out whenever Athens was perceived to be vulnerable, as Cleon feared ± such as after Athens' disastrous failure in Sicily. Mytilene's own appeal to Sparta in 428 stressed Athens' weakened position (3.13.3±4). Diodotus was thus proposing an innovation which, although adopted in this particular instance, never became general policy. His argument is neither superior nor inferior to Cleon's. Similarly, there is no way of verifying other con¯icting views which involve extrapolations or determination of fact, such as Cleon's assertion that all elements in Mytilene were guilty (3.39.6± 7; note that Cleon agrees that the demos would have been spared had they not participated!), countered by Diodotus' claim that only a small group of aristocrats perpetrated the rebellion (46.6, 47). Again, contrary assumptions underlie the contradictory assessments: Cleon thinks that the Athenian empire is universally hated, whereas Diodotus assumes a favorable disposition among the demoi. The truth on this matter would have been di½cult to assess even then, and the point is debated to this very day.16 Greater speculation attends other points of di¨erence. Cleon argues that the Mytilenians were in a position of strength (39.1±2) ± a point which the Mytilenians had failed to explain away in their preceding speech ± and that the rebellion was not a human error (aÿmarteiÄ n anqrwpi nwv), which he admits would be forgivable, but a premeditated action (40.1).17 Diodotus cannot deny the Mytilenians' strong and favored position, and he avoids any attempt to 16 de Ste. Croix 1954 set the terms of the modern debate. 17 This accords with the Athenians' original impression of the incident (3.36.2).

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determine their motivations but chooses instead to muse about irrational factors in human motivations, leaving the impression that the Mytilenians fell into human error either by miscalculating their own resources (45.3) or by rebelling for unfathomable reasons such as hope or passion. Both Cleon and Diodotus advise the Athenians to assess the city's interests on the basis of hard determination of fact alone, without resort to moral or emotional concerns. Cleon's urgent appeal to avoid pity, the temptations of eloquence and an abstract sense of fairness (e piei keia) is echoed word for word by Diodotus.18 Although the two orators agree on this, they accuse each other of making irrelevant emotional appeals. Aside from this, the audience is left to contemplate and decide between two logical, factual but contradictory views of what is best for Athens and the empire. It is no wonder that the Athenian assembly was almost evenly divided in the vote (3.49.1). Cleon's speech conveys a sense of outrage and o¨ense missing from Diodotus' speech. His brutal tone and passion, his aggressive and cunning (if confusing) dismissal of his rivals, his somewhat insulting admonishment of the assembly,19 as well as Thucydides' explicit loathing of him, mark him o¨ from his rhetorical adversary. But this should not lead us to forget the essential points of the debate, which were not philosophical or abstract but quite concrete and real. Usually it is thought that the two speakers adhere to incompatible ethical standards, one cruel and the other humane; this may even be what Thucydides wanted his readers to think, since he remarks that the decision which Cleon initiated and now defends was made ``under the in¯uence of anger'' (uÿpoÁ orghÄv) and that the Athenians ``recognized that their decision was 18 3.40.2 vs. 48.1, where, it is true, Diodotus says nothing about eloquence, but in 3.44.3 he warns against being carried away by twÄÎ euprepeiÄ touÄ e kei nou [sc. Kle wnov] loÂgou, which does not contradict his long opening disquisition on the place of eloquence in political deliberation. It should be noted that pity and mercy as Cleon de®nes them, depending on a kind of equality or reciprocity (proÁv touÁv oÿmoi ouv is said in each case), differs from the standard view and in any case is bizarre since Cleon does not really think that the Athenians and Mytilenians are on the same footing ± thus he is ruling out the possibility of these two qualities in the present circumstances by rede®ning them (and cf. 3.40.6). This is another example of the distortion of conventional values in response to the pressures of war. 19 But on this point we must remember that he was e n twÄÎ toÂte piqanw tatov (3.36.6, see discussion Chapter 5), and that Pericles, who had held the greatest sway before that, also knew how to chastise the Athenians at the proper moment (2.65.9). Andrews 1994 argues that Cleon's views were consonant with those of the Athenian demos.

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savage and excessive.''20 Yet these are not the terms of the debate which the speakers themselves set. They concentrate rather on policy and its consequences, and it is Cleon who veers o¨ into ethical issues. Moreover, even if Cleon and Diodotus are supposed to represent con¯icting ethical standards, this does not mean that they shared no values, particularly the one most talked about in both speeches, justice, and its relation to expediency. Readers instinctively contrast the speeches, as is proper, but this tends to obscure the common ground in the antithesis, especially how justice is understood and presented. Although both Cleon and Diodotus talk much about justice and injustice, neither sees any need to explain those terms. Both speak of justice in a familiar way which assumes implicit understanding by their Athenian audience and avoids any quarrel over this topic in the rhetorical contest. They agree that the Mytilenian rebellion is an ``injustice,'' adiki a, as we have noted, and every time they say this, they seem unambiguously to mean actual or potential harm to Athens, which is consistent with the way the anonymous Athenians at Sparta had spoken of justice. Cleon's insistence on punishing the Mytilenians ``as their crime deserves'' (axi wv thÄv adiki av, 3.39.6) would then seem most easy and natural, inasmuch as the pursuit of justice, in a strict sense, demands appropriate requital of adiki a ± revenge, in fact.21 Decide that it is best to repay them with the same penalty (they devised for you) and that those who escape a plot should not appear less insensitive than those who devised it. Consider what they would likely have done to you if they had prevailed, especially since they ®rst committed a diki a against you. (3.40.5, cf. 40.7, 39.3)

The punishment must ®t the crime, and it must be of the severest sort, for ``the Mytilenians have done you the most harm'' (maÂlista hdikhkoÂtav, 3.39.1). Yet Cleon spends little time on this argument because it is obvious. The validity of the principle of equitable apodosis is never questioned by Diodotus. Cleon's main e¨ort concentrates on showing how the demands of justice are advantageous to Athens. 20 wmoÁ n toÁ bou leuma kaiÁ me ga e gnwÄsqai, 3.36.4. ``Savage and excessive'' is Hornblower's rendering. 21 This idea is implicit, e.g., in the Athenians' murder of the captured Spartan ambassadors to Persia, 2.67.4, cf. Hdt. 7.137; and it was the standard view of the appropriate response to injustice, see Pearson 1936, 35±8; Dover 1974, 180±4.

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The ultimate expression of this idea contains nuances which should be appreciated: e n te xunelwÁ n le gw´ peiqoÂmenoi meÁ n e moiÁ ta te di kaia e v Mutilhnai ouv kaiÁ taÁ xu mjora a ma poih sete, a llwv deÁ gnoÂntev toiÄ v meÁ n ou carieiÄ sqe, uÿmaÄ v deÁ autouÁv maÄ llon dikaiw sesqe. ei gaÁ r ou
toi orqwÄ v a pe sthsan, uÿmeiÄ v a n ou crewÁ n a rcoite. ei deÁ dhÁ kaiÁ ou proshÄ kon omwv a xiouÄte touÄ to draÄ n, paraÁ toÁ ei ko v toi kaiÁ touÂsde xumjo rwv deiÄ kola zesqai, h pau esqai thÄ v a rchÄ v kaiÁ e k touÄ a kindu nou a ndragaqi zesqai. To sum up in a word: if you are persuaded by my arguments you will be doing what is just to the Mytilenians and at the same time what is in our interests, but if you adopt a di¨erent policy you will not win their gratitude but rather you will be condemning yourselves. For if they were within their rights when they rebelled, then you have no business ruling. And if it is indeed appropriate for you to rule, or (come to think of it) even if it is not but you decide to do it anyway, then these men must be punished, albeit unfairly, in accordance with your own interests ± either that, or you must give up empire and practice that manly virtue in safety. (3.40.4; cf. also the paradoxical thought in 3.38.1)

The problems in interpreting this passage have arisen from the moral connotations of words in modern European languages. In English, ``right'' has been used variously to translate taÁ di kaia, orqwÄ v, crew n, proshÄkon and eikoÂv,22 but the English word has connotations which are absent from each of the ancient Greek words. Cleon's summation of his own speech is a fair one: condign punishment answers the needs of both ``justice'' and expediency. If the Athenians fail to adopt this course, the punishment will ricochet back on them: dikaiwÂsesqe is heavily and bitterly ironic, meaning not that the Athenians will su¨er self-imposed justice ± that cannot be, given Cleon's understanding of justice at the beginning of the sentence ± but that the harm they will bring on themselves will be a misplaced punishment, perverted justice: ``you will be (unjustly) punishing yourselves instead of ( justly) punishing them.'' The next sentence must be understood as an unreal condi22 And in German ``Recht,'' see Classen±Steup iii, 78±9 on what follows. The Bude translation solves some of the problems: ``si vous m'eÂcoutez, vous prendrez des mesures justes envers les Mytile niens et utiles en meà me temps, tandis qu'une autre de cision, sans vous gagner leur faveur, sera plutoÃt votre condamnation. S'ils ont bien agi en faisant deÂfection, vous ne derivez pas exercer l'empire. Et si en revanche vous pre tendez, fuÃt-ce sans aucun titre, l'exercer quand meà me, il vous faut aussi chaÃtier MytileÁne par inteÂreÃt, sans souci des normes, ou sinon, renoncer aÁ l'empire et, loin du risque, vivre en hommes vertueux.''

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tion:23 Cleon has spent his whole speech demonstrating that the Mytilenians' rebellion was not ``within their rights,'' so he could not be conceding the opposite here; orqwÄ v means ``correctly,'' not ``right'' in the moral sense; the sentence is a way of a½rming the conclusion, ``it is your business to rule'' (crew n, also, does not mean ``right'' in either a moral or legal sense). The next sentence starts out as a further a½rmation of the thought, and then interrupts itself to express the same thing contrarily to add more force to the statement. Cleon begins to say, ``And if (ˆ since) it is indeed peculiarly ®tting and appropriate24 for you to rule (as I have just shown and you must agree), then you have no choice but to punish them (for that is how to run an empire),'' but he switches before ®nishing the if-clause and considers the hypothetical (but impossible) opposite condition in order to emphasize how pressing the exigency really is, saying, in e¨ect: ``let us suppose for the moment that it is inappropriate for you to rule (even though it is not) and you unjustly decided to rule anyway (even though you do it justly), even then you would have to punish them, unfair though it may be'' (paraÁ toÁ ei koÂv toi, meaning that it is in reality eikoÂv).25 The alternative to harsh punishment would have to be giving up empire entirely, but since maintaining an empire is both just and appropriate for the Athenians, the punishment, which they would have to mete out in any case, is as just and appropriate as it is necessary. Quod erat demonstrandum, so far as Cleon is concerned. Cleon's view of justice leaves little room for ± and his rhetoric shows little patience with ± standard virtues. His use of andragaqi zesqai in the above-quoted passage is snide and dismissive, but it is consistent with Pericles' explicit dismissal of conventional andragaqi a as healthful or even possible within the framework of empire, which is ``like a tyranny'' (2.63.2, compare 3.37.2).26 For 23 This is possible grammatically, especially if the force of the apodosis is felt in ou crewÂn, which immediately follows the a n. See Classen±Steup and Marchant ad loc. for the problems in grammatical classi®cation. 24 proshÄ kon does not mean ``right'' but ®tting, one's own, like Latin proprium. See e.g. 1.40.1, 5; 43.4; 68.2; 120.2; 2.43.1, 3; 61.4; 65.8; 87.9; 89.2; 3.64.4; 67.2; etc. Thus the meaning of mhÁ oun prodoÂtai ge nhsqe uÿ mwÄn autwÄn (3.40.7) is, ``Don't neglect to do what your role and character demand of you.'' 25 On the force of toi, see Classen±Steup ad loc. 26 The tyrannical aspect of the empire does not, however, negate Cleon's (or Pericles') view of justice; cf. CT i, 422±3, 337±8, although I would go further and argue that empire and justice are perfectly consistent in Cleon's view of the world and his particular, Athenocentric de®nition of justice.

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Pericles, a ndragaqiÂa is a virtue only in a strictly Athenian framework involving total submission to the state and bene®ting only the state. In that context he is willing also to consider the claims of justice: It is just, even for those who fall short in other respects, to value above all else their virtue [here ˆ bravery] in war on behalf of their country.27 (2.42.3)

This comment is made in an exclusively Athenian context, in which privately shared meanings of words set the Athenians apart from the rest of the world, as we shall see (Chapter 3). Outside Athens, Athenians reject the conventional meaning of a ndragaqi a, as Cleon does in the above passage, as Pericles does for rhetorical emphasis in his last speech, and as the Athenians do in the Melian Dialogue when they assert that the debate is not about andragaqi a but the exigencies imposed by empire on both the imperialists and weaker elements required to submit (5.101). Diodotus does not dispute the demands of justice as presented by Cleon, but he argues that justice should be ignored if it con¯icts with expediency. This point should be stressed. Diodotus never, even indirectly, disputes Cleon's assumed de®nition of justice. On the contrary, he says quite boldly, ``even if I were to show that they were ever so guilty (paÂnu adikouÄ ntav) I would not for that reason recommend the death penalty unless that were expedient (ei mhÁ xumje ron)'' (3.44.2). That is: suppress the considerations of justice if they con¯ict with your best interests. This has proved to be one of Diodotus' more surprising statements, since his most ``expedient'' course has also seemed milder and more humane than Cleon's recommendation (even though Diodotus thinks, or says he thinks, that his proposed action will ``cause our enemies fear,'' toiÄ v polemi oiv jobera , 3.48.2). Thus Diodotus either is coyly hiding the fact that his proposed action ®ts with a humane sense of justice, or he has quite a di¨erent idea of justice, i.e. one that is close or identical to Cleon's. The ®rst possibility is attractive because it appeals to our sense of humanity and the way we would like justice to be, and it would provide a beacon of light 27 kaiÁ gaÁr toiÄ v ta lla cei rosi di kaion thÁn e v touÁv pole mouv uÿpeÁ r thÄv patri dov a ndragaqi an proti qesqai. Note that the Plataeans tell the Spartans that they are para deigma andragaqi av for most Hellenes, 3.57.1, while the Thebans dismiss the Plataeans' andragaqi a at 3.64.4 (see below).

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in a rather dark and troubling episode. There are no signs, however, that Diodotus is deliberately misde®ning justice, with a sly wink to those members of the assembly (or readers) who will be able to understand. Moreover, the thoughts and beliefs of Diodotus ± a man whom we would not know to have existed if not for his one brilliant appearance in Thucydides28 ± are historically insigni®cant since he had no continuing role in guiding Athenian policy in this period. That is, if there is a more humane view of justice implicit in Diodotus' speech (although I do not believe there is), then its restriction to one man or a select minority in one incident, soon reversed in a series of Athenian cruelties at Melos and elsewhere, only highlights what the Athenian idea of justice really is, as de®ned by Cleon and patently (whether honestly or not) endorsed by Diodotus himself. Diodotus' rejection of the demands of justice, on the grounds that they con¯ict with his idea of expediency, is quite forceful and contains none of the searched-for nuances: I do not think that you should reject my useful proposal because of the seductiveness of his argument. For his argument, having more to do with ``justice'' (dikaioÂterov), is perhaps more alluring since it satis®es your rage against the Mytilenians. But we are not here to pass judgment (dikazoÂmeqa) on them in answer to the requirements of justice (taÁ di kaia), but to deliberate how to make them useful to us. (3.44.4, cf. 46.4)

This is as explicit a rejection of the demands of justice as one could conceive. The previous talk about justice, Diodotus tells the members of the assembly, is appealing since it satis®es an emotional need. One likes to think in all instances that one is acting justly. Minds clouded with anger are blind not to a truer idea of justice but to valid policy. Diodotus' best policy con¯icts with the demands of justice and therefore may be less satisfying than Cleon's, but the Athenians should not misunderstand their task: the assembly is not the place where questions of taÁ diÂkaia are settled; that is the courts' business. This is a stark and dramatic statement, and there is no reason to think it insincere. We see therefore that the ``seductiveness'' of Cleon's argument which worries Diodotus is not Cleon's de®nition of justice, which is accepted, but the satisfying equation of justice and expediency. 28 Ostwald 1979. Ostwald's suggestion that Diodotus was an elected o½cial subject to the euquna would only strengthen the argument here.

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This is clearly expressed in another statement at the end of the speech, which is worth quoting because of wide di¨erences in its interpretation and translation: I consider it is far more advantageous to the maintenance of the empire willingly to submit to injustice than to destroy, however justly, those whom (according to our interests) we should not. And as for Cleon's claim that his proposed punishment combines justice and expediency, you will ®nd that they cannot be so combined.29 (3.47.5)

The recommended policy is radical and counterintuitive, not only because it advises absorbing immediate injury in pursuance of longer-term interests, but because it asks a society to forsake a basic standard by which it lives. What would we think of a speaker who recommended ignoring the claims of justice to pursue a harsh and inhumane ± but bene®cial ± policy? Such a situation is certainly conceivable; history o¨ers su½cient instances. Here the same request is made; the leniency of the more ``bene®cial'' policy does little to soften the di½culty of violating the consensual standard of justice. Cleon brought justice to bear only because the accepted de®nition at that time was congenial to his argument; had it not been, he would have found himself making Diodotus' argument, and vice versa. Diodotus must struggle against the norm, and his decision merely to reject it as the overriding factor was perhaps best: it would have been much harder to ask a society to readjust its values. Cleon's equation of expediency and justice is precisely repeated by the next Athenians to speak in the History, the Athenian interlocutors in the Melian Dialogue. The Athenians at Melos justify an act of oppression identical in nature to Cleon's recommended course at Mytilene; the fate was the same, and identically justi®ed, for a rebellious ally and a resistant new recruit. If the Athenians changed their minds about Mytilene, that is not signi®cant here, for as we have seen they are portrayed as violating their own standard of justice when they vote for leniency. That standard does not waver at Melos. It is in fact reinforced when brought into direct con¯ict with an opposing, conventional 29 kaiÁ touÄto pollwÄÎ xumjorwÂteron hÿgouÄmai e v thÁn ka qexin thÄv archÄv, eÿ koÂntav hÿmaÄv adikhqhÄnai h dikai wv ouv mhÁ deiÄ diajqeiÄ rai´ kaiÁ toÁ Kle wnov toÁ au toÁ di kaion kaiÁ xu mjoron thÄv timwri av ou c euÿri sketai e n autwÄÎ dunatoÁn on a ma gi gnesqai.

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view of justice. The Melians are the ®rst in the dialogue to use the word di kaion, suggesting that they would win the argument if they could prove that their refusal to submit is ``just'' (5.86), but the Athenians answer swiftly, waving aside all the common historical appeals to justice and declaring, we all know that in normal human speech ``justice'' is determined by equal compulsion on both sides, whereas a superior power acts so far as its ability allows and the weaker perforce submits. (5.89)

Since the Melians and the Athenians are not of equal strength, considerations of justice have no place in the present deliberations, say the Athenians. This sentence distinguishes justice from what the Athenians regard as a natural law, that the strong rule the weak. This ``law,'' an Athenian favorite, should not be confused with justice. There can be found in Greek literature expressions of the principle that might equals right and that the strong rule the weak,30 but this is not the Athenian idea of standard justice o¨ered here. There is a further implied distinction between what the Athenians regard as justice ``in normal human speech'' and their private view of justice, which as we have seen is quite di¨erent. The Athenians seem to acknowledge that their conception of justice contradicts the conventional one, but they misrepresent what that di¨erence really is. A third distinction can also be made: the Athenian idea of ``normal'' justice is strange and unique. An average Hellene would not agree that justice is possible only between two exact equals; justice was rather imagined as, among other things, a way to level out natural di¨erences.31 The Athenians expect the Melians to understand and agree with their statement (e pistame nouv proÁv eido tav), but the Melians do not because they cannot: the central terms lack basic agreement. Cleon's combination of justice and expediency to the direct advantage of Athens becomes a trademark of Athenian rhetoric. After the Athenians speak at Melos, Nicias and Alcibiades speak routinely of justice in the same manner. For Nicias, the revolt of the Chalcidians in Thrace is an adiki a (6.10.5) in precisely the 30 See HCT iv, 162±4, 174±5. Andrewes is right that ``the open admission is abnormal, for evidence enough remains to show that the ordinary citizen, even of a great power acting arbitrarily, preferred to think that his city's action was morally justi®ed.'' 31 See now Raa¯aub 1996, esp. 140.

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same way that the Mytilenian revolt was in Cleon's and Diodotus' speeches, and it is right or just (di kaion, 6.12.1) to maintain the resources of the empire according to Athens' best interests, not letting any private display harm the public interests (taÁ dhmoÂsia adikeiÄ n, 12.2). Alcibiades answers the personal attack by stating that it is ``not unjust'' (ou deÁ adikon, 16.4) for a superior individual to hold a superior position, but he shares Nicias' concept of ``justice'' and concern for the interests of the Athenian empire. Later, Euphemus bases his appeal at Camarina on the same premise, arguing that joining Athens combines justice and expediency. He says that Athens originally acquired its empire ``not unjustly'' (ou deÁ adi kwv, 6.82.3) and justi®ably subjugated the Ionians because of their medism; Athens manages its empire strictly according to its interests as it perceives them (85); Athens and Camarina have mutual interests in Sicily so that an alliance would be advantageous to both; it would be ``not the right thing'' (ou di kaion) to refuse (86.2). Moreover (sounding very much like Cleon), Euphemus says that despite the naked calculation of advantage by Athens, the mere threat of Athenian power manages to prevent states from committing injustices (87.4), so that the empire is not without an element of justice.32 Thus we see that the Athenian conception of ``justice,'' ®tting the Athenians' own circumstances of heading an empire and ®ghting in an Hellenic war, is consistent from its ®rst elaboration in the Mytilenian debate through the last recorded Athenian utterances.33 At the same time, it is di¨erent from that assumed or argued by all other actors in the History. Each party displays a di¨erent, almost 32 See Connor 1984, 181±4, yet I cannot agree that Euphemus' specious point about justi®ably suppressing Ionians represents a ``gradual hardening of attitude''; rather, it was useful in the Sicilian context, especially since Hermocrates had stressed the Dorian connection, which Euphemus addresses as the ®rst point of his speech (6.82.2). Compare Soph. Phil. 925±6, ``Justice and interest make me listen to those who are in power,'' twÄn gaÁ r e n te lei kluÂein | to t' e ndikoÂn me kaiÁ toÁ sumje ron poeiÄ . 33 The one exception to this proves the rule. Alcibiades at Sparta (6.92.4): to te jiloÂpoli ouk e n w
Î a dikouÄmai e cw, all' e n w
Î a sjalwÄ v e politeuÂqhn. oud' e piÁ patri da ousan e ti hÿgouÄmai nuÄn i e nai, poluÁ deÁ maÄllon thÁn ou k ousan anaktaÄ sqai. He betrays both his city and its constructed values, but he also contradicts any reasonable conventional standard, e.g. Pl. Crit. 49c±50a. See Chapter 5 for a comparison of Alcibiades' and Pericles' uses of toÁ jiloÂpoli and jiloÂpoliv. Nicias was also ready to submit to the city's judgment, however unjust (7.48.4, cf. 77.2), and his appeal to the allies to remain loyal to Athens because it is the ``just'' thing to do matches the understanding of justice underlying the Mytilenian debate. In order to maintain consistency in his concept of justice Alcibiades has to deny not the justice of the city's action but the existence of the city itself.

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private idea of how justice is enacted, that is, its a xiÂwsiv e v taÁ e rga.

stasis and rhetoric in boeotia My suggestion to read the speeches in the History as living examples of stasis rhetoric will not satisfy every critic. No speeches are reproduced from the Corcyrean stasis, and none are given in direct discourse in any other stasis narrative, above all the unfortunately un®nished account of the Athenian stasis, the most important (if not the most violent) stasis in the war. Only direct discourse allows careful inspection of word usage to ®t theory to facts. It might be argued, if my thesis that Thucydides regarded the Peloponnesian War as a stasis is invalid, that he provides no speeches in any account of a stasis identi®ed as such. But that impression would be wrong, for there is a clear example, placed just before the stasis model, in the so-called ``Plataean Debate'' (3.53±67). The speeches in that debate, it is true, are delivered not by rival factions from the same city but by Plataea and Thebes, inveterate enemies in Boeotia, before Spartan judges and executioners. But the speeches of the Plataean Debate are the last stage of the stasis at Plataea (narrative starting at 2.1). The Plataean speakers certainly represent the hapless pro-Athenian faction which prevailed in the stasis in their city preceding the siege by Sparta, and thus they use some of the language and ideas ± adjusted to present circumstances ± with which the faction justi®ed its views and actions to itself, to its Plataean rivals and to the outside world. The opposing speech is given by the Theban patrons of the other faction, the one which started the stasis in Plataea four years previously by bringing in the Thebans ``to get power into its own hands, destroy the citizens of the opposing faction and make the city over to the Thebans'' (2.2.2). Their unpitying refutation of the Plataeans' claims employs some of the formulae which the pro-Theban Plataeans must have invented. For example, when the Theban speakers turn to the Plataeans and say that the faction which invited them into the city consists of citizens just like you [who] . . . brought us into their own city as friends, not enemies, with the intention of preventing the worse sorts among you from becoming even worse and to allow the better sorts to have their just due, serving to temper your policy and not to alienate the city from those

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who would protect it but rather to bring it back home to its own ¯esh and blood,'' (3.65.3)

they seem to be using language fresh from the war of ®ne phrases attending the Plataean stasis. The aristocratic slogan might indeed have held oblique appeal for the Spartans, but the setting is local, the intended ears Plataean and the passion raw and triumphant. The same is true for the appeals to Boeotian national traditions we ®nd both in the original stasis (taÁ pa tria twÄ n paÂntwn BoiwtwÄ n, 2.2.4) and in the Thebans' speech (taÁ koinaÁ twÄn pa ntwn BoiwtwÄn paÂtria, 3.65.2; taÁ twÄ n paÂntwn BoiwtwÄ n paÂtria).34 Thus as each speech puts a di¨erent interpretation on the origins of the Plataean stasis which broke out four years previously, we witness a phenomenon described in the stasis model: ``the faction leaders in the various cities used attractive names on each side ± professions of `political equality for all under the law' and `wise and temperate government by the best' (aristokrati av sw jronov, cf. the Thebans' swjronistaiÁ thÄ v gnwÂmhv) ± and while paying lip service to the public interest in fact made it their prize'' (3.82.8).35 The Plataean Debate takes the reader to a part of the Hellenic world, Boeotia, whose own coherence, internal unity and shared identity were long claimed but never secure, and whose relationship to other Hellenic states ± as a Boeotian unity or as individual entities ± was thus shifting and adaptable. In addition to the controversy over ``justice,'' both speeches address the question of Boeotian coherency, the meaning of a con¯ict between Boeotian states and the relation between Boeotian and Hellenic identity. The terms are those which rivals in a stasis use to speak of their city or state. The peculiar history and present status of Boeotia, as well as entrenched rivalries which remained entrenched despite larger political developments in Hellas, obscure priorities of loyalty; competing views regarding individual Boeotian states' responsibilities towards Boeotia as a whole translate into rival attachment to Athens or Sparta. 34 See CT i, 240, 241. 35 In the best published analysis of the two speeches, Macleod 1977 points out some parallels between the distorted moral reasoning in the Plataean Debate and the breakdown in expression and mental attitude in the stasis model. In addition, see the commentaries by Gomme and Hornblower, Debnar 1996, the 1989 dissertation by Kalkavage 1989, and J. C. Hogan 1972.

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The Plataeans, who speak ®rst, are on trial for their lives. Their argument, as often remarked, is poorly structured, re¯ecting panic and fear,36 and the lack of time to prepare a carefully reasoned defense. At the same time, the raw emotion and unpremeditated nature of the argument bring the reader close to the Plataeans' instinctive, unrehearsed views on themselves, their place in history and their relation to Thebes, Sparta and Hellas in general. There was not enough time to compose a careful argument; the Plataeans had to improvise on the familiar. The original Spartan o¨er was ``to serve as judges and punish the wrong-doers, but to do nothing contrary to justice'' (3.52.2) if the Plataeans surrendered.37 The Plataeans agreed to these terms, it is true, because they were desperate (52.3), but they relied on a conventional understanding of justice promised by the Spartans and were shocked by the single, brutal question by which they were judged: ``We thought that we would be subjected, not to a trial of this sort, but to the more conventional type . . . assuming that thus we would most likely be treated fairly'' (53.1).38 Certainly, the Spartans' harsh and unforgiving criterion was not what they had expected. As Macleod has elegantly demonstrated,39 the pair of speeches represents a ``travesty of legal forms.'' The familiar staging of the event and the forensic oratorical commonplaces in both speeches only sharpen the irony that the di kh (53.1, 67.5), the trial, is not a real trial. The Plataeans' arguments are pathetic, hopeless, irrelevant and contradictory, wasting or misusing the tropes of forensic oratory in an impossible predicament; the Thebans also abuse the language and forms of a trial, in the hope that a real judgment appropriate to a formal trial, based on evidence, will not be given. Neither side speaks strictly to the point. The mock trial, whose cruel verdict is sealed beforehand, has nothing to do with justice, truth or morality, which are nevertheless the topics which most concern the speakers. The Plataean argument encompasses interrelated themes which, despite the disjointed structure of the speech, combine into a 36 CT i, 445±6. 37 dikastaiÄ v e kei noiv crhÂsasqai, touÂv te adi kouv kola zein, paraÁ di khn deÁ oude na. 38 ou toiaÂnde di khn oi o menoi uÿje xein, nomimwte ran de tina e sesqai . . . hÿ gou menoi toÁ i son maÂlist' an je resqai. 39 Macleod 1977.

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coherent Weltanschauung. First, gratitude: the Spartans owe an everlasting debt to the Plataeans for their heroic refusal to medise during the Persian Wars, a loyalty which the Plataeans claim (inaccurately) was unique to them among Boeotians,40 and for their city's aid to Sparta during the Helot revolt of 465 (3.54.5). Second, moral uprightness in strictly Hellenic terms: the justice of the Plataeans' past and present actions, the imperatives of nomos, and pistis (in the very ®rst and last sentences of the speech) which is a trust implying mutuality41 ± in all, a deep Hellenic union of beliefs, morals and codes of conduct binding Plataeans and Spartans and excluding the Thebans. The Plataeans state quite explicitly that they are equal to the Spartans in virtue (arethÂ, 53.4), and that the Spartans serve only as ``the leading example of honorable conduct for most Hellenes'' (paraÂdeigma toiÄ v polloiÄ v twÄ n ÿ EllhÂnwn andragaqi av, 54.1). Third, Theban crimes, which reinforce the theme of moral outrage. The Thebans' collaboration with the Persians revealed their permanent character and excluded them from ``the common Hellenic institutions'' (taÁ koinaÁ twÄn ÿ EllhÂnwn noÂmima), now as then (59.1). Their present crimes against Plataea are merely the last in a series of o¨enses not only against Plataea but against Hellenic religious and moral standards (56.1). Deciding against the Plataeans would be an abandonment of Hellenic principle and of Hellas itself.42 The thread which ties these themes together is ``justice.'' The Plataeans set as their ®rst task precise assignment of blame for injustice, adiki a: the Spartans have not been wronged by them (ouk adikeiÄ sqai uÿmaÄ v, 3.54.2, cf. 59.1), the Plataeans themselves committed no wrong (ouk a dikouÄmen, 55.3, cf. 56.6), the Thebans are responsible for a series of wrongs (hÿ maÄv hdi khsan, 56.1). The Theban injustice consists in attacking the city during a truce and in a sacred period (56.2). This attack is portrayed as an o¨ense against all Hellas because it violated basic principles which inter alia sanction self-defense: ``We took revenge according to the established universal law'' (e timwrhsa meqa kataÁ toÁn paÄsi noÂmon kaqestwÄta, 3.56.2). 40 They forget ± deliberately or not ± the Thespians, see Hdt. 7.132.1; Buck 1979, 130±5. 41 Huart 1968, 78±80 points out the ``conditional'' uses of the word, but his examples are from contexts in which conventional morality is not expected. 42 Note: proÁv iÿ eroiÄ v toiÄ v koinoiÄ v skuÄla, 3.57.1; touÄ ÿ EllhnikouÄ panoikhsi aÎ, 57.2; further examples are cited in the discussion below.

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The voice of convention also preaches that justice be upheld whether or not it coincides with expediency: For if you determine ``justice'' to derive from your immediate advantage and their enmity, you will show yourselves not to be true judges of the proper course but caring rather for expediency.43 (3.56.3)

This sentence has seemed problematic in two ways. First, Gomme objected that ``no one thing can be both Spartan advantage and the Thebans' hostile attitude'' so that such a translation as above is ``nonsense.''44 This is true according to strict logic and a cleareyed appraisal of the situation, but the Plataeans possess neither. The ``expediency'' of killing the Plataeans, true patriots, is equated with betraying Hellas to the Persians: immediate advantage is secured thereby, but it is criminal, not ``the right thing to do'' (toÁ orqoÂn) and in the long run not even advantageous. The Plataeans connect by a straight line the Theban attack on Plataea and Theban medism ®fty years earlier, which in the same degree, they claim, endangered Hellas and all it stands for. During the Persian invasions, the only ``just'' course of action was for a state to resist; the Hellenic states which chose the expedient course of medism su¨ered enduring shame. Thus the equation of Sparta's perceived advantage and Theban enmity, and the opposition between them and justice, is precisely the Plataeans' intention.45 The infamy of Theban medising lasted in the collective memory well past the Peloponnesian War, prompting Plutarch to accuse Herodotus of slander (De Her. Mal. 864d±867b). Thus the Plataeans seem to have made an apt rhetorical choice, but they press the idea too far, associating the Spartans' intended plan to destroy them, the heirs of Hellas' national heroes, with Theban crimes against Hellas (3.57.1±4, 58.5), which was more likely to enrage than to shame the Spartans. Desperate measures are taken in desperate situations. Second, 3.56.3 seems to contradict the last sentence of the same chapter: You must demonstrate that you take identical decisions in identical cases, and that you think expediency is nothing other than what you can establish as immediately advantageous for both yourselves and those of 43 ei gaÁ r twÄÎ au ti ka crhsi mwÎ uÿmwÄn te kaiÁ e kei nwn polemi wÎ toÁ di kaion lh yesqe, touÄ meÁ n o rqouÄ janeiÄ sqe ouk a lhqeiÄ v kritaiÁ o ntev, toÁ deÁ xumje ron maÄ llon qerapeuÂontev. 44 HCT ii, 341. 45 See also Macleod 1977, 243 n. 13.

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your allies who are honorable and have a secure claim on your gratitude because of their virtue.46 (3.56.7)

The identi®cation of justice and expediency seems to be an abrupt switch in position. This is normally explained as a sudden realization that expediency is what will most attract the Spartans, so that it must coincide with, rather than oppose, justice; the Plataeans are a bit confused, thinking on their feet. But in fact everything said here was implied in the Plataeans' earlier statement. The Spartans are making a mistake, they say, by keeping their eyes glued to the immediate present and forgetting history; determinations of expediency can be made only in the context of the group, not as individuals (like Thebes). Thus both statements together represent what the Plataeans think. In both statements they maintain that justice ± as they de®ne it ± should be the sole guiding principle for action. In the ®rst, they represent Sparta's mistaken view of its own expediency, and correct that error in the second statement, where they maintain that by viewing present realities in the mirror of the past, Sparta's true interests will appear to coincide with justice. This is, remarkably, more than they can say for their alliance with Athens, which they justify on exclusively moral grounds, insisting ®rst that their alliance was commensurate with justice and virtue (55.3±4) and that blame for error lies with the leader instead of the follower, and second, that they followed Athens ``from justice'' rather than Sparta ``for pro®t'' (56.6: dikai wv . . . kerdale wv), and ®nally that they have warred with Sparta ``under compulsion'' (58.2), which is the logical result of the ®rst two claims. Reconciling this with the idea that Sparta would be acting both justly and expediently by saving the Plataeans requires a mental leap, but if Plataean premises are accepted it is internally consistent. The Plataeans' combination of justice and expediency borders on the claim, ``virtue is its own reward,'' since they are naturally unable to name any military or practical advantage Sparta will derive from saving them. It is true that the Hellenic states which in 479 remained loyal to the Hellenic cause came out better in the end, but that could not have been reasonably predicted at the 46 Even with Heilmann's emendation of e cwsi to e cousi, which I accept, the translation of this passage is vexed; the di¨erences between mine and standard renderings are explained in what follows.

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time. The only disincentive for killing the Plataeans now is moral. This is the thrust of the entire speech. In 3.58 the Plataeans, using particularly concentrated language, say that the planned execution ill suits the Spartans, that doing such a shameful favor (ai scraÁ caÂriv) for the Thebans will bring wickedness (kaki a) and disrepute (du skleia), so that you would be rendering a righteous judgment (osia dikaÂzein) by sparing our bodies and by acknowledging that you took us voluntarily stretching out our hands ± and the law (noÂmov) of the Hellenes forbids killing people in such a state ± and even more important, we have always been your benefactors. (3.58.3)

Religious propriety and national law and custom here de®ne the essence of justice and just action. The phrase osia dika zein re¯ects the common understanding that justice and holiness had much to do with each other, if they were not synonymous. In another hopeless appeal based on convention, the Melians view themselves as o sioi proÁv ou dikai ouv (5.104), which modern translators have rendered by using the same word for each: for example, ``just men ®ghting against unjust'' (Crawley), or ``we are righteous and you against whom we contend are unrighteous'' ( Jowett), vel sim. The words are not of course strictly synonymous, but they were close enough in common Greek understanding and frequently combined in speech.47 The point in this natural combination of osion with di kaion is that justice is sanctioned by the gods. The Plataeans perforce take their argument to a higher sphere. That higher sphere, however, belongs to a previous time. In the intense outburst near the end of the speech they sound as if they were addressing an audience ®fty years earlier: If you kill us and convert Plataean land into Theban territory, what would you be doing if not abandoning your fathers and kindred in enemy territory among their murderers, deprived of the honors which they enjoy? 47 Compare Aesch. Suppl. 404, Zeus metes out adika meÁ n kakoiÄ v, osia d' e nnoÂmoiv. Justice and osion are often linked in Euripides, e.g. Hipp. 1081, Hec. 1235, El. 1351, Hel. 1638, Or. 500±1. In general, see Dover 1974, 248±9, 252±4. Some variant of the phrase osion kaiÁ di kaion became a frequent pleonastic trope in fourth-century literature, especially in the orators, e.g. Isocrates 3.13; 9.26, 38; 14.2; 15.76, 284, 321. While Socrates' explorations of the relationship between osion and di kaion in the Euthyphro (11e±12e) and the Protagoras (331a±e) are inconclusive, it is nonetheless clear that he assumed an intimate connection if not complete identity between the two.

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And moreover you will be enslaving the very land in which the Hellenes were liberated, you will be desolating the temples of the gods to whom they prayed when they overcame the Persians and you will be robbing their hereditary sacri®ces from those who founded and established them. It ill be®ts your good name, Lacedaemonians, to do any of these things, (which amount to) o¨ending against the common practices48 of the Hellenes as well as against your ancestors, and destroying us, your benefactors, on account of a hatred having nothing to do with you, while you yourselves have not been wronged.49 (3.58.5±59.1)

This is passionate but neither original nor timely.50 Both the content and the language of this passage recall various examples of ®fth-century Hellenic patriotism, not least the famous words which Herodotus' Athenians address to the Spartans in 479, de®ning Hellenic identity and duty in terms of gods and shrines, common practices and sacri®ces, honor (ti mh) and justice, heroism and reputation (do xh), freedom and slavery, ancestors and family and kindred, insiders and outsiders.51 The Plataeans would probably have mentioned a common language, too, if they could have reasonably claimed that the Thebans spoke a foreign tongue. For these are the things which were proven in the Hellenes' de®ning moment, and they are what the Plataeans say bind them forever to the Spartans and all other loyal Hellenes ± including, by implication, Athens ± and separate o¨ the Thebans. This is why the Plataeans proclaim their purpose to demonstrate the ``justice'' (di kaia) of their case not just to the Spartans but to ``the other Hellenes'' as well (3.54.1). They mean not only that what is done in Plataea will be heard in all Hellas (57.1, 58.2), but also that this is how the world is to be comprehended: all Hellas stands against its enemies. The anachronism has a point. The Plataeans' language and themes recalled a bygone age which contrasted dramatically with Hellas at war with itself. The battleground for Hellenic freedom had become an Hellenic butchering ground. The Plataeans pre48 See Ostwald 1986, 105±6 for the interpretation of no mima. 49 The piling-up of key thematic words and concepts actually begins one section before the quoted passage (3.58.4) and continues one section afterwards (59.2); it is as if the Plataeans are stumbling through their main points, not knowing where or how to end, as they themselves avow (59.3). 50 Note CT i, 446: both speeches freely use tenses and moods, ``the grammatical expression of a desire on the part of both sets of speakers to roll together past, present, and future on the one hand, and hypothetical and actual on the other.'' 51 The question of Thucydides' relation to Herodotus is a side-issue here (see CT ii, 19±38; Hornblower 1992b). Both tapped into the same reservoir of belief and language.

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varicate, washing all negative inference out of the intervening period, in which political interests and alignments in Hellas had dramatically changed. This has a curious e¨ect, revealing an astonishing blind-spot. For the Plataeans insist on the continuing validity of their title as liberators of Hellas (3.54.3, 56.4±5, 58.5).52 They apply to themselves the same words which the Spartans have adopted for their current role (see Chapter 3), yet given the Plataeans' association with Athens the two claims are incompatible. There is no doubt that the Plataeans are aware of the Spartan claim to be liberating Hellas, since they mention it (3.59.4). The Plataeans seem to be trying to attract Spartan favor by showing one further aspect of brotherhood between them, their similar roles as liberators. This is most inept. The Plataeans do not even argue that since they were liberators in the past they should be welcomed into the ranks of the current liberators. Unlike Mytilene, they do not seek partnership with the Spartans (note the speci®c invitation by Archidamus, 2.72.1), but ask merely to be rescued and then left alone. This line of thought may seem wildly illogical, but it acutely represents the Plataeans' frame of mind and their weak grasp on present realities. For them, the common Hellenic identity and values ± including the special shared role as Hellenic ``liberators'' ± should not only prevent Sparta from harming them but justify the two things which are now most irksome, their massacre of the Thebans inside Plataea and their cooperation with Athens for the past ®fty years. The Plataeans' slaughter of the Theban in®ltrators four years earlier casts a pall over their advocacy of justice and all their moral protestations.53 There is no question that that butchery violated Hellenic standards ± nomoi ± regardless of the truth behind the issue, which Thucydides himself could not decide, of whether the Plataeans swore an oath binding them to preserve their prisoners (2.5.5±6).54 While the exact nature of the agreement between the Plataeans and Thebans on that fateful day is unclear from 2.2±5, 52 Surely it is an important argument against the historicity of the so-called ``Covenant of Plataea'' that it is not mentioned in this speech, where it would have strengthened the central argument; 3.58.4 is no con®rmation of the story in Plut. Arist. 21.1±3. See Amit 1973, 82±5 (cautiously proposing a less grandiose agreement); Kalkavage 1989, 348±60 (inconclusive); also Siewert 1972 (on ML 23), esp. 89¨. 53 Stahl 1966, 68; Kalkavage 1989, 74±84, dealing perhaps over-subtly with the unclarities in Thuc. 2.5. 54 Ducrey 1968a, 63±4.

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the Plataeans' guilt of violating accepted standards is con®rmed by their misrepresentation of the incident in their speech, in the brief and mendacious statement that ``it was right (orqwÄv) for us to take revenge according to the universally established law55 by which it is religiously sanctioned to repel an enemy who attacks'' (3.56.2). Their slaughter of the Theban prisoners did not occur in the heat of battle but after negotiations led the Thebans to withdraw from Plataean territory ± whether according to sworn agreement or under the illusion of one is irrelevant to the moral question.56 In their response, the Thebans ± surprisingly ± avoid debating the ®ne points of the agreement, and do not even repeat their claim that the Plataeans had rati®ed their protection with an oath, but state quite bluntly and unobjectionably that the Plataeans had promised to preserve the prisoners and that the murder was an ``atrocity'' (deinaÂ), an ``injustice'' (a diki a), a violation of the very Hellenic law and custom (paranoÂmwv, 3.66.2±3) which the Plataeans purport to uphold (also 67.5, 6). The contrast between the Plataeans' justi®cation of their atrocity and their conventional language of morality makes the reader uncertain about what actually is in the Plataeans' minds. Their explanation of murder contains a lie ± but do they see it? The Plataeans have already demonstrated that they do not see things as their historian and his readers do (see above on 3.56.3). Can everything be consistent in their own minds? That would require conceiving of the relation between word and action in such a way as to make both their murder of the Theban prisoners and their present appeal for mercy as suppliants consistent with the same nomos. This seems outlandish, but in the crucible at Plataea the outlandish became possible and even prevalent. The nature of language, orderly thought, political and moral reasoning became severely disturbed. Thus when the Plataeans assert that the Theban prisoners, who were in essentially the same suppliant position 55 On nomos in the debate, see Ostwald 1986, 105±6, 111±16. Note what Thucydides records at 1.70.3: the Corinthians say settled laws must change to keep up with the times. This is what Thucydides says in the stasis model, but here a party justi®es it. The Corinthians' insight into Athens is perhaps deeper than usually thought. 56 Cf. Connor 1984, 93: ``The comparison of the Plataean episode to the Persian Wars, and speci®cally to the promises made to Plataea after the great battle on its territory, underlines the ine¨ectiveness of promises, of oaths, of obligations to friends and benefactors, indeed of anything except triumphant, dominant self-interest and advantage.'' Also Amit 1973, 92 n. 104.

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as the Plataeans are now before the Spartans, were killed ``according to universally established law'' (3.56.2) and then, not long afterwards, beg the Spartans to spare them as suppliants because ``the law of the Hellenes forbids killing suppliants'' (58.3), there is no contradiction if the world is viewed through Plataean eyes. Macleod thought that the two invocations of nomos necessarily contradict each other, but in fact if they did not, his conclusion would be even stronger: ``The shifting sense of noÂmov also exempli®es what Thucydides describes in general terms in 3.82.4: how war, a state of continual need and danger, deforms language and values alike, which are interdependent conventions (noÂmoi). The very word no mov is revealed as ambiguous.''57 Thus the Plataeans' notion of justice and morality, although at ®rst sight quite conventional, is radically di¨erent from the accepted value in healthy times. The disease of stasis is indicated in the Plataeans' words. The degree of the disturbance in the words for justice, law (nomos) and other societal values is apparent in the Thebans' use of the same terms in their answer to the Plataeans. Their argument that the Plataeans ``have been more unjust'' (uÿ meiÄ v maÄlloÂn te hdikhÂkate, 3.63.1) addresses not only what was done ± the erga which they claim were misrepresented by the Plataeans ± but the relation between the erga and the words used for ``justice'' and other values. The Thebans open by accusing the Plataeans of speaking o¨ the point and by promising to expose ``the truth'' ± a standard opening in ancient speeches ± and at the end they condemn the Plataeans for using ``®ne words'' to cover ``unjust actions'' (3.67.7). But they are themselves guilty of the same charge. The reader who may momentarily have hoped for a return to linguistic regularity and order ®nds by the end of the speech a wider chaos in how key terms are understood and used. Much of the Theban speech consists of a point-by-point rebuttal of Plataean claims, but there are additions and omissions. The most important addition is the problem of Boeotian loyalty, introduced as the ®rst order of business in the speech. We shall turn to this after examining the Thebans' own original contributions to the linguistic distortions, especially in terms relating to ``justice.'' 57 Macleod 1977, 232. The ambiguity is enhanced by the Athenians' own inventions in Boeotia on a later occasion, 4.98.2, 6±7.

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The most glaring omission is the failure to examine the question of expediency in relation to justice, which is odd, for showing the combination of expediency and justice in executing the Plataeans would have been an easy task and obvious strategy, an e¨ortless trump of the Plataeans' necessarily strained e¨ort. Yet, whereas the Plataeans try to universalize the moral issues in their direct appeal to Sparta, the Thebans focus on an attack on Plataean arguments and address Sparta less directly. They do point out the Plataean crime in murdering the Theban prisoners but, as we have noted, do not make this point the centerpiece of their speech ± an unexpected strategical twist, considering their reciprocal emphasis on moral matters. The absence of this sort of facile and e¨ective calculation is revealing. The Thebans' moral remonstrations are self-centered, their ®eld of vision limited to their Boeotian struggle, in which they are on the verge of winning a big victory; thus their tone of moral triumphalism and their relative neglect of Spartan ears (notwithstanding their pro forma remarks at the end of the speech), in contrast with the Plataeans' desperate universalist pleading. The Thebans have much to say about justice, but we should note that they do not mention justice in the ®rst part of their speech, in which they respond to charges of medism by saying that their city collaborated with the Persians when a small clique held them outside the nomoi of Hellas (3.62); words based on the root dik- are avoided. Better to steer clear of the subject of justice altogether when it comes to medism, for it would have been hard if not impossible to carry the argument the necessary step further and claim that while the ``dominant few men'' ruled unjustly the Thebans in general ± ancestors of the speakers ± did act justly. Every subsequent topic, however ± the Plataean alliance with Athens, old claims of gratitude, the Theban attack on Plataea, the Plataean massacre of the Theban prisoners ± is assigned a precise place in the Greek moral universe and is directly tied to justice. The Plataean alliance with Athens, which according to the Plataeans followed the canons of justice and was consistent with their ancient virtue, comes under heavy attack by the same rhetorical weaponry the Plataeans used, with the unsubtle addition of the strong word ai scro n: it was much more shameful and unjust (ai scion kaiÁ adikwÂteron) to betray all the Hellenes; the Plataeans may have been wronged (adikouÂmenoi) but they became collabo-

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rators in the Athenian injustice (toiÄ v adikouÄ sin), and paying back a debt unequally is more shameful (ai scroÁn maÄllon) than paying a debt which properly (metaÁ dikaiosu nhv) falls due but incurs injustice (adiki a) when paid (3.63.3±4); past virtues (aretaiÂ) should help those who have been wronged (adikoume noiv) but should double the penalty for those who have done something shameful (ai scroÂn, 67.2). The Plataeans had used the word ai scroÂn once, in their plea to accept gratitude for restrained rather than shameful conduct (swÂjrona te antiÁ ai scraÄ v komi sasqai caÂrin, 58.1). The harsh verbal echoes in the Theban response (esp. 63.4) at once transfer all the shame onto the Plataeans, make alleged Plataean injustices more ``shameful'' than anything the Thebans ever did and undermine the moral basis of Plataea's expectation of gratitude for benefactions rendered (the Plataeans claim to be ``the benefactors of Hellas'' at 3.55.3, 57.1, 58.3, 59.1). The Thebans are ®erce on this point, relentlessly separating out Plataea's amalgam of justice and morality, and then recombining the two elements in a di¨erent formula to condemn Plataea. So long as Plataea's actions are all viewed in the mirror of Athens' imperialism, then even those conventionally viewed as virtuous (such as Plataea's self-sacri®ce against Persia) are unjust and immoral: You have made it clear that it was not for the Hellenes' sake that you did not medise then, but because the Athenians also did not medise, and you wanted to do exactly what Athens was doing, the opposite from everybody else. And now you think that you should actually bene®t from virtuous action which was motivated by others. But that is (as you say) ``unreasonable'' (ouk ei koÂv). (3.64.1±2)

The theme of reasonableness (eiko v) was prominent in the Plataeans' speech: they had said that it would be ``unreasonable'' (ouk eiko v) for the Spartans to forget Plataean help suppressing the Helot revolt (3.54.5), it was entirely ``reasonable'' to ally with Athens (55.3), it would be ``unreasonable'' to let the Thebans harm them (56.3), the only ``reasonable verdict'' is to spare them as honorable men (57.1), they are not enemies who could ``reasonably'' be avenged (58.2, cf. 53.2). In a mocking imitation of Plataean rhetoric the Thebans undermine the basis for the Plataean claim to virtue and justice. By their reckoning the Plataeans are worse than the Athenians. The Thebans pitilessly pronounce the Plataeans hated by the Hellenes ``more justly'' (dikaio teron) than anyone else ± even Athens ± since the Plataeans alone have harmed under

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the guise of virtue and honor (a ndragaqiÂa, 64.4). And it is true, as we shall see, that the Athenians, for their part, do not justify their empire to others as an example of their continuing virtue; they do indeed claim that they acquired empire as a result of their virtue and Sparta's negligence, but they maintain it out of selfinterest and self-preservation. Thus the Plataeans, in their claim of consistent and unbroken virtue from the Persian Wars to the present, go further than even the Athenians. The Theban response to this claim we ®nd in the above-quoted passage and throughout their speech: the Plataean record is an unbroken series of transgressions against Hellas, from the violation of the common oath to the violation of their pledge not to harm the Theban prisoners (64.2±3). This is the Theban response to the direct line which the Plataeans drew from Theban medism to the present.58 Whereas the Plataeans protested that it would be dishonorable (ouke ti kaloÂn, 56.3) to betray the Athenians, the Thebans represent that as the only honorable course which the Plataeans had ± but refused to take. The Thebans e¨ectively shatter the Plataean claim to justice, but that does not mean that they themselves have a better claim. They do not use considerations of justice to explain their medism, as we have seen. They do, however, invoke principle to defend their attack on the city in 431. A friendly party, with the city's and Boeotia's best interests in mind, invited them in, and they did nothing wrong by accepting the invitation (ti adikouÄmen; they ask rhetorically, 3.65.2), and once inside they wronged no one (ou te hdikhÂsamen oude na, 66.1). This explanation is not acceptable, as even the Thebans themselves understand, for they acknowledge that it was anepieike steron, ``not entirely fair'' to in®ltrate the city without general agreement (66.2), and that the Theban in®ltrators who fell in the ensuing battle were killed ``in accordance with a kind of law'' (kataÁ noÂmon tina). Their just complaint concerns 58 Thus I cannot agree with Parry (1970, 184±5), for all his brilliance: ``. . . the intensity of intellectual analysis and elaborateness of syntactical structure [in the Thebans' speech] are not frivolous: they deepen our dramatic sense of the Thebans' brutal mode of selfjusti®cation as they brilliantly and systematically annihilate all the emotional claims which the Plataeans had presented in their self-defence. . . . Here, within the spectrum of Thucydides' opposition of inner and outer reality, the Thebans represent one extreme, rejecting all moral standards, intellectual criteria, and psychological motives in favour of the immediate pressure of political interest.''

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those who were killed during the truce.59 As Gomme points out, the word a nepieike steron seems to be an e¨ort to avoid openly admitting an injustice,60 yet while admitting that they acted ``unfairly'' they accuse the Plataeans, in words which conventionally de®ne justice, of reacting far out of proportion to the original o¨ense: ``You did not give us back equal return'' (taÁ oÿ moiÄ a ouk a ntape dote). Thebes construes its vengeance as its pursuit of justice and holiness.61 The same items of moral vocabulary have a di¨erent tone in each speech, and in neither the proper and expected tone, as each speech rests on mendacity ± or a severely distorted presentation of erga ± justifying violent action with moral pretension. Thus the Theban argument throughout the speech is that any injustice they may have committed in their past medism or present o¨ense against Plataea is far outweighed by the Plataeans' unjust behavior. This denial of justice and lawfulness to their rivals does not make their own positive claims just and lawful, for they prevaricate about their own crimes. Both sides speak of vengeance, which is what is really on their minds. The Plataeans assert that in killing the Thebans they were ``rightly avenged according to universally established law'' (3.56.2). The Thebans say ¯atly that they seek to be ``more righteously avenged'' (oÿsiwÂteron tetimwrhme noi, 67.1, cf. 67.5), and follow that with an appeal using language heavy with terms signifying justice (67.2±6): the Theban heroes who fell at Coronea have a ``more just supplication'' (dikaiote ra iÿ ketei a), the Plataeans' just su¨ering (dikai wv) is a cause of joy, the Plataeans neglected and now cannot possibly pay back the full due (ou k antapodoÂntev nuÄn thÁ n i shn timwri an), it would be consistent with nomos to bring the Plataeans to justice (e nnoma . . . e v di khn), the Spartans should come to the defense of the Hellenic nomos violated by the Plataeans and satisfy the Theban desire for just recompense (antapoÂdote ca rin dikai an). This is an impressive, perhaps excessive ¯ourish. When rivals in stasis execute revenge, ``they do not restrain themselves at the boundary of justice'' (3.82.8). In Boeotia, we 59 And note the shower of a½rmations of Plataean law-breaking, after paranoÂmwv in 3.65.1: paranomouÄsi 65.2, paranoÂmwv 66.2, paranomhÄ sai 66.3; also parenoÂmhsan 67.5. 60 HCT ii, 352. 61 Note 3.67.1: i na uÿmeiÄ v meÁ n ei dhÄ te dikai wv au twÄn katagnwso menoi, hÿmeiÄ v deÁ e ti oÿsiwÂteron tetimwrhme noi.

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witness the spectacle of two sides in a stasis, each guilty of crimes, both justifying their own actions and condemning those of their enemy under the guise of patriotism and universal values, especially ``justice.'' What is lost is precisely those values. Disruption of shared values implies disruption of the community. Thebes' competing view of justice implies a view of the Hellenic community di¨erent from the Plataeans'. Whereas the Plataeans based their moral universe on an outdated conception of Hellas, the Thebans posit a di¨erent community, Boeotia, whose betrayal by the Plataeans not only demonstrated their fundamental treachery but amounted to a betrayal of Hellas itself. At the very beginning of their remarks, they present Boeotia as a coherent and legitimately constituted unity demanding a prior loyalty which the Plataeans violated: Our di¨erences with them ®rst arose because, contrary to what had been originally agreed, they chose not to submit to our leadership after we founded Plataea, somewhat later than the rest of Boeotia, together with other places of which we gained control by driving out a mixed population. Separating themselves from the rest of the Boeotians they betrayed the national traditions (parabai nontev taÁ pa tria), and when force was applied they went over to the Athenians, with whom they caused us a great deal of harm, but not without su¨ering in return. (3.61.2)

Boeotia from primitive times is thought of as an ethnically and politically coherent unity from which the Plataeans have wrongly separated themselves, violating not only the expectations of the other Boeotians but also the requirements of their own identity. The Thebans here describe a kind of stasis in Boeotia (cf. 3.62.5, 4.92.6). They select incidents from the previous ®fty years of history to justify their hegemony in Boeotia, as well as generally to associate Plataea with Athens' tyranny. The Plataeans, they claim, quite unnaturally attached themselves to Athenians, who are an utterly foreign element because they have no share in the Boeotian paÂtria. In fact the Athenians are described in much the same terms as the Persian invaders: the Athenians invaded Boeotia  qhnai wn e pioÂntwn, also 3.63.2, compare 1.18.2) and temporar(A ily dominated after the battle at Oenophyta, and the Thebans ``liberated'' Boeotia (hleuqerwÂsamen thÁ n Boiwti an, 3.62.5) at Coronea (446 bce). The rhetorical device is to adopt the familiar formula used by the Plataeans but to change its elements: Athens

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replaces Persia as the tyrannical invader, Plataea replaces Thebes as the collaborator and Boeotia replaces Hellas as the uni®ed entity patriotically defended and liberated. Even today, enough is known regarding the period of the Persian Wars and afterwards to detect distortion in the form of opportunistic and somewhat tendentious coloring in the Theban account of Boeotian history. All the more would Thucydides' contemporary audience have noticed Theban exaggerations. The Thebans did not hold uninterrupted hegemony, Plataea was not the only Boeotian state which showed independence, and the Boeotian league had questionable strength and importance on the larger scale of Hellenic politics.62 The Boeotian confederacy, especially after the Persian wars but probably before, too, was loosely organized and de®ned, constantly shifting and unstable, never comprehensive, never able to bring about Boeotian unity as a fact or universally approved concept. Even after Coronea and Athens' departure from Boeotian soil, Thebes, while certainly dominant, cannot be said to have headed an ethnically and politically coherent unity. Thus while the Thebans in their speech make a strenuous e¨ort to correct the Plataeans' distorting anachronism and bring to center stage current realities, their own distortions are just as serious, if di¨erent in character: the deliberately blurred relationship between Boeotia and Hellas, and their claim of unbroken Boeotian unity. The next crucial step in their argument is to transfer the labels of loyalty and collaboration from a purely Boeotian context to all Hellas. Plataea's betrayal of Boeotia becomes the betrayal of all Hellas by a facile adaptation of the predominant Spartan theme in the war, Athens' enslavement of Hellas as equated with the 62 On what follows, see Buck 1979, chs. 7±9; Demand 1982, ch. 3; Amit, 1973, ch. 2; Lewis, CAH v2 116 is pertinent for the stasis between Boeotian states. Regarding the more distant past, the surviving evidence is too thin to validate or refute many of the Thebans' historical representations in the speech. In fact this speech is usually quoted as the main source for just those episodes and periods which the Thebans cite to their advantage, such as the uni®cation of Boeotia in pre-classical times and the dominance of a narrow medising faction during the Persian wars. What the inhabitants of Thucydides' Greece knew and believed about Boeotian history is unclear, although one must assume that in order for Theban rhetoric to be e¨ective, not much information could contradict common understanding. Wilamowitz' attempt to solve the conceptual problem, by positing that the Plataeans were not Boeotians, has not been generally accepted; see Wilamowitz 1886, 112 and Amit 1973, 64±5, 73±5 for the ``legal ®ction'' that Plataea was Athenian territory, and 75±8 for their claim to Athenian citizenship (3.55.3, with CT ad loc.).

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Persian:63 the Plataeans, by joining the Athenians, have forsaken all of Hellas. This is expressed in a sentence containing a grammatical unclarity which reinforces the point: You say that it was shameful to betray your benefactors. Far more shameful and unjust was it entirely to abandon all the Hellenes, to whom you were bound by oaths, than just the Athenians, who were in the process of reducing Hellas to slavery, whereas the former were working for its liberation.64 (3.63.3)

As Classen and later Gomme noted, ``the former'' should mean the Peloponnesians and their allies, but grammatically it must refer to ``all the Hellenes.'' The grammatical inconcinnity is perhaps a planned ambiguity, but it is not entirely disingenuous: the Thebans feel viscerally that all of Hellas is opposed to the Athenians and their Plataean partners (as is clear in 3.64.1). A breathtaking neologism gives the claim a particularly sharp edge: We say that they [the Plataeans] did not medise because the Athenians also did not, and by the same token when the Athenians later attacked the Hellenes they were again the only Boeotians who ``atticized''!65 (3.62.2)

With one word, attiki sai, the Thebans turn the Plataeans' departure from Boeotia in the Persian invasions into betrayal of all Hellas.66 This is one of the earliest occurrences of a linguistic phenomenon which became prevalent later, namely converting a place-name into a verb suggesting collaboration with that place against a legitimate Hellenic group.67 Such neologisms spread as inter-Hellenic struggles continued after the Peloponnesian War, but the war was the crucible which formed the habit of thought and speech which included and excluded Hellenes from Hellenic identity. 63 Macleod 1977, 240; Chapter 3 below. 64 kaiÁ le gete wÿv ai scroÁn hn prodouÄnai touÁv eu erge tav´ poluÁ de ge ai scion kaiÁ adikwÂteron touÁv pa ntav  Ellhnav kataprodouÄ nai, oi
v xunwmoÂsate, h  Aqhnai ouv mo nouv, touÁ v meÁ n katadouloume nouv thÁn ÿ Ella da, touÁv deÁ e leuqerouÄntav. The point is reinforced further by a series of verbs pre®xed with xun- which fall like hammer blows in 3.64.2±3. 65 hÿmeiÄ v deÁ mhdi sai meÁ n autouÁv ou jamen dioÂti ou d'  Aqhnai ouv, thÄÎ me ntoi authÄÎ i de aÎ usteron i oÂntwn  Aqhnai wn e piÁ touÁv  E llhnav moÂnouv au BoiwtwÄn attiki sai. 66 Macleod 1977, 116; the repeated use of the term at 4.133.1, recording Theban rhetoric, strengthens the possibility that it was a Theban neologism (contrast CT i, 455). 67 Gehrke 1985, 269±70. The practice was repeated in Boeotia. An example from 446, Orchomenizers, even if genuine, has much more limited implications; see Dull 1977, esp. 309±11; Buck 1979, 150.

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Thus we see the logic of the Theban argument: Plataean disloyalty had ®rst to be established, then magni®ed into disloyalty toward and betrayal of ± and alienation from ± all Hellas. The next step was easy to take: the Plataeans are di¨erent in nature from all other Hellenes, just as the Persians are and, according to Peloponnesian propaganda, the Athenians have become. The Thebans say sneeringly to the Plataeans that all Hellenes justly hate them: The things which you claim showed your good character in the past, you now clearly demonstrate not to have been genuine; the things which your own nature (hÿ juÂsiv) has always wanted have now been brought out into the light of truth. (3.64.4)

This is an over-elaborate way, perhaps, of showing the Spartan hearers that Plataea is unreliable ± over-elaborate because, as has been suggested, the Thebans were more embroiled in local hatreds than focused on the best arguments for the Spartans. The Theban statements, like the Plataeans', reveal their actual if distorted sense of the world. Two problems threaten to compromise the Thebans' conception, namely their city's collaboration during the Persian wars and their attack on Plataea in 431. Each is explained in a way which reinforces their construction of the past. The medism is explained by shifting the blame to a small group of Thebans who are said not to represent the true nature and spirit of Thebes (3.62). On the contrary, the ruling party was most anti-Hellenic, as they were a virtual tyranny and therefore had more in common with the barbaric invader than with the Hellenes. ``We had the form of rule most opposed to both laws and utmost moderation [or self-restraint: swjrone staton], and closest to a tyranny, the dominating faction of a few men had complete control of a¨airs'' (62.3). The ruling clique failed the essential tests of Hellenic identity. When Thebes regained its nomoi it rejoined the Hellenic community by ``liberating'' Boeotia at Coronea, by which time Plataea had excluded itself from the community by joining Athens in the attempt to ``enslave'' Boeotia and Hellas. ``We are now joining the others most enthusiastically in the liberation of Hellas'' (3.62.5), they declare. The Plataeans have so violated Hellenic nomos as to exclude themselves from its protections; killing them, suppliants though they be, accords with law because it accords with justice; the Spartans must defend ``the law of the

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Hellenes, which has been broken by these men'' (67.5±6). This is the ®nal point in the Thebans' speech. The same line of thought is used to justify the Theban attack on Plataea in 431. On Thucydides' authority we know that they originally in®ltrated Plataea during the stasis there in order to gain possession of the city before the inevitable war between Athens and Sparta broke out (2.2.3). They were as limited as the Plataeans in their actual aims, but their self-presentation takes them to grand themes: Regarding your ®nal claim, that you were wronged when we entered your city ``illegally'' in a time of truce and on a festival day, we think that our o¨ense even in this case is no greater than yours. For if on our own initiative we came to your city and started a ®ght and laid waste your land, acting as enemies at war, then we are in the wrong; but if from among your own compatriots those most prominent in wealth and birth, wishing to disencumber you of an external alliance and restore you to the national traditions which all Boeotians share as a community, invited us in on their own accord, then what wrong have we done? For ``it is those who lead who violate the law rather than those who follow'' [cf. 3.55.4]. But in our judgment, neither they nor we have broken the law. They are citizens just like you and were risking more when they opened their own gates and brought into their own city friends, not enemies,68 with the intention of preventing the worse sorts among you from becoming even worse and to allow the better sorts to have their just due; they served to temper your policy and not to alienate the city from those who would protect it but rather to bring it back home to its own ¯esh and blood,69 making you enemies of no one but at truce with all alike. And here is evidence that we did nothing in an inimical spirit: we wronged no one but proclaimed that anyone who wished to govern their lives according to the national traditions of all Boeotians should come over to us. (3.65±66.1)

In this case, the Theban claim can be dismissed as a lie: the true intentions of the pro-Theban faction in Plataea were not to im68 Accepting Steup's emendation of jili wv, ou polemi wv to jili ouv, ou polemi ouv. 69 It is unclear whether kai is meant to join thÄv gnwÂmhv with twÄn swma twn, so that both are read with swjronistaiÁ ontev, or to separate the two participles, in which case twÄn swma twn must be understood with thÁn poÂlin ou k a llotriouÄntev; see Classen±Steup ad loc. I have opted (like Classen±Steup and Gomme) for the second possibility because it makes better grammatical sense and swjronistaiÁ twÄn swma twn is di½cult to construe. Rhodes 1994 ad loc. reads twÄn swmaÂtwn with swjronistai and translates: ``they wanted to restrain your minds and bodies, they wanted not to give your city to foreigners . . . ,'' but swjronistai means more than that, and this interpretation does not receive support from the two other occurrences in Thucydides (6.87.3, 8.48.6).

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prove the citizens but to gain power for themselves.70 This is con®rmed by Thucydides (2.2.2±4). The prevarication should not, however, distract attention from what the Thebans actually say: they acted in the interests of Boeotian national traditions, which, in direct answer to Plataea's vaunted adherence to Hellas, are said to encompass Hellenic practices. Right-minded citizens in Plataea sought ``not to alienate the city from those who would protect it but rather to bring it back home to its own ¯esh and blood.'' Here the word ``alienate,'' allotriouÄntev, has caused di½culty,71 but should not if one remembers that the two speeches are given in what may considered a stasis. In stasis, it will be recalled, ``blood ties become more alien (allotriw teron) than factional interest'' (3.82.6). Moreover, the technique of distinguishing the leaders from the populus, employed to explain Theban medism, is repeated here but the image is inverted. Small factions are responsible for critical actions in both cities, but whereas in Thebes the faction led the city to medise contrary to the Hellenic sentiments of the general population, in Plataea the faction operates according to the right Boeotian and Hellenic values, against the population which is anti-Hellenic inasmuch as it is pro-Athenian. Thus Thebes, in its construction of events, accepted an invitation to enter Plataea in the greater interests of Plataea, Boeotia and Hellas.72 The two speeches in the Plataean debate are di¨erent in tone and character, but they use the same strategy of moral self-justi®cation and condemnation of the opposing side, of opportunistically rede®ning ``justice'' and of (re-) drawing conceptual boundaries so as to exclude the rival state from a legitimate (and legitimizing) share in Hellenic identity. Both Plataea and Thebes engage in arguments of inclusion and exclusion. That not only the Plataeans ± 70 Cf. Classen's perceptive remark on swjronistai (65.3): ``Die innere Unwahrheit des hier bezeichneten Parteistandpunktes ist von Th. wohl nicht ohne Absicht in ungewoÈhnlichen AusdruÈ cken und Wendungen angedeutet.'' 71 See HCT ad loc. 72 The value of the Theban construction about Plataean collaborators is revealed in the two-stage destruction of Plataea. At ®rst, after the mass execution of Plataeans, the city was given over to Megarians and ``Plataeans who favored their [the Spartans'] cause'' (3.68.3), who may be construed to be the Thebans' friends within the city; but within a year the entire city was razed on the conclusion that no Plataean was trustworthy. Cf. Amit 1973, 102.

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whose case was nearly hopeless from the outset ± but the Thebans should structure their arguments around these issues is remarkable, for it was clear from both the siege and the ``trial'' that the Spartans' sole interest in Boeotia was immediate advantage in their war with Athens. Thucydides himself says this: the Spartans showed great hostility to the Plataeans ``because they thought that the Thebans would be useful to them in the war'' (3.68.4); this is an opinion which the Spartans brought with them to Boeotia and which the Plataean and Theban speeches at least did nothing to change.73 The Spartans had an obvious interest in Boeotia but had not returned there since withdrawing in 458.74 The current war brought them back. Two invasions of Attica had produced no direct confrontations with the Athenian army, and it was on land that the Spartans expected to bring the war to a quick close.75 They hoped to provoke Athens into ®ghting far from the sea, and they also wished to avoid the epidemic in Attica.76 Plataea's dispute with Thebes may have provided a pretext for the attack, which of course Thebes joined (2.78.2, 3.20.1), but no speci®c invitation was needed. Thebes probably did appeal to Sparta as soon as its citizens were murdered in Plataea (2.5.7), but signi®cantly the Spartans waited two years to respond, choosing opportunities according to their own criteria.77 The Boeotian speakers, especially the Thebans, could have been expected to focus more consistently on the Spartans' main concern. It is true that Thebes' presentation could be construed as a demonstration of loyalty and usefulness for the present, but the disproportionate intensity and length of its remonstrations at the heart of the speech addressed directly to the Plataeans, relegating the Spartans to the role of 73 74 75 76 77

3.68.1±2 is clearly a pretext: it does not explain the original attack. Buck 1979, 144¨. Brunt 1965. See Demand 1982, 41; Amit 1973, 94±6. Modern works generally assume that Sparta was summoned by Thebes, but would not Thucydides have indicated this (2.71.1)? The Plataeans surmise as much (2.71.3) but they are blinkered by their current predicament and are not necessarily right, and contrast 3.52.2. King Archidamus indicates that Sparta sought to neutralize Athens' only Boeotian ally (2.72.1, 3); at 2.74.3 he invokes the theme intended for general publication, namely that the Plataeans ``were the ®rst to break the mutual oath'' (2.74.3), which (as 3.68.1 con®rms) can only mean the Hellenic oaths of 479. See HCT ii, 205 and Kalkavage 1989; 7.18.2 is irrelevant (contra Hornblower), as I explain in Chapter 6.

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spectator (chs. 63±6),78 are excessive for that purpose and suggest a di¨erent and more immediate aim. Thematic omissions or underemphases have surprised readers before.79 To Theban ears, the Plataean speech sounded dangerously persuasive and ``they feared lest the Spartans yield somewhat'' (3.60). This judgment was a complete misreading of Spartan feelings and intentions, as we discover in the Spartan reaction to both speeches (3.68.1), which shows that the two long speeches would as well not have been given.80 Thus both Plataea and Thebes, even at the critical time for speeches, remained embroiled in the latest violent episode of a long and intense local feud. Each tries rhetorically to manipulate that feud to ®t the present circumstances of a Spartan audience and a Hellenic war, but the priority of purely Boeotian concerns remains ®xed in each speech (cf. 3.82.1). The Spartan decision to execute the Plataeans after posing their brief, cruel question to each individual in turn was not based on considerations of justice, Hellenic law or custom, respect for holiness and the sacred, or any of the moral standards debated ± and actually violated ± by the two Boeotian states. These questions were left in Boeotia. A distance of 2,500 years frees today's reader from the visceral passions and quarrels of the Peloponnesian War. Yet that distance, combined with an implicit cynicism regarding truth and rhetoric, should not cause one to see the distortions in any of the speeches discussed in this chapter as signs of calculated, manipulative rhetoric rather than as representations of states of mind. Lies are deliberate, but not so every untruth. The two speeches at Plataea, just like most other speeches in the History, do not hide real thoughts but reveal them. There is no warrant to assume, for instance, either that the Thebans mendaciously overplayed or that the Plataeans underplayed the importance of Boeotian coherency; 78 Apostrophizing A in the presence of B, who is in fact the main target, was a well-known technique in antiquity; see Martin 1974, 284. Cicero's ®rst speech against Catiline is a good example. 79 Gomme wondered why the Thebans did not make the Plataeans' real crime the centerpiece, HCT ii, 352; cf. 350. 80 CT i, 446, 462±3. The situation is far more complex than mere ``rhetorical incompetence'' on the part of the Thebans, Debnar 1996.

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nor that the Corinthians, the Corcyrans, the Athenians, the Mytilenians, the Plataeans, the Thebans or the Spartans were insincere in their de®nitions of justice and injustice, although these di¨erent cities represent justice in contradictory fashion. The truth about such matters is relative, residing not in objective proofs but in human hearts and minds, and it su¨ers from violently opposed interpretations in times of disturbance such as stasis.

chapter 3

Hellenic states rede®ne the community of Hellas

It is a banal fact that political leaders of nations ®ghting wars habitually demonize the enemy in speeches and propaganda in order to strengthen the will and sense of purpose of their armies and civilian populations. In Thucydides' History, the political and military leaders who are made to address the necessities of their war use language which isolates and alienates the enemy and con®rms the legitimacy and certain boundaries of their state or group which must be defended. Yet enmities in this Hellenic war had particular consequences which Thucydides brought to the surface in the text of speech and narrative. Hellenic speakers who strive to demonize and conceptually alienate other Hellenes are not reinforcing existing conceptual borders but making new ones; they are not sharpening the de®nition of the Other but creating one. When Thucydides' speakers a½rm, as they frequently do, the existence of natural separations in the Hellenic world, they have found the necessary rhetoric for justifying the war; yet these formulae are not comfortable incantations of accepted truths but new, daring and ± as Thucydides presents it ± destructive rede®nitions. Pious and con®dent assertions about fundamental di¨erences in inherent natures and ethnic identities likewise represent an unusual and violent manner of expression, generated by the exigencies of the war. The Peloponnesian and Athenian speeches reveal the same purpose of creating and isolating an enemy, but their strategies are so di¨erent as to require separate analysis. The three main Peloponnesian themes are introduced in the Corinthian speeches in Book 1, preceding the outbreak of the war. There we ®nd ®rst expression of the Peloponnesian mission to ``liberate Hellas,'' and of the ideas that the Athenians have di¨erent inherent natures and di¨erent 127

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ethnic backgrounds. Our design will be to trace the development of each of these three themes in turn through the Peloponnesian speeches, and then turn our separate attention to Athenian rhetoric. THE PELOPONNESIANS

t h e ``l i b e r a t i o n o f h e l l a s'' In their ®rst bitter speech at Sparta, the Corinthians reproach Sparta for inaction no less than they accuse Athens of crimes. They turn their ®rst serious charge against Athens ± after routine reference to violence and hubris ± into a rod with which to admonish Sparta: If indeed their crimes against Hellas were not apparent, we would have to instruct you about things you did not know. But in the present case, what need is there of a long discourse, when you see that they have enslaved some of us already and are plotting against others, not least our own allies. . . . Up to this moment you are always depriving of their freedom not only those who have already been enslaved by them, but even your own allies; for it is not the enslaver who is most truly responsible [for enslavement] but the one who has the power to stop it yet turns a blind eye, even though he enjoys special recognition and honor [or: renown]1 as ``the liberator of Hellas'' (e leuqerwÄ n thÁn ÿ Ella da). (1.68.3, 69.1)

Sparta is said to have a reputation for virtue because of its liberation of Hellas in the past. Although such a claim is not in itself extraordinary, and Sparta may indeed have been talked about as the ``liberator of Hellas'' before this point, evidence of it is scarce in Greek literature before Thucydides.2 Corinth is probably reviving an old notion for new use. A few passages in Greek literature before the war refer to Athens' rule as ``enslavement,'' so that the 1 See Classen±Steup on axi wsin. The scholion remarks, toÁ semnolo ghma, toÁ axi wma thÄv dikaiosuÂnhv e cei. 2 Raa¯aub 1985, 215±57, esp. 248¨. (and see this book in general on ``freedom'' in Greek antiquity), and preliminarily Raa¯aub 1981, 215¨.; Hooker (1989), an interesting piece. On the freedom/slavery theme in the war see also Diller 1962; Kalkavage 1989, 377±403; Zahn 1934, 47±52; cf. Seager and Tuplin 1980. On polis tyrannos, see Raa¯aub 1979 and 1984, criticized (unsuccessfully, to my mind) by Tuplin 1985.

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theme of liberation rested on a familiar base. But the historical reference is not entirely clear, at least to the modern reader: does the liberation refer to the release of Greek cities from the tyrants in the previous century, or to Sparta's leading role in the last Persian invasion just ®fty years previously? Gomme3 suggested both, but this seems unlikely since the historical reference seems not only quite speci®c but also exclusive to Sparta. In fact Corinth will presently issue a sharp reminder of Sparta's dilatory behavior as the Persians invaded, as an example of Sparta's reputation ``exceeding the facts'' (oÿ lo gov touÄ e rgou e kraÂtei, 1.69.5), and the Athenians, in the speech which follows, will justi®ably claim, without disputing the Corinthian remark, that Hellas would have been lost without their own sacri®ce; this is a claim which Athens was wont to repeat so often as to cause irritation (1.73.2). Thucydides, moreover, implicitly contrasts Sparta's overthrow of the Greek tyrants with the Hellenes' ``common e¨ort'' in repelling the Persians (1.18.1±2). Thus in the above quotation, the Spartans' good name as ``liberator of Greece'' refers to their deposition of tyrants from Greek cities. This is con®rmed when the Corinthians repeat the theme in their second speech at Sparta, warning that defeat in a war with Athens would bring nothing less than slavery, a disgrace to the Peloponnese: In that case we would either seem to have su¨ered our fate justly or to have put up with it through cowardice and proven ourselves worse than our fathers, who liberated Hellas, while we fail to secure it [liberty] even for ourselves, but rather allow a tyrant city to establish itself in our midst ± we who have the reputation of deposing monarchs in individual cities. (1.122.3)

In the ®nal sentence of that speech Corinth repeats this crucial idea, calling on the Peloponnesians to attack Athens and ``liberate'' those cities already enslaved by the ``tyrant city,'' which poses a threat ``to everyone,'' that is, all Hellas (1.124.3, cf. 121.5, 124.1). Here there is no ambiguity, no possible accusation of Spartan dilatory action in 479 or Athenian counter-claims for credit. The Corinthians somewhat misstate the facts by granting all Peloponnesians 3 HCT i, 228.

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repute for the Spartan achievement, but such an exaggeration may be expected in the circumstances. The theme ``liberation of Hellas'' was the centerpiece of Spartan propaganda4 in the war, and not just a conceit of Thucydidean speeches. Thucydides himself con®rms this. He says that the Spartans won the general favor (eu noia) of almost all Hellas, ``especially because they openly declared themselves to be the liberators of Hellas'' (2.8.4) ± ``especially'' (allwv te kai ), in order to explain the alleged near-universal appeal of the Spartan cause:5 Thucydides stresses that Sparta's role of ``liberator'' attracted both unallied states fearful of Athens' empire and those subjects who sought deliverance from it (2.8.5); Hellenic states supported Sparta and the Peloponnesians actively or passively, as their ability allowed. Scholars have understandably felt uncomfortable with Thucydides' statement, as certain facts reported by Thucydides himself seem to belie the idea of widespread unpopularity particularly within the empire.6 Yet the authorial statement is perfectly consistent at least with all direct speeches by Athens' enemies and unhappy subjects who repeat and expound the theme of liberation from Athens. The statement in 2.8.4 represents a mature historical judgment ± as should always be assumed in the absence of a good reason to think otherwise ± which Thucydides phrased in such a way as to eliminate doubt that the slogan was widely believed. Sparta's ``liberation'' propaganda, Thucydides informs the reader, was successful. It re¯ected not only what one of the belligerents was saying, but what many, perhaps even most Hellenes were actually thinking and feeling, and wanted to hear. It exceeded the limited needs of propaganda and represented a deep historical current, the kind of psychological development which is Thucydides' permanent interest. 4 The means of devising and disseminating a state's political views, historical constructions and policies abroad was a great deal less organized and centralized in ®fth-century Greece than in modern governments, or even the Roman Empire. It is anachronistic to speak of ``the propaganda department at Sparta,'' as does Pearson 1936, 44, in an otherwise valuable discussion of propaganda in the Archidamian War; see Hooker 1989. 5 The words paraÁ poluÁ twÄn a nqrwÂpwn are reminiscent of the impressive opening claim that the war a¨ected ``most of mankind'' e piÁ pleiÄ ston anqrwÂpwn (1.1.2), although in context the remark at 2.8.4 clearly concerns only Hellas (cf. CT i ad loc.). 6 HCT ii, 9±10; the current discussion on the ``popularity'' of the Athenian empire started with de Ste. Croix 1954, cf. Bradeen 1960. The solution to this problem may not lie in successfully dating the composition of 2.8.4 (on which matter success is impossible).

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Further historical conclusions, however, are more elusive. Was the theme actually introduced in the ®rst Peloponnesian congress? Was it the Corinthians who invented it? The degree of historical accuracy of these aspects of the narrative cannot be tested. It is notable that neither Archidamus nor, more surprisingly, Sthenelaidas mentions the ``liberation of Hellas'' in their respective contributions to the ®rst debate. Further, Archidamus, in his speech to the assembled Peloponnesian troops just before the ®rst invasion of Attica, avoids the catchwords of freedom and slavery and attributes the support of Sparta by ``all Hellas'' to general ``hatred'' of Athens (2.11.2). Archidamus does cite the liberation theme before besieging Plataea (2.72.1), but there he takes his cue from the Plataeans themselves (2.71.2), who perhaps made a foolish rhetorical choice by bringing up the subject (cf. Chapter 2). Neither in this speech nor in their long pitiful plea before the Spartan executioners at the end of the siege (3.53±9) do the Plataeans seem to grasp the full import and power of the Spartan liberation theme. Archidamus turns the tables and makes the only possible answer by immediately recalling the new application of the words slavery and freedom. The freedom/slavery theme is repeated and developed by others, but the next Spartan to mention it is Brasidas, and by the time he enters the narrative the theme has undergone a signi®cant change. A tyrant is a legitimate enemy, but not necessarily foreign in every sense. In the Corinthian speeches, the con¯ict against a tyrant city is set in a purely Hellenic context. That is, all players are acknowledged to be Hellenic, and the historical referent is a series of internal Hellenic episodes one hundred years or more in the past. There are only initial signs that Corinth means conceptually to exclude Athens from Hellas altogether by representing the con¯ict as taking place not between members of the Hellenic family but between true and false Hellenes. This is a development, however, which is not long in coming. The portrayal of the struggle as the ``liberation of Hellas'' becomes an e¨ort to set Athens apart from the rest of Hellas, implying a Hellenic unity and accord which excludes the enemy Athens. Rhetorical themes developed dynamically on all sides as the war continued. The Mytilenians are the ®rst fully to make the shift in the liberation theme. Near the beginning of their appeal to the

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Spartans and Peloponnesian allies at Olympia in 428 to help them in their revolt (apostasis) from the Athenians (3.9±14),7 they declare, We became allies not of the Athenians for the purpose of enslaving the Hellenes but of the Hellenes for liberation from the Mede, (3.10.3)

and they make another open pronouncement of the theme near the close of their appeal, in a sentence (3.13.1) whose di½culties we shall analyze presently. Adopting the Spartans' own rhetoric of liberation was a clever ploy, not only for the obvious attraction of Spartan sympathies but also as a way of ®nessing the question of the Mytilenians' own dependability, on which their apparent disloyalty to Athens cast doubt. The claim o¨ered in the above sentence required an historical justi®cation, which the Mytilenians duly provide. Their ®rst order of business, after the introduction, is a schematic review of the history of the Delian League, intended to portray themselves as victims rather than partners or henchmen of the Athenians. They say that the Athenians, after the Spartans voluntarily left leadership of the Greeks to them, turned the members of a defensive alliance into their own ``slaves''; although the Mytilenians and Chians remained autonomoi, they would have soon lost this status and become ``enslaved'' with the rest. The account of the Delian League and the Mytilenians' role in it is designed to show that that Hellenic combination was devoid of both justice and honor, that the Mytilenians held to these two qualities despite their past actions, and that their present action demonstrates both. They claim that they were unable, because of the structure and procedure of the synod of the allies, to prevent Athens from subjecting the allies and exploiting themselves and the Chians, as special cases, to this end. They knew that Athens was manipulating Lesbos by an ``attack of policy'' (gnwÂmhv e joÂdwÎ), systematically enslaving the 7 Aside from Macleod 1978, 64±8, the most extensive and penetrating remarks on the speech are found in three commentaries: Classen±Steup iii, 13±27; Gomme, HCT ii, 261± 70; CT i, 391±8; and see now Orwin 1994, 64±70 and (for contrast with my analysis) Crane 1998, 176±95; older literature on speci®c points in W. West 1973, 155±6. I doubt the importance, in the context of this speech, of the Dorian identity of Olympia, cf. Hornblower, CT i, 388±9, acknowledging that Sparta itself had a dispute with Elis in 420, that ``pro-Athenian, anti-Spartan dedications could be made at Olympia in this period,'' and that Athens participated in the games in 428. It seems to me that the point of Olympia, in this speci®c context, was not its control by Sparta or its Dorian identity but its Panhellenic nature; see Chapter 5.

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weakest states ®rst and waiting for the right opportunity to enslave them as well (3.10.2±3.11). Their alliance with the Athenians, the Mytilenians claim, was based not on friendship and trust but mutual fear, and whoever ®rst saw a clear advantage would be the ®rst to break it; thus they were now acting not unjustly but preemptively, and their reasons should be acceptable to any fair judge (3.12±3.13.1). This historical reconstruction presents quite a few problems for the reader, both ancient and modern. Simply put, the Mytilenians' account is mendacious. Every speech is as tendentious as this one, but almost none contains outright lies. First, the Mytilenians misrepresent their position and status, by suggesting that only they and the Chians were autoÂnomoi, whereas in fact all the allies were au toÂnomoi if it is also true, as the Mytilenians assert, that they all were iso yhjoi. As Ostwald explains, ``the Mytilenians are trying to confuse the Spartans by playing the formal status of an autoÂnomov against its actual exercise.''8 It might be added that their right to an equal vote would have allowed them to vote against some operations, and the absence of such a claim indicates that they did not vote in that manner; the fact is that many of the Hellenic states would have decided not to vote against the Athenians anyway, not from fear but from individual advantage. Despite their protestations at 3.10.5±6, the Lesbians were eager participants. Second, it is simply not true that the Athenians started with the weaker and moved to the stronger, for they suppressed Naxos and Thasos at an early stage. Third, the omission of their participation in the reduction of Samos (cf. 1.116.1±2) belies the Mytilenians' claim of involuntary submission to Athens' will.9 The Mytilenians' misrepresentations are a natural result of their choice of theme. Their most prominent and impassioned arguments center on moral and ethical issues. Most commentators have understood such matters to be the Mytilenians' weak suit, for 8 Ostwald 1982, 35, and see 31±5 on the speech. The details in the Mytilenians' account of the growth of the Athenian empire are often exploited for information on the internal workings of the Delian League, but we would do well to heed Ostwald's warning ( p. 31): ``it is all too often forgotten that the purpose of the Mytilenians is not to enlighten the Spartans on obscure points of procedure in meetings of the Delian League, but to justify their past relation to Athens in such a way that their present plan to defect will not appear to the Spartans to be mere opportunism, so that the Spartans will not reject them as potentially unreliable allies.'' 9 HCT ii, 265.

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there are some things which could not be explained in plain terms, leading to inconsistencies and inaccuracies. At the opening they make a remarkable declaration: we must ®rst speak about justice and honor (or: morality), especially since we are seeking an alliance, knowing that neither friendship among individuals nor common association among states is secure in any degree if they do not treat each other with transparent honor and are in other respects of similar character (or manners), for di¨erences in action arise from discrepancy in minds.10 (3.10.1)

The Mytilenians could perhaps have been just as persuasive, or even more so, in a speech focusing more on practical matters and cold political calculation, but they save such practical arguments as the ripeness of the opportunity and the usefulness of their navy for a kind of brief postscript to the moral argument (3.13.3±7). The climax of the speech comes in ch. 12 and is recalled in the peroration in ch. 14, where shared Hellenic conventions, beliefs and principles are said to be the factors which unite Hellas against Athens. Morals, ethics, justice and the obligations of ``friendship'' and community11 are put forward as the force which binds Hellenes against Athens: no longer just shared oppression (or fear of oppression), but more deeply shared interests. The Mytilenians try to de®ne the common entity in which all Hellenes but the Athenians share. They claim that they and the Spartans have similar ways of life (oÿmoioÂtropoi), and that their mindset, their gnwÂmh, has always been as the Peloponnesians' is now. This is an emotional attempt to rede®ne Hellas in such a way as to stress their natural a½liation with Sparta and their natural di¨erences with Athens. In this innovative view of the world, the Hellenic commonality ± the koinwni a, to use their word ± is united ethically and conceptually in its struggle against the Athenian enslavers. The word koinwni a, which gained its speci®c political signi®cance only in the fourth century,12 is a grander and less formalistic word than xummaci a. It does not formally or legally bind two states to each other but 10 periÁ gaÁ r touÄ dikai ou kaiÁ a rethÄv prwÄton allwv te kaiÁ xummaci av deo menoi touÁ v loÂgouv poihso meqa, ei doÂtev oute jili an i diwÂtaiv be baion gignome nhn oute koinwni an poÂlesin e v oude n, ei mhÁ met' arethÄv dokouÂshv e v a llh louv gi gnointo kaiÁ talla oÿ moioÂtropoi ei en´ e n gaÁ r twÄÎ diala ssonti thÄ v gnwÂmhv kaiÁ aiÿ diajoraiÁ twÄn e rgwn kaqi stantai. 11 Rhet. ad Alex. 1424b37, cited by Macleod 1978, recommends deiknu nai touÁ v thÁn summaci an poioume nouv ma lista dikai ouv o ntav. 12 In Aristotle it describes the relations of citizens within a polis, cf. Pol. 1258a1¨., 1260b27¨., etc.

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rather implies a more emotional and psychological basis, the goodwill (eunoia) which the Mytilenians tout. It is a concept rather than a constitution, connoting cooperation and recalling homonoia, the opposite of stasis. The Mytilenians' purpose, of course, is to demonstrate that even while they were Athens' partners they acted or intended to act with the justice, honesty and even loyalty which Athens lacked and which (by implication) Sparta represents. The Mytilenians say that their gnwÂmh, meaning here not only their policy but their outlook and intention, is similar to the Peloponnesians' and at odds with the Athenians' ± and was so even when they were cooperating with the Athenians. This point is driven home by constant repetition: an apostasis is unjusti®ed if the two partners are ``equal in gnw mh and goodwill'' (3.9.2); ``di¨erences in action arise from discrepancy in minds (gnwÂmhv)'' (10.1); the Athenians' positive gnw mh was feigned and used to ``attack'' the Mytilenians' gnwÂmh (11.3); the Mytilenians accepted the Athenians ``against their better judgment'' (paraÁ gnwÂmhn, 12.1). The word oÿmoioÂtropoi, then, in its coupling with koinwni a, refers to much more than the oligarchical governments at both Sparta and Mytilene,13 but also to ways of life and manners which almost signify di¨erent natures. Thus the Mytilenians' statement, ``We became allies not of the Athenians for the purpose of enslaving the Hellenes but of the Hellenes for liberation from the Mede'' (3.10.3), should be read with proper emphasis: ``we allied not with the Athenians but with the Hellenes,'' and the spirit of that alliance is what now motivates a rebellion against Athens, who plays the role of the Mede. The Mytilenians o¨er a frank equation between Athens and Persia, thereby signi®cantly changing Sparta's main propagandistic line of ``the liberation of Hellas'' (cf. also 13.7). For when the theme is introduced it recalls Sparta's historic role as deposer of Greek tyrants in the cities, but it now has been transformed into the liberation of Hellas from the grip of a foreign tyrant whose threat of slavery endangers shared Hellenic values and characteristics. This, in turn, helps explain the paradoxical sentence in which the liberation theme reappears, near the end of the speech: 13 Cf. Pl. Gorg. 507e on the combination of jili a and koinwni a. It may be thought that oÿ moio tropoi in Thuc. 3.10.1 means similar intentions in entering the pact, but this would be an unnatural use of the word and is all but ruled out by koinwni a. Cf. also Pl. Resp. i, 351d: staÂseiv gaÂr pou . . . h ge adiki a kaiÁ mi sh kaiÁ ma cav e n allhÂloiv pare cei, hÿ deÁ dikaiosuÂnh oÿmoÂnoian kaiÁ jili an.

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We thought we would make a double apostasis: a departure from the Hellenes, in order not to join Athens in harming them, but rather to join in liberating them; and a rebellion from Athens, in order not to be destroyed ourselves by them later, but rather to take preemptive action.14 (3.13.1)

For the past century, commentators have rushed to point out that ``Hellenes'' here must mean the Delian League, but that misses the rhetorical point, which was correctly noted by editors before the greatly in¯uential Classen, but ignored or rejected after the note in his commentary:15 the Mytilenians are performing two kinds of apostasis at once by withdrawing from the ranks of the oppressed and by rebelling against the oppessors. At the very opening of the speech they had asserted that an apostasis is reprehensible only when both sides enjoy ``equality'' in both good-willed intentions towards each other and physical strength. One may wonder whether an unjusti®ed apostasis so de®ned would normally ever occur (Thucydides does use the word to describe Corinth's temporary separation from Sparta [5.38.2, cf. 8.3], but Corinth's apostasis from Sparta does not meet all the Mytilenians' criteria), and certainly the Spartans, in accepting the Mytilenian defectors, may profess parity in goodwill with them but never concede parity in physical strength.16 Now they use a paradoxical expression in order to draw attention to the new enigmatic situation in Hellas, namely, that the Athenians by oppressing the Hellenes have lost their share in the Hellenic community (koinwni a). Thus the paradox is not that ``Athens makes the Greeks their own enemies, so that . . . the Mytilenians have to `secede' from the Greeks in order not to harm them,''17 but that Athens makes the Greeks its own enemies, and it is the nature of that enmity which the Mytilenians present as greater than, or di¨erent from, the enmity between 14 e nomi zomen a posthÂsesqai diplhÄn apoÂstasin, apo te twÄn ÿ EllhÂnwn mhÁ xuÁn kakwÄv poieiÄ n autouÁv met'  A qhnai wn a llaÁ xuneleuqerouÄn, a po te  A qhnai wn mhÁ autoiÁ diajqarhÄ nai uÿp' e kei nwn e n uÿste rwÎ allaÁ propoihÄsai. 15 Cf. KruÈger ad loc. and scholars cited by him; but already Poppo ad loc. denied any wordplay. 16 Cleon will directly rebut this viewpoint, de®ning the Mytilenians' action as an e pana stasiv instead of an a po stasiv, a rebellion rather than a revolution, for ``an apostasis belongs to those who are oppressed'' (3.39.2), and therefore, he admits, is somewhat justi®ed (Macleod 1978, 71). Cleon denies that an apostasis can occur between ``equals,'' and using the Mytilenians' own language he forcefully rejects the claim that they were in an inferior or oppressed position; on the contrary, they were autonomoi and timwÂmenoi e v taÁ prwÄta uÿpoÁ hÿmwÄn, cf. 3.9.3. Thus between the Mytilenians and the Athenians there is a fundamental di¨erence over a key word describing inter-Hellenic relations ± not its root meaning, which is agreed upon, but its application to a speci®c situation. 17 Macleod 1978, 67.

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Hellenic states, and more on the level of the enmity between Hellas and Persia. The Peloponnesian War produced Hellenes who called themselves the real Hellenes, and rhetorically and conceptually excluded other Hellenes from that group.18 The point is not one of alliances, but of the de®nition of Hellenes. The e¨ect is to include everyone under the rubric Hellene who is ``enslaved'' by Athens or ®ghting it from the other side. The point is restated at the end of the speech, when the Mytilenians declare that they are risking personal danger for the sake of the common bene®t (koinhÁ wjeli a, 14.1), the commonality being Hellas. Thus the Mytilenians o¨er a new vision of Hellas, based not only on the similarity of interests but, quite strikingly, on the similarity of character and ethical values among those ®ghting or oppressed by the Athenians, who in turn are equated with the Persians as the ``enslavers'' of Hellas and therefore cannot be oÿmoioÂtropoi with any other Hellenes. Both justice and honor, the Mytleneans say, were absent in their false ``friendship'' with Athens but will characterize their friendship with the Peloponnesians in the koinwni a of Hellas. The Mytilenians even admit in 3.12.1 that, between the Athenians and themselves, the ®rst whom a feeling of impunity makes bold (para scoi asja leia qaÂrsov) will be the ®rst to attack. The similarity with the ideas and language of the stasis model are noteworthy (compare 3.82.7, 83.1), for they reveal the kind of mindset which motivates the Mytilenians' rhetorical program. Like antagonists in stasis,19 the Mytilenians rede®ne the entity, the koinwni a, in which the con¯ict takes place, as well as their relationship with friends and family who are now enemies (compare 3.82.6).20 The conceptual shift introduced by the Mytilenians 18 Thus it is not correct to say that ``in xuneleuqerouÄn the compound is used only for rhetorical e¨ect; for their fellow liberators are the Peloponnesian Alliance,'' HCT ii, 268. 19 Obviously I refer to a kind of stasis in Hellas between Hellenes, and not the stasis in Mytilene which preceded the revolt, on which see Gillis 1971 and Quinn 1971. 20 To be sure, there would have been questions about the Mytilenians' past actions and present loyalties, but the Spartans seem untroubled (3.15.2). The Spartans did call o¨ an invasion of Attica when they saw that ``the Lesbians' utterances were not true'' (3.16.2), but these rÿhqe nta were the claims regarding the present weakness of the Athenians, not the Mytilenians' main remarks about loyalty, justice and virtue. In 413/12, what most concerned the Spartans about the rebelling Chians, who had more to explain than the Mytilenians, was the size of Chios' forces (8.6.4, cf. 3.10.5). In both cases, as in Plataea, the Spartans seem to have accepted rebellious Athenian allies solely, or primarily, on the basis of practical considerations. Of course, if Sparta was serious in its intention to ``liberate Hellas,'' the only way it could do that, given its current strategic assumptions and before the drastic reordering after Athens' Sicilian defeat, was to defeat Athens totally (see Brunt 1965, 259¨.). It could not sail through the seas and ``liberate'' Athens' allies one by one.

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informs every subsequent use of the liberation theme by Athens' enemies in the war. Friendship and its corruptions The rede®nition of the community involves further rede®nitions ± or more precisely reapplications ± of the values which the Mytilenians uphold. The Mytilenians' concept of community, koinwni a, rests on a notion of friendship which deliberately confuses political/ diplomatic and moral/philosophical terminology. Greek moralists and philosophers maintained that jili a, friendship, at least the best form of friendship, rests on similarities rather than di¨erences, especially between two equally good people possessing equal measure of virtue.21 This is expressed aphoristically in literature through the ®fth century, and then worked out more rigorously by the philosophers of the fourth century. The Homeric line, ``God always draws like to like'' (Od. 17.218),22 was often quoted; and the Pythagoreans taught, ``Friendship is harmonious equality.''23 This frequent and common idea proliferated ``in the works of the wisest writers,'' according to Socrates in the Lysis (214b), an early Platonic dialogue on the problem of friendship. That dialogue tests the opposite hypotheses that friendship is based on similarity and on dissimilarity, and ®nds both wanting, although in the Phaedrus it is stated unequivocally that ``the good is always a friend of the good,'' and the Laws, while allowing the possibility of friendship between opposites, states, usefully for our purposes, that ``an attraction of like to like, on the basis of virtue, and of equal to equal, we call friendship'' (837b).24 Aristotle approached the problem systematically and at length in Books viii and ix of the Nicomachean Ethics, where, perhaps trying to avoid the tangles of logic and abstraction which mark Plato's Lysis, he views friend21 See now Konstan 1996, who points out an important distinction between philos and philia, and di¨erences in the use of philia for family members and ``friends,'' but cf. Annas 1977. Of the many works on Greek friendship, the following have been useful here: M. Blundell 1989, 26±59; Dover 1974, 180±4, 273±8, 304±6; Pearson 1962, 136±60; Konstan 1997 argues for a sentimental basis for friendship in antiquity. J. R. Wilson 1989, on philia in Thucydides, does not discuss our speech. 22 wÿv ai eiÁ toÁn oÿmoiÄ on agei qeoÁ v e v toÁn oÿ moiÄ on. 23 jili an te einai e narmoÂnion i soÂthta, DK 58 b1a. 24 ji lon me n pou kalouÄmen omoion oÿmoi wÎ kat' arethÁn kaiÁ i son i swÎ, cf. also Gorg. 507e± 508a.

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ship solely in human terms.25 While Aristotle typically disagrees with Plato in both approach and purpose, their conclusions coincide on the points that interest us here. Aristotle acknowledges that friendship can occur between equals or unequals and between similar or dissimilar people, but he concludes that truest friendship is based on equality and similarity (iso thv kaiÁ oÿ moio thv, 1159b), that friendship is closely related to justice, and that association or cooperation is the essence of friendship (e n koinwni aÎ gaÁr hÿ jili a, 1159b). Thus the Mytilenians try to use to their advantage a widely accepted understanding of friendship, shared by popular wisdom and professional philosophy. They use the standard language of friendship, recurring in the Greek texts cited above ± oÿ moio thv, iso thv, arethÂ, di kaion, koinwni a ± and their remarks would sound natural and familiar to Thucydides' readers. But there is something out of place. The Mytilenians seek to apply the ideals of friendship between people to relationships between states, which follow a di¨erent set of criteria.26 The combination of the private and the public sphere can be seen in the phrasing of 3.10.1, quoted above ± ``neither friendship (jili a) among individuals nor common association (koinwni a) among states'' ± and also later in the speech, when the speaker asks, abruptly interrupting himself: ``Was this then a friendship or a freedom to be trusted, in which our friendly relations went against our true feelings?'' (3.12.1).27 Here the word ``friendship'' (jili a) stands in for alliance, xummaci a, inasmuch as friendship/alliance is what the Mytilenians are seeking from the Spartans to replace their false version with the Athenians. The combination of friendship and alliance, summaci a kaiÁ jili a, was common enough in Greek diplomacy and written treaties, but in that sphere the word jili a hardly carried any of the emotional or philosophical overtones, even as o½cial pretense, 25 Cf. also Eth. Nic. 1158b1, 1161b8; Eth. Eud. 1234b ¨., 1241b12; and Rhet. 1381a±1382a. A good discussion of Aristotle's reaction to Plato on ``friendship'' is Annas 1977, which is concerned however with a di¨erent basic problem; see also Adkins 1963. 26 Perforce acknowledged by Mitchell 1997, who still, in my opinion, places too great an emphasis on feeling ± or ``positive a¨ective response,'' as she would have it ± in interstate relations. This is a di¨erent phenomenon from the blending of personal and political friendship in the polis, on which see Mitchell and Rhodes 1996. 27 ti v oun auth h jili a e gi gneto h e leuqeri a pisthÂ, e n h
Î paraÁ gnwÂmhn a llhÂlouv uÿ pedeco meqa . . . For the correct interpretation of a llh louv uÿpedecoÂmeqa, see HCT ii, 266.

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that it had in the private sphere. Of course, certain pretenses did have to be made even when the contracting parties felt no a¨ection or closeness to one another, nor ever wanted to. But there were strict limits. No one would have dreamt of claiming that the pact of jili a between Sparta and Persia in 411,28 for instance, was based on ``common ways of life'' or ``equality'' in the sense which the Mytilenians give those words. The same is obviously true of Athens' previous pact of jili a with the Persians (Andoc. 3.29, cf. ML 70), and many other such relations between highly dissimilar states which allied for mutual advantage.29 In an historical irony, Athens concluded an agreement of jili a with none other than Mytilene in 346; an inscription highlights their alleged closeness by virtue of the similar democratic regimes in each state (IG ii2 213). The Mytilenians' de®nition and application of jili a run into further problems as they continue to speak. To justify their claim of inequality with Athens, which in turn is supposed to justify their apostasis, they assert that ``reciprocal fear is the only trustworthy basis (pisto n) for an alliance (xummaci a)'' (3.11.2), again using the word ``alliance'' interchangeably with ``friendship.'' This is obviously not the view of friendship they promoted at the outset and repeat later. Even in 3.9.2, an unjusti®ed apostasis is determined by the parties' equality both in strength and in gnwÂmh and eunoia. As Gomme said in his comment on 3.11.2: ``Thucydides in fact represents the Mytilenians as maintaining di¨erent views in di¨erent contexts: `virtue' would be necessary when they were asking for an alliance with Sparta; but between Athens and Mytilene there can only be fear, on each side, and an alliance is possible only if strength on each side also is equal . . .''30 The contradictory criteria for jili a in the speech indicate a profound instability in the concept itself, produced by the stasis mindset whereby combatants perforce rede®ne their community, their opponents' and their own identity, and their formerly shared moral universe. That instabil28 Thuc. 8.37.1; as Andrewes, HCT v, 79±80 points out, jili a replaces the xummaci a of 8.18.1. 29 The Athenians had a ``friendship and alliance'' with the Bottiaeans in 422 (IG i 3 76); cf. also ML 38 (Selinus), and Thuc. 5.5.1, 6.34.1, 6.78.1 (ironic). Other instances are cited by Adcock and Mosley 1975, 206±9. 30 HCT ii, 263; cf. Macleod 1978, 65.

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ity had spread far beyond Mytilene. The di¨erent evaluations or axiwÂseiv of the concept ``friendship'' produced a kind of chaos in the understanding and use of the term in Hellas. As we have seen, the Mytilenians o¨er two de®nitions of friendship, adjusted to di¨erent circumstances (e v taÁ e rga, as in 3.82.4), which exclude the Athenians from the Hellenic fraternity. Athenian speakers, on di¨erent occasions, o¨er their own de®nition of friendship, di¨ering from both (contradictory) conceptions the Mytilenians o¨er and from conventional understandings. The Athenians of course do not engage in a direct debate with the Mytilenians about friendship, but the reader is in a privileged position to hear everyone who speaks, both publicly and privately, and thus to appreciate the di¨erent outlooks and mindsets of the belligerents. Pericles boasts that Athens sustains its ``friendships'' by always giving and never receiving benefaction: We are also di¨erent from most others in regard to virtue (goodness: a rethÂ), in that we prefer to make friends by granting rather than receiving benefaction. He who grants a favor remains a ®rmer friend in order to preserve the feeling of indebtedness through goodwill (di' eu noi av) towards his recipient; but the one who is indebted will feel a duller enthusiasm as a friend because he knows that when he reciprocates the goodness shown him (thÁ n a rethÁ n) it will be counted not as a favor granted but as repayment of a debt. We alone grant bene®ts to others fearlessly without calculating our advantage any more than we rely con®dently on our own freedom. (2.40.4±5)

Pericles, like the Mytilenians, associates friendship with areth and goodwill (eunoia), but the emphasis is entirely di¨erent. That is, to return to the language of the stasis model, the values he assigns the words for virtue, goodwill and friendship are demonstrated by actions (taÁ e rga) wholly unlike the ones the Mytilenians expect from the same words. Whereas the Mytilenians stress the equality between friends in both the ability to demonstrate and the actual demonstration of areth and eu noia, Pericles rejects true reciprocity and prefers one-sided areth and eunoia as the ®rmest basis for friendship. In fact, Pericles uses the word areth in a way di¨erent from that used in all other speeches in the History, illustrating the rather private way Athenians had of speaking about themselves and the rest of the world

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(see below).31 This of course con®rms the Mytilenians' complaints of inequality between themselves and the Athenians, but it does not make their de®nition of friendship any less or more genuine than Pericles'. Rather, both sides de®ne friendship and virtue in ways immediately advantageous to themselves. This seems a clear example of ``exchanging the conventional value of words in relation to the facts,'' but not mendaciously. Neither the Mytilenians nor Pericles hold one conception of friendship in their breast while inventing another for immediate ends. The Mytilenians' talk about values is perforce an honest re¯ection of their views at the moment. The irreconcilable con¯ict between the views of each side is ultimately more troubling to the reader than the outright lying we have already discussed. Pericles' brand of friendship is more distant from the conventional Greek ideas of friendship than the Mytilenians' is because it renders impossible any friendship in which Athens is not the dominant party. This is an important point especially for readers who rely on commentaries, for Pericles' idea of friendship contradicts all passages to which it is routinely compared.32 Further, Pericles' statement in 2.40.5, where he boasts that the Athenians ``alone (moÂnoi) grant bene®ts to others fearlessly without calculating our 31 The other uses of a reth in the Funeral Oration (2.36.1, 37.1, 42.2, 43.1, 45.1, 2 [bis], 46.1) are more conventional, albeit in a strictly Athenian context. Of the 36 appearances of the word areth in the History, 29 are in speeches, indicating a persistent concern for proving virtue in the war. In addition to Pericles' unusual evaluation of the word, the Athenian speakers in the Melian Dialogue also recognize a limited and self-serving understanding of a reth among the Spartans (5.105.4). Aside from those Athenian utterances, all the other speakers in the History use a reth in a conventional sense (on which see Dover 1974, 60±1, 235±6), even though, in some cases, like the Mytilenians, they are applying the word to treacherous actions: 1.33.2 (Corcyreans), answered by 1.37.2, 5; 1.69.1 (Corinthians); 2.71.3 and 3.56.5, 7, 57.2, 58.1 (Plataeans); 2.87.9 and 4.19.2, 3 (Spartans); 4.63.2 (Hermocrates); 4.86.5, 126.2 (Brasidas); 6.11.6 (Nicias), contrast 5.105.3, 109. Hooker 1974 deals brie¯y with the varied meanings of this word in Thucydides. 32 Xen. Mem. 2.6.35: a ndroÁv arethÁn ei nai nikaÄn touÁv meÁ n ji louv eu poiouÄnta, touÁv d' e cqrouÁ v kakwÄv caps a claim that a good friend cares as much about his friend's welfare and achievements as he does about his own; the whole discussion in Memorabilia ii (chs. 4±6) is directed to the conclusion that friendship is based on reciprocity, a good friend being ``one who does not fail to do less for his benefactors than they for him'' (2.6.5); good friends compete in benefaction towards each other. A reciprocity is either explicitly stated or assumed in all cases of the Greek maxims that a man's areth consists in helping friends and harming enemies, and that justice consists in paying everyone his due, cf. e.g. Hes. WD 351; Pind. Pyth. 2.83; Lys. 9.20; Eur. Ion 1045±7, Or. 665±9; Pl. Meno 71e3, Resp. 331e±332a; other examples in Dover 1974, 180±4, 276±8; M. Blundell 1989. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1167b17¨. contradicts Pericles. Eur. HF 1403±5 merely describes a friend helping another in need, which is common to Pericles' and the Mytilenians' de®nitions. Isoc.

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advantage any more than we rely con®dently on our own freedom,'' is perhaps not so noble as has been thought, for in context, following immediately after his defense of unequal friendships in 2.40.4, he is merely describing how Athens enjoys its overwhelming superior power and in¯uence.33 His insistence that Athens gives but never receives is in fact consistent with his de®nition of the Athenian empire as a tyranny (2.63.2). There is irony in Pericles' statement, ``He who grants a favor (ca riv) remains a ®rmer friend,'' because the reciprocity implied by ca riv is cancelled by the Athenians' insistence on maintaining the upper hand (bebaioÂterov).34 Another Athenian, Euphemus, ¯eshes out the implications of this when he tells the Camarinans that ``a tyrant or an imperial city'' must maintain friendships solely on the basis of advantage, and in Sicily it is not to their advantage ``to do harm to our friends'' (hn touÁv ji louv kakw swmen, 6.85.1), implying that if it were to their advantage they would do so. The statements by Pericles and Euphemus appear to contradict each other,35 but this is only a surface impression. The basic attitude of Pericles and Euphemus towards friends is the same, their di¨erent expressions of it adjusted to di¨erent audiences and exigencies. Pericles does not of course mean to suggest that Athens risks harming itself by sel¯ess giving, but that its ability to give without calculating the consequences illustrates its ``freedom,'' which is its con®dence based on its power. In his last speech Pericles de®nes Athenian ``freedom'' as just this, the ability to maintain its empire (2.62.3, 63.1, cf. 64.3). Both he and Euphemus express a utilitarian view to be expected from an imperial power. And needless to say, this view of friendship contradicts any serious de®nition o¨ered in Greek philosophy. By contrast, the Mytilenians suggest a more conventional friendship based on morality and on shared Paneg. 45 echoes a principle enunciated in Plato, that the best person also makes the best friend. To avoid the uncomfortable implications of Pericles' remarks, Rusten 1989, 156± 7 states that they ``must not be misinterpreted as a claim about the Athenian policy to allies'' which would be ``a grotesque distortion of the nature of empire,'' but that is precisely the point: Pericles is not limiting his de®nition to the Athenians' behavior in their private lives but is making a statement about their relation as a whole to the rest of the world. The brief remarks of Loraux 1986a, 81±2, 378±9, criticized by Rusten, seem right; also useful is Stahl 1966, 53. 33 This objection stands even if ou maÄllon h in 2.40.5 is a strict negative (I have translated it as a comparative). 34 Hooker 1974 elicits the parallels 1.32.1±33.2 (Corcyreans at Athens) and 3.56.7 (Plataeans). 35 Connor 1984, 184 n. 65, who rightly, however, points out the paradoxical uses of pistoÂn.

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identity (oÿmoioÂtropoi), but as we have seen they misapply the de®nition.36 The chaos which the war wrought in the Hellenic value ``friendship'' becomes even more profound when we encounter yet another de®nition three years after the Mytilenians speak at Olympia ± this time, signi®cantly, in the mouths of the Spartans attempting to recover their men at Sphacteria. In return for their men, the Spartans o¨er Athens ``peace and alliance and otherwise great friendship and familiarity'' (4.19.1),37 and then spell out what this means: We think that the greatest enmities are dissolved most surely and permanently not when one side seeks revenge and, having for all practical purposes gained the upper hand in war and having hemmed in his opponent with compulsory oaths imposes an agreement on unequal terms, but rather when, although it is in his power to do just that, he wins his opponent over with an eye to what is fair and with generosity (or: virtue)38 and makes peace on moderate terms, contrary to what was expected. For his opponent is bound not to seek counter-revenge, as if he had been compelled by threat of violence, but to pay back generosity in kind, and is more likely from a sense of shame to remain faithful to his agreement. (4.19.2±3)

This version of friendship shares features with the Mytilenians' and Pericles' but is identical to neither. Spartan friendship does not require, like the Mytilenian, equal standing among the partners, and in contrast to the Periclean friendship, the recipient of generosity remains a ®rmer friend for it, and both sides bene®t equally. The advocacy of generosity from a position of strength is not unknown in ®fth-century Greece,39 and it is interesting that the Spartans justify moral rightness by its coincidence with advantage (cf. 4.17.1); just for good measure, they allow at the very end of the speech that a Spartan±Athenian alliance could dominate all 36 The Mytilenians do not ignore utility, but that part of their argument is selfcontradictory: the Athenians are both strong (thus the revolt) and weak (Sparta may accept the rebels with con®dent hope for the future); see Macleod 1978, 65±8. 37 didoÂntev meÁ n ei rhÂnhn kaiÁ xummaci an kaiÁ a llhn jili an pollhÁn kaiÁ oi keioÂthta e v allhÂlouv. 38 Or: ``when it is in his power to accomplish the same end with an eye to fairness and with generosity, he wins over his opponent . . .'' taking proÁ v toÁ e pieikeÁ v kaiÁ arethÄÎ with paroÁn toÁ autoÁ draÄsai instead of nikhÂsav, cf. Classen±Steup and KruÈger ad loc.; this is a less satisfactory rendering because the recommended course of action does not achieve ``the same end.'' 39 E.g. Eur. Iph. Aul. 983¨.

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Hellas (4.20.4, cf. Arist. Pax 1082). The Athenians, under Cleon's guidance, will have none of it, and ``grasp for more'' (4.21.2). In sum, the Mytilenians' main de®nition of friendship, while located within the con®nes of convention, inappropriately transfers its connotations in the private sphere to the public sphere. This re-evaluation involves ¯exible standards: jili a is de®ned by di¨erent criteria when applied to the Athenians, who are antagonists, and the Spartans, with whom the Mytileneans claim to share manners and values. The Athenians Pericles and Euphemus have their own criteria for de®ning jili a as unequal and strictly utilitarian, re¯ecting their con®dence in their imperial power, which for them is ``freedom.'' Mutatis mutandis, the Spartans, at a temporary disadvantage, o¨er a di¨erent utilitarian view of friendship which incorporates moral uprightness. On the basis of Thucydides' text alone, one could not discover with certainty the ancient Hellenes' conventional ideas of friendship, because the varying pronouncements on the subject are made by warring Hellenes who readjust the meaning of the word and of their entire community according to pressing circumstance. Shared meanings dissolved under pressure of internal war; linguistic chaos resulted. ``Liberation'': later developments To return to Sparta's ``liberation of Hellas.'' Brasidas uses the liberation theme as the centerpiece of his rhetorical campaigns in Thrace, going so far as to claim that Sparta's original purpose in the war was to ``liberate Hellas.''40 This contradicts not only Thucydides' identi®cation of Sparta's real motive (1.23.6), but also the presentation of Sparta's deliberations, for as we have seen Spartan speakers do not immediately pick up the theme after Corinth ®rst suggests it. No matter: by the time Brasidas starts speaking, the liberation theme is ®rmly entrenched in wartime parlance and 40 4.85.1, 86.1, 86.4, 108.2, 114.3, 120.3, 121.1; cf. also 3.32.2, and Corinth's bitter rejection of the Peace of Nicias as designed for ``enslavement of the Peloponnese'' (5.27.2). In between the Mytilenians' speech and Brasidas' activity in Thrace, the freedom/slavery theme appears in the Plataeans' speech, which as we saw was most inept (Chapter 2), and twice more without a direct historical referent, although in each case the Mytilenians' innovation would be most appropriate. It is used by the Samians to chastise Alcidas' arbitrary brutality, 3.32.2; the equation between Athens and Persia was particularly poignant for Samos and all the Ionian states. At 3.70.3, the charge is used against Peithias in the Corcyrean stasis.

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the historical reference is clear. Brasidas may thus freely refer to Athens' empire as a llo julov a rch (4.86.5) ± strange words in the context of an Hellenic war41 ± without elaborating the implied equation between the barbaric Persian and Athenian enslavers of Hellas. This equation, however, does still apparently require assurances from Brasidas that Sparta's liberation of Hellas from foreign oppression does not extend to internal changes in the cities, which would have been implied had the theme not shifted from liberation from Hellenic tyrants (whose overthrow of course entailed a change of government) to liberation from an external, anti-Hellenic oppressor (4.86.1, cf. 114.3). He claims Sparta was working ``for the common good'' (koinouÄ tinoÁv agaqouÄ ai ti aÎ, 4.87.4). The full power of Sparta's equation between Athens and Persia is revealed when Persia itself enters the narrative as an active player in the war in Book 8. Lichas, the Spartan, expresses outrage at the proposal to yield sovereignty over extensive Hellenic territories, for ``instead of freedom the Lacedaemonians would be bringing Persian rule on the Hellenes'' (8.43.3, 52).42 In other words, Sparta would be abetting an e¨ort to maintain a despotism which would change in name only. The most extreme form of the ``liberation'' theme is heard in Sicily. Speaking at Camarina, the Syracusan leader Hermocrates seeks to strengthen his assertion of the danger from Athens by evoking the theme, but in a way which points out the importance of the Sicilian setting and the di¨erent rhetorical possibilities and strategies from those of the mainland.43 Sicily's peculiar position as an island of loosely associated Hellenic cities suggested comparison of the Athenian diplomatic attack with the Persian invasion of Hellas, and Hermocrates gives this comparison a particularly 41 In Thucydides' History, the word alloÂjulov occurs all but once in speeches, that is, it is used by Hellenes in situations of rhetorical stress: 1.102.3; 4.64.4 (discussed below), ``answered'' at 6.9.1, 23.1; 4.92. At 1.141.6 Pericles says that the Peloponnesians are ouc oÿmo juloi and so pursue their individual interests. Thucydides himself uses a lloÂjulov in 1.2.4, but this is pre-history, before Hellas became an entity unto itself. 42 Alcibiades uses Sparta's ``liberation'' theme in his negotiations with the Persians, with a signi®cant but natural change; he denies that Athens is in any way ``foreign'' to other Hellenes, but rather reminds Tissaphernes that the Persians are (8.46.3); cf. 8.48.5 (Phrynichus), 64.5 with discussion in Chapter 7. 43 Hermocrates himself seems aware of this: see 6.76.2, 77.1. The point that Sicilian unity presented a counter-example to Hellenic disintegration is developed further in Chapter 5. On the speech of the Athenian Euphemus, to which Hermocrates' speech is a response, see Section II below.

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sharp edge. He in fact goes further than any mainland speaker when he attempts to negate even Athens' legitimate claim of saving Hellas in 479: They did not ®ght against the Mede for the freedom of the Hellenes, nor the Hellenes for their own freedom, but the Athenians aimed at enslavement of the Hellenes to themselves rather than the Mede, and the Hellenes only exchanged despots for one who is more intelligent but uses its intelligence for evil purpose. (6.76.4)44

Here there are two innovations (so far as the narrative order of the History may serve as a guide). First, Hermocrates denies what previous anti-Athenian speakers had perforce accepted, namely that Athens had played a central role in the defense of Hellas ± its ``liberation'' ± from the invading Persian army. (Euphemus responds to Hermocrates' new interpretation by ignoring it.) Second, Hermocrates suggests that Athens is morally inferior even to the Persians, which makes the defense against Athenian tyranny at once more justi®ed and more urgent. This second argument, unlike Hermocrates' ®rst, is one which, although it is not heard in mainland Greece (so far as the History in its un®nished state can serve as evidence), is the next logical step in the development of the theme and could very well re¯ect what was said about Athens by the Peloponnesian allies at a later stage, particularly after the Sicilian expedition. However this may be, Thucydides duly recorded what he heard and what he discerned as a key to men's minds during the war. inherent natures The second main Peloponnesian theme which the Corinthians introduce at the ®rst conference at Sparta highlights the di¨erent natures inherent in Peloponnesians and Athenians. The Corinthians, it should be remembered, are attempting to provoke Sparta into open war with Athens. Their strategy is not so much to enrage the Spartans by a detailed account of Athens' o¨enses (which previous speakers had done) as to shame and frighten them by an unfavorable comparison of their slow manner and limited vision with Athens' quickness and expansive, 44 See Steup's correction of Classen's interpretation ad loc., and cf. 6.77.1, 80.5; 7.56.2.

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megalomaniacal activity. The Spartans are told that they have not fully appreciated ``how utterly di¨erent'' the Athenians are (wÿ v paÄn diaje rontav, 1.70.1), and this is followed by the famous comparison of the Spartans and the Athenians (70.2±9).45 In Corinthian eyes, the Athenians are restless, energetic, constantly devising new plans and unhesitatingly carrying them out, whereas the Spartans are overly protective of what they have, to the point of negligence; the Athenians daringly overreach their own strength and remain hopeful in the midst of danger, in contrast to the Spartans' tendency to underuse their own strength, mistrust their own judgment and despair in danger; the Athenians are prompt whereas the Spartans are loath to act; the Athenians are forever busy abroad in search of gain while the Spartans prefer to stay at home and watch over their possessions. These explicit contrasts are followed by a series of points about the Athenians, in which the comparison with the Spartans is only implied: the Athenians follow up every victory and give little ground in defeat, they pay little heed to physical safety but value their intellectual faculties above everything else, failure and success alike only spur them to devise further projects, planning and execution are almost simultaneous. Finally, the Athenians ``labor with hardships and dangers their whole lives, and least of all enjoy what they have because they are always seeking to possess more, and think that their only holiday is to do their duty and that idle peace (hÿ suci a apraÂgmwn) is no less a disaster than toilsome lack of leisure (ascoli a e pi ponov).'' In sum, the Athenians' nature (pejuke nai) is neither to rest nor to leave others in peace. The Corinthians' comparison is so eloquent and seemingly so true that scholars, not to mention popular writers, have freely used it for their own purposes. The accuracy and authority of the passage are thought to be con®rmed by Thucydides' own remarks in 8.96.5, where after elaborating the many ways in which the Spartans did not follow up their advantage after the revolt of Euboea in 411, the historian says that they were the most convenient adversaries the Athenians could have had in the war. 45 See CT 114; HCT i, 230; Classen±Steup i, 196. Useful discussions of the passage may be found in Connor 1984, 39±42 and Rood 1998, 43±6 (in opposition to my conclusions here).

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For the two sides were the most di¨erent in their way of doing things (toÁn tro pon): the one being quick, the other slow; the one aggressive, the other timorous and most serviceable especially in the case of a naval power. The Syracusans proved the point, for they were most similar in manner (oÿmoio tropoi) to the Athenians and fought best against them.46

Yet to equate the two passages is to forget the di¨erent contexts of each statement, and the di¨erent implications arising from each context. Thucydides uses the political and military di¨erences among Athens, Sparta and Syracuse to help explain why Syracuse defeated Athens quickly and Sparta took so long and almost failed. The Syracusans and Athenians were oÿmoioÂtropoi because they adopted similar forms of political management and military conduct.47 Thucydides ®rst calls the Athenians and Syracusans oÿmoioÂtropoi in 7.55.2, in accounting for Syracuse's victory over Athens, and there he explains: ``for [the Syracusans] had a democractic form of government, just like the Athenians, and they also had ships and cavalry and physical greatness.'' The personal qualities which Thucydides attributes to the Athenians refer to their manner of action in the ®eld: they are quick and aggressive, and they possess naval power, which are clear advantages to the opposite qualities in a war, as Thucydides had made clear already in the Archaeology. Yet in contrast to Thucydides' authorial comment, the Corinthians suggest a certain impropriety inherent in the Athenian character; they portray the Athenian restlessness as a personal and inborn characteristic dangerous to all Hellas, distinguishing them by nature not only from the other Hellenes but in fact from all of mankind (touÁ v allouv anqrwÂpouv). The Corinthians' comparison is more general, a contrast of character in all situations, in peacetime as well as war. The ®rst point of comparison in each passage brings out the differences. The Corinthians' opening point is that the Athenians are ``constantly innovating (newteropoioi ) and quick (o xeiÄ v) to devise plans and carry them out.'' ``Innovative'' is hardly a compliment; 46 Cf. HCT v, 322. 47 By troÂpov Thucydides does not mean ``character,'' as something inherent in a person's nature (in any case the plural, oiÿ troÂpoi, usually signi®es ``character''), but, as I have translated, one's way of doing things. The Mytilenians used the same word di¨erently (3.10.1), but authorial judgment and special pleading in speeches give di¨erent casts to the same words.

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the word newteropoioi can also mean ``revolutionary,'' which would appeal neither to Sparta nor any other Hellene, despite the Corinthians' grudging admiration in 1.71 for new methods which answer to changing circumstances. Thucydides says that the Spartans dismissed the Athenians at Ithome out of fear of their newteropoii a, acknowledging their fundamental di¨erences (a lloÂjuloi, 1.102.3). In all other Greek literature through the fourth century,48 the word newteropoioÂv appears only in Aristotle, Politics ii 1266b 14, where Aristotle says, with clear disapproval, that when people become impoverished they easily turn to revolution (newteropoiouÁv einai). Moreover, o xeiÄ v, which is the only word used by both the Corinthian speaker and Thucydides in his authorial comment, is di¨erent in each context. Thucydides means quickness as a virtue in battle, whereas the Corinthians apply it to e pinohÄ sai, saying that the Athenians are quick to contrive plans which endanger others and they are always conniving (e pinohÄsai is used three times) in such a way as to risk bringing on war. Thus the Corinthians make sweeping judgments about character which are foreign to Thucydides' observations in 8.96.49 What appears at ®rst sight to be the authorized truth of the Corinthians' statement is further mitigated by instances, recorded by Thucydides, of Athenian slowness and Spartan energy,50 as well as by contradictory assessments of similar aspects of the Athenian character and manners. Cleon, for example, complains about the dilatory Athenian (3.38.4±7),51 and Pericles, in the Funeral Oration, presents a rather di¨erent view of festivals, as ``relaxations from hardships'' (2.38.1). If it be said that both Pericles and Cleon have quite speci®c rhetorical programs, then the same must be said for the Corinthians, who (like all speakers) delivered their remarks in a certain place on a certain occasion to achieve a certain purpose ± in this case, to provoke an allied city to war. The Corinthians thought their comparison of character appropriate to that purpose. Any speech aimed at stirring up or 48 Aside from three uses in the Hippocratic corpus, not relevant here: de Morb. Pop. 2.1.4, Aphor. 1.20, de Humor. 6. 49 The same goes for 1.118.2, 6.93.1, 7.55.1 and the ®ne piece of psychological analysis at 4.55.2±4. 50 Connor 1984, 41; Hornblower 1987, 199. 51 Gomme, HCT i 230 tried to solve the contradiction by saying that both are ``true, but one-sided aspects of a many-sided character.''

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justifying a war has as its routine function the portrayal of the enemy as the Other. This task is even more urgent when the two adversaries have many points in common, even a shared identity, in this case Hellenic. The Corinthians' purpose and rhetorical tactic become even clearer once Archidamus, seeking to defer war, starts speaking. He accepts many of the Corinthians' premises ± for example, a navy and wealth are sine quibus non for war with Athens ± but argues against fundamental di¨erences between human beings. ``We must not think that people di¨er so much from one another,'' he says (1.84.4); rather, perceived di¨erences should be attributed to training and background. This is a direct attack on the basic assumption on which the Corinthians' view rests. Archidamus argues that some of the same qualities the Corinthians criticized in the Spartans can in fact be viewed as virtues: slowness arises not from cowardice but careful preparation, single-minded purpose and prudence (1.84). Archidamus does not, except by implication, try to portray the Athenians' fearsome qualities as weaknesses, but his point is that such contrasts are not fundamental and that any differences in character are less important to the outcome of a war than training and preparation. His view is more consistent with the authorial view at 8.96.5 than is the Corinthians'. The Spartan king is trying to postpone, if not prevent the war, whereas the Corinthians are trying to get the war started on a suitable ideological basis. The historian remains far above the ideological fray. ethnic arguments The third main Peloponnesian theme is closely related to the second. The Corinthians' judgment that the Athenians and Spartans are di¨erent by nature acquires another, more profoundly divisive aspect in their other recorded speech at Sparta (1.120±4), where the allies had reconvened, not long after the ®rst conference but this time with every state in the Peloponnesian alliance represented, to vote formally for war (the ®rst vote had been technically a decision on whether the Athenians violated the Thirty Years Peace). Corinth is described as the most prominent war-monger (1.119), and its representative speaks last. Once again, the Corinthian speech does not deal with the actual grievances or points of dispute with which the other allies were preoccupied. The purpose

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is to persuade the allies that the war not only can but should be won, for reasons more important, more vital, even more immediate than violations of treaty. The Corinthian speaker repeats the argument that the Peloponnesians and Athenians have di¨erent natures, but now expands it with the idea that natural di¨erences have an ethnic base. The speech as a whole is odd, riddled with contradictions, improbable arguments and questionable, even false claims ± most prominently that the Peloponnesians could easily defeat Athens at sea (121).52 Despite the fact that the result of the conference seems to have been a foregone conclusion, some members ( perhaps the smaller inland cities) apparently still required persuasion; ``most'' speakers but not all called for war in the debate, and a ``majority,'' not a consensus, voted for war (1.119, 125.1). The Corinthian speech seems to go down the list of objections or hesitations: most allies felt no immediate danger, many allies were inland and felt safe, the Peloponnesians would have trouble ®nding enough money, Athens could not be defeated at sea, the war would be long and di½cult, the gods may disapprove, the Peloponnesians would violate a treaty by attacking ®rst, and so forth. It was precisely on these more practical matters that the Peloponnesians had a weak case. These points were ancillary to the Spartans' ``real reason'' as famously explained by Thucydides, as well as to the anger and o¨ense expressed by the Corinthians. The speaker from Corinth tries to use these more technical points to convey a larger and deeper motivation and justi®cation for war. It may have been absurd to suggest that traditional landlubbers could defeat Athens at sea by building a ¯eet and quickly learning naval technique, but it is a sign of the strength of the Peloponnesians' will for war that they either believed such arguments or went to war despite their absurdity. The Corinthian makes it sound easy: only two things are required, courage and skill, and while skill can be learned by anybody, courage is a native quality: As soon as we bring our skill up to the level of theirs, we shall surely prevail because of our superior courage. For they could not acquire through study the excellence that we have by nature, but we could master through practice the skill in which they now excel. (1.121.4) 52 This is refuted both by Pericles, 1.142.6±9, and by actual experience, e.g. 2.85.2.

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The ``we'' here is the Peloponnesians, and the point is clear and familiar, improving on the Corinthians' shock tactics of their ®rst speech: our very nature is superior to the Athenians' and will guarantee victory in war. Whereas in the ®rst speech Corinth chastised the Spartans for lack of initiative and the preference to remain secure at home, here the claim ± albeit for all Peloponnesians, not just Spartans ± is for natural and inbred energy, resourcefulness, enterprise and the daring to ®ght in unfamiliar territory in an unpracticed medium. The speaker waves away any possible misinterpretation by urging the hearers to let bygones be bygones and focus on ``what is pro®table now'' (o son toiÄ v nuÄn xumje rei, 123.1). The point of di¨ering natures is expanded in a striking form in the recapitulation of the speech: Thus viewed from every angle, you have good reason to go to war; we especially advise this course in the common interest (koinhÄÎ), if indeed identity of interests53 is the surest guarantee between both states and individuals. Do not hesitate to aid the Potidaeans, who are Dorians besieged by Ionians, although it used to be other way around. (1.124.1)

The ``identity of interests'' (cf. also taÁ koina 1.120.1; 122.2; 4.87.4) is not strictly Peloponnesian, for the Athenian ``enslavement'' has either encompassed or threatened all Hellas. This conclusion is not contradicted by the distinction between Dorians and Ionians, for a check of all other occurrences of this ethnic theme in Thucydides indicates that the term ``Ionian'' in the mouth of a Dorian speaker always refers just to the Athenians. It may be true that the two strong jingoistic claims opposing Ionians with Dorians and Athens with Hellas, whether or not believed by their purveyors, are not entirely consistent with one another. But this point bothers no one in the History, and the message was apparently accepted without qualm.54 53 Reading with Stuart Jones tauta instead of tauÄta. 54 The ®rst signs of the rhetorical battles over ethnic identity, legitimacy and attachment can be found in the narration of the dispute between Corcyra and Corinth, originating in stasis at Epidamnus, 1.24±30, and the ethnic themes are played out in the two speeches that follow, although that episode did not revolve on the Dorian/ Ionian axis; in general cf. J. B. Wilson 1987; de Ste. Croix 1972, 66±85; Graham 1964, 146±9; and now Smarczyk 1990, 328±78 on Athens' self-portrayal as mother-city of the Ionians. The thesis of J. Hall 1997 that ethnicity was a social ± and, it turns out, political ± construction, would reinforce the arguments here; see also J. Hall 1995, observing the change in the basis of Hellenic self-de®nition from ``aggregative'' to ``oppositional.''

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The Dorian/Ionian opposition derives from ancient traditions, which were accepted even by enlightened opinion in the ®fth century and left a brief trace in Thucydides' Archaeology (1.12.3±4. cf. 2.6).55 Yet it was not until after the second Persian invasion ± and particularly during the Peloponnesian War ± that the Hellenes began highlighting their own ethnic division into Dorians and Ionians in order to justify hostile action against each other.56 Our best evidence for this is Thucydides himself, whose keen ear detected the shifts in rhetorical emphasis and who perceived their deeper meaning. In Thucydides' text, we ®nd that before the Peloponnesian War the ethnic distinction is only rarely used by Hellenes57 and never serves as rallying cries or even casus belli in the Hellenes' wars with each other. During the Peloponnesian War, however, the ethnic distinctions among Hellenes were given 55 The real ethnic picture was more than bi-chrome, cf. Hdt. 8.73, but Thucydides typically concentrates on those de®nitions which had political signi®cance in the late ®fth century. On Dorian myths propagated by Sparta, see Malkin 1994. 56 The fundamental demonstration is Will 1956, 57±73, whose conclusions I accept in what follows; see 65¨. for his remarks on Thucydides, and now Curty 1994, pointing out the di¨erences from Hellenistic times, for which see the epigraphical collection of Curty 1995; de Romilly 1963, 83±5. Alty 1982 establishes the same point but I cannot agree with his main thesis that the Athenians when identi®ed with the Asiatic Ionians took the ethnic barbs to heart and su¨ered from a ``lack of con®dence in themselves as Ionians.'' This is not the place for detailed debate, but the thesis is refuted by the self-con®dent and vigorous Athenian action in the ®fth century ± for which they earned a reputation for polupragmosu nh ± and by the absence, conceded by Alty, of any Athenian expression of such a failure of con®dence. Alty's explanation (1982) for this absence is that the Athenians ``feared they would exacerbate their problem,'' which merely justi®es one speculation with another. Moreover, one should not confuse the popular notion of Spartan military superiority ± which was based on the widely respected form of the Spartan regime ± with alleged military superiority of the Dorian ethnos, which was a view Sparta tried to propagate only in the Peloponnesian War; on this point, Alty is forced to admit that in all the Athenian expressions he could ®nd of military inferiority or superiority, ``none . . . uses the language of Dorians or Ionians'' (10). Moreover, Euripides' Ion, which stresses both the Athenians' Ionian connection as well as patriotic feeling, cannot be dismissed as ``exceptional'' (9 n. 46, cf. n. 55), for it is in fact central, see esp. ll. 1575±88 of the play. Given the complexities of human psychology, one would have di½culty determining ``true'' feelings even if ®fth-century subjects were available for personal interviews. In the case of Thucydides, perforce one of Alty's main sources, all we can know is what the historian records his subjects as saying and doing, what he thought they really believed, and what he himself thought of that belief. 57 E.g., 1.102.3, Thucydides says ¯atly that the Spartans thought the Athenians to be alloÂjuloi, which the scholiast takes to refer to Ionians; 1.107.2, the Spartans come to the rescue of their metropolis Doris (cf. 3.92), but ethnic sentiment here was probably combined with Sparta's ``central Greek ambitions,'' CT i, 168±9. In addition to the ethnic references discussed, cf. 5.80.2, 8.100.

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new life as vital arguments for prosecuting the war. Sharp mental distinctions between Dorian and Ionian were a product of the Peloponnesian War.58 The ethnic alarm set o¨ by Corinth at 1.124.1 is e¨ective because it carries overtones of a common view regarding the Ionians ± that is, the Hellenes living on the west coast of Asia Minor ± as being typically weak and cowardly, given to slavery (for they were Persian subjects) and poor warriors.59 Corinth's sole target in the speech is Athens; the other Hellenes not allied against Athens are said to be ``enslaved.'' The term ``Ionian'' is intended only to indict the Athenians with stereotypical Ionian cowardice and weakness, even though Corinth knew well the Athenian military prowess and actually feared it (as the ®rst Corinthian speech demonstrates). This was a convenient rhetorical adjustment, even necessary to the purpose of inciting the Peloponnesians to war. The rhetorical attack begun by the Corinthians is picked up by Peloponnesian speakers throughout the History, and indeed it is almost always Dorian speakers who exploit the Dorian/Ionian antithesis.60 That they are taking aim at the Athenians alone, not at all Hellenes who identi®ed themselves as Ionians, is clear not only from the context of each instance but from the fact that Ionians were mixed with Dorians on both sides. This is meticulously noted by Thucydides himself in the catalogue of allies at 7.57±8. Aeolians had to ®ght Aeolians (57.5); Dorian colonies and mother-cities fought on opposite sides, some using compulsion only as a specious cover for their real motive, hatred (57.6±7); the Cephallenians and Zacynthians, from the Peloponnese, were ``autonomous'' allies of Athens, although probably under compulsion, but the Corcyreans, ``who were not only Dorians but also manifestly Corinthians,'' willingly joined the expedition against Corinth and Syracuse, ``although they were colonists of the one and kinsmen of the other,'' because of their inveterate hatred of Corinth (57.7); the Argives joined voluntarily out of hatred for the Spartans and immediate private advantage, ``Dorians against Dorians, allied with Athenians who were Ionians'' (57.9); 58 ``L'opposition entre une race dorienne et une race ionienne n'a pas eÂte la cause, mais la consequence de la guerre du Pe loponneÁ se,'' Jarde , quoted by Will 1956, 67. See, in detail, de Romilly 1990, 13±60. 59 Alty 1982, 8 n. 43. 60 Alty 1982, 10±11.

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®nally, the Acarnanians joined Athens out of goodwill (eunoia) and friendship with Demosthenes (57.10).61 That pointing out these departures from traditional groupings is Thucydides' purpose is con®rmed by his summing-up: ``these were the ethne which fought on the side of the Athenians'' (57.11). The same jumbled loyalties are pointed out later, in a remark which was by no means mandatory: at the battle at Miletus, ``Ionians prevailed over Dorians on both sides, for the Athenians defeated the Peloponnesians ranged against them, and the Milesians defeated the Argives'' (8.25.5). The point of this remark is the irony that the Athenians and Milesians fought on opposite sides, as did the ``Peloponnesians'' and Argives: the war had produced alliances and friendships which divided the ethne.62 Lest there be any misunderstanding about the role of ethnic sentiment, Thucydides says, in a famous statement, that the Hellenic and Sicilian states ®ghting in Sicily chose sides ``not on the basis of some claim to justice or even kinship, but either for advantage or from necessity, according to the circumstances of each'' (7.57.1).63 This remark was not required in the catalogue of allies. What was the reason for it? Without entering into the question of whether Thucydides' dismissal of ethnic motivation is valid, we can observe that he wanted to steer the reader clear of misunderstanding which could arise from three possible sources: (1) the previous mention of ethnic sentiment; (2) knowledge of actual di¨erences which would naturally bind peoples, such as language and customs, which Thucydides himself acknowledges as a factor 61 Thucydides is not the only source for such ethnic boundary-crossing; see e.g. ML 89, Thasos' colony Neapolis remains loyal to Athens. On Thuc. 7.57 see de Romilly 1963, 83±4; Dover in HCT iv, 432f. thinks the catalogue was meant to highlight ``compulsion.'' Signi®cantly, the ethnic composition of the alliance defending Syracuse is not so carefully analyzed (7.58); Thucydides notes simply at 7.58.3 that the Siceliots joining the Syracusans were ``only those who had not defected (aje stasan) to the Athenians,'' underscoring the success of Hermocrates' program to consider Sicily a united whole. Thucydides does say that the Leucadians and Ambraciots joined the Syracusans kataÁ toÁ xuggene v, referring to the foundation of each by Corinth, but given his explicit statement at 7.57.1 rejecting ethnicity as the truest motive, this must be regarded as exceptional. Note also that the Thurians and Metapontians were reduced to such straits by their own staseis that the Athenians could compel them easily to join their side. 62 The remark also answers the Argives' scorn of the Ionians' military prowess, 8.25.3, see below. 63 ou kataÁ di khn ti maÄllon ou deÁ kataÁ xugge neian met' a llh lwn staÂntev, all' wÿv eÿ ka stoiv thÄv xuntuci av h kataÁ toÁ xumje ron h anaÂgkhÎ e scen. The phrase met' a llhÂlwn sta ntev, which is normally taken to mean ``choose sides,'' may suggest stasis.

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in ethnic identity (57.2: thÄÎ authÄÎ jwnhÄÎ kaiÁ nomiÂmoiv); (3) knowledge of what was actually said at that time ± obviously no state, when announcing its policy of alliance, would say that it acted solely out of coldly calculated interest or compulsion, but would trumpet a morally superior motive such as justice or ethnic solidarity.64 Thucydides pays close attention to ethnic a½liations in the catalogue in order to emphasize that members of the same race fought each other, thus belying propagandistic motives aimed at reinforcing solidarity and justifying the war. When his speakers make a distinction between Ionians and Dorians, Thucydides takes especial care to control the understanding of the topos. Brasidas' encouragement of his troops, ``You will be Dorians ®ghting Ionians, whom you are used to beating'' (5.9.1), is undercut by Thucydides' own remark just before this that Brasidas hesitated facing the Athenian force in open battle because he knew it was superior ``not in numbers but in quality,'' as it consisted of ``pure Athenians and the best of the Lemnians and Imbrians'' (5.8.2). This correction of Brasidas puts into proper perspective the other remarks by Hellenes who invoke the Dorian±Ionian opposition in his History. When we ®nd the Spartan general Gylippus encouraging his troops through scorn of the enemy as ``Ionians and islanders and rabble'' who are facing ``Peloponnesians and Dorians'' (7.5.4), his remark is to be seen as the rhetorical expansion of a geographical term into an ethnic term in order to taint the ethnic ``Ionians'' with the traditional weakness of geographical ``Ionians.'' It is not a sign that he actually despised the Athenians' military ability ± for by his actions he clearly did not ± nor, even less, that the Athenians thought this about themselves. Similar is the contempt the Argives felt for Milesians because they were Ionians, but their contempt was their undoing (8.25.3 and 5); the Argives' unjusti®ed scorn was based not only on the standard implications of the epithet ``Ionians'' but also on the fact that the Milesians were seafarers and less experienced in land warfare. When Hermocrates at Camarina pleads with the Sicilians to unite and show them that it is not Ionians here, nor Hellespontines nor islanders, who, constantly changing masters ± a Persian or another one ± enslave themselves, but free Dorians from an autonomous Peloponnese, (6.77.1) 64 See HCT iv, 434.

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he uses the same tactic, employing the same topos, to attack the Athenians with something that few believed, at least on the battle®eld (the same argument is used at 6.80.2). In this particular case the careful reader will notice that Hermocrates has changed a rhetorical tack he used before the assembled Sicilians at Gela ten years previously, when in an appeal for Sicilian unity he rejected the notion that ``only those of us who are Dorians are enemies of the Athenians and that the Chalcidians are safe because of their Ionian kinship'' (4.61.2, cf. 64.3).65 Hermocrates subverts his own rhetoric ± in order to ®t changing circumstances, it is true, for sides had been chosen already in Sicily, but this only emphasizes that e¨orts at rhetorical exclusion were as persistent as the rhetoric itself was ¯uid. The theme of Dorian solidarity was given practical e¨ect when the Spartans founded Trachinian Heraclea in the year 426, speci®cally excluding ``Ionians, Achaeans and other peoples'' (3.92). Thucydides makes clear that while the Spartans did not initiate the settlement they saw in it practical and strategic advantages in their struggle with Athens; secondarily they could turn it into a Dorian showcase.66 Thus the colony itself, together with the ethnic exclusions there, are products of the war. The project was not successful, for the colony came under attack by its Thessalian neighbors, and mismanagement by the Spartans, who seem to have lost enthusiasm, contributed to the depopulation of the site (3.93). The Athenians, for their part, use the ethnic distinction more sparingly in Thucydides' text. When the Athenian envoy Euphemus responds to Hermocrates at Camarina, he addresses the Syracusan's 65 Will 1956, 66, pace Alty 1982, 3±4 esp. n. 18; and cf. HCT iv, 351 on the changed historical circumstances which prompted the shift in rhetorical strategy. Hermocrates' phrase toÁ juÂsei pole mion at Gela (4.60.1) means, as the scholiast understood it, the natural enmity between Athens and Sicily, which is the point of the whole speech and is explained in the following sentence (ga r); Gomme (HCT iii, 514±15) and others have suggested that it could refer to Ionians and Dorians in Sicily, but as Gomme himself noted elsewhere, ``the ancient divisions of the Greek people were still of some force . . . but the separation from eastern Greece was becoming more important'' (HCT ii, 387). 66 Signi®cantly, the Trachinians ®rst considered appealing to the Athenians, but feared they would be ou pistoi . Thucydides has omitted another motive connected to the ethnic theme, ancestor Heracles (Diod. Sic. 12.59.4). Thus the historian judged ethnic considerations to have been minor in the Spartan decision to found the settlement. On the foundation see Malkin 1994, 219±35, suggesting that the colony was imposed on the Trachinians and explaining the signi®cance of Heracles; CT i, 501±8, who brings out Sparta's interest in central Greece.

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ethnic argument in his opening remarks, acknowledging the Ionian± Dorian opposition but, taking a page from Spartan propaganda: We, as Ionians, examined how we could be least subject to the Peloponnesians, who are Dorians, and after the Persian wars we acquired a ¯eet in order to liberate ourselves from the rule and hegemony of the Lacedaemonians. (6.82.2)

He goes on to declare quite openly that the Athenians subjected the ``Ionians and islanders'' because of their collaboration with the Persians, and ``they themselves chose slavery and tried to bring the same thing on us.'' In the space of three sentences, the Athenian speaker con®rms his country's ethnic identi®cation with Ionians in the context of their opposition to Dorians but stresses the conceptual and actual distance between the Athenians and all negative connotations of the term ``Ionians'' describing the inhabitants of Ionia. Euphemus' brief remarks were necessitated by Hermocrates' harping on the ethnic theme. He quickly abandons the issue, and does not mention it in the summary of his own speech (6.87.2); it is not integral in Athens' self-presentation or self-justi®cation.67 Just as Thucydides made clear that Dorian use of the theme was not to be taken at face value, so he corrects the Athenians as well. He remarks that Athens sent Leontini aid ``on the ground of kinship (thÄv oikeioÂthtov proja sei) but really wishing to prevent the import of grain to the Peloponnese from there and to make a preliminary test of their ability to control a¨airs in Sicily'' (3.86.4). This contrasts with genuine ethnic considerations which had contributed to the formation of Dorian alliances in Sicily (3.86.2). Thucydides' interpretation of Athenian motives is more or less repeated in his introductory remarks to the Sicilian expedition, when he says that ``the truest reason'' for the expedition was conquest whereas the nice-sounding announced reason was ``kinship'' (6.6.1). In a rare example of explicit agreement between the historian and one of his characters, Hermocrates, who as we have seen is able to use ethnic arguments to advantage, is portrayed as seeing straight through the Athenian propaganda: the Athenians are attacking ``not out of hatred of one our races (e qnh) but because they grasp at all the wealth of Sicily'' (4.61.3). 67 Contra the much-quoted Cogan 1981, 110±11, and see 283±5.

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The Athenians' own peculiar rhetorical program, as we will see, did not allow for the Ionian/Dorian distinction. In fact, the real Athenians (and not just Thucydides' Athenians) had no interest in taking up the Spartans' rhetorical gauntlet.68 The Athenians' imperial propaganda of the ®fth century emphasized their earlier responsibility for colonizing Ionia, and whether or not this was true it was believed and repeated by the Ionians themselves.69 Commonly in classical Greek, including Thucydides' History, declarations of sugge neia may reveal no sentiment or really any other fact than the relationship of colony and mother-city.70 As mothercity to the entire Ionian Hellenic community Athens could require certain obligations which kinship, sugge neia, would reinforce if not create. Yet Athenian self-identi®cation as Ionian remained con®ned within these limits; given the bad reputation of the Ionian Hellenes, there was no warrant to extrapolate common character and attributes, as the Dorians did for themselves. Herodotus, himself an Asian Hellene from a city claiming Dorian parentage, is a central source for the Athenian colonization stories as well as the best evidence for the mix of motives in later propaganda. Herodotus' contempt for the Ionians in Ionia and admiration for Athens are both unconcealed. He habitually disparages the Asian Ionians for their weak character and love of slavery71 but reserves special praise for the Athenians as the sole saviors of Hellas from the hands of the barbarian (7.139.2, 144.2). So strong is this view, and so deep the contrast in Herodotus' mind between Ionian and Athenian behavior in the confrontation with the Persians, that he 68 As Alty 1982 points out. 69 See Barron 1964, esp. 46±8, and 1962, 6 for epigraphical evidence and Parker 1987 for literary; Meiggs 1975, 293¨.; Alty 1982, 8 and n. 42; CT i, 520±1 mentions further bibliography. Thucydides states ¯atly that Athens colonized Ionia (1.2.6, 12.4, cf. 6.3) and in 1.95.1, the Asian Ionians ask the Athenians kataÁ toÁ xuggene v to take over command of the league against Persia and check Pausanias' coercion. For Ion as their common ancestor, see e.g. Solon, West 4a ( p. 143); Hdt. 7.94 and 8.44; Eur. Ion 1575±88. Persian inscriptions called Greek subjects ``Ionians,'' e.g. Fornara 1983, nos. 34, 45. 70 So, e.g., 1.71.4 (Corinthians and Potidaeans are xuggeneiÄ v); 5.104, the Melians count on Spartan help thÄv xuggenei av e neka; 6.88.7 (Syracusans and Corinth); in 3.86.2, Rhegion and Leontini, which were sister-colonies from Chalcis, make an alliance kataÁ toÁ xuggene v. But the Egestaeans speaking in 6.6.2 seem to make a distinction: DwrihÄ v te DwrieuÄsi kataÁ toÁ xuggeneÁ v kaiÁ a ma a poikoi . . . Peloponnhsi oiv; cf. Alty 1982, 4 n. 20. Dover, HCT iv ad 6.4.3: ``the point `Dorians versus Dorians' is suppressed when the point `mother-city versus colony' is made.'' 71 1.164, 170.2±3; 4.142; 6.12.3; 8.10.2; other places in Herodotus are mentioned and discussed by Alty 1982, 11±14.

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allows himself to express his personal opinion that most Athenians in his day were ``ashamed of the name'' Ionian (1.143.3, although he somewhat hedges his claim, jai nontai moi). No Athenian, however, can be discovered saying such a thing; on the contrary, as we have noted, the Athenians' imperial propaganda of the ®fth century stressed their Ionian connection. We see, then, that a traditional division of the Hellenes, always important to their individual identities but not usually used for purposes of war, is turned into a rallying cry in the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides captures the mental e¨ort by Hellenes to turn other Hellenes into the Other, the Enemy. A T H E N S' W O R L D

a t h e n s' r e s p o n s e t o t h e ``l i b e r a t i o n'' t h e m e It is curious, but little noted, that in the History Athens does not directly or systematically answer Sparta's announced aspiration to liberate Hellas. The closest the reader comes to seeing the Athenian response is the Athenian speech at the ®rst Peloponnesian congress (1.73±8). Athens' self-justi®catory exposition of history there cannot have been designed as an answer to the Peloponnesian aim to ``liberate Hellas,'' because that declaration had not yet been made in the text, and moreover the Athenian ambassadors acknowledge that they are repeating old, familiar arguments, formed presumably long before the liberation theme was developed. The most the Athenians have heard by this point is the Corinthian reminder of the Spartan historical title as ``liberator of Hellas,'' and the Athenians do not dispute it; on the contrary, if forced they would have to admit that their city bene®ted from Sparta's removal of tyrants. The Athenian ambassadors employ themes which risk causing annoyance (1.73.2).72 The speech is unplanned: other business has brought the ambassadors to Sparta and after witnessing the saber-rattling they ask for permission to address the Peloponnesian allies, with impromptu remarks. Of course they give a ®ne and polished speech ± a careful Thucydidean composition ± but as they say their arguments were used frequently, and presumably were well rehearsed by skilled 72 If proballome noiv is translated, ``causing annoyance to you,'' see HCT i, 234 and CT i, 118.

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statesmen and diplomats of the kind to be sent to Sparta on state business; facts and their interpretation were ready to hand, requiring little invention or adaptation. As in the present time, debates on history ± both recent and ancient ± were in ®fth-century Greece vehicles for current political quarrels. Yet in Thucydides' History, Athenian speakers concentrate on other problems and themes after the Spartan liberation theme is introduced and developed. One may wonder about the accuracy of this representation.73 Thucydides' selection of Athenian speeches for full write-up is quite particular and not at all obvious. Athenians give many speeches in the History, but they almost always speak in Athens or to Athenians: the three by Pericles, the two in the Mytilenian debate, the three in the debate over the Sicilian expedition, in addition to the several speeches by Athenian generals to their troops. The Athenian speech at Sparta is one of only two occasions in the entire History for Athenian speakers, in competition with speakers from rival states, to present in direct discourse the self-justi®cation Athens designed for general consumption. Euphemus' speech at Camarina (6.82±7) is the only Athenian self-justi®cation given outside Athens during the war, but as we will see it cannot be construed as an answer to Spartan propaganda. The Athenians in the Melian Dialogue deliberately avoid standard historical arguments (5.89), and their praeteritio recalls Pericles' astute avoidance of Athens' well-rehearsed justi®cation of empire (2.36.4).74 Finally, Alcibiades betrays Athens at Sparta (6.89±92). Certainly, in the war's prelude, the ®rst ten years of ®ghting and the uneasy peace ± the ®rst ®ve ``books'' of the History ± when Athenians speak mainly to themselves, there were many obvious occasions when Thucydides could have opposed an Athenian speech to that of another state, either belligerent or friendly. When the Athenians debated the proposed alliance with Corcyra (1.31.3, 44.1) they must have discussed the nature and interests of their empire, but only the Corcyrean and Corinthian speeches are given in direct discourse.75 Pericles ®rst speaks in a debate on peace and war in the Assembly; Spartan ambassadors are present, 73 Cf. Strasburger 1958. 74 1.144.4 (in Pericles' ®rst speech) is a brief encoded exhortation to bravery, not an answer to Sparta. 75 The speeches are not the only thing Thucydides left out, see Hornblower 1994, 140±4.

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but their remarks which had prompted the assembly are brie¯y summarized (1.139.3),76 and Pericles does not directly answer Sparta's announced aim of ``liberating'' Hellas (see below). Conversely, when the Spartans seek peace in Athens after their setback at Pylos and Sphacteria, they speak at length but the Athenian responses are conveyed in the briefest form (4.21.3, 22.2); Thucydides made a deliberate decision to pass over this opportunity for a sharp and detailed Athenian response to Sparta's general claims for Hellas, or even Sparta's di¨erent arguments on that speci®c occasion. And every time Athens ventured abroad there was an opportunity to write an Athenian speech, usually in direct rhetorical confrontation with other Hellenic states, but Thucydides does not even mention speeches which must have been given, much less the content of Athens' self-representation. To take one example from many: Brasidas is the only one who speaks in the Thracian narrative in the second half of Book 4 and the beginning of Book 5; Athenians, including Thucydides himself, were active in the area but are conspicuously, perhaps unnaturally silent in the narrative. There are thus no propaganda wars in the History. Thucydides allows little opportunity for an Athenian answer to Sparta's assumed role of liberator of Hellas. The reason for this is not that he thought the repetition which propaganda entails unnecessary or tedious ± the Peloponnesians are allowed to repeat the liberation theme somewhat tiresomely ± but that he judged Athenian counter-propaganda (if it may be called that), that is, what Athenians said to others, to be less important than what they told themselves in more restricted contexts. In reality the Athenians must have jumped into the historical debate about the Pentekontaetia with vigor and energy,77 but this was judged by the historian less important than his elaborate portrayals of character and modes of thought. Thucydides let nothing distract attention from Athens' justi®cation and explanation of itself to itself, which goes far beyond a mere answer to Spartan propaganda, as we will see. 76 Unless the meaning of 1.139.3 is that the Spartans uttered one sentence and nothing more; but surely Thucydides intends to give the gist of the proposal they elaborated. See Badian 1993, 156±8, perhaps a little too mistrustful of Thucydides. 77 Just as they promptly answered the Spartan demand regarding the ``curse of the goddess'' (1.126±34), cf. CT i, 202±3, 211±12. On Marathon in Athens' self-representation see Loraux 1986a, 155±71, and for other points of Athenian propaganda which can be deduced by comparison of Herodotus and Thucydides, Pearson 1936.

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Some idea of how the Athenians would have answered Spartan propaganda may nonetheless be deduced from the Athenian speech at the ®rst Spartan congress and from Euphemus' speech at Camarina, even though neither of those speeches is designed as a response per se. The ready-made Athenian arguments in both passages are designed to answer what was apparently an old charge, namely that Athens had ``enslaved'' its allies, a charge which pre-dated the appearance of a liberator. At Sparta, the Athenians claim that they twice saved Hellas, ®rst at Marathon and then ten years later at Salamis with great self-sacri®ce.78 They interpret their own actions ± not unfairly ± as evidence that they put the common Hellenic interests (toÁ koino n) before their own (taÁ oikeiÄ a). They say that leadership of the Hellenes fell to Athens deservedly and also undesignedly after Sparta voluntarily relinquished the responsibility. Athens thus sees the justi®cation of its empire as ¯owing from its de®ning, enduring act of heroism in the Persian Wars, before Sparta awoke to the general danger. Sparta, for its part, never rejects Athens' heroism in the Persian Wars, nor even its own voluntary forfeiture of Hellenic leadership. The historical ``debate'' concerns not the relative signi®cance, for example, of Salamis and Plataea but the relation between Athens' selfsacri®ce in the war and its subsequent empire-building.79 Sparta accepts the fact of initial Athenian heroism but denies its continuing relevance, preferring instead to focus on what it de®nes as later violations. Sthenelaidas represents the standard and best Spartan response when he says that the Athenians deserve twofold punishment since they were brave and good (agaqoi ) against the Persians but have become bad (kakoi , 1.86.1, cf. 3.67.2). The distinction between the acquisition and the maintenance of empire is useful for understanding the Athenian speeches, for in their self-representation to others, the Athenians do not attempt to justify their subsequent actions as honorable in the same degree, or in the same way, as their self-sacri®cing defense of Hellas against Persia. In their ®rst speech they say that fear, a sense of 78 On what follows, de Romilly 1963, 242±72; Raubitschek 1973; Stahl 1966, 43±54 and my discussion Chapter 4; on the ``four hundred ships'' see Walters 1981. 79 On the other hand, there are not too many disagreements in the speeches over speci®c incidents in the Pentekontaetia. 1.40.5 (Athens and Samos) is an important exception; also 1.42.2 (Megara), 67.2 (Aeginetans), 69.1 (Athens' Long Walls). At 1.69.5 the Corinthians do cast doubt on the Athenian achievement in the Persian Wars, but this is not picked up. See in general Raubitschek 1973.

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honor and self-interest have motivated them to sustain their rule, and they have acted according to a universal law by which the strong rule the weak; a great power like Sparta, they say, should understand this argument intuitively (1.75.3±76.2). This argument stands side by side with the demand for gratitude and understanding from Sparta and all Hellas based on the events ®fty years previously. Athens in fact presents itself as ruling more mildly than necessary, and more fairly than Sparta would rule, but su¨ering the increased resentment which mildness brings (1.76.4±77.4). Thus the Athenians do not conjure up moral arguments to explain why they refuse to relinquish empire. In fact, the moral equation of Athens' heroism in the Persian Wars and its subsequent maintenance of empire appears only once in the History, in the Plataeans' speech before their execution by Sparta: after the war, they say, the Athenians stepped in where the Spartans had held back and protected the Plataeans against the medising Thebans, so that it would have been ``dishonorable'' (ouke ti kalo n) to abandon them later: ``it was only fair that we should enthusiastically obey their commands'' (3.55.3). Gratitude, bene®t and protection bound them to Athens (ibid.). This is the only time in Thucydides that an Athenian ally justi®es its participation in the empire.80 But the imperial power Athens is never found making a similar argument. Instead, in its ®rst speech Athens explains its compulsion to rule based on purely personal factors ± fear and self-interest, and an honor which takes no one else into consideration ± and a quite impersonal natural law pertaining to power. The same factors, especially considerations of fear and selfinterest, lie at the heart of Euphemus' justi®cation of Athens' empire seventeen years later, in a wholly di¨erent setting (6.82±7). A great deal has been made of the di¨erences between Euphemus' speech and the ®rst Athenian speech, but no theory about a ``gradual hardening of attitude'' or ``degeneration of political discourse at Athens''81 80 Note 2.3.2, most of the Plataeans were loyal to Athens, and 3.47.2, Diodotus' assertion of general popularity. The Plataeans' remark may re¯ect what was commonly said in other allied states, but the evidence will probably never be good enough to know for certain. Once again on the ``popularity'' of the Athenian empire, see de Ste. Croix 1954 and his critics. 81 The ®rst phrase is Connor's (1984), the second J. T. Hogan's (1989). Other important discussions: Strasburger 1958; de Romilly 1956a; Raubitschek 1973 (cf. 37±8: the two speeches ``represent two di¨erent stages in the development of the claim of the Athenians to be entitled to rule: in the ®rst speech the claim is based on virtuous conduct, in the second on power''); Stahl 1973; Cogan 1981, 108±12.

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vel sim. is needed to explain these di¨erences. Euphemus' ideas are milder and more palatable than previous Athenian expressions in the Melian Dialogue, so no ``hardening'' process is at work; and signi®cantly Euphemus speaks far away from Athens, so that no indication is given of the health of political discourse in his home city. The di¨erences between the two speeches arise from the differences in setting and occasion: the Athenian ambassadors speak before a hostile audience at the home city of their great rival to prevent a Hellenic war, whereas Euphemus seeks an alliance in the friendlier surroundings of a small Sicilian city; the Athenian speech at Sparta is informed by the Corinthians' war-mongering, whereas Euphemus responds to Hermocrates' aggressive attack on Athens.82 As at Sparta, so at Camarina an Athenian recites themes which the Hellenes have heard ad nauseam, even though the reader sees some of them for the ®rst time. The question of the acquisition of empire is irrelevant at Camarina, accordingly Euphemus, while noting as much, deliberately avoids rehearsing Athenian heroism in the Persian Wars (6.83.2). It is important to note that Euphemus does not renounce justi®cation of empire, which is the purpose he announces in the very ®rst sentence (anaÂgkh periÁ thÄv archÄv eipeiÄ n wÿv eikoÂtwv e comen 6.82.1); he shuns basing that justi®cation on Athenian exploits against the Persians (toÁ n baÂrbaron moÂnoi kaqelo ntev eikoÂtwv arcomen 6.83.2). The Athenian is not addressing Hellenes whose grandfathers fought against the Persians or who were involved in any of the Hellenic leagues then or afterwards. Hermocrates, in the preceding speech, had raised the fear of Athenian imperial expansion, and Euphemus tailors his answer to show that the same motives impel Athens to rule Hellenes ``over there'' and pro¨er aid to Camarina in Sicily (6.83.4±84.1). Thus the reasons for maintaining and even expanding empire form the main theme. The occasion demands further development of this theme than was possible in Sparta, as well as calculated neglect of the circumstances by which it was originally acquired, but the underlying picture and essential claims are the same. In his opening sentences, Euphemus introduces two arguments which seem at ®rst sight new and di¨erent. First, he declares that after the Persian wars the Athenians were actuated by the persis82 See Dover, HCT iv, 353±4.

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tent need to resist Spartan domination; they wished to escape Sparta's ``rule and hegemony'' (a rchÁ kaiÁ hÿ gemoni a), had the strength to do so, and had to maintain leadership of the Hellenes at all costs in order to protect themselves. This complements the earlier Athenian speech; each ®lls a gap left by the other. At Sparta the Athenians expatiate on the circumstances by which they acquired leadership of the Hellenes, but state their motivations for parlaying that leadership into an empire ± fear, honor and selfinterest ± without specifying the reason for their fear (1.75.3);83 it might be guessed, but stating it overtly would have compromised the desired impression of a powerful and strong-willed city. For Euphemus, who wishes to persuade the Camarinaeans that Athens subjugated Hellenes in distant Hellas and sailed to Sicily to form friendly alliances for exactly the same reason ± fear ± it is congenial indeed to recall that Athens has been forever afraid of Spartan domination. Euphemus' essential claim is self-defense, stressing the salvation and safety (swthri a, a sjaÂleia) of both Athens and Camarina.84 Moreover, the anonymous Athenian ambassador expatiates on Sparta's voluntary resignation of Hellenic leadership in order to justify the Athenians' unsought assumption of it ± a memory likely to arouse resentment in the Spartans, but nonetheless an e¨ective debating point ± whereas Euphemus says, ``We became leaders of those subject to the King'' (6.82.3), as if it happened by itself, so as not to cast doubt on their alleged fear of Sparta: what was there to fear from a city which voluntarily withdrew? Second, Euphemus is the ®rst Athenian in the History to point out that many of the Athenian subjects had medised; they ``chose slavery for themselves and wanted to impose the same on us'' (6.82.4), a claim which contains some truth but obviously would only have impeded the arguments at Sparta. Euphemus concludes that it was ``for these reasons'', that is the danger from both Sparta and the medised Hellenes, that the Athenians are entitled to their empire (axioi a rcomen), and he repeats in slightly altered form words used at Sparta: Athens had the biggest ¯eet and the most 83 At most they admit to a much later fear of Sparta, after relations had soured, 1.75.4. Ostwald 1988, 33¨. 84 6.83.2, 86.5, 87.4. It is ironic that swthri a is the keynote of the Athenians' advice to Melos (5.87, 91.2, 101, 105.4, 111.2, 111.4); see Bosworth 1993 and discussion below, Chapter 4.

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unhesitating enthusiasm for the Hellenic cause, and had to avoid harm from the medisers and domination by the Spartans (6.83.1). This of course recalls the Athenian pronouncements at Sparta seventeen years earlier that Athens was worthy (axiÂa, 1.73; axioi, 1.75.1) because it saved Hellas by virtue of the largest ¯eet, unstinting enthusiasm and the most intelligent commander (1.74.1). The wording is almost identical,85 but one element has changed: Euphemus has replaced Themistocles with the medising Hellenes. The signi®cance of this di¨erence can be overstated, for orators must suit their arguments, even prefabricated ones, to immediate exigencies, so that no shift in thought or policy is necessarily to be detected. Yet whereas at Sparta the Athenians were driving home their demand for gratitude and appreciation, at Camarina Euphemus had constantly to stress Athens' fear and avoidance of danger, so that mentioning Themistocles was out of place, medising Greeks were what was needed. The other two elements in the formula also take on di¨erent shades of meaning at Camarina: the large ¯eet and un¯inching loyalty to allies will reassure the Camarinaeans of Athens' power to protect them and constancy towards them. At Sparta the Athenian ¯eet and dedication to the common cause, like Themistocles, are kept in the past as reminders of the gratitude now due; their present relevance consists only in the vague threat of the city's power (1.72.1). Athens' power is thus presented as a deterrent at Sparta and an incentive at Camarina. Both Athenian speakers display considerable skill and cleverness in adapting standard arguments of the city to speci®c circumstances. Other similarities between the speeches show further adaptation of formulaic arguments. Apparently Athenians were in the habit of saying that no one should begrudge another (anepi jqonon) who makes provisions to ensure his own safety.86 This was a standard justi®cation of maintaining and even expanding empire, but when Euphemus uses the phrase it has a double edge, for he tries to make the Camarinaeans see that they themselves must take pre85 Connor 1984, 183. 86 paÄsi deÁ anepi jqonon taÁ xumje ronta twÄ n megi stwn periÁ kinduÂnwn eu ti qesqai (1.75.5) and paÄ si deÁ a nepi jqonon thÁn proshÂkousan swthri an e kpori zesqai (6.83.2). That the phrase was standard Athenian rhetoric may be suggested by Herodotus' caution that the view that the Athenians saved Hellas may be e pi jqonon proÁ v twÄn pleo nwn a nqrw pwn (7.139.1). I do not agree with de Romilly 1963, 250 n. 2 that the phrases in Thucydides are used identically, or with J. T. Hogan 1989, 248 regarding the di¨erences between them.

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cautions against danger as well. Euphemus does evoke one justi®cation of empire which does not appear in the speech at Sparta at all: the empire is bene®cial to most Hellenes in its function as a kind of general police force which both deters and punishes (6.87.3±5). This was an item in the Athenian rhetorical arsenal87 which was useful to Euphemus, who could appeal to Camarina to join the ``common safety'' (hÿ koinhÁ asjaÂleia), but was naturally felt to have no place in an Athenian speech at Sparta. Thus the Athenian speech at Sparta and Euphemus' speech at Camarina represent tailored versions of standard Athenian justi®cations of empire and give some indication of how Athens answered Spartan liberation propaganda, even though neither speech is delivered as such a response. Each answers the old and continuing charge that Athens ``enslaved'' other Hellenes. Obviously, defending against charges of ``enslavement'' and countering new claims of ``liberation'' relied on the same facts and mode of argumentation, requiring only adjustments of emphasis and historical reasoning. That both speeches employ elements of readymade Athenian arguments receives striking con®rmation in the praeteritio of the Athenians at Melos, who dismiss all such phrases as ``we rule by just cause in that we destroyed the Persians or that we have now come because we ourselves have been wronged'' because they obfuscate the real issues (5.89). Sicily and Hellas It is signi®cant that an Athenian speaking outside Athens after the Melian Dialogue can still give a speech justifying the empire, wÿv eiko twv e comen, by trotting out glossed versions of history. One would have thought that, in literary terms at least, the Dialogue rendered all such talk obsolete and foolish. Here again we see the importance of historical setting. The audience in Sicily was relatively fresh. That is, we may believe that the Sicilian Hellenes were familiar with the Athenian rhetorical commonplaces, which were nonetheless still e¨ective there in the same degree that the tired formulae were thought to be in Sparta in the year 432. The Sicilians did not ``hear'' the Melian Dialogue. The Camarinaeans were Hellenes unconquered by the Athenians, not involved on a 87 Cf. 6.18.2 and Dover, HCT iv, 253.

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daily basis in mainland politics or the war between the two great powers, and most crucially, they were Hellenes who could invoke a separate unifying factor or entity which opposed them to the mainland Hellenes: this last fact lay at the heart of the rhetorical struggle between the mainland Hellenes (Athens and Sparta equally) and the Sicilians, at least as presented in Thucydides' History. In Sicily we witness the spectacle of the two great powers from mainland Hellas ®ghting across battle lines in a place whose recent unity is stressed by Thucydides, and whose leader, Hermocrates, possesses a combination of intelligence (xu nesiv), ability, persuasiveness and civic devotion absent in all other Hellenes active there. Both the recent history of Sicily ± the uni®cation of disparate elements for a greater common good ± and the character of its main leader are used to highlight the disintegration of Hellas, the deteriorating quality of its leaders and the increasingly corrupt nature of its decision-making processes (see Chapter 6). In his ®rst speech (4.59±64)88 Hermocrates addresses the interests of a commonality, toÁ koinoÂn (4.58, 59.1), which scarcely existed in the minds of many Sicilians before he forced it onto their attention. Throughout the speech he uses words and concepts familiar to Thucydides' readers from the Archaeology. He urges that one name be accepted by all the various peoples inhabiting the same land. He insists on the necessity of Sicilian unity by stressing not only the danger from Athens but also common Sicilian interests and naturally shared elements; he repeats the phrase ``all Sicily'' (paÄ sa Sikeli a, 4.59.1, 60.1, 61.2) as if it were a natural unit, in much the same way that Thucydides uses the term Hellas in the Archaeology, and most signi®cantly Hermocrates de®nes the current Sicilian disputes and divisions as stasis (4.61.1, 64.5; cf. 6.17.4). He even goes so far as to maintain that Sicilians, as inhabitants of the same land, have strong internal bonds which supersede ethnic and all other distinctions: any foreign invader, presumably even Hellenes, are alloÂjuloi (4.64.3±4)!89 Hermocrates' actions put an end to the constant changes in populations, 88 Landmann 1932; Hammond 1973; Orwin 1994, 163±71. On Hermocrates in general, Bender, 82±103. 89 Hermocrates' portrayal of Syracuse and Sicily vis-aÁ-vis Athens, and some of his rhetorical usages, are strikingly similar to Herodotus' portrayal of Athens and Greece vis-aÁ -vis Persia; see esp. Hdt. 7.138±9, 145.2, 157; 8.3, 30, 57, 142±4. Many think Herodotus' work was known in Athens by 425, see OCD 3, 696.

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brought internal political stability to the cities, and presumably (given Alcibiades' misunderstanding, ibid.) allowed capital to accumulate in common enterprise; moreover, in accordance with the patterns of the Archaeology, the strongest power (Syracuse) united disparate weaker elements for common bene®t. The Sicilians accepted Hermocrates' program (4.65.1), and he was able to assume a critical degree of Sicilian unity by the time he delivered his speeches in Book 6 (6.33±4, 76±80),90 in which he takes the equation of Athens and Persia as foreign invader to greater lengths. He speaks ®rst in Syracuse, but he expands the scope from the city Syracuse (6.33.1) to all of Sicily (34.4), and in his next speech, the one at Camarina, he makes the comparison explicit by saying the Athenians are in fact worse than the Persians could have been for the Hellenes (6.76.4), and by substituting Athens for Persia he transfers Athens' famous arguments regarding the equal danger threatening all Hellenic states to a Sicilian setting (6.78, cf. 69). Hermocrates won a crucial conceptual battle long before the huge Athenian armada arrived. the periclean speeches While the speeches of Athens' enemies become preoccupied with rehearsing the history of the Pentekontaetia in justi®cation of Sparta's claim to be the ``liberator of Hellas'' and Athens' corresponding role as its Persian-style oppressor, Athenian speeches are little concerned with answering this argument in its own terms. In the History the Athenians have another, perhaps more genuine way of thinking and talking about themselves which emerges in their intense internal debates and discussions. The gap between the Athenians' self-representation to others and to themselves is much greater than that on the Peloponnesian side, and Thucydides is at pains to show it. The Athenian world-view is contained in Pericles' three speeches, which present such a di¨erent view of Athens' place in history as to make the Periclean vision ± and subsequent uses of it by other Athenians ± inappropriate or incompatible as any sort of ``answer'' at all to Peloponnesian rhetoric. Rather it is 90 It is curious that in his last speech Hermocrates speaks before Euphemus, refuting him pre-emptively (see de Romilly 1956a, 196¨. on parallel phrases); such anticipation of Athenian arguments indicates either that the arguments were well known, or that the historian signi®cantly manipulated his material.

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a demonstration of how, in Thucydides' view, the Athenians conceived of themselves in the world. Thucydides' Pericles speaks only to his fellow citizens. His three speeches may be considered a coherent expression of policy and outlook; at least, there are no internal inconsistencies which lack a simple explanation.91 No other Athenian is given voice until after Pericles' death, and in fact Pericles' speeches themselves are separated from each other only by important narrative material with which they are intimately linked, and a brief exhortation by Archidamus before the ®rst invasion of Attica, which also informs Pericles' words.92 The composition of the History from Pericles' ®rst speech to his last is tight, evocative, resonant; this section of the narrative as much as any other bears the strong imprint of Thucydidean control, shaping and selection. At ®rst glance, all three of Pericles' speeches ± two deliberative and one outstanding example of epideictic oratory ± have the similar purpose of encouraging the Athenians to ®ght the war at di¨erent critical junctures. He ®rst speaks (1.140±4) as the Athenians are deciding whether or not to go to war, in a debate on how to respond to the Spartans' various and repeated demands ± to remove an archaic curse, withdraw from Potidaea, free Aegina, rescind the Megarian decree and in general ``let the Hellenes be autonomous'' (1.139.3). The reader has been informed that the purpose of these constant Spartan embassies was merely to frame ``the best possible pretext'' (126.1), since the Peloponnesians, out of fear of the Athenians' power, had already resolved on war. The Athenians were divided in their opinions (139.4) and Pericles rose to unite them in their resolve to enter a war which he viewed as inevitable (144.3) and winnable. On the second occasion ± the Funeral Oration (2.35±46) ± a speech was required by Athenian convention, but the need for one was actual and pressing, since the Athenians had against their own instincts surrendered their countryside in reliance on the city's defenses and their navy, and they had just su¨ered their ®rst losses in the war, unbalanced by any appreciable gains; Thucydides lets there be no mistake about 91 de Romilly 1963, 110±55 holds the unity of the speeches to be a cardinal principle. 92 Pericles speaks in indirect discourse at 2.13, and deliberately does not convoke the assembly at 2.22.1. The material between Pericles' ®rst two speeches illustrates the realization of his policy advocated in the ®rst speech; Archidamus tests it; see de Romilly 1962; Rood 1998, 136±7.

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their resentment of Pericles and their impulse to break from his policy (2.21.2±3, 22.1, cf. 11). The speech is therefore full of exhortations to courage in imitation of the fallen. Finally, after the epidemic breaks out and the Athenians begin to regret their decision to go to war, Pericles again tries to reinforce their resolve (2.60±4). On all three occasions Pericles succeeded in the immediate purpose: after the ®rst speech the Athenians rejected the Spartan claims and essentially resolved to ®ght the war (1.145), after the third speech they ``were more eager for war'' (2.65.1, cf. 59.3), and we may assume that the Funeral Oration achieved its desired e¨ect as well.93 Thus we may say that, insofar as the immediate and ostensible object of each speech is concerned, Pericles found arguments suited to the circumstances (taÁ de onta). Yet Pericles' three speeches go way beyond this primary, practical aim. Pericles uses arguments which are surprising and daring if his sole object had been so narrowly de®ned as to encourage distraught citizens and con®rm their purpose in war. Each speech was delivered on occasions so common that rhetorical topoi had developed for each. The decision to go to war or persevere in hostilities was standard fare in deliberative oratory, and a welltrained orator could draw on a stock of routine arguments ready to hand. By Aristotle's time they could be easily catalogued: a proper assessment of the power and resources of both one's own state and that of the enemy, a clear knowledge of a state's military history and how the state's military capabilities are ``similar or dissimilar'' (o moiai h anoÂmoiai) from its enemies'; a demonstration that war would address a wrong (a diki a) su¨ered by the state or its allies or that war would accrue to the state's wealth and power, that war would be winnable given the relative strengths and fortunes of one's own state and the enemy, a point brought across by ``minimizing the enemy's resources and magnifying and amplifying our own.''94 A state eulogy for the war dead was, at least in Athens, also a convention, for which there were likewise standard things to say.95 All three of Pericles' speeches, however, present 93 Cf. Loraux 1986a, ch. 2. That the Funeral Oration is immediately followed by the second Spartan invasion of Attica and the devastating epidemic, a fact often noticed in modern scholarship, may be counted as the historian's own comment on the speech and no indication of how Pericles' Funeral Oration was received. 94 Rhet. 1359b, 1396a; Rhet. ad Alex. 1425a; cf. J. Martin 1974, 167±76. 95 Ziolkowski 1981 and Loraux 1986a; cf. also Kennedy 1963, 154±66.

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either a distortion of or a complete departure from the standard rhetoric; they employ new and unusual arguments which, in the Funeral Oration and the third speech, are explicitly noted and even excused by the speaker (2.36.4, 42.1; 62.1). His departures from convention lead us to an understanding of the conceptual adjustments ± Athens' de®nition of itself and of other Hellenes ± which the Athenians, under the guidance of Thucydides' Pericles, made at the outset of the war. Whereas the Athenian speech at Sparta uses familiar arguments in an unconventional situation, Pericles' speeches before an Athenian audience use unconventional rhetoric in entirely conventional settings. For it is expected that an advocate of war would, in addition to the topoi listed above, concentrate on the alien nature of the opponent. This as we have seen is exactly what the Peloponnesian speakers do with regard to the Athenians in their warmongering speeches, and it is even a point which the Athenian speakers at Sparta try obtusely to put across with respect to the Spartans (see Chapter 4). But Pericles when speaking to Athenians does not try to drive a conceptual wedge between Sparta and the rest of Hellas, in parallel to the Peloponnesian propaganda, nor even between Sparta and Athens. On the contrary, he separates Athens from the rest of the world ± precisely the distinction which the Peloponnesians themselves make, for di¨erent and more obvious reasons. The Athenian self-separation, in Pericles' formulation, belies the Athenian ambassadors' portrayal of Athens as saviors of Hellas and consequently most entitled to be identi®ed as Hellas' leaders, representing Hellas' common interests. Neither the ambassadors' argument nor their version of history is ever used by Pericles, or really any other Athenian speaking to Athenians. In fact Pericles, most notably and unusually in the Funeral Oration, avoids recitation of history in any guise and concentrates instead on the present and the future.96 Pericles' ®rst speech Just as the setting for Pericles' ®rst speech ± deliberation over war and peace ± was routine for orators, so the structure of his argu96 And note that in his ®rst speech (1.144.4), he mentions Athenian heroism against Persia only to compare it negatively to Athens' current capabilities.

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ment is also completely expected: he ®rst advocates war and then lays out the reasons for expecting to win it.97 The proportion between these two parts is somewhat lopsided. Pericles ®rst dispenses with the justi®cations of war without elaborate reasoning or any new insights: the Spartans themselves are deliberately provoking hostility and refuse arbitration, the Athenians must hold their power fearlessly and from a position at least of equality with the Spartans (1.140.2±141.1). Then Pericles spends the bulk of the speech arguing that Athens could win a war with Sparta (141.2± 143). The Athenians may have needed convincing on this point: Sparta's reputation was still ®erce (cf. 7.28.3; 4.34.1, 40.1), and Pericles' strategy of sacri®cing the land and mastering the sea (mentioned for the ®rst time here, 1.143.5) was counterintuitive for the average Hellene. Pericles defends his unconventional strategy with an unconventional argument. A speaker urging his state to war was expected to demonstrate the superiority of his city's military resources, current strategy and past military successes, the abundance and loyalty of the city's allies, the bravery of the citizens and the overall weakness of the enemy.98 But instead of a standard comparison along these lines, Pericles contrasts the different stages of historical development of Athens and Sparta: Athens' naval power, resting on vast accumulated capital and centralized Athenian control, is superior to the Peloponnesian agricultural society with no accumulated capital, no navy to speak of and no central authority to take and enforce decisions on the group; Pericles even goes so far as to berate the disadvantages of ethnic diversity (1.141.6). Neither the temporary loss of land nor defeat in a single land battle can prevent a rich, imperial naval power like Athens from prevailing, he says. The demonstration of Sparta's weakness is really a demonstration of Athens' strength, which is taken up directly in only a small section (1.143.3±5), for the argument has already been made. The degree of truth in Pericles' claim that the Peloponnesians were wealthless farmers and in his implied claim of ethnic coherence within the Athenian imperial structure is less important than the fact that he was able to represent these claims at all and use them as a basis for Athens' policy in the Hellenic war. 97 The fullest analysis is still Zahn 1934. See also Parry 1957, 150±8; Herter 1953. 98 See note 94 above.

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Both the thought and the language of Pericles' argument strongly recall the Archaeology. The Peloponnesians are farmers tilling their own land just like the ®rst pre-Hellenes; they have no wealth.99 Pericles' statement that the Peloponnesians, because of poverty and weakness, engage in only short wars and cannot launch expeditions across the sea (1.141.3), is evocative of many statements in the Archaeology equating historical development with accumulation of capital which stimulates mercantile and urban activity, the build-up of naval power and political centralization (cf. 1.3.1, 3.3, 7, 9.1±2, 11, 13) ± all things which Pericles says the Spartans lack. The Hellenes, once they had established a common identity and then settled in ®xed habitations, mastered the sea, began accumulating capital and learned to cooperate militarily and perforce to some degree politically, became able to achieve ever-greater things (a xioÂloga). The Hellenes acquired for themselves considerable strength through money revenues and control over others; for they ± especially those who held insu½cient territory ± sailed against and subdued the islands. By land there was no war from which any signi®cant increase in power arose. . . . They were not yet united as subjects to the most powerful states, nor again did they make common expeditions (koinaÁ v stratei av) on an equal footing, but rather it was against each other that the neighboring peoples made war. (1.15.1±2)

Moreover, by the end of the Archaeology Thucydides has demonstrated that the achievement worthy of greatest praise (a xio logon) was not any particularly Hellenic event but the fact of Hellas itself, which had become more than a group of states able to combine for ever greater achievement, but itself was, by the end of the Persian Wars, a culturally distinct, internally coherent phenomenon whose members had lasting common interests and shared identity ± a phenomenon, that is, worthy in itself of admiration. All this will be discussed fully in Chapter 7. What is important here is to compare authorial statements in the Archaeology with Pericles' claims that the Peloponnesians are underdeveloped economically, militarily and politically, and that because of ethnic diversity and most importantly lack of pooled resources (e n koinwÄÎ, 99 au tourgoi 1.141.3, compare nemo menoi taÁ eÿ autwÄn, 1.2.2; 10.4 autere tai. Compare also 1.141.3, oute crhÂmata e stin and aiÿ periousi ai touÁv pole mouv . . . ane cousin with 1.2.2 periousi an crhma twn ouk e contev, and similarly 1.7, 8.3, 11.2.

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1.141.3) and common purpose (ti twÄ n koinwÄn, 141.7) cannot sustain a large-scale war (compare koinhÄÎ 1.3.1, 10.4, 17, 18.2). As an historical actor, Pericles cannot of course import or consciously modify ideas from Thucydides' Archaeology. But the historian can deliberately plant linguistic and ideational echoes from his own historical analysis in a speech he composes for one of his actors, in order indirectly to comment at a deeper level on the actor's words and thoughts. He can manipulate Pericles' speech to show an Athens conceived, in terms of the Archaeology, as the next stage in a broad historical development by which Hellenes organized around a central, strong power and, by the accumulation of capital and mastery of the sea, reached for ever higher achievement (axioÂloga). This comparison prompts the reader to wonder about the legitimacy and validity of Pericles' conception. Pericles suggests that the backwardness and primitiveness of the Peloponnesians makes a war not only winnable but justi®ed, because although the Peloponnesians are Hellenes they are di¨erent enough ± in the same way if not in the same degree that a nonHellenic people is di¨erent from Hellenes ± to ®ght against without qualm. Thus while the Peloponnesians' simple rhetorical strategy is to equate Athens with Hellas' historical enemy, Persia, Pericles places the Peloponnesians at a distinctly primitive stage in an historical continuum, implying that the otherness of the Peloponnesian enemy consists not in an immediate, physical threat to Athenian freedom ± for Athenian naval power can easily overwhelm them ± but in a barbaric backwardness making them profoundly strange. In the Archaeology, where Thucydides speaks in his own voice, each successive stage of historical progress in Hellas is marked by closer Hellenic uni®cation (Chapter 7). Pericles' vision, by contrast, uses a supposed historical superiority as a divisive factor, making Hellenes the legitimate object of aggression. Thus Pericles' unwitting adoption of language from the Archaeology at once informs and undermines his vision. This can be seen even more sharply in his next two speeches. It may be said that in the ®rst speech the vision is introduced and contrasted with the Athenians' self-representation to the outside world. Money, centralized decision-making and naval power, which are the ®rst principles of the Archaeology, are the ®rst principles of Pericles' vision as well. The Funeral Oration imitates the next stage in the historical development, which the Archaeology

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describes as the marking-o¨ of Hellas as a discrete phenomenon, representing a crucial stage in world history; Pericles substitutes Athens for Hellas, drawing attention to cultural elements in much the same fashion that Thucydides notes cultural developments marking the steady progress and growth of Hellas. In Pericles' third and last speech, the consequences of his vision are fully realized: he attributes to Athens what Thucydides had attributed to Hellas in its last stage of historical development, namely the ability to accomplish noteworthy and lasting things by changing the course of history outside the small sphere of Hellas. The immediate referent is anticipated victory in the Peloponnesian War, but the view extends far into the future. The Funeral Oration The central theme of Pericles' Funeral Oration is the greatness of Athens. Praise of the city was a standard feature of the genre, which was possibly a distinctly Athenian invention, but as several modern studies have shown Pericles' speech gives disproportional weight to the city's praise.100 Thucydides' version is the earliest extant of all Funeral Orations, making it di½cult to judge from the later ones ± which were in¯uenced by Thucydides and had di¨erent historical and literary contexts ± which parts of Pericles' speech are traditional. Clearly certain parts of the composition, such as praise of the dead men's courage and consolation of relatives, were part of the convention, as Pericles himself indicates (2.42.2, 44.1, 45); other conventional parts, such as recitation of Athens' history, Pericles deliberately skips over (36.4). But still 100 On the tradition, see Loraux 1986a and Ziolkowski 1981; Pritchett 1985, 106±24; Kennedy 1963, 154±66; Tyrell and Brown 1991, 189±215; and Parker 1996, 131±41. Theoreticians call such divisiveness as I will point out in the Funeral Oration ``schismogenesis,'' see Mackin 1991. Of the massive interpretative literature, most useful have been, in addition to the commentaries of Gomme and Hornblower (the latter cites extensive bibliography, for which see also W. West 1973, 152±5): Strasburger 1958; Macleod 1983, 149± 53; Immerwahr 1960, esp. 281¨.; Orwin 1994, 15±29; de Romilly 1963, 130±40; Connor 1984, 63±75; Kakridis 1961; Flashar 1969, answered by Landmann 1974 and Gaiser 1975, yet Flashar's main point, that the speech must be read in the context of the entire History, still goes unheeded. My debt to these works, even in the form of implicit disagreement, will be evident in every paragraph. Special note should be taken of Loraux's thesis that the epitaphios logos ``reinvented'' the city on each occasion. This interesting idea depends on the assumption that Thucydides' version contains most of the conventional elements, which must remain an open question; I incline like others to see considerable distortion of the genre by Thucydides.

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other parts of his speech were either unexpected or given undue emphasis, particularly the centrality of the city's praise, on which point Pericles again acknowledges his departure from convention (36.4, 42.2). Pericles' praise of Athens concentrates on the city's political and social structures, its moral fabric, its religious institutions and above all its system of education of both the body and the soul. As with the ®rst speech, comparison with the Archaeology is illuminating. In his analysis of Hellas' pre-history, Thucydides ®rst describes the physical formation of Hellas through growing wealth and political centralization, and then notes the signi®cant cultural developments which mark Hellas' further progress: naked athletic competition, forms of jewelry, the deposition of weapons, and so on, distinguish the Hellenes not only from other peoples but from their own exiguous past. The constant method of distinction and separation is adopted in Pericles' praise of Athens.101 Intrinsic value is measured by comparative evaluation, which is embedded in the words and syntax of the sentences of praise: Athens' constitution emulates no other system but rather is a model for others (2.37.1); the Athenian system of military education is di¨erent from all others (diaje romen, 39.1); the Athenians are the only ones who despise inactivity in a man (moÂnoi gaÂr, 40.2) and are set apart (diajeroÂntwv, 40.3) by their daring; the Athenian brand of virtue, arethÂ, sets them in opposition to others (e nhntiwÂmeqa, 40.4). The famous claim that Athens is an educational example to all Hellas is yet another way of setting the city apart, in a position superior to its object of instruction, the proof being that Athens alone (mo nh gaÂr) exceeds its own reputation (41.1±3). In this respect Pericles' Funeral Oration seems to depart from the established content of the genre, for while other existing funeral orations do include praise of Athens, the focus is rather on those qualities intrinsic to the city and not on obsessive comparison with the outside world; and the fact that all other examples are later than Thucydides' version only reinforces the uniqueness of this feature, for the later authors chose not to imitate it. 101 Not just the ideas and language, but even the method of proof and reasoning recall the Archaeology. Pericles' o¨ers a tekmhÂrion as proof of the superiority of Athens' education (2.39.2, cf. 1.1.2, 3.3, 20.1, 21.1) and shmeiÄ a of Athens' power (2.41.42.1, cf. 1.6.2, 10.1, 21.1). Athens is a paraÂdeigma for others, 2.37.1, cf. 1.2.6, after which this word is used only in speeches.

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Stranger and more unconventional than Pericles' extensive and exclusive praise of the city is his neglect of the glories of Athens' past and his concentration on the city's present and future.102 Unlike the Parthenon frieze ± that great monument of Athenian selfrepresentation ± the past is not celebrated in the Funeral Oration, nor is the present primarily refracted through the past but, as the ®rst point of order in the speech (2.36), the past is given a subordinate role.103 Pericles ± after deprecating the rhetorical genre! ± perforce starts with Athenian ancestors because that is what convention demands, and it in any case conveniently provides the important connection between Athenian autochthony, freedom and inbred virtue (thÁn gaÁ r cw ran . . . e leuqe ran di' arethÁn pare dosan), which are subjects he will develop. But he quickly passes on to a later generation, the one immediately preceding his, the ``fathers'' (oiÿ pate rev hÿmwÄn), who he says are more worthy of praise than all previous generations because they assembled the greater part of the Athenian empire. Notably Pericles does not refer to the heroics of the Persian Wars but to the activities of the ®fty years after that. Marathon or Salamis are not mentioned by name even once.104 Thus Athens' ``freedom'' and ``virtue'' are both to be found not so much in the defense against tyranny as in the amassing of great personal power.105 The present generation ± the Athenian audience ± receives the highest praise of all since it has, while still ``in the prime of life,'' built on past accomplishment and brought the city to a greater level of preparation, strength and perfection than ever before. Thus the newly fallen are not grouped with past heroes and the present generation is not asked to gaze upon the glories of the city's past and try to measure up. They are told rather that their real challenge will be comparison with the city's latest heroes, and more importantly, that their city as a whole far exceeds all greatness even of its own past. The city is superior even to its own reputation (a kohÄ v krei sswn) because of its unprecedented nature; only the city can furnish su½cient praise of 102 See esp. Ziolkowski 1981; Orwin 1994, 16±17. I should point out that praise of Athens as ``®rst in Hellas'' vel sim. ± e.g. prwÂthn e n toiÄ v  Ellhsin (Hippocrates' phrase at 4.95.3) ± can be found in literature of the time, but this is not the same as Pericles' vision of Athens as a breed apart. 103 Contrast Osborne 1987, 103±4. 104 Cf. Loraux 1986a, 155±71. 105 See Raa¯aub 1985, 233±48; on the problematic place of democracy in the speech, Loraux 1986a, 183±92.

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itself; no ``Homer'' or any common poet is needed or is even capable of singing the city's praises (2.41.4); the earth itself, land and sea (paÄ sa qaÂlassa kaiÁ ghÄ ), is witness to Athens' greatness. The present generation and future generations will marvel at the city (qaumasqhsoÂmeqa): Pericles is saying that Athens in its present form opens a new historical epoch which can only be understood by, and therefore must be measured against, the future and not the past, for only in the future will proper words be found to praise the city; citing Homer ± a Greek instinct ± means looking backward, using the wrong instrument of comparison; instincts must be broken. This is why the Athenian object in the present war, and in fact in all wars Athens must ®ght, is di¨erent from the object of Athens' opponents,106 for Athens is defending not only itself but a unique historical accomplishment which, Pericles goes on to say, bene®ts not just Athens but all Hellas and indeed all mankind. By praising the city as the ful®llment of, or a new advanced stage in, an unbroken historical progress, Pericles hopes to reveal its new and unprecedented nature and thereby to praise and reveal the true character and nature of the Athenians themselves, both the memorialized dead and those now listening to him. The transformed nature not only of the city but also of its inhabitants is Pericles' most daring, radical and di½cult claim. Yet he says quite clearly that it is not by preparations and tricks but by the Athenians' own inborn courage to act (twÄÎ . . . e v taÁ e rga euyuÂcwÎ, 2.39.1) and manner of living that they defeat opponents, and further that it is their special way of life rather than rigorous training which plants courage in them (39.4). An expected point, that is we are stronger and better prepared than the enemy, thus appears in unexpected guise; Pericles disparages standard military preparation in favor of a superiority to be found in political and social choices and manners, preparing the Athenians for any contingency. Inevitably this argument has raised practical questions ± such as, whether these words are aimed at Sparta, or whether Pericles has blurred the truth107 ± but these concerns should not interfere with the question of the place of these remarks (2.39) in Pericles' 106 . . . mhÁ periÁ i sou hÿmiÄ n ei nai toÁn a gwÄna kaiÁ oi
v twÄnde mhdeÁ n uÿpaÂrcei oÿmoi wv (2.42.1). 107 Gomme, HCT ii, 117 assumes Sparta is the target; see Gaiser 1975, 39±45 on the ``Diskrepanz zwischen Idealbild und historischer Wirklichkeit'' in the whole speech; Hornblower, CT i, 303±4 (q.v. for bibliography) deems the claim in 2.39 ``silly'' and impossible.

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ideological program. Although Pericles sounds very much like the stasiotai who ``contemptuously presume that they will foresee any danger and have no need of practical steps when they can use their intellect to deal with all contingencies'' (3.83.4),108 we must believe the sincerity of his claim that the Athenians had through the perfection of their city achieved a superior nature obviating the need for standard preparations against danger. The progression of thought after ch. 39, proceeding to an elaborate description of the Athenians' character and values, only reinforces the idea. Athenians, Pericles says, love nobility, wealth and wisdom without excess, they value informed political engagement, never act without full and mutual consideration of all factors, in a unique marriage of logos and ergon, and express their virtue in a (to Pericles' eyes) generous form of friendship (2.40).109 The sequence of thought is capped by the remarkable idea that the individual and the city are subsumed in each other (ch. 41). Every Athenian, he says, having been raised in the city which has reached the peak of self-su½ciency (autarkesta th, 36.3), has in turn gained a sound self-su½ciency (toÁ swÄma autarkev, 41.1). ``That this is no boastful waste of words suited for the occasion but the actual truth of the matter, the very power of the city, which we have acquired by following this very way of life, furnishes adequate proof '' (41.2, cf. also 42.3). The city has made the individuals and the individuals have made the city. Since the newly fallen, Pericles goes on to say (chs. 42±3), represent in their deaths the qualities of the city he has been praising, his praise of the city is praise of them (42.2). The identi®cation of the individual and the city is thus evident, the individual's identity and his personal attachments all being subsumed in the city. As Pericles says in his last speech, the welfare of the whole state guarantees the welfare of each individ108 Cf. Pericles' third speech, 2.62.5: thÁn toÂlman apoÁ thÄv oÿ moi av tuÂchv hÿ xuÂnesiv e k touÄ uÿpe rjronov e curwte ran pare cetai . . . 109 On Pericles' notion of friendship, above pp. 141±4. On the frequently misinterpreted sentence in 2.40.1, see Rusten 1985 and 1989, 152±3. On logos and ergon in 2.40.2±3, 42.2, Parry 1957, 159±75; Kakridis 1961, 55±6, 87±8. In my view, logos and ergon start out separate in the speech, when Pericles contrasts his logos with the fallen's erga, but they become united when he speaks of the city and the individual. See also the commentaries of Gomme and Hornblower ad loc. on the problems of interpreting kri nome n ge h e nqumouÂmeqa. The phrase refers to two di¨erent kinds of deliberative/decision-making processes in the Athenian system: some matters require judgment and decision, others merely comprehension and recording; thus kri nomen when appropriate, e nqumou meqa when appropriate, and orqwÄv applies to both verbs.

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ual citizen, so that each individual should regard the state's own fortunes as his own (2.60.2±3).110 Thus the highest form of emulation and self-expression must be not imitation of any particular past act of bravery but complete surrender and devotion to the city: the Athenians must ``gaze on the city's power every day and become its lovers'' (2.43.1).111 The word Pericles uses is not ji loi, which would signify a tamer, more intellectual appreciation and abstract love preserving the integrity of the individual, but e rastai , physical lovers who give in to a passion which was thought to be both sweet and destructive, controlling a person rather than being controlled by him.112 Eros for the city and its dynamis usurps the objects of current obsessions ± houses, land, individual glory. The city's dynamis is even greater than the city's physical and military strength, referring to the totality of the city on which Pericles expatiates; there is no one word in the language available to Thucydides' Pericles which expresses both the city's physical strength and its higher level of development, so that Pericles uses dynamis in an expanded way.113 In his third speech (2.62.3) he tells the Athenians that their dynamis cannot be compared with houses and ®elds, which should be regarded as a mere ornament of luxury (e gkallw pisma), and therefore expendable. Then he adds, crucially: ``You must understand that freedom, if we steadfastly preserve it, will easily restore these losses, whereas if we become subordinate to others even what we have already acquired is likely to diminish'' (ibid.). 110 On the individual subduing himself to the city, see the detailed analysis by Rusten 1986 of ``the soldier's choice'' in 2.42.4, although, as argued above, I think that the requirements placed on individuals are even more radical than Rusten allows. This same Athenian devotion is already perceived by the Corinthian speaker: e ti deÁ toiÄ v meÁ n swÂmasin a llotriwtaÂtoiv u peÁ r thÄv poÂlewv crwÄ ntai, thÄÎ deÁ gnwÂmhÎ oi keiotaÂthÎ e v toÁ praÂssein ti uÿ peÁ r authÄv, 1.70.6. Thucydides ascribes Athens' ruin to the preference of the individual over the state, 2.65.7. On Athenian civic ideology cf. Strasburger 1954a, and see Goldhill 1990, 109¨. and Macleod 1983, 150±3 on the relationship between the individual and the state. The passages to which modern critics compare Pericles' statement do not say the same thing; e.g., Soph. Ant. 184¨., Xen. Mem. 3.7.9. 111 . . . maÄllon thÁn thÄv po lewv du namin kaq' hÿ me ran e rgwÎ qewme nouv kaiÁ e rastaÁ v gignome nouv authÄv. The only objection to taking authÄv as referring to poÂliv and not duÂnamiv is the disturbing implications. e rgwÎ contrasts with lo gwÎ earlier in the sentence and is hard to bring across in translation. 112 See articles on ``Eros'' in OCD 3 and RE vi; for recent work on jili a, see above Chapter 2, n. 21. 113 Contrast the conventional use by the Athenian ambassadors in Sparta, 1.73.5, 76.3, 77.3; compare also the di¨erent uses of axi a in 1.73.1, 76.2 and 2.39.4.

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Eros for the city's power and submission to it are thus said paradoxically to be the source of the Athenians' freedom, both as individuals and as a corporate body.114 The city's power is the individual's freedom. On one level the city's power maintains the empire, which by ruling over others frees the citizens from being ruled themselves. Yet on another level the empire and the city are comprised of and sustained by the surrender of each individual to the city as a lover, so that the individual ®nds his own ultimate freedom by surrendering it to the city. ``Success is freedom and freedom is courage,'' Pericles declares (2.43.4),115 apparently meaning that the Athenians must preserve their freedom by ®ghting for it courageously, just as the recently fallen have done. Their ``success'' or ``happiness'' requires a sel¯ess defense of the city. His explanation, however: For those who are faring miserably and have no hope of improvement are not more justly unsparing of their lives than those for whom a reversal while they are still alive poses a real danger and for whom it makes the greatest di¨erence if they fall. For degradation that comes from cowardice is surely more painful to a man of courageous spirit than death which comes unperceived while he is in full strength and buoyed by optimism for his country. (2.43.5±6)116

The scholiast remarks that ``the thought is paradoxical and contrary to our customary usage,'' because it was common to think that someone who had nothing to lose and everything to gain would ®ght with less regard for his life than a person of good fortune who equated preservation of his own life with preservation of the enjoyment of his fortune. Yet Pericles turns this common belief around: a successful person will ®ght more bravely, and with better reason for doing so and less concern for preserving himself, since he cannot imagine living in conditions less fortunate than the present, a loss which defeat would surely bring. And then, not uncommonly in Thucydides, an explanation of the explanation: surviving a reversal, especially as a result of cowardice ( perceived or actual), is an awful fate; better, and more suited to a brave character, to die with no notice of death while ®ghting with one's 114 On what follows, compare Diller 1962. 115 toÁ eudaimon toÁ e leuÂqeron, toÁ d' e leuÂqeron toÁ euyucon kri nantev. 116 The following discussion will explain why I do not agree with the scorn Hussey (quoted in CT i, 312) pours on this sentence.

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full powers optimistically ± here is the key phrase ± to preserve one's larger corporate identity (metaÁ koinhÄ v e lpi dov).117 Twentieth-century critics who have seen the Funeral Oration as something more (or less) than glorious praise of democracy have been disturbed by the implications of the appeal for total surrender of self to city. But the experience of modern totalitarianism should not de¯ect attention from Pericles' rhetoric in its setting, that is not only the ®fth century bce but a horri®c Hellenic war as recorded and interpreted by Thucydides. Pericles' de®nition of freedom as both the domination of others and equally the subordination of self to the city, is new and fundamentally di¨erent from the customary understanding of the concept at the time. The e rga which correspond to the value of the word have changed, as in stasis. Other linguistic transvaluations follow in its wake. There is, for example, an acknowledged shift in the word a pragmosu nh, which while normally a positive value118 has become a negative value in the lexicon of the new Athens. ``We alone,'' says Pericles, ``consider the man who abstains from public a¨airs not as quietist but as useless'' (2.40.2),119 and withdrawal from public life comes under heavy attack in the last speech, where Pericles equates apragmosuÂnh with an avoidance of public responsibility which is directly harmful to the state (63.2); passivity is possible only under active protection, he says (63.3), and he has only scorn for the apra gmwn who claims no interest in the rich bene®ts of empire (64.4). The devotion which the city requires has converted a positive social value into a negative one.120 Pericles does not invent new concepts so much as rede®ne them for the Athenians. The vision is a private one, expressed in what is almost a private language. Pericles says that not only can Athens not a¨ord to think in the conventional manner, but that convention cannot accurately re¯ect its true nature and purpose.121 117 The suppressed role of the individual in Pericles' vision may also account for what has been felt to be inadequate consolation of widows and family, e.g. HCT ii, 143. 118 HCT ii, 121±2; Carter 1986, esp. 26±51. 119 moÂnoi gaÁ r toÂn te mhdeÁ n twÄnde mete conta ouk a praÂgmona, a ll' a creiÄ on nomi zomen. 120 Corcyra also found out that a pragmosu nh may not be a virtue (1.32.5). Cf. 3.82.5, in stasis activity is valued over inactivity, even if doing nothing was the more prudent course. 121 Note also the contrasting use of the same words in 2.40.3 and 2.62.4±5 vs. 3.12.1; also 2.62.5 compared with 5.103 (and cf. HCT ii, 172±3), where the struggle is between conventional Hellenic values and beliefs on the one hand and rational calculation of interests and acknowledgment of reality on the other.

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In Pericles' vision, Athens has advanced beyond the last stage recorded in the Archaeology to a higher political and cultural plane enabled and con®rmed by its unprecedented physical power, empire, military capacity and cultural achievement. Thucydides' criticism is latent in the parallels: Pericles' vision is falsi®ed by its violation of a cardinal principle of the Archaeology, namely Hellenic unity, the increasing ability to do things ``in common,'' enabling each advance in cultural development and noteworthy achievement. Pericles' proposition that Athens represents the next step in Hellenic development is therefore false since his rhetoric serves only further to divide Athens from the rest of Hellas in his listeners' minds and thus in fact (attachment is a subjective thing). This division, and the suggestion of stasis, are reinforced by the re-evaluations of certain common words. As many have noted, the optimism of Pericles' message is undermined by the epidemic narrative which follows immediately (2.47¨.), demonstrating the quick demise of the internal cohesion and universal adherence to shared laws, morals and ways of life, lauded by Pericles. Yet the clues for reading the Funeral Oration are planted in the speech itself. Pericles' third speech The concept of melding one's private and corporate identity in order to face danger courageously and preserve one's freedom actuates Pericles' remarks in his last speech as well. There he tells the Athenians that they have no choice but to defend their freedom; the issue is existential (2.61.1). The greatest threat to their freedom ± or more precisely, free action ± is the sudden and unexpected, especially something as devastating as the epidemic, which ``enslaves the spirit,'' douloiÄ jroÂnhma (2.61.3).122 Freedom in the great city means not being defeated by adversity: ``You inhabit a great city and have been brought up with customs which correspond to this greatness, and thus must willingly withstand the greatest misfortunes'' (61.4). Personal safety gives way to the city's safety. Near the end of this speech (ch. 63), Pericles informs the 122 Again, Pericles pleads for a perfect union of logos and ergon. They rejected his logos, he says in 2.61.2, because the facts became unpleasant. Classen±Steup point out parallels in 4.34.1 and 7.71.3. On what follows see Edmunds 1975a.

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Athenians that they have no choice but to retain their empire, just as the ``man of courageous spirit'' has little choice but to ®ght bravely for what he has and what he is. Pericles says that the Athenians' choice is not between slavery and a freedom conceived merely as the opposite of slavery ± a familiar opposition (doulei a ant' e leuqeri av) ± but between safety and a deeper danger than loss of material freedom, that is, the freedom by which they, as holders of empire, are de®ned. So important is universal participation within the city that the non-participation and inaction of some are ruinous. Pericles' last speech rounds o¨ the parallels with the Archaeology, recalling the last stage in Hellas' historical development, the realization of the capability of great achievement. Like Thucydides in the Archaeology, Pericles shows a fondness for superlatives to describe Athens' past achievement and present state of existence.123 In one powerful sentence (2.64.3) he declares that Athens has the greatest name and has expended the greatest number of lives and labors in war, that Athens' dynamis is the greatest that ever was (another indication that dynamis means more than physical power), that Athens rules over the largest number of Hellenes in history, that the city has prevailed in the greatest wars and has become the richest and greatest city. The important implication is that Athens with its unprecedented power ± military and material, as in the Archaeology ± can or actually is doing something ``worthy of being told.'' Pericles then tells the Athenians something which he claims they have never realized and he has never told them, as if disclosing a secret, in fact working out an important implication of the Archaeology: the world is divided into two, land and sea, and the Athenians control fully one half, the sea, even if they do not have physical possession over all of it at the moment, and no one, ``neither the King nor any other people now in existence'' can prevent their free sailing wherever they want (2.62.2); control of the sea also means control of a great portion of land (2.39.3, 41.4). Pericles shortly thereafter asserts that Athens' great reputation extends ``to all mankind'' (e n apasin anqrw poiv, 2.64.3), by which he seriously means the entire world of which Hellas is only a part. By these statements Pericles has entirely reordered the world according to unfamiliar divisions. 123 CT i, 339; Macleod 1983, 153.

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``Land and sea'' was familiar enough,124 but for the world to be divided not between Hellas and the barbaros but between Athens and all other peoples and nations, would cause cognitive dissonance in an ordinary Hellene. Persia is not a separate factor in the self-de®nition of this Hellas but is only part of one side which includes Hellenes. When the ®rst Spartan to speak, King Archidamus, suggests soliciting Persian aid against Hellenic enemies, standard categories still hold; but Pericles mentions the Persian king (in perhaps a reference to Sparta's attempted alliance with him, another attempt following Pericles' death, 2.67) simply to declare that Athens not only does not need him but in fact is even stronger than he on the sea. The Persian king is only a subset of one half of Pericles' two-fold division of the world.125 When Pericles mentions ``the greatest wars'' in 2.64.3, he lumps together all of Athens' wars against the Persians and Hellenes, just as in the Funeral Oration he spoke of baÂrbaron kaiÁ  E llhna pole mion, the nonHellenic and Hellenic enemy, as existential trials on an equal footing. Thus Pericles' last speech comes close to negating the very concept and fact of Hellas, since he portrays Athens as having achieved not the next stage in Hellenic development but in historical development from a larger perspective. The Athenians themselves, of course, may have had trouble accepting ± or understanding? ± Pericles' vision, but they did in fact follow his advice ( just as they subsequently followed Cleon), and they had at least in some measure to accept the implications of Pericles' words, which represent the psychological shifts necessary for ®ghting the Hellenic war on the scale they had undertaken. The parallels to the Archaeology in all three speeches enable the reader to see the complexity involved in rede®ning a koinwni a to justify internal war. When Pericles declares that Athens makes the city koinh to all (2.39.1), on the surface he means merely accessible, but latent in this word is the concept of Athens as the center of a new koinwni a which has reorganized the world, 124 See bibliography listed at CT i, 9. 125 Alcibiades, in one of his several echoes of Pericles, makes a similar observation about land and sea power and gives the Persian satrap the sound advice to autouÁv periÁ eÿ autouÁv touÁ v  Ellhnav katatriÄ yai (8.46). In this light, Pericles' division of the world is in fact a recipe for division of the Hellenic world.

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distinguishing those who follow and imitate Athens from those who are di¨erent from and oppose it (cf. also 2.37.1, 2; 42.3, 43.6). Thus Pericles' three speeches illustrate two of the basic principles of stasis rhetoric: a transvaluation of words and an elaborate re-ordering of the koinwni a and Athens' relation to it. His conception of Athens' place in the world and of its unique historical moment incorporates all of the elements by which the Athenians famously de®ne Hellas in Herodotus' History: ``our shared Hellenic identity: our kinship and common language, the gods' shrines and sacri®ces which belong to all of us as well as our habits and character which stem from a common upbringing'' (8.144.2). Of course, in a wartime speech ± which an epitaphios logos must necessarily be ± no leader will stress its natural connections to the enemy. Yet Pericles distorts the convention of the epitaphios logos and the standard ways of talking about Hellas and Hellenic history. Thucydides both points to this and o¨ers a subtle but critical comment on it by planting parallels between Pericles' speeches and the Archaeology. Pericles' vision was destructive rather than creative, delusional rather than visionary.

chapter 4

The failure of communication

When words are given new evaluations and the community, koinwni a, has undergone radical rede®nition by contending parties ± that is, when the ®rst two phenomena of stasis rhetoric have manifested themselves ± communication breaks down. People who in the past had shared language, religious beliefs and practices, moral systems, and social and political institutions, not only stop sharing all those elements of mutual identity but also lose the ability to understand each other ± even when they want to ± once those bases for mutuality disappear. Words, aside from failing as a vehicle for mutual comprehension, become another violent and especially treacherous weapon in the arsenals of the contending factions. We shall study two examples of this in the History. athens at sparta Many of the speeches we have discussed so far demonstrate the failure of two parties to communicate. The Plataeans failed to make the Spartans understand them in their own terms; the Spartans used the wrong arguments at Athens. The ®rst, and one of the best examples of failed communication appears in the debate at Sparta before the war, when Thucydides ®rst gives the Athenians full voice (1.73±8).1 The Athenians open their speech with what, as we have seen, had become a commonplace in their self-representation to other Hellenes, that is, their actions in the Persian Wars, which were routinely evoked to justify their empire: the Athenians sacri®ced 1 See Raubitschek 1973, to which I am heavily indebted; HCT i, 235±46, 252±7; CT i, 117± 25; de Romilly 1963, 242±72; Stahl 1966, 43±54; Orwin 1994, 44±50 (disagreeing with Raubitschek); and now Crane 1998, 264±85 and Lang 1999 (comparing it to Hdt. 8.140±4).

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their city for the common cause of Hellas, contributed the most ships and the best commander, and fought with courage and virtue; without their heroic e¨ort Hellas would have been enslaved to the Persians; Athens was asked to assume leadership of the Hellenic alliance once Sparta relinquished it, and although Athens did thus not seek out empire, relinquishing it would be too dangerous (1.73±5; cf. Hdt. 7.139). The Athenians argue, moreover, that they have done what anyone, including the Spartans, would have done, namely, retain power out of consideration for their own honor, fear and self-interest; although an appeal to justice is obsolete and contradicts the natural tendency and desire of the strong to rule the weak, the Athenians rule with a greater measure of justice than stark calculation of interest and advantage would require, a fact which has made them even more hated by their ``allies'' (1.76±7). This was not exactly a speech designed to calm fears regarding Athens' character and intentions; it sounds more like a combined challenge and threat, and in fact it only further infuriated its hearers, judging from King Archidamus' immediate attempt to curb such a reaction, the ephor Sthenelaidas' belligerent refusal to be appeased and the Spartans' un¯inching vote for war which duly followed.2 It is puzzling that the content of the speech so openly contradicts the Athenians' announced three-fold purpose, i.e., (a) not to answer speci®c charges but to encourage the Peloponnesians to deliberate slowly and carefully about what would be a great and perilous war, (b) to justify the Athenian empire and (c) to show that their city is ``worthy'' (axi a loÂgou, 1.73.1, 78). The ®rst requirement is met only by the commonplace remarks ± tacked on at the very end, after the main arguments are completed ± regarding the unpredictability of war and the need to think twice and three times before starting one.3 The second point is made by the routine rehearsal of their defense against the second Persian invasion, demonstrating that the Athenians nearly single-handedly saved Hellas and that they maintained their empire afterwards because of the three factors already mentioned, fear, honor and self-interest. Aside from accumulating 2 Gomme (HCT i, 253±4) thought the speech seemed ``purposely provocative'' especially in its repeated taunts of Sparta. 3 In contrast to Pericles' own view, as Raubitschek 1973, 46±7 points out.

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debating points, it is uncertain what any clear-thinking Athenian speaker would expect to gain by such an argument to a Spartan audience ± certainly not gratitude, although a claim is put in for it, and even less so approval of the Athenian empire. The third point is presumably made when the Athenians praise their city for exceeding or violating a supposed law of nature ± the strong rules the weak ± by bringing itself down to the level of its allies in matters of adjudication; again, this point could only have succeeded in magnifying the Spartans' fear of Athens' huge and everincreasing power. Yet we are forced to believe, from the text of the Athenians' speech, that the Athenian speakers thought their hearers would understand and appreciate their announced intentions and actually incline to peace out of respect for Athens and fear of the hazards of war. If this seems too fantastic, one may try to suppose that the Athenians' announced three-fold purpose was meant to dissemble their real purpose, which was to provoke Sparta to war, but this option is ruled out by Thucydides' own explanation of the Athenians' intentions (1.72.1). At least he did not view the speech as one of disguised provocation. He apparently anticipated that a reader would wonder not only why the Athenian ambassadors requested special permission to speak in such unusual circumstances, but even more so why they chose the words he gave them. Thus he explains that the Athenians, ®rst, wanted to discourage the Spartans from reaching too hasty a decision about war, a point which agrees with the Athenians' own statement; but they also, he says, wanted to demonstrate how great was their city's power, duÂnamiv, in order to direct the Spartans' thoughts more to peace than war. This second point is missing not only from the Athenians' own announced purpose but also from at least a literal reading of the speech itself (the pro forma appeal to peace in 1.78.4 is surrounded by bellicose statements and expressions of willingness to go to war), unless we are to understand that their justi®cation and verbal display of their empire was meant to have that e¨ect, which is to my mind too large an interpretive leap. Another aspect of the Athenian speech is jarringly out of place, and that is the rede®nition of the koinwni a, a subject which we have already examined in some detail. The Athenians say to the Spartans that they, the Spartans, have conventions incompatible with anyone else's (ameikta . . . noÂmima toiÄ v alloiv) and this in-

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cludes, especially, other Hellenes: when a Spartan leaves home he uses neither his own conventions nor those of the rest of Hellas (hÿ allh ÿ E lla v, 1.77.6).4 The Athenians make these comments in order to give teeth to their unsolicited advice to the Spartans not to be in¯uenced by the opinions of others and bring on themselves a burden (war) that will be more trouble than it is worth (1.78.1). They play on the Spartans' notorious xenophobia, and also reinforce their own argument that although the exercise of power by nature alienates ruler from ruled, the Athenians are better rulers than the Spartans would be: they, the Athenians, already share more conventions with other Hellenes, they claim. The Athenians' point about the Spartans' di¨erent character reminds the reader of the Corinthians' similar point about the Spartans' peculiar habits (1.70, see Chapter 3). The Athenians remind the Spartans of their di¨erences in order to deter them from war, whereas the Corinthians rebuke them for their di¨erences in order to urge them to it. A comparison shows that the Athenians' remarks are utterly inappropriate, even bizarre. The Athenians use the Spartans' peculiarities to draw a line between Sparta and the rest of Hellas. When they tell the Spartans not to be in¯uenced by ``others' opinions,'' they use the word we have already encountered in the stasis model and speeches, alloÂtrion, which means foreign, strange, alien to one's own; and that this is the desired implication is suggested by the use of the antonym, oikeiÄ on, in the same sentence (1.78.1). Especially when addressed to the Spartans, these words would invoke strong feelings of separation, xenophobia and personal di¨erence from the rest of Hellas, which has di¨erent customs. The Athenians' words focus on Sparta's interests, burdens and most importantly its di¨erent character. The Athenians say that their own forefathers defended the Hellenic koinoÂn, and the present Athenian generation therefore represents it now not only by right but also by nearness of character and customs. Thus the Athenians, as rulers of other Hellenes, compare favorably with the Persians for they are not only milder rulers but in every way closer to the ruled (1.77.5).5 4 See Ostwald 1986, 103 n. 62 on the passage and 94±108 on no mima. 5 This is a dangerous argument, however, for it raises the comparison between Athens and Persia which, as we have seen, became a centerpiece of Peloponnesian propaganda; for Hellenes, being ruled by other Hellenes was more galling than submission to a foreign power (cf. 6.76.4).

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By contrast, the Corinthians' rebuke of the Spartans' peculiarities is much more pointed and detailed, and their language is subtly but signi®cantly di¨erent. While urging the Spartans to overcome their slowness and complacency, not as an accusation but an admonishment (1.69.6), they try to stress the attachment between Sparta and Hellas and the di¨erences separating Athens from Hellas: ``you alone of the Hellenes are passive'' (hÿ suca zete moÂnoi ÿ EllhÂnwn, 69.4, cf. 68.1); ``the Athenians [i.e., not the rest of the Hellenes] are utterly di¨erent from you'' (diaje rontav, 70.1); ``do not deliver your friends and kinsmen to your worst enemies'' (71.4). The Corinthians' purpose is to portray the Spartans ± if only they were willing ± as capable leaders of the Hellenes against the Athenians, whom they try to alienate conceptually from the rest of Hellas. All this is natural, a rhetorical necessity in time of war or in deliberation about war: the enemy or potential enemy must be conceptually isolated from the entity to be defended. What is strange is that the Athenians do the same thing regarding the Spartans at Sparta, for Spartan ears. A wartime rhetorical tactic appropriate for home is used in the enemy's own camp. The Athenian argument would be natural at Athens or at a conference of Athenian allies deciding on war, but not at Sparta as an attempt to bring peace or at least delay war. Appeasing the Spartans would, one imagines, have been more readily accomplished by the opposite argument, the stress of common identity and interests of Athens and Sparta. The problem of the inappropriateness of the ®rst Athenian speech is a famous one. As Raubitschek has pointed out, Thucydides' own comment on the Athenians' motives rules out considering the speech intentionally provocative.6 The Athenian speakers were not underhandedly trying to provoke the Spartans to war while representing their purpose as the opposite. A provocative speech not meant as such: how to understand this? The Athenians apparently completely missed what was in the Spartans' minds and the kind of words which could mollify them, if any were possible. It is true that Archidamus was no more successful, but surely saying nothing would have been more congenial to the Athenians' purpose than what they did say. Sthenelaidas' abrupt and aggressive reaction shows what the majority of Spar6 Raubitschek 1973, 48.

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tans actually heard and felt. The ephor, it is true, somewhat misrepresents the Athenian speech, but his exhortation, ``Don't let the Athenians become too great,'' demonstrates that the purpose Thucydides assigned to the Athenian speakers, i.e. to dampen the Spartan war spirit by illustrating the du namiv of their own city, failed utterly; even more so, the Athenians' own announced e¨ort to describe their empire as just and their city as a xi a loÂgou. The Athenians, through astounding misperception, said what they thought would impress the Spartans. They apparently thought that their arguments would have force had they themselves been in the Spartan position as they saw it. Much of the Athenian speech at Sparta is an appeal to purely Hellenic values, yet this is one of the problems with the rhetoric of the speech. The Athenians say that a sense of honor, timhÂ, is one of the reasons for their rule (1.75.3, 76.2). A claim to timh is a claim to a social value which has no independent force and in fact is meaningless without common approval and recognition. Obviously the Spartans did not recognize timh in the Athenians' acquisition and maintenance of empire. This speech contains the ®rst signs of something which the three Periclean speeches reveal fully: the Athenians in general had developed a peculiar ± one could almost say private ± way of speaking, of representing themselves and others to both themselves and others, which made perfect sense to them but was not heard in the same way by others. The point is not merely that the Athens±Sparta dialogue is shown to be a dialogue of the deaf ± that would be trivial ± but that the inability to communicate stems from a fundamental disharmony and collapse of shared values and world views in Hellas. the melian dialogue The greatest example of the breakdown of communication in all the History is the Melian Dialogue (5.85±113). The sudden switch to dialogue form is stunning on ®rst encounter; it is at least one Thucydidean innovation which was not assiduously imitated by his successors and admirers. The purpose of the unusual format is explained on one level by the interlocutors themselves. At the beginning of the dialogue, the Athenians say that a dialogue has the advantage of allowing open and frank discussion of issues, as opposed to long, ®nished speeches whose unchallenged pronouncements tend

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to mislead (epagwgaÁ kaiÁ a ne legkta, 5.85). The Melian oligarchs, for their part, fear the uncritical disposition of the masses and consider themselves the only worthy rhetorical opponents and judges of the Athenian imperialists.7 And indeed, although the speakers on both sides are poignantly nameless, the dialogue is usually interpreted as a frank exchange, heavily in¯uenced by tragedy and philosophy (but no less frank as a result), between a brutal imperialistic power and a minor state, in which the stark realities of military and political power are revealed; a con¯ict between the laws of nature as Athens describes them and the laws of society and morality as Melos describes them; an exposition of the weakness of the moral argument in the face of willful power and ambition; and a bleak demonstration of the decaying morals and social institutions of Old Greece.8 All this is true, but not the whole truth about the Dialogue. Was communication really freer and franker behind closed doors than exchanges of speeches in the open would have been? Certainly that is the impression created. The Athenians and the Melians agree to avoid topoi which are the standard fare of speeches in this war, namely, that the Athenians deserve lasting credit for expelling the Persians and have themselves since been wronged, and that the Melians, although Spartan colonists, have remained neutral and have not wronged the Athenians in any way. Indeed, the Athenians, in their ®rst speech in the History, had in fact used (albeit with apologetic acknowledgment) the arguments they now put aside, and the Melians, if reluctantly, do not mention these voided topics until the end of the Dialogue, when they are utterly desperate. Moreover, Athens' sharp dismissal of justice, honor and other conventional values as obstacles to the willful exercise of its vast power seems such brutal rhetoric as could only be used in blunt debate in a protected and controlled setting. Yet the Dialogue is not what it seems on ®rst encounter. First, one should remember that shunning the Assembly does not auto7 Perhaps the Melian leaders feared real popular sympathy or preference to join the Athenian empire, see de Ste. Croix 1954. In any case, the Melian leaders doomed their island to destruction without consulting or informing the inhabitants. 8 See ®rst of all Dionysius, De Thuc. 37±8; HCT iv, 159±88. Of the massive literature, the following have been especially valuable: Macleod 1974; Wasserman 1947; Connor 1984, 147±57; Bosworth 1993; Ostwald 1986, 305±12; de Romilly 1963, 273±310; Stahl 1966, 158±71; Treu 1954; Andrewes 1960; Kirkwood 1986; Orwin 1994, 97±114.

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matically make the words spoken in council chambers more honest or true, or less e pagwgaÁ kaiÁ a ne legkta. The Dialogue is not a confessional for either side, but still a rhetorical contest, and the setting and circumstances are not so di¨erent from those of the Assembly as to assure mutual comprehension. The Athenians insist on speaking with regard to ``the present situation and what your eyes see'' (e k twÄn paro ntwn kaiÁ w
n oÿraÄte, 5.87), and the Melians agree. In fact, the Athenians say nothing at Melos that had not already been expressed in previous Athenian speeches delivered in the open air (the Mytilenean Debate is the most frequent point of comparison). The departures from previous Athenian utterances concern style, not content. As always, speech is shaped by present exigencies, the speakers' private understandings of themselves, of their opponents and of the situation in which they ®nd themselves, their own rhetorical skills and the necessary limitations of language. Thus no one side in the Dialogue has or is supposed to have the intrinsically stronger or truer argument. When the Athenians refer to a law of nature whereby men and perhaps even the gods rule when they have the advantage of strength (5.105.2), they pronounce no permanent truth endorsed by the historian but rather reveal how their particular circumstances in¯uence the way they see the world and themselves. Just so, when the Melians expatiate on the power of shame or o¨er their view of justice, they serve as spokesmen for no one but themselves, in a way commensurate with the very particular set of circumstances in which they ®nd themselves. The historian's involvement extends only to illustrating, by quotation or invention, how a small Greek island during a long, destructive war would respond to the demands of one of the imperial powers responsible for the war, and how that response relates to the rhetorical patterns which developed during the war as well as to established Hellenic historical and moral traditions. Second and more important, dialectic does not necessarily improve the level of mutual understanding or agreement. Neither side in the Melian Dialogue has changed one iota by the end, nor are any issues clearer or more sharply de®ned. The whole experiment turns out barren. An exchange of speeches would have brought the same result. Yet the failure of the historical characters is a triumph for the writer of history. Thucydides chose the dialogue form, which (as is often pointed out) recalls both tragic and

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philosophical dialogue, in order to expose a complex irony. In tragedy, of course, characters are allowed to miscommunicate, yet philosophical dialogue is di¨erent, more purposeful ± and a form Thucydides would have known. The precise development of philosophical dialogue before Plato is unclear and controversial, but alongside eristics and antilogic, it had emerged by Thucydides' time as a method for investigating speculative problems, particularly those of an ethical and moral nature.9 For Plato dialectic was a mature form of inquiry which when abused dissolved into mere contentiousness (see Resp. 539b±d). The pitfalls of the method must have been appreciated from the beginning. Yet the problems of the Melian Dialogue do not arise from an abuse of the form or lack of earnestness on either side; on the contrary, both Athenians and Melians are anxious to be understood. Despite this mutual desire, the Melian Dialogue does not advance toward the clari®cation of any problem. There is a di¨erence of opinion over the meaning of such concepts as justice and its relation to expediency, but no truth or better understanding, or even better de®nition of the problem in philosophical terms, is gained. This aporia is to be distinguished from the aporia in which Platonic dialogues frequently end as a result of the inability to reconcile contradictory statements about reality; even if a Platonic investigation turns out to be unsuccessful, the interlocutors have nonetheless communicated, even if on a basic level, all the way through. In the Melian Dialogue, on the other hand, the aporia occurs because the interlocutors, arguing from irreconcilable and incompatible world views, fail to turn the dialogue into a mutual investigation ± despite the promise by each side to the other to do just that. The result is a violent linguistic agon. The weaker argument does turn out to be weaker, but the means for this demonstration are not dialectical ± a superior logos ± but brute force. Unlike the demolished arguments in Socratic dialogues, in which weak positions are exposed as illogical or inconsistent, the Athenians prevail at Melos not because of their words but because of their actions. Athens proved its assertions ± particularly that the strong rule the weak whenever possible, and that hope and faith are destructive clicheÂs ± by applying physical power. Thucydides gives no clues regarding which side had the stronger argument, for neither did. Here we have an 9 Kerferd 1981, 59±67; cf. also Macleod 1974.

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almost grotesque example of the principle enunciated in the stasis model, that of logos becoming disjoined from ergon.10 The Athenians in particular show an impenetrability to any answer or assertion tendered by the Melians. In fact, the Athenian parts of the conversation, if stitched together, create a practically coherent speech in which the Melians' responses and challenges would be hardly felt (cf. ane legkta). This is especially true for the ®rst half of the dialogue, and it may be instructive to see this. (89) Well now, for our part we will not o¨er a lengthy discourse using ®ne phrases ± which you wouldn't believe ± claiming that we rule by just cause in that we destroyed the Persians or that we have now come because we ourselves have been wronged, and we think that you also should not try to persuade us by arguing that you did not join us in the war because you are colonists of the Lacedaemonians or that you have done us no wrong. Rather, we should each say what we truly think in an e¨ort to accomplish what accords with the ability of each of us, as we all know that in normal human speech ``justice'' is determined by equal compulsion on both sides, whereas a superior power acts so far as its ability allows and the weaker perforce submits. (91) As for us, we do not worry about what will happen when our empire ends, if it should indeed do so. For it is not those who already rule over others, like the Lacedaemonians, who present a terror to a defeated power (and our contest here is not with the Lacedaemonians), but subjects who attack their rulers and prevail. And in this matter, we should be allowed to run the risk. We will now demonstrate that we have come in the interests of our empire and that what we are about to say concerns also the safety of your city: we wish to rule over you with as little trouble as possible and for you to be preserved for our mutual advantage, (93) since (o ti) it would be to your bene®t to submit before su¨ering the terrible consequences, and for us to pro®t by not destroying you. (95) For (ga r) it is not so much your enmity which harms us as your philia, which in the eyes of our subjects is a manifest sign of our weakness, whereas your hatred is a sign of our strength. (97) For (ga r) they think that neither side is bereft of a claim to justice, but that those who hold out against us do so because of their own power, and that when we fail to attack it is because of fear, so that, in addition to expanding our empire, you would a¨ord us security by being completely subdued, especially if you as islanders ± and weaker than others, at that ± would not hold out against us, the masters of the sea. (99) For (ga r) we do not think that those who live inland in freedom and long postpone any precautionary measures 10 Cf. Pl. Resp. 539d: those who engage in dialectic must have ``orderly and stable natures''; those who come upon it by chance and are not suitable should not try it.

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against us pose a very great threat to us, but rather the islanders do, both those ± like yourselves ± who are not yet ruled by us and those who are already cha®ng under the compulsion of our empire. For (ga r) those are most inclined to recklessness and are most likely to bring both themselves and us into a danger obvious to them.

This is certainly an arti®cial exercise, especially for those readers who know the Dialogue and cannot suppress the Melian parts in their minds. But arti®ce may sometimes be a useful tool. Reconstructing the ``speech'' shows clearly that the Athenians, who themselves recommended the dialogue form, were as closed within their own world view as they were in their ®rst speech at Sparta long before this, when they so grossly mis-estimated their audience because of their own private interpretation of both history and the present situation. The Melians cannot pierce the Athenian shell. The e¨ect, at least in this ®rst half of the Dialogue, is of an Athenian speech, ane legkta if not e pagwgaÂ. I am not saying that this is how the Dialogue was written or must be read, only that one may thus see the failure of the Dialogue, and the reasons for it, more clearly and poignantly. Thucydides' use of the form was insightful and richly ironic. Dialectic yielded no noticeable bene®t. It may be objected that the Athenian ``speech'' merely follows the logical progression of the dialogue as a whole. But one will notice that the suppressed Melian portions introduce several di¨erent topics and cannot be stitched together in a similar fashion to produce anything like a coherent sequence of thought; the Melians cannot de¯ect the Athenians from their set course. More important, the content or emphases within the Athenians' ``speech'' are somewhat di¨erent when their successive remarks are seen as selfreferential rather than as answering the Melians' express concerns. In ch. 89, the Athenians renounce standard rhetorical claims and deny that conventional ``justice,'' as they understand it, applies when a stronger power meets a weaker one. Justice is, in their view, a false prescription for action. This thought is re®ned in ch. 91: in the present situation they are not concerned with a power of ``equal compulsion,'' in which case their rejection of justice as they de®ne it would threaten their empire, but with a far inferior power which must submit in order to con®rm Athens' power. This point is brought home with sarcasm: ``we should be allowed to run the risk.'' The shading and purpose of the Athenian comment are different when it is read as a direct response to the Melians' chal-

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lenge of the Athenian de®nition of justice and their warning that Athens, too, may stumble; in which case Athens' words in ch. 91 are more prosaic, merely pointing out that a great power, not a small island like Melos, will be required to bring the empire down, and therefore such warnings are out of place. Melos' challenge to the Athenian statement on justice is entirely ignored. This two-tiered speaking by the Athenians continues through ch. 99. The explanatory connectives at the start of each of their sentences in the subsequent sections (o ti in 93 and gaÂr in 95, 97, 99), in addition (obviously) to answering the Melians' challenges, also coherently tie together their own successive remarks to form an almost seamless discourse. The Melians' comments, by contrast, do not have the same property and are dependent on the Athenian contributions. The series of Athenian ga r's is especially noteworthy, and not at all uncharacteristic of the way both Thucydides himself and several of his speakers structure arguments in the History.11 The most natural break in the Athenians' train of thought comes not between sections but in the middle of section 91, where the Athenians use a future tense (nuÄn . . . tauÄta dhlwÂsomen) to announce the shift of focus from abstract questions of justice to the speci®c interests of both parties in the discussion. The one sentence in ch. 93 picks up this thought without either logical or ( practically) syntactical interruption, explaining that the Athenians' own advantage lies in not destroying the Melians, and this is further elaborated in ch. 95 (gaÂr): the Athenians' advantage is enhanced by incurring the Melians' hatred, which is the inevitable result of subduing but preserving them, and their advantage is harmed by the Melians' philia, which as either an alliance or a personal relationship implies equality. This answers a question which is slightly di¨erent from that posed by the Melians (94). In chapter 97, the gap between the Athenians' meaning in the closed context of their ``speech'' and their meaning in answering the Melians is quite wide, for whereas the word oudete rouv must, as part of the dialogue, refer to the Melians' reference to subjects and non-subjects, in the ``speech'' it must refer to the Athenians 11 Already in the opening chapters of the work, four successive sentences are linked by gaÂr, 1.2±2.2, cf. also 2.4, 2.6. Stuart Jones' determination of sentences conveys the sequence of thought.

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and Melians themselves. This is not so forced as it may seem, for reading oudete rouv in this way forms a consistent and logical connection with the previous Athenian comment, which even in the context of the dialogue, answers a di¨erent question from the one the Melians posed. The Athenian train of thought, not the Melians' question, required talk of ``justice'' in ch. 97. In ch. 95 the Athenians have worried about what their subjects think, and now, instead of answering the Melians' challenge in ch. 96, they are answering the question which would naturally arise: why would friendship be perceived as weakness, hatred strength? The answer: think not in terms of conventional relationships, but only power: philia is not genuine but a cover for weakness, failure to attack has nothing to do with honoring agreements, much less with justice, but everything to do with fear. The Athenians do think that they themselves have equal claims to ``justice,'' for they say so at the beginning (89). What they assert in ch. 97 is that their subjects have stopped complaining of justice and recognize the truth of their own situation, namely that they are weaker than their subduers. Whether or not this is how the subjects really thought and spoke is immaterial: the Athenians have demonstrated enough times, before this point, their penchant for seeing things in their own peculiar way. Finally, the Athenians explain in ch. 99 why, after enunciating a principle which would require them to attack all weaker powers, they are more concerned with the Melians than with other weaker powers, which unlike Melos were mostly inland. This comment follows naturally from ch. 97, although its purpose and tone are di¨erent if it is read as an answer to the Melians' assertion (ch. 98) that Athens will make enemies of all neutral states and thus strengthen its enemies. Naturally the Melian Dialogue remains a dialogue. The point of this exercise has been to uncover an extra layer of complexity in Thucydides' use of the form. Although it is the Athenians themselves who suggest a free-form discussion to allow immediate responses to each other, they are insensible of their interlocutors. Actually, the exact wording of the Athenians' suggestion is signi®cant: they invite the Melians to respond to anything ``inappropriately expressed'' in their remarks (5.85). The Melians follow the Athenians as closely as they can ± their comments are unintelligible if removed from the dialectic context ± and they ®nd much to

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object to in the Athenian statements, but their attempts to change the Athenians' rhetorical program completely fail. The Melians have a di¨erent notion of mutual advantage, which they keep trying to press on the Athenians, whose disquisition on imperial themes, like their imperial expansion in fact, is not de¯ected from its course. Thus the Melians' disadvantage loÂgoiv stems from their disadvantage e rgoiv.12 The Dialogue shifts ground and pace at ch. 100, where the Melians introduce the subject of virtue. A better give-and-take ensues, although the distance between the two world views, as well as the di¨erent and incompatible uses of certain key words, are left unresolved. No position is proven right or wrong. The Athenians at ®rst try peremptorily to close o¨ this line of inquiry and return to the rational analysis of advantage (ch. 101), on which no conclusion had been reached or even the basic di¨erences in principle properly de®ned. But when the Melians insist (ch. 102) on abandoning the former argument for consideration of irrational and unpredictable factors, i.e. hope (e lpi v), the Athenians answer directly (ch. 103). There is some di¨erence in the way each side uses the word e lpi v, for the Melians mean a not entirely ungrounded expectation, whereas the Athenians dismiss hope as an unreasonable basis for any action, as irrational as a gambler throwing away his last coins in the grandiose hope of winning the jackpot (cf. anarriptouÄsi e piÁ rÿophÄv miaÄv). Yet the real di¨erence between the two comes not in the de®nition of e lpi v but in its application, how it is used to decide action. The Melians, in Athenian eyes, still have not understood that the question is not whether to resist but under what conditions to submit. In the Athenian view, hope is the luxury of the rich, that is, for those who will not lose everything when hopes are not ful®lled. As the Melians grow more desperate, they resort more and more to convention: their hopes rest on the partiality of tuÂch and the favor of the gods because of their own piety and justice, and the claims of kinship and shame to be extracted from the Spartans (5.104). The Athenians see this as a feeble attempt to 12 The Melians, it must be said, also exhibit a kind of obtuseness, which in their case might be deliberate. During the Athenian ``speech'' and indeed throughout the dialogue they ignore the purport of the Athenians' original suggestion to discuss the Melians' swthri a, i.e. to decide not whether the Athenians will subdue the Melians, but how and on what terms. See Bosworth 1993.

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rationalize the irrational, and they answer impatiently that they have equal reason to expect divine favor, for all that is worth (105). They do not reject divine favor as an unreal or invaluable thing ± even if it is not quite as certain as the Melians assume ± but regard themselves as equally entitled to it (proÁv meÁ n toÁ qeiÄ on outwv e k touÄ eiko tov ou jobouÂmeqa e lassw sesqai) because of their own, di¨erent criteria for winning it, based on their ineluctable law of nature (the strong rule the weak whenever possible). The Athenians also agree that the Spartans are actuated by virtue and and shame, but they see the Spartans as applying these considerations to a much more limited sphere, one which excludes the Melians. Thus the disagreement, again, is not over the quality or nature of certain social and moral values, but their application to the current situation. The Athenians and Melians disagree throughout about the actions required by virtue and justice (the relationship between logos and ergon), and the Athenians note that the Spartans have their own standards which are neither theirs nor the Melians', and are far from helpful to the Melians: ``they equate what is virtuous with what is pleasurable, and what is just with what is advantageous'' (taÁ meÁ n hÿ de a kalaÁ nomi zousi, taÁ deÁ xumje ronta di kaia, 5.105.4). This is an attack on the Melians' last possible argument. Their claim that sparing them would be to Athens' advantage was rebu¨ed by the Athenian ``speech,'' and their appeal to conventional values was trumped by superior Athenian claims. They now try to ®nd the best proofs for their belief that Sparta would come to their aid. These are among their most practical arguments, which cannot be rejected as desperate clutching at straws like the appeal to ``hope.'' The proximity of Melos to the Peloponnese, they say, will induce Sparta to defend it; even the masters of the sea do not control it absolutely; Sparta could distract Athens by invading Attica, and so forth (5.106). Yet the Athenians know better ± that is, they know the Spartans better. It is striking that Athens understands its powerful rival much better than does little Melos which claims kinship and common interests. There are no absolutes in either Hellenic values or even the construction of facts. Melos apparently is unable to grasp not only the inapplicability of common values to its current situation, but even the changed, harsher realities of the Hellenic world in the ®fteenth year of the war.

part iii

Erga

chapter 5

The ``greatest kinesis''

Thucydides opens his History with a series of astonishing superlatives. He says (1.1.1) that he started writing with the expectation that the war would be ``the most worthy to be told'' of all wars up to that time (axiologwÂtaton twÄn progegenhme nwn). By the end of the war this initial impression, if that is what it was, proved more correct than he could have known, ``for [the war] was the greatest kinesis to befall the Hellenes and a considerable portion of the non-Hellenes, so to speak most of mankind'' (1.1.2).1 These superlatives may seem less remarkable now because we are used to Thucydides, but he himself expected incredulity, or at least skepticism, and proceeded immediately to support his claim by reviewing all Hellenic history to his day ± the ``Archaeology.'' At the end of that section, Thucydides repeats his assertion that the war was ``greater'' (mei zwn) than all others by his own self-consciously objective standard, ``for men are wont to consider the war they are currently ®ghting as the greatest, but when it is over go back to being impressed by events in antiquity'' (1.21.2). He illuminates what makes the present war ``great'' and ``worthy to be told'': Of previous actions the greatest was the Persian war, but this reached a quick decision with two battles at sea and two on land. The present war extended over a very long period, and in its course su¨erings befell Hellas such as had never occurred in an equal amount of time. For never were so many cities captured and desolated, some by barbaroi and some by the Hellenes in their war against each other (a ntipolemouÂntwn) ± some even underwent a change in inhabitants after being captured ± nor were so many people exiled, nor was there ever so much murder, whether in the course of the war itself or through stasis. The stories previously told and transmitted orally but rarely con®rmed by fact now 1 E. Meyer ®rst dated the composition of this sentence to after 404; this has been disputed, needlessly; see bibliography in HCT v, 408±9.

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became credible ± viz. those regarding earthquakes, which prevailed over a very great part of the earth and were most severe, and eclipses of the sun, which happened more frequently than all occurrences remembered from previous times; also great droughts in some places and, arising from them, famines, and (above all) the pestilential epidemic, which was the most harmful thing of all and destroyed a considerable number of people. For all these su¨erings fell upon them simultaneously with the present war. (1.23.1±3)2

Here one understands, if it was not apparent from the sketch in the Archaeology, that Thucydides' subject is more than a war, and his criteria for ``great'' and ``worthy to be told'' involve much more than the duration of the con¯ict, the sizes of the ¯eets and armies or their level of preparation,3 or the scale and consequence of any single battle. The twenty-seven-year con¯ict is judged to be a cataclysm of unprecedented intensity and proportion, the most severe kinesis ever to shake the world. A ki nhsiv is literally a ``movement,'' i.e. a disturbance which is more than a war per se, a complex event which a¨ects all aspects of human existence.4 Thucydides also saw stasis as a condition by which ``the entire Hellenic world was, it might be said, disturbed (or shaken)'' (paÄn wÿ v ei peiÄ n toÁ ÿ EllhnikoÁn e kinhÂqh, 3.82.1), linguistically tying the calamity of stasis in its generic form to the kinesis of the greater con¯ict.5 The kinesis which was the Peloponnesian War, as Thucydides presents it, a¨ected all aspects of human existence in the Hellenic world. Thus the ®ghting in the war itself is only part of the kinesis, for compounded with it (metaÁ touÄ de touÄ pole mou) was a vastly destructive series of paqh mata, 2 See on this passage CT i, 62±4; HCT i, 151±2; Flory 1990; de Ste. Croix 1972, 51±63; Gomme 1967, 116±24 is the most sensible thing I have seen on it. 3 Even making generous allowance for Herodotus' bloated ®gures for the invading Persian forces (Hornblower 1987, 108, 202), and cf. Herodotus' superlative at 7.20.2 for Xerxes' force, which refers strictly to the size of the expedition, and his note of record su¨ering at 6.9.8.1±2, referring to a period far longer than Thucydides' twenty-seven-year war. Thucydides, although serious and grave in his historical judgments, may nonetheless have felt a kind of one-upmanship. 4 Strasburger 1966, 71±2. See also Gomme, HCT ad 1.1 and 1.23.3; he points out that ``eclipses are not disasters,'' but that does not mean that their function here is only as ``accompaniments of disaster'' in ``popular opinion,'' since the mind, especially when the body is oppressed by physical pains and deprivations, su¨ers greatly when further oppressed by such misunderstood phenomena as eclipses. 5 Note further that the most important stasis to occur in the war ± important in the sense that it a¨ected almost the entire Greek world ± was the stasis at Athens, the narration of which Thucydides opens with e kinhÂqh proÂteron, ``the disturbance started in the army'' (8.48.1). Cf. also 3.75.2, 4.76.4, 5.25.1, 6.34.3; Connor 1984, 103±4.

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some self-in¯icted ± ruined cities, displacements, and most notably murder (joÂnov), in both war and stasis ± and some in¯icted by nature. The Peloponnesian War was not only much longer than the Persian but marked by greater su¨ering and destruction. Epic poets had sung of the long, seemingly never-ending ten years of the Trojan War. Twenty-seven years is a very long time for a war, but a short time for the number of catastrophes packed into it. Thus ``greater'' than a war, the kinesis a¨ected all aspects of human existence in the Hellenic world and beyond (the exact geographical extent is never ± nor could be ± de®ned). Hellas' unprecedented su¨ering is what makes Thucydides' subject, a twenty-seven-year kinesis, the greatest and most noteworthy event in history. It is puzzling that the cataclysmic frequency and scale of the natural disasters (aside from the total absence of droughts) are not particularly stressed in the narrative as we have it.6 This inconsistency, however, cannot be allowed to cause too much trouble in an incomplete narrative, especially when, in a sentence written at the end of the war,7 Thucydides is explicit and insistent: ``All these su¨erings fell upon them simultaneously with the present war,'' written as a closure and also to emphasize what he considers an important and revealing observation. And the fact is that, apart from the noted lack of some natural disasters listed in 1.23, the main point ± an unprecedented level of human su¨ering ± cannot be missed by any serious reader of the History. The su¨ering was self-in¯icted. The Hellenes were the ones who committed barbarous acts against other Hellenes, de®led religious sites and repeatedly violated sanctioned custom. Such actions became possible as corporate structures in Hellas broke down and individuals 6 CT i, 62±4, HCT i, 151±2. I do not agree with Hornblower that the human events are recorded as ``rarely, sporadically, and very brie¯y'' as the natural disasters, as I explain below; the natural disasters compounded the already great self-in¯icted physical su¨ering. Havelock 1972b, 63 deemed this passage ``absurd'' since a traveler after Persian invasions would have noticed ruin, but after the Peloponnesian War ``none of the main capital sites were sacked, and after 403 business was much as usual for both Greeks and barbarians . . .'' But Thucydides means human su¨erings which would not necessarily have been perceived by a nonchalant post-bellum traveler. 7 Cf. Classen ad loc.; Steup's correction (i, 410), dating it after the ®rst ten-year war, only introduced confusion; Classen was right that Thucydides was comparing the length of the Peloponnesian War with all previous wars, including the Trojan. The obvious link between 1.1.2 and 1.23 argues against the idea by Hammond 1952 that ki nhsiv refers to the period before the war broke out.

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who were self-interested to the detriment of their own states took control of politics and war. Trust and communal concern became so tenuous as to make negotiated peace impossible; the Peace of Nicias was a sham. All of these features of the erga of the war ± brutality, disregard for religion, the dominance of self-interest and the impossibility of a negotiated solution ± re¯ect patterns of stasis, and reveal the truest nature of the war as Thucydides saw it. We shall consider these one by one. b r u t a l i t y a n d b a r b a r i t y; m o r a l a n d ethical violations Very little of the glory and heroics of war, which form the basis for much of the moral vocabulary of ancient Greek, is evident in the History. Unusual brutality and cruelty, seemingly arbitrary murder and violence, and violations of religious, social and ethical norms, preponderate in the account. Thucydides' eye seems drawn to dark, morally repugnant actions. Many of the incidents of cruelty and moral transgression which he highlights, such as the atrocities at Mycalessus (7.29.3±5), did not greatly a¨ect military and political strategy or the con¯ict per se between Athens and Sparta. The strategic signi®cance even of the Mytilenian revolt and the destruction of Melos, and arguably the destruction of Plataea, is poignantly smaller with respect to the larger war than the space Thucydides devoted to them. A conventional military history could have dealt with each brie¯y (the incident at Plataea would occupy more attention), but Thucydides turns each into a set piece mapping out the inner dimensions of brutality by means of the attendant logoi. Each of these episodes represents a di¨erent part of the changed mindset which allowed the perpetration of horrible acts. The executions at Plataea and Melos and the contemplated executions at Mytilene8 were fully written up because they help an outside observer determine the true nature of the kinesis as a total event. In the larger structure of the narrative, they 8 In this regard, it is irrelevant that the Mytilenians were in the end spared (the original decision was ``savage'' [wmo n] and eloquently defended, and the moment of metaÂnoia is not repeated at Scione, Melos or elsewhere) or that the historical events are technically of three di¨erent kinds: Mytilene a rebellious ally, Plataea a defeated enemy, Melos a neutral entity forced to take sides.

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help to work out the implications of the many smaller incidents of violence which punctuate the entire History. The raised level of violence and the repeated moral and ethical violations characterizing the war are typical of the breakdown of norms in stasis. That is, the virulent strain of violence characterizing stasis is central to Thucydides' conception and presentation of the entire war.9 Thucydides records two signi®cant incidents before the formal outbreak of the war. After their victory at sea, in the incident presented as the ®rst aitia of the war, the Corcyreans killed all their prisoners except the Corinthians, after erecting a trophy (1.30.1). In similar fashion, the Plataeans, in what is identi®ed as the ®rst incident of the war, notoriously killed their Theban captives, probably in direct violation of a pledge (2.5.7). The ®rst aitia and the ®rst identi®ed incident are marked by unwonted and uncalled-for violence, the killing of unarmed people outside the context of joined battle. It is true that killing prisoners did not violate particular ``laws of war'' (although if the Plataeans violated oaths, that would be a religious o¨ense). By ancient convention, the victor in a battle or siege had complete control over the defeated,10 and although it was not routine, it was certainly not unheard of to kill all militaryaged men among the captured enemy. Yet scholars have noticed a decreasing frequency of such extreme measures in ancient Greece, so that by the ®fth century, before the Peloponnesian War, they had become very rare indeed. Ducrey, in his study of the treatment of prisoners of war in ancient Greece, found that almost all recorded incidents of massacre of war prisoners are concentrated in the thirty-one years of the Peloponnesian War. He discerned a softening and moderation in the treatment of captives before 9 Thus the present discussion does not include particular cruelties in individual staseis identi®ed as such, which are dealt with in Chapter 6. toÁ mhÁ muqwÄdev (1.22.4) is meant to exclude the glories of war, Flory 1990. On the selectivity of Thucydides' narrative see now Rood 1998. 10 Cf. e.g. Xen. Cyrop. 7.5.73, Mem. 4.2.15; Hdt. 9.122. Classic scholarly statements of Greek ``laws of war'' may be found in Busolt and Swoboda 1926, 1262; V. Martin 1940, 368; Panagopoulos 1978. The murder of ambassadors unambiguously violates Hellenic nomos, but the Spartan ambassadors seized and murdered by Athens had not been dispatched to Athens but to Persia, on a mission clearly harmful to Athens; see Ducrey 1968b, 237. The Corcyrean massacre is condemned by Stahl ad loc. as ``violata pactio'' but defended by Gomme, HCT ad loc. as ``an act of justice.''

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the war as well as a sharp drop in that type of violence after the cataclysm.11 It may be just possible to extrapolate from that fact ± if it is a fact, for it is admittedly based on anything but full evidence ± that a kind of unspoken or implicitly felt law prevented acts of extremely violent treatment of a defeated enemy in that period. Euripides, in a play produced probably in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, has Alcmene express astonishment at an allegedly Athenian (!) nomos forbidding the execution of prisoners, and at the end of the play Eurystheus is con®dent that the ``nomoi of the Hellenes'' will prevent his murder (Heracl. 965, 1010); in the year 430, this may have been more than wishful thinking. It is true that this is the only instance from the ®fth century of an ``Hellenic'' prohibition against executing prisoners, and this uniqueness indicates just how new, and just how implicit, such a nomos had to be. But it was just at that time that the expression ``the nomoi of the Hellenes'' vel sim. began to appear in Greek literature.12 These nomoi generally were based on, and conversely are evidence for, a feeling of di¨erence separating Hellene from ``barbarian'' in matters of culture, morality and religion. One recoiled at their violation.13 This morality underlies the expressions of horror in fourth-century recollections of certain atrocities committed in the Peloponnesian War, when standards unraveled and murder of prisoners resumed.14 During the hostilities, atrocious acts were validated by taxonomic adjustments. ``From the beginning of the war,'' the Spartans had been killing indiscriminately any Hellene they captured on the sea: merchants along with soldiers, Athenian allies along with neutrals (2.67.4), everyone classed as Spartan ``enemies.'' A 11 Ducrey 1968a, see esp. 56±72, 117±30, 201±28, 334±5; Panagopoulos 1978 documents the ``progressively harsher'' treatment of captives in the war. There is, however, a methodological trap: were there actually more incidents of massacre in the Peloponnesian War, or does it turn out that way because our main source for the war took pains to record all he knew? The facts to which Ducrey draws attention have led to curious arguments in modern times, especially by those who search for humane values in Greek thought and action, e.g. Kiechle 1958. 12 See Ducrey 1968a, 289±311; Ostwald 1986, 84±136 and 1969, 20±54, esp. 33, 42±3; de Romilly 1971, 25±49; E. Hall 1989, esp. 181±90. 13 ``Une reÁ gle morale, sans doute fort ancienne, en vertu de laquelle l'exeÂcution de sangfroid d'un homme vaincu et deÂsarme se heurtait aÁ un interdit,'' Ducrey 1968a, 291. 14 Although this cannot be too heavily relied on, since suspiciously only Athenian acts are cited, usually for some particular, local, immediate political purpose. See, e.g., Xen. Hellen. 2.2.3 and Isocr. 4.100 and 12.63 on Melos and Scione. On Spartan propaganda after the war, see Ducrey 1968b, 126±7.

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particular instance of this is recorded for the ®fth year of the war: the Spartan general Alcidas, on his homeward journey after a dilatory and unsuccessful expedition to aid the Mytilenian revolt, put to death all those he had captured along the way; he performed these executions at a small, insigni®cant place never mentioned again, the Teian town of Myonessos (3.32.1). Similar killings had been carried out every year; perhaps Thucydides troubled to record this particular case because the Samians rebuked Alcidas for the executions, using a notably practical ± not moral ± argument: he would win few friends and make many enemies (the Athenian debate over the appropriate punishment for Mytilene immediately follows in the text). Thucydides also records that in 417/16, the Spartans, frustrated in their attempt to expel the Athenians from Argos, attacked Hysiai and killed all the free men they were able to capture (5.83.2). Each of these three instances of unprovoked and extreme Spartan violence is matched by an Athenian one. In reaction to the Spartan practice of killing all caught on the sea, the Athenians executed without trial the Spartan envoys they caught on their way to Persia, justifying the action (dikaiouÄntev) with the thought that they could protect themselves by using measures which the Spartans themselves initiated (2.67.4). Alcidas, the executioner at Myonessos, was chased by Paches, the Athenian commander sent out to punish Mytilene, who failed to catch the Spartan but on his way back became involved in a bit of murderous treachery at stasis-riven Notion. He lured out Hippias, the leader of the faction holding the forti®ed portion of the city, with promises of negotiations and safe restoration if the talks were not fruitful. Once Hippias emerged Paches held him forcibly until he had taken the city and killed those who had held it, then restored Hippias and immediately shot him down, thus cruelly ful®lling the literal meaning of the promise (3.34).15 This incident is similar to the Plataeans' massacre of Thebans in 431 on a too-strict interpretation of an oath, as well as the Athenians' over-literal interpretation of the pact at Pylos by which they justi®ed keeping the Spartan ships they had held as surety, their reasons being so trivial (ouk axioÂloga) 15 Jordan 1986, 137 says of Paches' behavior: ``as the pressures of war mount, the misuses and abuses of religion to gain political and military ends increase''; see next section below.

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that Thucydides did not want to record them (4.23.1).16 Finally, the Spartan massacre at Hysiai immediately precedes the Melian Dialogue, which reveals in stunning detail the Athenian mindset enabling the wholesale massacre of all adult males and the enslavement of the women and children in a non-belligerent city (cf. 5.116.4). The list of Athenian violence contains more items. In 424, moved by their ``inveterate hatred,'' the Athenians resolved to kill certain Aeginetan prisoners (4.57.4),17 and three years later the Athenians killed all the adult males in Scione and enslaved the women and children there, in accordance with a decree passed in anger two years previously (5.32.1, 4.122.6).18 The multiple massacres of enemies, beginning just before the outbreak of the war and escalating as the con¯ict wore on, have evoked shocked reactions. The authors of the HCT, for example, declare that Alcidas' action exhibited ``perverted cruelty,'' that the Spartan murders at Hysiai were ``unfair and heartless,'' representing the ``degeneration'' of the perpetrator, and that the planned murder of Aeginetans demonstrates that ``the `customs of war' were becoming grimmer, as the ®ghting progressed.'' Commentators must make statements like these because Thucydides does not. The speeches accompanying the massacres at Plataea and Melos and the contemplated massacre at Mytilene reveal the thoughts and motives of the perpetrators and victims, not of course authorial judgment, and the very debates over brutality, demonstrating a kind of adjustable morality, make the actual violence seem even more horrible. One incident, however, Thucydides goes out of his way to identify as ``a disaster no less severe than any to befall an entire city, and the most unexpected and horrible'' (7.29.5), and ``a calamity as lamentable for its enormity as any to occur in the war'' (30.3). It occurred at the obscure little Boeotian city of Mycalessus, a 16 Macleod 1977, 233. Note also Sparta's opportunistic, self-preserving use of spondai in 3.109. 17 Neither Thucydides nor Plutarch (Nic. 6.7) says whether the executions were actually carried out. 18 Apparently Brasidas had not removed all the women and children from the town, 4.123.4. Cf. also the Athenian treatment of Toronean women and children, 5.3.4; the men of the town would have been put to death (cf. 4.116.1), like the Argive hostages (6.61.3), had not political and diplomatic developments saved them. Other incidents, more arguably in the heat of battle (killing captured troops): 7.3.4, 53.3.

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place so distant from the war in every sense ± physically as well as psychologically ± that the city wall was low and in many points in disrepair, and the gates stood open (7.29.3).19 Thracian mercenaries who arrived in Athens too late to join a ¯eet to Sicily were sent back under the Athenian Dieitrephes, with instructions to launch o¨ensive raids at every opportunity on the return trip. They attacked the unsuspecting Mycalessus, plundered and indiscriminately killed old and young, women and children, even packanimals, ``whatever had the breath of life in it.'' They even fell upon a school and slaughtered the young pupils who had just entered. This was a great and pitiable calamity which attracted the historian's attention not only because of what happened there but also because of where it happened. The violence had spread from the main parties in the war to previously uninvolved elements of the Hellenic world, in much the same way as stasis starts with the warring factions but soon engulfs the entire population of a city.20 ``Every form of destruction'' (i de a paÄsa ole qrou, 7.29.5) took place at Mycalessus, just as ``every form of death'' (paÄsa i de a qanaÂtou, 3.81.5) was witnessed at Corcyra and ``every form of wickedness'' (paÄ sa ide a kakotropi av, 3.83.1) characterizes stasis in general. Suddenly the distant Mycalessians were ``enemies'': neutrality and aloofness became impossible to maintain, as in stasis. Dreadful as the massacre at Mycalessus was, why did it merit two statements regarding its unprecedented nature? The importance Thucydides attaches to it would hardly have been obvious to every historian of the ®fth or fourth century ± or even today. It is true that in addition to the town's remote location and its lack of desire or motive to enter the war, there were at Mycalessus barbarities not repeated at the other scenes of murder and punishment: the thorough and indiscriminate slaughter of women and children, and the particularly pathetic fate of the innocent schoolchildren. Accordingly, explanations have focused on Thucydides' pity for the fate of the Mycalessians and on the barbarity of the Thracians. This, however, neglects the very careful attention Thucydides pays to Athenian involvement. He says that Athens took 19 See Grene 1950, 70±9 and now the interesting analysis of the medical terminology in Thucydides' description by Kallet 1999; less satisfactorily, T. R. Quinn 1995. 20 ``Later practically the whole Hellenic world was disturbed (by stasis)'' (3.82.1), but Mycalessus was, so far as we know, undisturbed by internal stasis; it was overwhelmed by the stasis-like violence in the wider Hellenic world at war.

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the decision to turn the Thracian homeward journey into an o¨ensive expedition ``to do as much harm as possible to enemies.'' The Thracians were in Athens' pay and commanded by an Athenian, Dieitrephes, until discharged in Thrace, and Dieitrephes is the one who made the decision to attack Mycalessus (he is subject of the singular verbs in 7.29.1±3.). The Thracians were thus serving as the arm performing the Athenian will. When Thucydides says that ``the Thracian people, like the worst of the barbarians, are most murderous when they have nothing to fear,'' he indicates how distant from Hellenic norms the action was, and thus the corruption into which complicit Athens had sunk. The barbarity is as fully Athenian as it is Thracian. The Mycalessus incident is not the only occasion on which Thucydides lets slip a hint of emotion. Before the Mytilenian debate, Thucydides says the Athenians regretted their original decision to destroy the Mytilenians; it seemed to them ``savage,'' wmoÂn (3.36.4), a stark word Thucydides uses only here, in the stasis model, and in the description of a most barbaric tribe: the Eurytanians are said to eat raw ¯esh (wmoja goi) and speak an unintelligible language (3.94.5); the reader should remember that Hellenes were reduced to cannibalism, the worst of pollutions, already at the beginning of the war, during the siege of Potidaea (2.70.1.).21 It is striking that the Athenians (according to Thucydides) used such a strong word as wmo n in reference to their own action; deinoÂn, for example, could have been expected.22 Athenian revulsion against mass murder soon abated, as we witness dramatically at Melos, and then at Mycalessus. The importance Thucydides places on the disaster at Mycalessus reveals the particular concentration and originality of his conception. This originality cannot be fully appreciated in the absence of another independent ancient account, but it is clear that what we read in Thucydides' History is an intensely personal interpretation of the war, marked by very careful choices of what to 21 Connor 1984, 82 n. 5, 105±6; cf. CT i, 418 for poetic usages of wmoÂn, and p. 356 for cannibalism in ancient literature. 22 The sailors in the ®rst ship, who were going to carry out the ®rst decree, thought the decision to be alloÂkoton, a word which is often overtranslated, and means something close to ``unwelcome,'' as LSJ advises: although the majority of the sailors presumably had favored the harsh punishment, it was nonetheless unpleasant work to perform.

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include and exclude.23 This in no way diminishes Thucydides' vaunted akribeia. Any serious history perforce o¨ers a reaction to and interpretation of the events it describes, not a full, indiscriminate chronicle. The incidents of brutality and violence, although mostly perpetrated by Athens and Sparta, were not contained within drawn battle lines. The Hellenes turned to excessive violence not in the heat of battle but in cold calculation or gratuitously. Thucydides searched for meaning in the events he narrated, and at the same time he searched for the events which yielded the meaning he sought. religion It did not escape Thucydides' eye that Dieitrephes and the Thracian army set out for the attack on Mycalessus from a temple of Hermes where they had camped the night before (7.29.3), and that in the rampages the next day the town's temples were destroyed; thus ``every form of destruction'' (i de a paÄsa o le qrou) includes important buildings as well as human lives.24 It is true that temples are often used as topographical markers in ancient historiography, but the detail here does not seem innocent or neutral. Thucydides' self-conscious record of the most pitiable attack of the war launched from a temple and resulting in the destruction of temples not only uncovers another level of the barbarity, or unHellenic nature, of the attack, but ®ts into a striking pattern: almost every temple, festival or religious ritual which Thucydides mentions in the whole narrative of the war proper appears in a negative or compromising context. In cataloguing every appearance of a temple, festival or other ritual in the History, one ®nds not only that the references are more frequent and regular than usually supposed, but more importantly, that in most instances religion was abused or exploited in some way, or served as the pretext for a hostile act or as the backdrop for a dispute or battle.25 23 See de Romilly 1990, esp. 8±10; Hammond 1952; and now from di¨erent perspectives Crane 1996 and Rood 1998. 24 Compare 7.27.3: crhma twn t' ole qrwÎ kaiÁ anqrw pwn jqoraÄÎ . 25 I do not mean to suggest anything about Thucydides' personal piety or attitude to conventional religion, contrary to the prevailing trend (most recently Crane 1996, 163±208) to see Thucydides as entirely uninterested in religion not only for himself but for historical presentation and analysis. See below, pp. 235±6 and Jordan 1986, esp. 147.

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Just as in stasis, so in the war ``religious scruple (eu se beia) was abandoned'' and religion was exploited as a cover for ``invidious acts'' (cf. 3.82.8). The ``sanction of divine law'' was usurped by warring Hellenes' ``shared transgression of the law'' as if they were stasiotai. Religious sanctions underpin the most basic institutions and interpersonal relations in an organized society. In Thucydides' History, religious places and practices count among the casualties of the war.26 Festivals Panhellenic games appear often in Thucydides' History, usually in a context which stresses Hellenic disunity.27 The Olympic games were celebrated six times from 432, the year before the war, to the year Thucydides' narrative breaks o¨. Thucydides mentions in his own voice only the festivals of 428 and 420 and narrates each at some length.28 In fact, it was not the games themselves, but the con¯icts and disputes at the games which attracted his attention; in each instance, his narrative focuses on Hellenic division and aggression at Olympia. It was in 428 that Sparta invited Mytilene, which had rebelled from Athens and was in desperate need of help, to present its case at a private parley at Olympia (3.8). Presumably Sparta speci®ed this location out of convenience: all the Peloponnesian allies 26 Since I am trying to demonstrate that the war proper is narrated as a stasis, I shall place less emphasis here on religious abuses occurring in stasis identi®ed as such, as in the quarrel at Corcyra, 3.70.4±6, 75.5 (cf. 1.24.7), 79.1, 81; at Athens, 8.67.2, 70, 93± 94.1). 27 See Richardson, CAH v2 223±44 on Panhellenic games, and note p. 244: ``At the time of the Peloponnesian War we see this system [of Panhellenic festivals] breaking down, and this breakdown coincided with the destruction of the brief and fragile ideal of Greek unity.'' 28 The festival of 416 is mentioned by Alcibiades in a boastful display (6.16.2); see next section below. I pass over Olympic festivals mentioned in digressions on earlier history (1.6.5, 1.126.5). In a recent study of omissions in Thucydides, Hornblower 1992a asks why Thucydides mentions the Olympic games of 428 and not those of the year before the war, in 432; we know very little about those games, but Hornblower reasonably supposes that there was something to tell about the ``atmosphere'' of the event in which the two great powers, heading to war, both participated. We may just as well ask why Thucydides neglected to mention the festivals of 424 and 412, and more to the point why he did narrate the festivals of 428 and 420 at some length; could it be that the games of 432 did not ®t the pattern of Hellenic divisiveness and con¯ict at Olympia? For a collection of evidence on the Olympic victors in the period covered by Thucydides' History, see Moretti 1957, 105±10.

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would be there. Yet the signi®cance of the place could not have been an incidental consideration, and it certainly did not escape the historian's ken. Mytilene's speech is an appeal for ``Hellas'' to unite against the enemy Athens: a Panhellenic setting and a Panhellenic argument are employed to divide o¨ one Hellenic state from ``Hellas,'' as we have seen. The Mytilenians end their impassioned appeal by declaring themselves suppliants of Zeus Olympios (3.14.1). The Spartans themselves were excluded from ``sacri®cing or competing'' in the Olympic games in the summer of 420 because of a dispute narrated in detail, dramatically illustrating the hair's breadth by which violence and sacrilege were avoided (5.49±50).29 Remonstrations by the Eleans, who invoked ``Olympic law,'' and by the Spartans, led to an impasse. Words did not have enough power to settle the dispute, and everyone was full of fear (e pejoÂbhnto pa ntev) and expected something violent and unprecedented (ti ne on) to happen. But the Spartans decided to remain peaceful and conduct their sacri®ces at home. The incident follows on the heels of the Peace of Nicias, which Thucydides strongly asserts was not a real peace (see pp. 263±73 below). The disrupted Olympic games of 420, where the main event was a Hellenic quarrel, reveals how pervasive the divisions and fear were in Hellas. Other Panhellenic games are less in evidence than the Olympics, but when they are mentioned it is for similar reasons. The Nemean games, which took place eleven times in the years 431± 411, do not warrant even one mention in the History, and the Isthmian games, which were held eleven times in the years 432±412, appear only once, namely the games of 412. In that year, Athens used the Panhellenic assembly to gather information against Chios, in which one faction was secretly planning to revolt. Thus the Chians brought their stasis to the games, which provided the Athenians an opportunity to con®rm their suspicions and plan the counter-maneuver launched immediately at the festival's conclusion (8.9±10.1). We learn nothing about the games except for the Hellenic political struggles there. This is presumably what motivated Thucydides to mention them at all: a Panhellenic setting for an internal and as it turned out bloody Hellenic confrontation. 29 On the incident, see Jordan 1986, 129: ``bloodshed on sacred ground was narrowly avoided.''

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The Athenians exploited the truce30 of another Panhellenic festival, the Pythian games, to remove without interference the entire population from the island of Delos, in the year 422 (5.1). This is not only the sole mention of the Pythian games in the History (out of ®ve possible occasions), but an episode in a larger story which involves the use of an athletic competition as a political weapon and an instrument of violence. Four years previously the Athenians had reestablished the quadrennial Delian games as part of their ostentatious ``puri®cation'' of Delos (3.104).31 Thucydides' description of this event is relatively lavish, citing precedents to the present puri®cation, recalling at impressive length the early history of the festival and quoting with utter approval fourteen lines of Homeric poetry in order to lend authority and splendor to the account. But the ``puri®cation'' in 426 had brutal consequences: the removal of all graves and the prohibition of all births and deaths on the island deprived the Delians of a homeland, a past and a future.32 Four years later, as mentioned, the Athenians removed the Delians themselves. It is noteworthy that almost the whole of Thucydides' account of the puri®cation in 426 (3.104) focuses on the past. Peisistratos' ®rst puri®cation, Polycrates' binding Rheneia to Delos with a chain, and above all the original form and nature of the games surround the bare statement of Athens' singular cruelty. Except for the new horse-race, Thucydides says nothing about how the festival looked in his own time; its impressiveness and grandeur are attested elsewhere, but in Thucydides' account must be extrapolated from the ancient festival.33 He also leaves an important question unanswered: who was invited? And what was the real 30 See HCT iii, 629 for the kind of ``truce'' this really was. 31 Sources and bibliography in Parker 1996, 151 n. 116: Smarczyk's detailed discussion (1990, 505±25), with a di¨erent focus from mine, has nonetheless been useful for what follows. CT 517±25 (cf. also Hornblower 1992a) is a thorough and sound account of the problems, with typically good bibliography. I cannot, however, agree with the suggestion that Thucydides' interest in the matter stemmed from his personal involvement (which is not to deny personal involvement). Needless to say I do not ®nd this passage either a ``digression'' or ``irrelevant'' (Westlake 1969, 17±19). 32 Parker 1996, 150, citing Plut. Apopth. Lak. 230c±d; Jordan 1986, 138 contrasts the cruelty to line 168 in the hymn. Lateiner 1977, 46±7 notes that ``it is part of the paÂqov of the war that sacrilege is committed in the name of pious appeasement, of religion'' and sees in the Delians' fate ``a paradigm of su¨ering.'' 33 An unfortunately undated celebration of the Delian games by Nicias is described in Plut. Nic. 3.3±8; cf. Heubeck 1966.

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purpose of the project? There is hardly a trace of evidence, but if we suppose, with due caution, that the Athenians tried to establish a Panhellenic event, then we can ®ll gaps and put the pieces together. Thucydides' own statement, con®rmed by his quotation from Homer, indicates that the ethnic Ionians ``and the neighboring islanders'' were the ones who participated in the original games (3.104.3, 4), but this could not have been the case in 426, for Athens would at the very least have included all its imperial subjects and independent allies, which spanned a wide ethnic array.34 The Panionia continued as a central Ionian celebration,35 and a purely Athenian celebration was realized in the annual Panathenaea; it is doubtful that the Athenians would have wanted to replace or duplicate either of these. Thucydides does say that the Athenians acted ``according to some oracle,'' but this wording indicates that Thucydides put no store in the validity of the oracle (as opposed to others which he did take seriously)36 and further that he recognized in this oracle an invented reason. It is true, as some scholars have pointed out, that the Athenians had just su¨ered setbacks in Aetolia (3.95±8) and another outbreak of the epidemic, which Thucydides says impaired the Athenian power more than anything else did (3.87.1±2). Yet the Delian games were not a small, private a¨air; rather, they were set on an international stage, at a major shrine of Apollo controlled by Athens.37 The Dorians also had an historical interest in Delos, yet it was the only remaining setting not overshadowed by Athens' enemies. Apollo at Delphi had been favoring the Peloponnesians from the beginning of the war (1.118.3, 123.1; 2.54.4; cf. 1.121.3). Signi®cantly Athens made the Delian games coincide with the Pythia, 34 Cf. 2.9.4±5, 7.57.1±11; Diod. 12.42.5. See Chapter 3 pp. 154±61. 35 CT i, 527±9, which equates it with the Ephesia. 36 Marinatos 1981, 47±55; C. A. Powell 1979; Brock 1996 is speculative. Thucydides never says that oracles are not true, in fact he even con®rms the truth of one (5.26.4); what he criticizes is the human tendency to misunderstand them, the inability to see beyond one's immediate circumstances and needs to the concealed truth. Thucydides' interpretation of the oracle, ``better that the Pelargikon be unworked'' (2.17.1±2), to mean not that city's su¨erings resulted from the occupation of the Pelargikon but that the occupation resulted from the war, is consistent with his likewise original idea that war reduces men's dispositions to the level of their circumstances. Jordan 1986, 130±1 is right that Thucydides' interpretation of the oracle is serious instead of full of ridicule; see CT i, 270 ad loc. for bibliography. 37 On Athens' control of Delos, Ath.Pol. 62.2 with Rhodes 1993, 693±4.

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and as we have stated used the occasion of the Pythian games in 422 ± the second Delian games in their reconstituted form ± to carry out the harsh transferral of the entire Delian population from the island. If Athens attended the Olympic festival during the war, which is likely,38 their position and in¯uence were debilitated by the Peloponnesian dominance of the site and games, which in 428, the last Olympic festival before the re-foundation of the Delia, served as the venue for an anti-Athenian conference which admitted Athens' rebellious ally Mytilene into the Peloponnesian alliance. Athens would have felt even more non grata at the Isthmia, in Corinth's backyard, and at Nemea. Thus none of the existing Panhellenic games took place in a territory or political setting congenial to Athens. The above problems would be solved by supposing that Athens tried to reestablish the Delia as a Panhellenic event, incorporating ancient games under Apollo's aegis, on the level of the other established games ± that is, Panhellenic games at which Athens could control the symbolism and diplomatic activity. This Panhellenic propagandistic gesture of course failed, and even after the war all literary and epigraphic evidence describes a markedly Athenian event.39 But that may not have been the original Athenian intention. If this suggestion is correct ± and even, in limited measure, if it is not ± then Thucydides' extensive quotation of Homer and his description of the games' glorious past amount to an implicit criticism of Athenian pretensions, for the quoted texts verify the limited, Ionian scope of the original games; and it might even be relevant that the traditions of Thucydides' time make Homer himself an Ionian. In addition, the restricted focus on the past event and the absent description of the form and appearance of the present celebration (which must have been even grander) set up the unsettling comparison of past splendor with present in38 See Hornblower 1992a and CT i, 389±91. 39 Ath.Pol. 54.7, 56.3; Xen. Mem. 3.3.12; Paus. 4.4.1; Strabo 10.485; Luc. Salt. 16; CIA 2.814, 1217, 1319; Osborne 1974 on Athenian±Delian relations: and now Smarczyk 1990, 517¨. Note also ML 73, an inscription dated to the same period, containing a Panhellenic invitation to o¨er ®rst fruits at Eleusis (l. 25f.). What I am suggesting is di¨erent from ``an Ionian substitute for the great Panhellenic games,'' Parker 1996, 150, following CT. See Barron 1983 for evidence for a shift of emphasis away from the Ionian gods. Thucydides' neglect of Athens' Panhellenic propaganda, including Pericles' three experiments, is discussed in Chapter 7.

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humanity represented in the awful price the Delians were forced to pay to accommodate the Athenian program. From a di¨erent viewpoint, the reconstituted Delia ®t into a wartime pattern of all festivals ± that is, all those which Thucydides decides to mention ± being turned by a city or league of cities into occasions for planned or narrowly avoided violence or other form of abuse. Thucydides uses the Panhellenic festivals to bring out starkly the divisions in Hellas. One can only guess the reason for the removal of the entire Delian population in 422 (the Athenians' belief, hÿ ghsaÂmenoi, that they had not yet removed the pollution does not answer the question). Some have supposed it was a reaction to the Athenian setbacks in the Chalcidice. The terseness of Thucydides' report of such a harsh action is remarkable. The Athenians soon reversed the measure in accordance with a command of Apollo from his other main shrine, in Delphi (5.32.1, cf. 8.108.4); not only Apollo's angry command but crucially their own ``misfortunes,'' this time presumably the defeat at Amphipolis, induced the Athenians to restore the Delians (5.32.1). They exhibit no remorse or contrition for their former action, no sudden religious or moral insights ± that sort of thing happens to no active player in the History. In order to indicate that nothing had really changed, Thucydides reports the restoration of the Delian population in the same sentence in which he records the brutal treatment the Athenians in¯icted on Scione (5.32.1).40 That is, the Athenians interpreted Apollo's anger as limited to his own shrine in Delos, and not directed at their overall behavior in the war. The cruelty evidenced at Scione, as well as at other places by the Athenians, Spartans and other Hellenes, was accompanied by no hestitation or contrition, both of which emotions, at any rate, are fatal in a stasis. In addition to the Panhellenic festivals, Thucydides mentions other minor festivals, each in a compromising narrative context. The Athenians judged an Apollonian festival the perfect opportunity to attack the rebellious population of Mytilene, who would be caught unprepared (3.3.3); as eventual punishment for the rebellion, a portion of Mytilenian land was made sacred to gods (3.50.2). In 419, the Argives manipulated the calendar, postponing the holy month of Karneia so that it would not interfere with their 40 Lateiner 1977, 46.

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invasion of Epidauros (5.54.3), and the next year they exploited Spartan inactivity during the celebration of Karneia in order to build a wall around Epidauros (5.75.2±6). The year after that, the popular party in Argos waited until the Gymnopaidiai at Sparta to attack their rivals, the oligarchic party, thus exploiting a religious festival in their stasis (5.82.2). In the winter of 418/17, the general Demosthenes extricated his troops from Epidauros by staging sham gymnastic contests; that is, the contests were real, but their sole purpose was to serve as a prophasis for removing the soldiers (5.80.3). In sum, Thucydides mentions festivals if they are exploited or abused, or in some way connected to violence by Hellenes against Hellenes during the war.41 It is true that in the narration of a long war, one should expect festivals to be mentioned when they pertain to the hostilities. Yet it must be remembered that the war in question is an Hellenic war, and the festivals at Olympia, the Isthmus and Delphi were Panhellenic events. As we have stated, akribeia required not only accuracy in observation and description, but also the selection of pertinent facts to record. While Thucydides has located and explained Hellenic clashes by reference to religious places and events, he has at the same time recorded through exclusive selection the deteriorating regard for those very same things, their exploitation and abuse in an increasingly destructive war. Unlike other historians, he mentions no festival for its own sake, much less to record a famous victory. The festivals provide the setting and background of clashes between Hellenes, 41 The only possible exception is the sacri®ce to Heracles which coincided with the Syracusan victory over the Athenians (7.73.2), but the reference is at best ambiguous: the Syracusans had been drinking excessively at the festival in elation over their victory, and as a result were unable to pursue the Athenians; as Dover remarked (HCT iv, 450), ``the chief impediment to resolute military action that night was probably not piety but alcohol.'' There is, ®nally, a piece of disputed information. At 3.56.2, the Plataeans allege that the Thebans attacked their city ``during a sacred period'' (iÿ eromhni aÎ ), which seems true since the Thebans acknowledge it without refutation (3.65.1). Oddly, Thucydides does not mention it in his narrative 2.2±6. The suggestion that he left it out because he ``did not take religious matters seriously'' (Rhodes 1994 ad loc.) is untenable because, ®rst, he does mention the Athenian plan to attack Mytilene during a festival, and second, his personal beliefs are irrelevant, for he is most de®nitely interested in the use and abuse of religious and social norms during the war. Alternatively, the Plataeans may be lying and the Theban mention of the iÿ eromhni a may be an ``adscript'' (see Gomme ad loc.). Thucydides' omission may also have been inadvertent or temporary ± the composition after all is not ®nished ± although the Plataeans' tragically ironic appeal to Hellenic standards makes the fact (if it is a fact) a rather important one. Cf. also 3.58.4, the Plataeans cite religious duties to Sparta.

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but those very clashes and the fate of the festivals represent also the substance and consequences of the larger con¯ict. Temples and rituals Many holy sites, rituals and gods appear in the History, but almost all are in a negative context. Religious sites and practices do not, as commonly in ancient historiography, merely form part of the landscape. Attention is drawn to them because they themselves were violated or otherwise abused, or they serve as the setting for violence or abuse. Not only are instances of sacrilege many and frequent, but almost no temple or religious ritual, even when not violated, appears in a context which may be described as positive or even neutral. The meaning of this will become evident when we compare Thucydides with Herodotus. Certain acts of sacrilege count among the most prominently and elaborately narrated incidents in the History. The Athenian desecration of Apollo's temple at Delion, for instance, and the subsequent Boeotian refusal to return the Athenian war dead ± each a religious violation and presented as such ± are told in great detail (4.76±7, 89±101.1).42 The Athenians' forti®cation measures and the Boeotian ( perhaps innovative) siege technique as well as the hoplite battle are told in full, as prototypes of each kind of event. There are many forti®cations and sieges which Thucydides could have written up for this purpose;43 it is signi®cant that he chose the battle at Delion as the occasion to do so. Athens' failure to establish a permanent base in Boeotia did have important strategic implications, but I would suggest that the overriding reason for Thucydides' choice was to focus attention on the sacrilege which each side seemed so easily to commit and stubbornly justify: the logoi, including the pointed rhetorical exchange over religious 42 Orwin 1994, 90±6, listing other bibliography at 91 n. 6. 43 CT ii, 303, quoting V. Hanson, declares that the battle ``is one of `the only two encounters of infantry of any magnitude' in the Peloponnesian War.'' This is probably not right, but interesting as an example of how strongly Thucydides' own narrative choices can in¯uence the reader; it is correct to say that Delion and Mantinea were the only two hoplite battles which Thucydides relates in any detail in the History. The many telegraphic statements like 5.32.2, kaiÁ FwkhÄv kaiÁ LokroiÁ h rxanto polemeiÄ n, conceal a great deal of information; see also, e.g., 4.124, 5.10, 6.67¨. So far as siege techniques are concerned, the comparably detailed description of the siege of Plataea is, like the present instance, set against the background of stasis (see Chapter 6).

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issues, comprise practically half of the account (4.91±93.1, 95, 97.2±99). That is, the connection between the logoi and erga of the account lies precisely in the religious o¨enses which each side committed. The fully described forti®cation procedures by the Athenians and siege techniques by the Boeotians were at a temple, where such activity is not expected or allowed: the Athenians encircled the temple and sanctuary with a ditch, they cut down the vines around the temple ± a further o¨ense44 ± and ``threw them into'' the forti®cation wall, they used the wood from a collapsed stoa of the temple-house for military towers, all of which are called sacrilege by the Boeotarch Pagondas (toÁ iÿeroÁn a noÂmwv teici santev ne montai, 4.92.7), and the Boeotian herald after the battle condemns them as contrary to conventional Hellenic practice and thought (4.97.2±3).45 It will be remembered that similar o¨enses involving violation of sacred space were recalled from the distant past to serve as aitiai for the present war. The ensuing hoplite battle is between two sides, of which one had violated a holy site and provoked the battle, the other had refused to follow through on the most fundamental ritual procedure following such a battle, invoking the authority of Apollo and the local Boeotian gods, who they claim had been o¨ended (4.97.4). Thus it is the improprieties to which both the logoi and the reported erga draw the reader's attention. Aside from the profanation of sacred places and rituals at Delion and Athens, prominence is appropriately given to the violation of the Herms at Athens in 415 and the profanation of the Mysteries (6.27±9, etc.), which plagued Athens even after the disastrous defeat in Sicily, as Thucydides meticulously notes, especially as he traces Alcibiades' career.46 In Thucydides' account, these two incidents of sacrilege cast an ominous shadow over the Sicilian expedition, as the perpetrators had intended. The solemn prayers and libations which accompanied the launch were tainted (6.32.1± 2). The two incidents became weapons in the political struggles 44 Probably sacrilege, but see Parker 1983, 164±5. 45 From this herald the reader learns further that the Athenians had done in the temple ``all the things people do in profane space'' (e n bebhÂlwÎ), using the ``untouchable'' sacred water in the sanctuary (4.97.3); cf. Ostwald 1986, 100±8. Jordan 1986, 129 n. 18 identi®es the reference to bodily functions. On pollution, see Parker 1983, 161±3. 46 See Powell 1979, 21±5, and generally, Dover in HCT iv, 264±88.

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at Athens (cf. 8.53.2), and should be recognized both in their substance and in their subsequent rhetorical service as key episodes in the brewing stasis in Athens (see Chapter 6). Other instances of sacrilege are introduced into the narrative with little or no comment by the historian. In 426, the Athenian general Demosthenes encamped with his army in the sanctuary of Nemean Zeus (3.96.1). Thucydides' only comment is that Hesiod had been killed there, as a misinterpreted oracle had foretold. This is rather obscure as a comment on Demosthenes' action,47 and if there was a lesson, it was not learned, for eleven years later the Athenians in Rhegion converted a temple of Artemis into a camp and market (6.44.3).48 Other temples were occupied: in fear of Alcibiades and the Spartans, the Athenians spent one night armed in the temple of Theseus (6.61.3); at Syracuse, they occupied the Olympieion, which the Syracusans subsequently took measures to protect.49 The sanctuary of Apollo Temenites did not fare well at Syracuse: it was ®rst enclosed with the Syracusan defensive wall (6.75.1), the Syracusans cut down sacred olive trees there as part of their defensive works (6.99.3), then the Athenians attacked a Syracusan garrison which had taken refuge there (6.100.2), and ®nally it was occupied by Syracusan troops (7.3.3). The Athenians, who are shown to be the most frequent ± but by no means only ± o¨enders against temples, occupy and de®le them not only wantonly but under duress. Forced from their local temples and shrines in the Attic countryside they took over those in Athens itself; the only unoccupied sacred places were those which could be locked (2.16.2±17.1). During the plague, the temples ®lled up with corpses, for the overwhelming calamity brought people to disregard the sacred (2.52.3); as we have noted, the epidemic had the e¨ect, like war, of ``doing away with the easy provision of daily needs and bringing most people's passions to match the level of their actual circumstances'' (3.82.2), and so produced much of 47 Jordan 1986, 127±8 thinks it an exposure of Demosthenes' failure to recognize his own error, and his consequent string of blunders leading to resounding defeat in Aetolia. Thucydides of course keeps the gods far away from direct involvement in historical events, even though his actors may attribute disaster to divine displeasure. 48 Artemis has the distinction of being the recipient of a sacri®ce by a non-Hellene (Tissaphernes) in the last sentence of the extant History. 49 6.64.1, 70.4, 71.1, 75.1, cf. 7.4.6, 37.2±3, 42.6.

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the same e¨ect as stasis.50 The de®lement of temples during the epidemic in Athens subverted the orderly state burial of the ®rst year's casualties, which immediately precedes it in the narrative. Religion may be exploitatively used without being exactly abused. In Amphipolis Brasidas staged a conspicuous sacri®ce to Athena as a provocation to the Athenians outside, who could see him clearly. Thucydides stresses that the topography allowed full viewing of the proceedings inside the city from the outside (5.10.2).51 Brasidas' use of Athena as a taunt to the Athenians would have compromised the solemnity of the sacri®cial ritual. This was not the only time Brasidas employed Athena in a provocative and ambiguous way. Concluding at Torone that his victory had been due to ``other than human means,'' Brasidas ostentatiously dedicated a sum of money to the goddess and considerably extended her temenos (4.116.2). These are two of the only three mentions of a temple to Athena in the narrative of the war proper.52 In each instance the Spartan general uses Athens' patron goddess to provoke the Athenians. The passages are not only a testimonial to Brasidas' cleverness and political astuteness, but also to Thucydides' principle of narrative selection. Athena could have appeared many more times in the history of a war between Athens and Sparta, especially in reference to her city Athens.53 That she did not is no accident. The third reference to Athena involves Pericles' declaration of her treasures at Athens as available for all-out war in Hellas. He regards the contents of the city's temples, even the gold on the Athena Polias, as assets to which Athens could resort in the war (2.13.4±5); that money was indeed eventually used but never repaid. Not just the Athenians but also the Peloponnesians showed little scruple about using the gods' treasures for their struggle against each other. At Sparta the Corinthians suggest that the rich treasuries of Hellas' two most central and Panhellenic shrines, Olympia and Delphi, could support their war e¨ort (1.121.3); their 50 See discussion in Chapter 1 and Mikalson 1984. 51 See HCT ad loc. 52 In addition, there are two references to temples of Athena in the charges of sacrilege which each side leveled at the other before the war broke out, see below. 53 This is not to neglect the temple of Athena Polias at Sparta and elsewhere. But for Athens' special emphasis and connection with Athena, see Barron 1983; Aristoph. Thesm. 1136±47, an invocation to Athena.

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calculation rested on the fact that the Peloponnesians controlled Olympia and Delphi favored them (1.118.3, 123.1). Misuse of the gods' money and property was ``a mark of extreme social decay, the behaviour of a tyrant or barbarian.''54 This was a deep-rooted feeling that was still very much alive long after the war, in 356, when the Phocians, in an action later vili®ed by historians and moralists, melted down o¨erings at Delphi to ®nance their mercenaries ± precisely what Thucydides' Corinthians propose to do. The oneyear truce between Athens and Sparta in 423 promised punishment, according to national law and custom (paÂtrioi noÂmoi), of all who misused Apollo's funds at Delphi (4.118.3±4), suggesting that some borrowing had occurred and was recognized as improper. It is often thought, on the basis of Thucydides' accounts of war practices and epigraphic records of temple loans, that borrowing from temple treasuries became a generally accepted and ``normal'' practice by the second half of the ®fth century.55 But the exceptions to ``the theoretical untouchability of sacred money''56 date from the Peloponnesian War or the few years before it. This is precisely the pattern to which Thucydides draws attention as part of the irregularities which the war brought. His History should be su½cient warning not to accept any change in religious practice during the period of the war and its prelude as ``normal.'' That it was not so, the Phocian incident a half-century after the war's end clearly demonstrates. So much for sacrilege and abuse. Thucydides also recounts many cases of religious issues standing at the center of a dispute with important political consequences. These claims piled up at the beginning of the war. The Athenians accused the Megarians 54 Parker 1983, 171, and generally 170±5; and 174 n. 171 on the Corinthians' possible sacrilege suggested by Pericles (1.143.1). 55 ML, p. 196, but even the editors acknowledge that the large and regular contributions of Athena to the war e¨ort were ``exceptional'' (and see their no. 72). 56 Parker 1983, 173, where he also o¨ers a hypothetical reconstruction of the Athenian reasoning. Parker thinks that a ``crucial di¨erence'' between the Phocian and Athenian uses of sacred treasures is that the Athenians used money which they themselves had donated, but I doubt that the Greek reaction against the Phocians would have been milder had the Phocians robbed Apollo only of their own dedications. Surely the recall of its own monies from Delphi by any Greek state would not have been tolerated, and the Corinthians in Thucydides' History do not propose to distinguish between Peloponnesian and Delian League o¨erings at Olympia and Delphi. See, in addition, the other reference in Thucydides to dedications in temples, far from neutral: the Athenians misassess the Egestans' worth by the rich dedications in the temple of Aphrodite at Eryx (this seems to have been part of the Egestans' ruse), 6.46.3, cf. 6.8.2.

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of cultivating sacred ground, thus justifying their exclusion from all markets of the empire (1.139.2). Two of the war's aitiai involving charges and counter-charges of religious violation and pollution merit long digressions. The Spartans, aiming to build up the strongest case possible for war, demanded that the Athenians drive out ``the curse of the goddess'' (1.126±7); Thucydides judges their concern specious. The Athenians responded with a more extravagant claim, demanding that the Spartans drive out two ancient curses they had incurred, of Poseidon at Tainaros and of Athena of the Brazen House at Sparta (1.128±35).57 In the incident identi®ed as the ®rst aitia of the war, the Corinthians charged the Corcyreans with slighting them at sacri®ces (1.25.4).58 Religious arguments could be used as disputes not only between cities but within them. The enemies of the Spartan king Pleistoanax brought slanders against him regarding religious improprieties and tampering with the Delphic oracle (5.16.2±3). Other disingenuous religious arguments came up during the course of the war. In 427 the Plataeans desperately tried to save their lives by reference to past Spartan demonstrations of religious devotion in Plataea's favor and to Plataea's continuing religious service to Sparta (2.71.2; 3.57.2, 58.3±5). The Spartans remained unmoved. On another occasion, Brasidas called on the gods and heroes of Acanthus to witness his intent to force the city to submit to his will (4.87.2). Religious disputations lay at the heart of two con¯icts during the general break in hostilities brought by the Peace of Nicias: the question of Lepreon's payment of a special tribute to Olympian Zeus was cited as the reason for Elis' hostile alliance with Corinth and Argos against Sparta (5.31), and Argos used the alleged delinquency to Apollo Pythaeus as a pretext ( prophasis) for attacking Epidaurus (5.53).59 57 Incidentally, Thucydides' omission of the Delphic Amphictiony at 1.132.2±3 (see Hornblower 1992a, 176) can be explained by the presentation of the dispute as between Athens and Sparta, leading of course to the war between these two great powers; the same principle determined the information included in 1.112.5 (cf. Hornblower, 177). 58 In the course of that same episode the Epidamnian suppliants in the temple of Hera at Corcyra were rebu¨ed (but not violated, 1.24.7), and of course they eventually had to surrender to Corcyra. The Mytilenians who supplicated Paches and received temporary fair treatment (3.28.2) were doomed by the ®rst decision in Athens and saved in the second; the ultimate fate of the suppliants was not in the hands of the one who respected the inviolability of altars. Thrasyllus saved his life by ¯eeing to an altar but his property was con®scated (5.60.6); cf. also 8.84.3. See in general Gould 1973. 59 Cf. also 5.30, 54 for religion a¨ecting decisions.

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The Hellenes found religious arguments useful in both o¨ensive and defensive maneuvers against their Hellenic enemies. None of the information in any of these instances was necessarily fabricated ± that is not the point. What is important is, ®rst, that religious expostulation accompanied meditated or actual violence, and second, in this survey of religious references in Thucydides, that none of the examples can be said to appear in a neutral or positive context. Religion is used as a tool in the Hellenic struggle, and in the process itself su¨ers harm. One would be hard put to ®nd a Greek historical text with instances of sacrilege and religious abuse so frequent or so severe as in Thucydides' History. There are of course more references to temples and religious practices in the History ± temples which serve as markers for battles or other events, for example. But these apparently neutral references, when examined as a group, almost all appear in what I call a ``negative'' context, such as temples which set the scene for a stasis or for acts of deception or particularly important battles between Hellenes, even though the structures are not directly attacked or harmed. In most of these instances, not only does nothing in the reported action con®rm the holiness of the site or the meaning it has in society, but the action over which the temple presides negates the site's meaning. The following instances all ®t a pattern which may seem unremarkable until we compare it with Herodotus. We begin with the obvious examples.60 When a temple is mentioned in the course of stasis, the reader mindful of the stasis model thinks of the fate of temples during internal con¯ict. For example, Brasidas' intervention in Torone, which was accomplished with the help of a Toronian faction, was launched from a temple of the Dioscuri (4.110.1), twin symbols of virtue and 60 In this survey I have avoided protracted discussion of references to sacred sites and rituals which do not pertain to the war proper, i.e., in the Archaeology (1.6.5, 10.2, 13.6, 20.2 with 6.56.2, 57.1; 55.4, 6±7, also pertaining to the tyrants, may be the only positive reference to temples and religion in the entire History) and Sicilian antiquities (6.3.1); in the Pentekontaetia (1.96.2, 103.2, 112.5); and in the account of Athens' synoikismos (2.15.2± 5). Yet most religious references in Thucydides' digressions into the past ®t the patterns delineated: the tyrannicide at the Panathenaea, the second Sacred War, etc. Furthermore, mentions of temples and festivals in the verbatim texts of treaties do not count as narrative choices in this sense (4.118; 5.18, 23, 41, 47); likewise the dating formula at 2.2.1 mentioning the priestess Chrysis at Argos. Nicias' reference to money stored in the temples at Selinous may perhaps be counted ``neutral'' (6.20.4). Sparta let unfavorable sacri®ces in¯uence its decision to invade Attica: 5.54.2, 55.3, 116.1.

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unity.61 And the Athenians, who were able to seize control of Mende because of stasis in that city, launched their attack from a temple of Poseidon (4.129.3, 130.4). In 426 the Athenian general Demosthenes attacked Leucas: The Leucadians, on account of the number of the enemy, were compelled to sit still as their land was ravaged both within and without the isthmus, where both Leukas and the temple of Apollo stand. The Acarnanians urged the Athenian general Demosthenes to cut them o¨ with a wall, thinking that they could easily reduce them by siege and thus be rid of a city which had always been their enemy. (3.94.2)

The temple of Apollo is not itself a¨ected, but it would be besieged together with the Leucadians and in general is part of a most pathetic scene, in which Hellenes stand by helplessly as they watch their city and temple taken over by Hellenic enemies. Even apparently positive associations are tainted. After the siege of Plataea the Spartans dedicated couches to Hera, built her a large temple and constructed a hostel at the shrine to house visitors to festivals (3.68.3). All this piety is ostentation and hypocrisy: the materials for the hostel and dedications came from the city of Plataea, which the Spartans destroyed, and the land as well they had con®scated from the hapless Plataeans.62 This is one of the few references in Thucydides to temple dedications of booty taken by Hellenes from other Hellenes (others are 3.114.1, referring to the Athenian spoils taken in Amphilochia; and 4.134.1, Delphi receives the spoils from Laodicium). Other gods' temples are present at important battles. Apollo presides over Athenian±Peloponnesian clashes (2.91.1, 8.35.2), and over Athenian plundering and raids (7.26.2) carried out in violation of signed obligations (5.18.7).63 The temple of Apollo at Actium was the setting for the unsuccessful peace overture before the naval battle between Corcyra and Corinth, leading to the larger war in all Hellas (1.29.3). Similarly, Thucydides might also have felt a poignant irony in the temple of Protesilaus being the place 61 It is interesting and perhaps signi®cant that both temples of the Dioscuri in the History appear in a stasis setting, the other one being at Corcyra (cf. 3.75.3), and for further sacred sites in the Corcyrean stasis see 3.75.5 (cf. 1.24.7), 79.1, 81. 62 For the Spartans as ``religious hypocrites'' see Jordan 1986, 142±3. Temples also ®gure in the shocking story of the supposed massacre of 2,000 helots by the Spartans (4.80.4), but this story is not dated and seems to have preceded the war. 63 HCT iv, 399.

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where a lone ship ran aground and was seized (8.102.3). A temple of Zeus, of which relatively few are mentioned in the narrative of the war proper, is the setting for one stage in Chios' own stasis and attempted rebellion from Athens (8.19.2). Apollo's oracle at Delphi presumed to take sides and dispense advice at the beginning of the Hellenic war (1.118.1), a response remembered bitterly in Athens amidst the su¨erings of the epidemic (2.54.4), and the credit of the Delphic oracle was not enhanced by its support of the Spartan foundation of Heraclea in Trachis in 426, a venture which quickly ended in failure.64 To sum up so far. The mentions of temples and religious rituals in Thucydides' History reveal a breakdown of religion in two ways, one in the actions and words of the historical actors, the other indicated more subtly by the historian. First, there are many instances of sacrilege and corruption of sacred places and practices. The exploitation and abuse of religion form a central part of the narrative of the collapse of common values and shared institutions in Hellas. Second, even the apparently incidental references are not usually innocent or neutral, for almost every temple mentioned without special notice from the historian is the scene of violence and inter-Hellenic struggle; temples which are not themselves the object of abuse or corruption nonetheless witness and are tainted by the Hellenic war. Thucydides may not have set out deliberately to assign ``negative'' contexts to the temples and altars he mentions, but the pattern is indicative of what he saw and chose to record. Two photographers will shoot the same scene di¨erently, just as two observers will see di¨erent things in the same photograph. The peculiarity and unusual grimness of Thucydides' picture of religion in the war may be brought out by a brief comparison to Herodotus, in whose text the Hellenes are shown to care scrupulously for their temples and revere them as shared, central elements of their own common identity. The Athenians speak for all Hellenes when they declare to the Spartans that among the things forming their ``shared Hellenic identity'' are ``the gods' shrines and sacri®ces which belong to all of us,'' and the desecration of these is the ``®rst and greatest'' (prwÄta kaiÁ me gista) reason they would never betray Hellas to the Persians (8.144.2). In another patriotic 64 Malkin 1994, 219±35, and above, Chapter 3.

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speech, Themistocles states that it is the Hellenic ``gods and heroes,'' not mere mortals, who have won the victory (8.109.3). Prayers and thank-o¨erings in the temples were a regular occurrence (7.120 is a slightly parodic account of this). Herodotus does record many instances of sacrilege, but if by a Hellene, it is with horror and due record of the gods' retribution. In Books 6±9 the o¨ender is usually the Persian,65 and the meaning is clear and consistent: Herodotus and his Hellenic actors are always outraged, the Hellenes are compelled to rally and defend equally their gods and themselves. Temples are often the setting not for violence, as in Thucydides, but for positive, unifying, strengthening actions. The Hellenes themselves have occasion to avenge sacrilege (e.g. 9.120), in fact that was the purpose of pursuing the Persians in their retreat from Hellas. But in Herodotus the gods can take care of themselves, and in contrast to their mute inactivity in Thucydides, in Herodotus' text they cooperate with human beings in the pursuit of justice, reinforcing further their sacred and revered position and the centrality of the Hellenes' common worship of them. Temples are the site of marvels and wonders by which the gods protect themselves66 and give portents and signs regarding the present and future (8.55, 135). At Plataea, although the battle was near a grove sacred to Demeter, marvellously no Persian fell in the precinct, and Herodotus ventures to suppose that Demeter herself is the cause, since they had burned her shrine at Eleusis (9.65, cf. 101). In Herodotus' comprehensive sweep, religion is part of the landscape,67 not so con®ned as in Thucydides' History. There are in Herodotus too many passing references, records of temple foundations and rebuildings, short digressions on the history of a cult or sacred site, to name ± as one critic expressed it, the ``sheer quantity of information Herodotus gives us.''68 Religion is also brought out of the surrounding landscape and itself made a focus of investigation and speculation, especially as a general activity 65 E.g., 6.13.2, 25.2 (temples speci®cally not burnt), 32; 7.33; 8.32.2, 33, 129; 9.13.2; note the ¯ashback at 7.134. 66 8.35±9, contrast 8.41, the goddess abandoned her temple; 9.42±3 an oracle about Persians plundering Delphi. 67 ``Temples, images, votive o¨erings, oracles, festivals, forms of worship were among the most interesting things that the world had to show a traveler,'' Linforth 1928, 203. 68 Gould 1994, 101. This article is especially good on Herodotus' comparison of Hellenic and barbaric religious practices and beliefs. See also Crane 1996, 179±86.

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in all human society. In Thucydides' text, by contrast, details of ritual and belief appear when they somehow demonstrate the deterioration of religion's authority and accepted meaning and practice during the Peloponnesian War. We should note that Herodotus' presentation of religion is not purely antithetical to Thucydides'. The temples and rites which were con®rmed and strengthened by the Persian Wars were attacked and debilitated in the Peloponnesian War. Religion's important role in Hellenic society, documented by Herodotus, is assumed in Thucydides' writing. Thus while in Herodotus temples and religious objects and rituals are forces which all Hellenes equally revere, which unify them, which they defend against desecration and which are a ®xture in their lives and environment, in Thucydides this same religion is regularly abused and violated by Hellenes, it is exploited as a weapon to divide rather than unify. Hellenes presume to the same conventional religious reverence but they destroy its common, cooperative aspect. Religious activity continued throughout the Peloponnesian War,69 and doubtless Thucydides could have recorded examples of unchanged, apparently still healthy religious expression (especially during the war's early years): people sacri®cing and praying or attending festivals, stopping at temples, or innocent digressions to explain the origin of a site or practice. That he does not discloses less about his personal attitude towards religion than about his historical vision and his interpretation of the Peloponnesian War. While Greek religion may appear healthier in Herodotus, and while overall the Hellenes in his text are more often shown engaged in religious activity and attributing their successes and failures to the gods' intervention, this is less a function of di¨erence in the two historians' temperaments and piety than in their subjects and purposes as artists and writers. Herodotus investigated a great, unifying war of liberation. Thucydides accepted this central ®xture in the Hellenic historical consciousness as such, while writing about a great war in which the Hellenes fought each other and in¯icted great harm on themselves and on those shared institutions by which they identi®ed and distinguished themselves from the rest of the world. Barbarities, brutality, sacrilege, misuse and abuse are constant in Thucydides' narrative, but the Hellenes justi®ed their present 69 Jordan 1986, 124±6; Sparta in particular continued to manifest serious religious scruple.

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purpose as consistent with former practice and convention. In many of the cases discussed above, Thucydides gives some idea of what that justi®cation was. Religious scruple, or the pretense to scruple, persisted throughout the war. The monstrous treatment of shrines and rituals in the war is the result of the war ``doing away with the easy provision of daily needs and bringing [their] passions to match the level of their actual circumstances'' (3.82.2), just as the epidemic in Athens so changed people's dispositions (their gnwÄ mai) that they became capable of leaving corpses in temples and in general despising sacred customs and laws (iÿeraÂ, 2.52.3), acts unthinkable in healthier times.70 individuals In an in¯uential book, Westlake observed that from the Peace of Nicias to the end of the History as we have it, individuals and detailed descriptions of their private motives become more prominent in the narrative. Westlake explained this as a realization by Thucydides, in the midst of the war, that individuals have a greater role in the course of events than he had thought originally, when he wrote the passages on abstract, impersonal, typical historical processes, such as the Archaeology and the stasis model.71 The thesis is ¯awed. First, the concentration on individuals and their motives begins before the Peace of Nicias, in fact after Pericles' death. Second and more critically, a far-ranging change in Thucydides' theory of history may not be the best explanation for the observed phenomenon, for aside from many exceptions it encounters the problem which plagues any attempt to solve the ``Thucydidean Question,'' i.e., a perforce speculative reconstruction of the order in which Thucydides wrote the narrative and back-wrote certain passages, based on the even more di½cult reconstruction of the author's intellectual development (which is hard to analyze even when the subject is available for interrogation). Even if the facts could be agreed on (they cannot), their assemblage and interpretation relies on impression and guesswork. 70 ``For [ Thucydides], religion is the underlying fabric which holds human society together and he shows how a long and vicious war gradually destroys that fabric as it destroys so much besides,'' Jordan 1986, 147. 71 Westlake 1968.

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If, on the other hand, we assume that a consistent and mature historical vision informs the composition as a whole, we may ask a coherent question: what aspect of the war after Pericles' death did Thucydides try to bring out by making individuals more prominent in the narrative and explaining their motives? The growing predominance of individuals who are speci®cally said to be motivated by sel®sh personal gain at the expense of their state occurs pari passu with the breakdown of corporate structures in Hellas. The disappearance of civic virtue is both produced by and contributes to the deteriorating condition in Hellas. In a vicious circle, declining morals and deteriorating community identi®cation allow more brazenly grasping individuals to rise to the top, and they in turn, because of their in¯uence, contribute to the decline of the community. Thucydides draws this picture with a ®rm hand, guiding the reader's understanding ± in some places almost obtrusively ± by constant editorial comment. He gives no character a leading role without explaining the individual's motives, and these explanations almost always stress the desire for personal gain and advantage to the detriment of the individual's city. As Brunt remarked, ``It is characteristic of Thucydides that he ascribes personal motives to Cleon, Brasidas (whom he undoubtedly admired), Nicias, and Pleistoanax alike and does not seem to allow that any of them was actuated by the interest of his city as he saw it.''72 After the initial phase of the war Thucydides focuses more closely on the actions of individuals and omnisciently determines their motives simply because detrimentally sel®sh and powerful individuals were a most important development in the kinesis which he attempts to record accurately and completely. Pericles' model of civic virtue It is my thesis that Thucydides implicitly or explicitly compares all important individuals active in the war to Pericles. Pericles controlled Athenian policy and strategy until his death, and in Thucydides' narrative he overshadows any other individual Athenian 72 Brunt adds: ``this interpretation may not be right in every, or in any, case,'' but the modern historian, with (admittedly) di¨erent standards of accuracy from Thucydides', is not able to a½rm ``rightness'' of such judgments; Brunt 1965, 277 n. 78. See further Wasserman 1954, 47.

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while he is still alive. Once the war breaks out, he is the only Athenian to speak (see Chapter 3), and most signi®cant Athenian actions are attributed to him. Thucydides' admiration of the man and his accomplishments is obvious,73 and Thucydides' evaluation sets him o¨ not only from his Athenian compatriots but from every other Hellenic individual on whose character and motives Thucydides o¨ers comment. Through the contrast between Pericles and his successors in Athens, Thucydides famously explains the collapse of Athens as well as the course of the rest of the war: In peacetime, so long as [Pericles] directed the a¨airs of the city, he governed it moderately and successfully preserved its security, and under his guidance it became great; when the war broke out, he proved that even in that contingency he had correctly judged the city's power. He lived on for two years and six months, and when he died his foresight regarding the war was even more recognized. For he said that they would prevail if they did not openly pursue hostilities, took care of their navy and did not try to extend their empire during the war or bring the city into danger. But they [his successors] did the opposite in each case, in addition to other matters with no apparent connection to the war, out of personal ambition and the pursuit of personal gain, and as a result managed a¨airs badly both for themselves and for the allies: matters which, if successful, would rather enhance the standing and advantage of individual persons, but if failed would bring harm to the whole city's ability to conduct the war. The reason for this was that Pericles, deriving his authority from both the esteem in which they held him and his own good judgment, as well as the fact that he was most manifestly incorruptible, controlled the masses as free men, and he led them rather than being led by them; since he held power through no impropriety he did not have to ¯atter them, but rather their esteem for him allowed him even to anger them by contradicting them. (2.65.5±8)

This passage more than any other embodies Thucydides' idea of civic virtue: a devotion to the city greater than devotion to private interests, complete incorruptibility, fearlessness of the public's whims, the ability to govern by dint of one's strong character, adherence to a ``moderate'' or ``balanced'' policy (metri wv) which keeps the city safe from both internal and external dangers, a combined insight and foresight enabling correct assessment of present 73 de Romilly 1965; Westlake 1968, 23±42; cf. also Chambers 1957; Pouncey 1980, 78±82; Cawkwell 1997b, 5f.; on Pericles in general, Connor 1971, 119±28.

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exigencies and sound planning for future contingencies.74 These are the very qualities which are partly or wholly absent from every individual, Athenian or other, whom Thucydides brings to the foreground after Pericles' death. Strictly, the passage above pertains to Pericles' successors in Athens, but in fact, aside from Hermocrates in Sicily, no important personality from any Hellenic state, including those few whom Thucydides seems to admire for a particular accomplishment or some single character trait, is said to possess the sum of the qualities for which Pericles is praised. On the contrary, after Pericles' death the increasing abundance of authorial statements about the personal motives of the actors leaves no doubt that, in the historian's mind, the qualities which distinguish Pericles disappeared not only from Athens but from all Hellas, as devotion to the common good and the integrity of religious and social institutions and norms broke down everywhere.75 Thus I think that the assessment of Pericles in 2.65, especially if written after the war's close,76 was meant to be understood in an Hellenic and not strictly an Athenian context. Pericles is employed as a kind of model of civic virtue against which all subsequent leaders, even the better and more accomplished ones, fail to measure up. Furthermore, the model of civic virtue contains just those qualities which in the stasis model are replaced by distorted, harmful forms or disappear: moderation, civic devotion, political talent and ``intelligence'' are displaced by extremism, greedy attention to one's private interests and a kind of obtuseness which cannot see beyond the immediate moment.77 Loyalty to anything beyond one's personal survival becomes dangerous and disappears, survival requires an aggressive attitude to all. There is some ambiguity in Thucydides' statement that ``they did the opposite in each case'' (2.65.7), for grammatically ``they'' should be the Athenians, not their leaders.78 Context seems to indicate that the subsequent leaders are meant, yet the ambiguity can be put to good use. Since it is obvious that one of the main 74 Cf. Bender 1938, 26. 75 Cornford 1950, 54 saw things di¨erently: ``The death of Pericles and the Peloponnesian war mark the moment when the men of thought and the men of action began to take di¨erent paths.'' 76 CT i, 342±3. 77 Note the parallel remarks on jilotimi a at 2.65.7 and 3.82.8. 78 As Classen±Steup note, and see CT i, 342.

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targets of Thucydides' criticism in 2.65 is Cleon, whom the historian detested and who is made to represent just those negative virtues which Thucydides disparages, it is also clear that the criticism applies to the age as well. For, on the one hand, Cleon was the most persuasive speaker, thus the most in¯uential policy-maker, of his time (e n twÄÎ toÂte piqanw tatov, 3.36.6); the people more often than not followed his policy, and it is a function of Thucydides' particular views and original choices of material that he showcases a signi®cant instance in which the Athenian public de®ed Cleon ± the punishment of the Mytilenians. On the other hand, Cleon was not only the most persuasive of his time but also the most violent (biaioÂtatov, ibid.), so that his violence represents the time and the people he persuaded.79 As we have seen, the Mytilenian debate, while ending in a more lenient decision, in fact demonstrates the hardening of attitudes, the exchange of common morality for brutality. Yet we shall not dwell on Cleon, not only because so much has already been written about him,80 but because we shall better understand Thucydides' view of the relation between the individual and the war by examining the cases of leaders (both Athenians and Spartans) whom he admired in a limited way. Nicias, Antiphon, Phrynichus Nicias takes center stage after Cleon's death.81 In a long and complicated sentence spelling out the motives of the four war leaders Cleon, Brasidas, Nicias and Pleistoanax, Thucydides says that Nicias, before being thrust into political leadership, had been one of the most successful generals, but he nurtured an ambition for political predominance82 and pressed Athens to make peace for advantages accruing mostly to himself: he knew he would have to command any further campaigns and he wanted to avoid all danger in order to preserve his own reputation and ``good fortune'' (eutuci a) with an unbroken string of successes, as well as to gain gratitude from the Athenians for giving them a rest and to earn 79 Andrews 1994. 80 See now Spence 1995, with references to earlier literature; this article defends Thucydides against charges of gross distortion in the portrayal of Cleon. 81 Westlake 1968, 86±96 and 169±211, is often quoted; Rood 1998, 183±201; Dover, HCT iv, 461±4; Pouncey 1980, 117±30; Bender 1938, 38±57; Heitsch 1996. 82 Retaining hÿgemoni an in 5.16.1; see n. 126 below.

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a name as one who brought the city only bene®t throughout his entire life (5.16.1). King Pleistoanax, Nicias' counterpart in Sparta, is also said to have been motivated by personal political concerns to pursue peace with Athens, namely as a way of freeing himself from scandal.83 Thus Nicias and Pleistoanax advocated peace for their cities in pursuit of their own private interests in the limited domestic sphere. By subtle phrasing Thucydides raises the question of the extent to which Nicias was harming Athens by withdrawing his services. In addition, the main advocates of war in each city are said to have been motivated primarily by private concerns as well: Cleon and Brasidas each had personal reasons to lead their respective cities to pursue the war, the former to distract attention from his crimes and the latter to enhance his own reputation and in¯uence. Cleon is singled out by Thucydides as harming the city while cultivating his own interests, but we shall see that Brasidas, too, is presented (albeit more sympathetically) as harming his city in pursuit of private advantage. Thus the main advocates for war and peace in each city are presented as actuated in their policies more by strictly personal motives than by civic concerns. The peace which Nicias and Pleistoanax negotiated broke down. Thucydides is very clear in his view that this was inevitable, since the ``truest reason'' for the war had not evaporated with the truce ( pp. 263±73 below). Thus in his limited and personal objectives Nicias lacked the quality which Thucydides most valued in Pericles, Themistocles, Theseus and few others: foresight, the ability to read future consequences of present actions. As we saw in Chapter 1, this mental capacity is ideally combined with an ability to act on one's own conclusions from the facts (e.g., 1.139.4, 238.3; 2.15.2). Nicias' desire for peace was real, but even when he is able to formulate policy solely in the city's interest (for he was not totally lacking in patriotism), he was not able to put it into e¨ect. He opposed the Sicilian expedition, concluding that ``the city had not decided well'' (6.8.4), but then he was elected general for the expedition ``against his will'' (6.8.4), achieving the opposite of his desired end. It is ironic that in his ®rst speech against the expedition, Nicias attributes ``foresight'' to himself, but in a way which perverts Thucydides' understanding of the quality: Nicias 83 See de Ste. Croix 1972, 153.

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says that the one who takes foresight for himself ± his own life and property ± will also wish the city to prosper in order to secure his own personal well-being (6.9.2).84 Nicias unwittingly identi®es the source of his own failure. Nicias' mistakes and miscalculations were largely responsible for leading the Athenians to their miserable destruction in Sicily. In Dover's words, he was ``inept, dilatory, and querulous,''85 and this says no more than Thucydides indicates by his own authorial comments and his record of Nicias' actions. Thucydides criticizes Nicias' slow pace (7.42.3), his indecisiveness (48.3) and his superstition (50.4), and he notes that the general remained fundamentally motivated by personal concerns harmful to Athens, for he was willing to endanger the entire army in order to save himself from disgrace at home by an honorable death in the ®eld (7.48.4, which resembles Nicias' reasons for seeking peace with Sparta).86 But on the whole, Thucydides' detailed record of Nicias' delay, misjudgment and obsession with personal honor required little additional comment, so that the account of Nicias' actions did not have to be so laden with editorializing as the accounts of other ®gures, above all Alcibiades. The report of Nicias' death at the hands of his Syracusan friends and enemies is accompanied by a brief and enigmatically phrased comment which has been translated and explained in a variety of ways; the solution carries signi®cant weight for the interpretation of Thucydides' view of Nicias and of the main themes of the History. Here is the original text with my suggested translation: hkista dhÁ a xiov w n twÄn ge e p' e mouÄ ÿ E llh nwn e v touÄto dustuci av a jike sqai diaÁ thÁn paÄ san e v a rethÁn nenomisme nhn e pith deusin. (7.86.5) Of all the Hellenes of my time, he least deserved to arrive at such misfortune because of his complete dedication to virtue (a rethÂ) as it was conventionally understood and practiced.

The problems are many, but the two most important for our purposes are, ®rst, whether the words paÄsan and nenomisme nhn mod84 nomi zwn oÿmoi wv agaqoÁn poli thn einai ov a n kaiÁ touÄ swÂmatoÂv ti kaiÁ thÄ v ou si av pronohÄtai, 6.9.2, contrast Pericles' remark at 2.60.4. J. T. Hogan 1989, 167±80 and Connor 1984, 163, 164 discuss the contrast between Nicias and Pericles. 85 HCT iv, 462. Further in the same direction, Lateiner 1985. 86 Other examples gathered by Dover, HCT iv, 461±2. Compare Pl. Laws 1.630b: pistoÁv meÁ n gaÁ r kaiÁ uÿgihÁv e n sta sesin ou k an pote ge noito a neu xumpaÂshv a rethÄv.

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ify arethÂn or epithÂdeusin (all combinations have been argued), and whether diaÁ . . . e pithÂdeusin explains why Nicias was least worthy to su¨er the death he did or how he came to such a degrading and unfortunate end.87 To my mind, nenomisme nhn makes little sense as a modi®cation of e pith deusin, which is however defended by the standard English commentary on Thucydides as meaning ``lit., `through his practice all observed into goodness', i.e. `because he had ordered his whole life by high moral standards','' where the smooth rendition of the bizarre literal rendering wanders far from the Greek.88 As the same commentary concedes, ``nenomisme nhn suggests the practice of a whole society rather than of an individual,'' and this is precisely the point: as such, it must go with the word for virtue, areth , whose value is determined solely by what society as a whole thinks. The objections to this are two: the lack of an exact parallel in ancient Greek and deviation from regular, textbook Greek. Both of these may be set aside as a philologist's formalism. First, how can an author say anything unusual or original if he must have a parallel? For the purpose of absolute rules, especially with which to emend texts of creative giants, the sample of existing ancient Greek is relatively small. Second, Thucydides was a master of nuance, and understanding nenomisme nhn with areth n is in any case not ungrammatical, only uncomfortable for some readers. Once this is settled, the interpretation of paÄsan is less critical, a matter of where one feels the emphasis is needed: ``complete devotion to conventional virtue'' (which I favor as more intelligible and natural), or ``devotion to utter virtue'' (which makes less sense in ancient Greek). The implications of this single sentence are far-ranging, but consistent with the lines of interpretation already set out. Nicias represented the highest standard of virtue of Thucydides' time, but this time, the Peloponnesian War, was one of corrupted morals and tottering conventions. From the ®rst comment on Nicias' character 87 See above all H. A. Murray 1961, Connor 1984, 205±6 and Rood 1998, 184 n. 9; also HCT iv, 461±4; Lateiner 1985; Bender 1938, 49±51; I disagree with Westlake 1968, 209± 11. The idea to read nenomisme nhn with a rethÂn is old, see the scholiast on this passage and literature cited in HCT. Adkins 1975 at least establishes that areth is used in the conventional sense. Another major problem is whether to read the words paÄ san e v a rethÂn, which are omitted from most of the codices; see HCT iv, 461 and Connor 1984, 205 v. 53, who thinks it ``almost certainly . . . an early haplography.'' 88 HCT iv, 463. The Bude edition is good: ``par son application au bien dans une entieÁ re conformite avec les reÁ gles.'' Cf. Pl. Phaedo 82a (cited by Marchant ad loc.).

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and motives in the peace narrative to his death in Sicily, Thucydides portrays a general who, while not unmoved by love of his city and concern for his fellow citizens, focused primarily on his own welfare and reputation.89 As a prime example of virtuous character, therefore, Nicias illustrates the extent to which Thucydides thought the concept of virtue had in his own time changed, that is, declined from the standard which he saw represented in Pericles. In the enigmatic sentence at 7.86.5 Thucydides is perhaps also suggesting a certain connection between Nicias' character and intentions on the one hand ± his logoi ± and his actions, which were ultimately a gross failure, on the other. The explanatory diaÂclause may very well be phrased, as Connor suggested, to encourage the reader ``to contemplate both aspects.''90 Nicias was least worthy to su¨er a bad fate because of his lifelong attempt to adhere to the good, but he also came to a sad end because of his adherence to the good. This second possibility, intriguingly, reinforces the implications of the phrase ``arete as it was conventionally understood and practiced.'' For Nicias' pursuit of arete, such as it was, led to his downfall and proved an unintentionally selfdestructive habit. This is strongly reminiscent not only of the conditions of stasis, in which any honest attempt to uphold virtue and convention contravenes the laws of survival, but also of the similar condition in the epidemic, in which ``especially those laying some claim to virtue'' (ma lista oiÿ a rethÄv ti metapoiouÂmenoi) ± i.e., those attempting to behave according to moral standards predating the condition ± leads equally to destruction (2.51.5). With the exception of Hermocrates in Sicily, neither Nicias nor any other Hellene who gains prominence after Pericles is said to possess the combination of xunesis ± intelligence ± civic concern and capacity for action which characterized Pericles. Nicias may have had concern for the welfare of his city and fellow citizens, but in Thucydides' portrayal, aside from being tagged with private motives harmful to Athens, he conspicuously lacks both foresight and the ability to accomplish his intended ends. The word xunesis is never associated with Nicias.91 The only other Athenians said to possess intelligence are the 89 Lateiner 1985; H. A. Murray 1961, 33: Nicias, ``while professing (seriously enough no doubt) to care for the welfare of the citizens, for whom he regarded himself as especially responsible,'' has as his chief aim ``a morbid pursuit of self-preservation.'' 90 Connor 1984, 205 n. 53. 91 H. A. Murray 1961, 35±6; Bender 1938, 51.

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oligarchic conspirators of 411; the plot not surprisingly succeeded, Thucydides says, because many xunetoi formed it (8.68.4). Yet aside from the obvious point that the core members of the Four Hundred acted in the brutal, self-interested manner of the stasiotai they in fact were (see Chapter 6), the actual examples of intelligent men and intelligent action reveal not only that intelligence was applied for destructive ends in the stasis, but that when it existed in a man with good intentions it was unappreciated and therefore ine¨ective at the time. Two examples. Thucydides describes Antiphon, the ®rm opponent of democracy, as ``inferior to no Athenian of his time in arete and most able to conceive a plan and express his intentions'';92 but Antiphon felt constrained to avoid the assembly and any open confrontation because ``he was held in suspicion by reason of his reputation for cleverness'' (diaÁ doÂxan deinoÂthtov, 8.68.1). Antiphon's virtue, like Nicias', was ``second to none of his time.'' This is not high praise for a man living in a time poor in virtue. Antiphon himself worked to overthrow the government. As Aristotle said, ``generally speaking, men distinguished in virtue do not make factional war'' (Pol. v 1304b 4±5). Antiphon's intelligence, that is his ability ``to conceive a plan and express his intentions,'' was useless because it was suspected, misunderstood as mere ``cleverness,'' in much the same way that intelligence is suspected and feared in stasis (3.83.3±4). Therefore Antiphon could conceive a plan but not carry it out. In different times, Thucydides says, Antiphon would have been a great public asset because on a private basis he was more able than anyone else to help another person in dire need (8.68.1). Unlike Nicias, who conspicuously lacked the quality of xunesis but rose to the top and led Athens into disaster, Antiphon possessed true intelligence but was e¨ectively silenced and became involved in a plot against the public interest. In the end, he was executed for his role in the Four Hundred. The contrast between the two men represents the disjunction between logos and ergon which developed in the war. Phrynichus, another of the xunetoi referred to in 8.68.4, also met a violent end. In contrast to Antiphon, Phrynichus is said to have had only the reputation for intelligence (8.27.5).93 Thucydides avoids 92 Connor 1984, 224±5 is most helpful, although I do not agree that Antiphon's arete is his rhetorical skill; the two are clearly separated in 8.68.1 by kai . Cf. HCT v, 171±2. 93 e doxen . . . ouk a xu netov ei nai. Ostwald 1986, 349 notes the disastrous results of Phrynichus' intelligence. There have been attempts to defend Phrynichus ± see Andrewes, HCT v, 119. See also Westlake 1968, 242±7; Pouncey 1980, 130±7.

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authorially con®rming the impression of Phrynichus' peers. Instead he shows how Phrynichus' willful action only demonstrated the critical absence of true intelligence, and how seriously we must take the con®nement of identi®ed intelligence and virtue to the corrupt, disturbed times. Phrynichus was involved in the Athenian stasis from the beginning as an enthusiastic supporter of oligarchy but equally (in places it seems primarily) as a vigorous opponent of Alcibiades. He correctly reads Alcibiades in a penetrating analysis summarized at 8.48.4±5, revealing his ability to assess a situation quickly and reach the right conclusion about how to act. But the longest narrative stretch showing Phrynichus in action (8.50±1) tells a different story, and he proves to be a man of rather ¯exible and inconstant civic loyalty and a rather poor judge of circumstance and of others, and his xu nesiv, such as it was, proves utterly devoid of that moral dimension so prominent in Pericles' words and actions. Phrynichus is said to have correctly foreseen that the democracy at Athens would be overthrown (in the hope, which he saw as highly uncertain, of gaining Persian friendship) and Alcibiades recalled, and that Alcibiades would thereafter settle personal accounts with him (8.50.1). Seeking to protect himself, he turned to the Spartan admiral Astyochus to denounce Alcibiades. This may seem like an act of self-preservation, especially against a personal enemy who had proven dangerous to the state, but Thucydides guides his reader away from that simple conclusion: Phrynichus reasoned, he says, that ``he could be forgiven for devising harm for an enemy even if it meant hurting his own state'' (8.50.2). With the expected acknowledgment of his own self-interest comes the quite unexpected acknowledgment of consequent harm to his own state. Astonishingly, Phrynichus, the man who enjoyed a good reputation among his contemporaries, frankly admits operating according to the distorted principles characteristic of stasis: factionalists ``do not restrain themselves at the boundary of justice or the city's true interests, but limit their actions only by what their own immediate grati®cation requires'' (3.82.8). Moreover, his statement is close in both language and thought to the pained logic Alcibiades employed to justify himself before the Spartans (see below).94 94 So blockheaded were Phrynichus' words and actions that Andrewes wrote (HCT v, 117± 18): ``no doubt Thucydides himself felt a need to justify this dubious action by a man whose judgement, on all occasions, he had so strongly praised (27.5). The tone of vi.92 is very di¨erent, though it hardly makes a more favourable impression on the reader.'' A

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Thucydides is at pains to make clear that Astyochus, for his part, sought personal gain (e p' i di oiv ke rdesi, 8.50.3) and acted accordingly, even when he was less than certain about the reliability of the information; thus his motives were no better than Phrynichus'. Alcibiades reported Phrynichus' actions to the ¯eet at Samos, urging that he be executed (a not unreasonable expectation), and at this stage, Phrynichus, fearing for his life, revealed how severe the limits of his xuÂnesiv actually were, for he wrote another secret letter to Astyochus, o¨ering him the chance to destroy ``the entire army of the Athenians.'' Phrynichus chastised Astyochus for violating the standards of Greek ethical conduct: the disclosure of his private letter was ou kalwÄ v, he said (8.50.5). The irony is thick, but Thucydides could have intended only the reader to feel it, for Phrynichus' ethical expostulation is immediately followed by his proposal to destroy the army. Phrynichus further protested that Astyochus had wronged him (adikouÄnta, 51.1), which is not odd when understood in the context of a period when words for moral and ethical values were undergoing radical changes. In his letter95 Phrynichus reasons that since he was in mortal danger he was not to be blamed (anepi jqonon) for doing anything required to escape destruction at the hands of his bitterest enemies (8.50.5).96 Astyochus passed the contents of this letter on to Alcibiades with the same promptness as before. Phrynichus had now maneuvered himself into a di½cult position, and he ®nally realized that the reason was his own misjudgment of Astyochus. This is related in a peculiar way: ``When Phrynichus foresaw (prohÂÎsqeto) that Astyochus had done him wrong . . .'' (8.51.1). The word prohÂÎ sqeto has caused problems, because obviously Phrynichus fore-saw nothing. Thucydides seems to have chosen the word again for heavy ironic e¨ect. Phrynichus' lack of foresight and insight was responsible for the quandary from scholar's ``no doubt'' often signals a weak point. Andrewes sees rightly that Phrynichus' action was ``dubious'' (the degree to which this is an understatement is revealed as the story continues), and senses a problem only because he assumes that the assessment of Phrynichus' intelligence receives Thucydides' complete endorsement. Regarding 6.92, ``tone'' is a subjective matter; but Andrewes is right that the reader is not impressed. 95 Whether or not Thucydides actually saw a copy of the letter is irrelevant here. 96 Cf. 3.82.8: euprepei aÎ deÁ lo gou oi
v xumbai h e pijqo nwv ti diapra xasqai. Phrynichus' uses of language here can qualify as eu prepei a deÁ loÂgou. Note that Archidamus 1.82.1 tries to justify calling in the Persians as anepi jqonon, a shaky argument and shocking proposal; cf. also 1.75.5; 2.64.5; 6.54.5, 83.2; 7.77.2, 3 and HCT ad loc.

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which the only way out was a complete about-face, which is the course he took. He now turned to the army, which he had planned to deliver to total destruction, and warned them of an impending attack, ordering them to fortify Samos, which they immediately did, thereby saving themselves. Thucydides makes another bitterly ironic remark after Phrynichus' sensible order: ``he was general and so had the authority to do these things'' (8.51.1). Why was it necessary to say this? There was little chance that the reader would ask on what authority Phrynichus gave the order, for he had been identi®ed as strategos when ®rst introduced into the History (8.27.1). The point seems to be that Phrynichus was ®nally acting as a general was supposed to act. Phrynichus' ruse worked: Alcibiades' letter came after Phrynichus gave the order to commence the forti®cations, so that Alcibiades' letter (containing true information) was disbelieved and the sincerity of Phrynichus (which was false) was believed (8.51.3). After this episode, Phrynichus appears brie¯y again in the narrative (8.54.3, 68.3, 90.1±2) before he is stabbed to death (92.2). His perceived xunesis brought no use either to his city or to himself. The appreciative reader should not be surprised or feel regret at Phrynichus' end (Thucydides reveals none). Brasidas So far we have considered only Athenians. By the History's record, Brasidas is the most prominent and most talented Spartan active in post-Periclean Hellas,97 and he might be thought to o¨er an exception to the rule I have suggested, whereby the quality of leadership, of civic devotion and of the individual per se declines after Pericles' death, and that Pericles serves as a model against which no subsequent Hellene (except possibly Hermocrates the Sicilian) measures up. Thucydides o¨ers a general assessment of Brasidas at the outset of the Thracian campaign (4.81), and it is this passage which has led critics to think that Thucydides grouped him with the ``heroes'' of the History. The parallels between 4.81 and 2.65 invite comparison between Brasidas and Pericles, but I shall argue that if Thucydides intended the comparison, it was ironically to 97 The Spartan king Archidamus, who had a reputation for intelligence (1.79.2) and is portrayed sympathetically, died shortly after Pericles.

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contrast the two men.98 There does indeed seem to be in 4.81 and subsequent portrayal of Brasidas what Hornblower calls ``an irreducible quantum of Thucydidean approval,''99 but mutatis mutandis the same could be said for Alcibiades. I will attempt to show that in Thucydides' interpretation, neither Brasidas nor Alcibiades, both of whose exploits are recorded in detail, rose above the everdeteriorating conditions in Hellas in pursuit of a higher, more laudable principle, but rather the prominence and activity of each re¯ects the same declining condition. It is noteworthy that the authorial assessment of Brasidas comes at the beginning of the Thracian narrative. Thucydides' comments will guide the reader's own interpretation of Brasidas' actions and words. Thucydides writes: The Spartans sent out Brasidas mainly because he himself wanted it, although the Chalcidians were also anxious to have him; at Sparta he was a man with a reputation for energetically applying himself to everything he did, and indeed when he went abroad he proved to be most valuable to the Spartans. For while he was there, by showing himself to be just and moderate to the cities, he caused many of them to revolt [against Athens] and he took other places by exploiting treachery from within; so that the Spartans, who were wanting to reach a settlement [with Athens] ± which they eventually did ± acquired places to bargain with, as well as a shift of the burden of war away from the Peloponnese. Later, after the war in Sicily, the virtue (arete) and intelligence (xunesis) of Brasidas, which some experienced ®rst-hand and others believed when they heard, instilled an extraordinary pro-Spartan enthusiasm among the Athenian allies. For, as the ®rst Spartan abroad to gain a reputation for being in all respects honorable (agathos), he left beind him the hope that the others would be like him. (4.81.2±3)

Typically Thucydides opens the assessment with a pronouncement on psychology and motive: Brasidas very much wanted (bouloÂmenon) to lead the expedition against Thrace. He did not personally initiate it, as some have thought; the operation re¯ected o½cial Spartan policy as well as the urging of the Chalcidian Greeks.100 98 On Brasidas/Pericles, see Connor 1984, 130 n. 52. Recent discussions of Brasidas have been good, esp. CT ii, 38±61 and his commentary on the relevant chapters; Rood 1998, 69±77; and Connor 1984, 126±40; see also Westlake 1968, 148±65 and Hunter 1973, 23± 41. 99 CT ii, 59; in the following analysis, I owe more to Hornblower and to the subtle readings by Connor and Rood than would be convenient to acknowledge at every point. 100 CT ii, 268±9.

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Yet still we may ask the reason for his enthusiasm as well as for Thucydides' reason in pointing it out. The answer is provided by the last thing Thucydides says about Brasidas in the History, that the personal good fortune and honor he found in war made him pursue the war and staunchly oppose the peace with Athens (5.16.1). Continuing to ®ght would add to his own fortune, status and reputation; these are the things he eagerly sought in Thrace from the start. There were doubts later about Brasidas and jealousy of him in Sparta (4.108.7, 132.3), but he was sent to Thrace, despite inherent Spartan suspicion of successful individuals, because his expected accomplishments would bring advantage to Sparta. This is what Thucydides says next in the above passage: from Brasidas' exploits the city gained both the immediate advantage of a stronger position for negotiations101 and credibility later when the war resumed. Regarding Brasidas himself, the wording of 4.81 is careful but ambiguous, so that Thucydides' own view of him is uncertain. Consistent with the emphasis on advantage accruing to Sparta, the focus is more on how Brasidas was perceived in the cities: his show of justice and moderation stimulated their revolt, and his reputation for honor and intelligence inspired con®dence in Spartan leadership. This matches the contextualized virtue and intelligence of Nicias and Antiphon. Especially in regard to the ®rst paired qualities, i.e. Brasidas' justice and moderation, the nuances in Thucydides' syntax and word-choice stress a carefully orchestrated perception of him rather than his true nature: he ``showed himself to be'' or ``gave the impression of being'' just and moderate ``at that time'' or ``while he was there.''102 There is no certainty that these are inherent characteristics. However, the second pair of qualities, Brasidas' arete and xunesis, seem not to be so distant from Thucydides' own opinion. The emphasis is still on the appreciation of Brasidas by others ± and the readiness of people at that time to believe the positive reports ± but if people actually ``experienced at ®rst hand'' Brasidas' virtues, then there 101 See Raa¯aub 1985, 252 and n.172. 102 The implications of toÁ parauti ka 4.81.2 should be fully appreciated; while it obviously contrasts with e v toÁn croÂnwÎ usteron, it also concentrates Brasidas' e¨ort in a speci®c time and for a speci®c purpose. The phrase pare cein eÿ auto n does not mean that he revealed his true character, but that he created an impression for a certain end, as in 1.37.3, 8.68.3. See in general Rood 1998, 72¨.

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must have been something to them, unless we are to believe that people merely saw what they wanted to see. Thucydides provides guidance in his second authorial assessment of Brasidas, as well as in smaller but no less illuminating editorial comments. After the capture of Amphipolis, Thucydides says, the Athenians feared the revolt of their allies, ``for (gaÂr) Brasidas had showed himself to be moderate'' (4.108.2), repeating verbatim the wording and sequence of thought from 4.81. But here it is clearer that Brasidas' ``moderation'' was merely a skillfully crafted but misleading impression, for when the cities subject to Athens learned of the capture of Amphipolis and the promises made to it, and of Brasidas' mildness, they were more than ever stirred up to revolutionary change; and they sent secret messages to him bidding him to come, each of them wanting to be the ®rst to rebel [against Athens]. For there indeed seemed to be no reason for fear: their underestimation of the Athenians' power was as great as that power later turned out to be, and moreover they reached their judgment more on the basis of the uncertain objects of their desire than on the certain basis of foresight. Men habitually give themselves over to unre¯ecting hope when they crave something, but set aside by forced reasoning what does not appeal to them. (4.108.3±4)

Thucydides adds that four further factors in¯uenced the Athenian allies: Athens' recent setback in Boeotia, Brasidas' ``seductive and untrue'' suggestions (e jolkaÁ te kaiÁ ou taÁ onta) that Athens would not oppose him, the ``pleasure of the moment'' and ± crucially ± the feeling that they would now ``for the ®rst time have proof of what the Spartans could do when they were roused to action'' (4.108.5± 6). Thucydides is saying that the allies misjudged not only Athens, but also both Brasidas and the Spartans. They foolishly believed Brasidas' assurances, misjudged the meaning of his actions and mistakenly thought that he represented the ®rst sign of a vigorous Spartan policy designed to defeat Athens and bene®t the allies. No other Spartan in the History compares to Brasidas in energy, ability or perceived moderation,103 but the evidence for the true nature of Brasidas' actions ± far from being ``justice and moderation'' ± 103 It is a pity that we cannot have Thucydides' portrait of Lysander, which would surely have clari®ed the contours of Thucydides' Brasidas; see Rawlings 1981, 236±43; Raa¯aub 1985, 257n. 198; de Romilly 1963, 45±6; CT ii, 273.

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was in front of their eyes; they just would not see it. Thucydides makes sure, however, that his readers do see it. Brasidas' ®rst target is Acanthus. Thucydides writes this up fully (4.84±88.1) in order to set the stage for all of Brasidas' operations in Thrace (see Chapter 6). No blood was shed there, but that is only because the Acanthians, unlike the Melians at a later time, decided to heed the clear threats of a vastly superior power and preserve themselves and their crops. The speech Thucydides gives Brasidas contains an open threat (4.87.2±5), as well as at least one lie, namely that he sided with no faction within the city. From his omniscient point of view, Thucydides corrects any misimpression that the reader may have: Brasidas' words were false and alluring, he tells us (e pagwgaÂ, 4.88.1; like the summary judgment e jolkaÁ te kaiÁ ou taÁ onta at 108.5). When the Acanthians opened their gates, Brasidas responded with mildness. There was no need for violence at that point, and the report of mildness went out. But Thucydides does not leave the truth about Acanthus in doubt: the Acanthians surrendered out of concern for their harvest and welfare (4.88.1). Brasidas' moderation accomplished more than a violent siege would have, and he was aided both by stasis within the city and by the absence of the Athenians from the area. This absence, indeed, was a prerequisite for his technique of ``moderation.'' The capture of Torone, where there was an Athenian garrison, was accompanied by bloodshed (4.110±16); when Brasidas encountered real armed opposition he was correspondingly more brutal, but he said the same things there as he had at Acanthus (114.3). He also laid waste certain cities in Acte which resisted his e¨orts (109.5). All cities except Amphipolis which put their trust in Brasidas and the Spartans paid a heavy price, for they misjudged not only their supposed benefactor but the Athenians. Mende, Torone, all the cities of Acte, other unnamed cities implied in Thucydides' generalizations, and above all Scione, were brought back into the Athenian fold. The reader knows this already at 4.81 and can thus accurately appraise (with Thucydides' explicit guidance) Brasidas' perceived ``justice and moderation.'' On the short view, these qualities were real. Brasidas exploited stasis in every city he captured, without getting caught up in the spiral of factional violence. Once he established control in a place by using the degree of force

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required ± and this did cost many lives in some places ± he proceeded to consolidate his gain by diplomacy and political ®nesse rather than by continued brute force. This method was e¨ective. Brasidas succeeded in gaining what Thucydides tells us at 5.16 he most wished, honor and recognition. After his death he won a public burial at Amphipolis, status as hero and founder, and yearly sacri®ces (5.11.1). But he failed posthumously in his main policy objective of blocking peace with Athens. Ironically it was his very success which induced Sparta to deny Brasidas the resources to continue the conquest of Thrace (4.108.7) and later to sue for peace. Brasidas' private agenda led him to reject even the truce of 423; while his acceptance of the revolted Scione after the agreement might have been an innocent error, which Thucydides nonetheless corrects (4.122.6), his support of Mende was not so innocent but based on a private calculation of justice (ou nomi zwn adikeiÄ n, 4.123.1; cf. 135.1), and, we are to understand, immediate advantage. It is relevant in this regard that Brasidas' involvement in Megara and then in Thrace entailed interference in or exploitation of a stasis, and to a signi®cant degree, despite his ``moderation,'' he only exacerbated the divisions everywhere he was active (see Chapter 6). Peace with Athens meant abandonment by Sparta of the cities which Brasidas had won over ± thus the short-sightedness of the allies which Thucydides repeatedly stresses104 ± but the fact is that they had already been abandoned by Brasidas himself. Torone, Mende and Scione were recaptured by Athens while Brasidas was still alive but nowhere in the vicinity, having neglected adequately to protect them.105 The extremely personal and short-sighted nature of Brasidas' objectives is paralleled by blindness on the allies' part. Thus it was perception of justice and moderation in Brasidas from too-close range which led the allies disastrously to revolt. To whatever degree Brasidas possessed those qualities, he applied them inconsistently and opportunistically. All this sheds light on Brasidas' arete and xunesis. Thucydides' somewhat startling reminder in 4.108.6 that Brasidas was the ®rst 104 It is to be noticed that Thucydides cites as one motivation for the hero-cult in Amphipolis the allies' fear of Athens (5.11.1). 105 CT ii, 56±8; cf. Rood 1998, 74±7.

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Spartan to show any promise of military vigor and sustained commitment shows what he meant by arete, a word whose meaning (to repeat) always depends on context. Here it has few if any ethical overtones and signi®es military arete, the quality which the allies most needed at the time, for which Brasidas was later remembered and praised, and which Thucydides probably did admire.106 He does not rise above the fray, in the minds of either his contemporaries or the omniscient historian, in moral virtue (contrast Nicias' reputation for arete, which as we have seen is closer to our ``virtue''). Furthermore, his intelligence was real but limited in the same sense as his arete. Brasidas could indeed quickly assess a situation, ®gure out what needed to be done,107 ®nd the right words to convince others to take the action he desired and also take the necessary action himself. In this he was like those who in Thucydides' view possessed xunesis in an unquali®ed manner. The fact that Brasidas used false and seductive rhetoric to achieve his ends does not necessarily taint this ``intelligence'': Theseus, Themistocles and Pericles, for instance, also found the right words to manipulate others. But unlike those three, Brasidas' ``intelligence'' had no moral dimension evident in personal conduct, civic devotion and readiness for self-sacri®ce. Thus like the prominent Athenian individuals after Pericles, Thucydides' Brasidas pursued personal ends in con¯ict with Sparta's policy (and bene®t) when that policy changed. His virtues and strengths were morally compromised and hurt the very people he purported to help, and his ``intelligence,'' although perceived by his generation as very great, does not measure up to Thucydides' ideal. Like the others, Brasidas falls short of Pericles' model of civic virtue. Alcibiades The most dramatic instance of the corruption and misapplication of intelligence and skill is Alcibiades. His own generation and ours have been fascinated by the immensity of his talent, the enormity of his betrayal and the utter void of principle in his actions. Thucydides tracks Alcibiades' career with precision and with nearly overbearing editorial solicitude. From the moment he enters the 106 Pl. Symp. 221c compares him to Achilles; CT ii, 38, 58. 107 See Hunter 1973, 23±41.

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History seeking to undermine the peace with Sparta, through his advocacy of the Sicilian expedition and his betrayal of Athens at Sparta, to his complex intrigues playing o¨ Persia, Sparta and Athens against each other, Alcibiades' carefully ®ltered words and actions stimulate frequent, almost intrusive authorial comment about his motives; and identi®ed motives are always personal and usually destructive. Alcibiades would indeed have held a central spot in any history of the war, but for Thucydides he was a symbol of the corrupt condition into which not just Athens but all Hellas had fallen.108 Alcibiades is the ®gure who presents the most poignant contrast to Pericles. Thucydides works out this contrast by intricate linguistic echoes in the words of the two statesmen. Alcibiades had the ability to conceive policy, express it e¨ectively and carry it out, but Thucydides leaves no doubt that, in pursuit of purely private interests (although the city's interests and his could and did coincide), he ended up doing his native city the most harm, whereas he was the one able to do it the greatest good. The power and charm of Alcibiades' personality lay at the root of his persuasiveness and e¨ectiveness. The Athenians were captivated but also afraid of him. In the year 420, when he was about thirty years old, Alcibiades successfully manipulated events to deepen the Athenians' suspicion of Sparta and the Peace of Nicias, and to bring about an alliance with Argos (which then had to break o¨ negotiations with Sparta). Alcibiades was opposed to the peace with Sparta, Thucydides says, not only because he felt an Argive alliance to be better for Athens but also because he felt personally ``slighted in every way'' (5.43.3). He thought honor was due him because of his distinguished lineage and his family's proxeny in Sparta (which had been renounced, however, by his grandfather), but he was also motivated by pure factional contentiousness (jronhÂmati jilonikwÄ n). The stasis model serves as the proper framework for understanding Alcibiades' actions in this matter: ``the hunger for power 108 The following discussion is perforce selective, focusing primarily on Thucydides' authorial comments and on speeches. For fuller treatment see Hatzfeld 1951, not superseded by Ellis 1989; Forde 1989 for an entirely di¨erent approach from mine on the ``problem'' of Alcibiades; Brunt 1952; Westlake 1968, 212±60; Pouncey 1980, 105±16; Bloedow 1992 (the best of his several articles on Alcibiades); and of course the relevant sections in HCT iv and v.

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inspired by greed and personal ambition'' in stasis arises from the same species of factional contentiousness, jiloniki a (3.82.8).109 After surreptitiously inviting Argos to Athens to discuss an alliance and then taking fright at the presence of Spartan ambassadors arrived to settle all di¨erences, he betrayed the Spartans' trust and tricked them into sabotaging their own mission: he ``persuaded the Spartans, giving them his pledge'' (touÁv Lakedaimoni ouv pei qei pi stin autoiÄ v dou v, 5.45). Andrewes is correct that mentioning pi stiv adds ``little . . . to what is already conveyed in pei qei,''110 but the purpose, rather than ``extra solemnity,'' is to emphasize the violation of a pledge. Alcibiades' ruthless behavior contrasts with the more sincere and naive ± and completely ine¨ective ± handling of Sparta by Nicias, the account of which immediately follows as a pointed contrast in the text (5.46). Alcibiades treacherously exploited Nicias' failure and brought Athens to make an alliance with Argos. When Thucydides introduces Alcibiades a second time (6.15) he highlights the same motives and character. Alcibiades most enthusiastically supported the expedition to Sicily because he was politically at odds with Nicias (dia jorov taÁ politikaÂ) and resented an invidious reference to himself in Nicias' speech, but most of all he wanted to be put in a position of power and control (i.e. a generalship: strathghÄsai e piqumwÄ n) in order to conquer Sicily and Carthage and advance his own private wealth and in¯uence (taÁ i dia). As many have pointed out, this grand plan of conquest not only violated Pericles' original strategy of maintenance while ®ghting Sparta, but also exceeded what almost any other Athenian had dared imagine; and needless to say Alcibiades' personal ambitions, highlighted by Thucydides, form the extreme opposite of the motives attributed to Pericles. Thucydides is quite clear about the result: Alcibiades' unbridled pursuit of ever greater wealth, power and renown is what ``brought down the Athenian state,''111 for his lawlessness (paranomi a) and extravagant lifestyle made the 109 LSJ s.v. jilonike w, citing Thuc. 5.43.3 as the ®rst example. If the Spartans really had nothing to o¨er ± see Hatzfeld 1951, 91±2 ± then Thucydides' manipulation of the material to bring out Alcibiades' deceit is even more pronounced. 110 HCT iv, 51. 111 kaqeiÄ len usteron thÁn twÄn  A qhnai wn po lin (6.15.3). The defeat which ended the war is meant, see HCT iv, 242±5.

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Athenians afraid (jobhqe ntev) and hostile to him (pole mioi), so that they put the management of their a¨airs in the war into less competent hands (6.15.4). Note the sequence of thought: Alcibiades was held in high esteem overall but he destroyed the state by frightening with his extravagance the same people who admired him. The emphasis is on the people's reactions to Alcibiades: he led them into bad decisions ± like Cleon who, it will be remembered, was the ``most persuasive'' statesman of his time ± and he also unintentionally turned them against himself, frustrating his own policy and personal safety. Thus in 6.15, Thucydides' assessment of Alcibiades contains a double criticism ± one might say, a critique of the entire situation: the people acted irresponsibly from passion, resentment and irrationality against their own best interests, and Alcibiades, acting from a similar blend of motives,112 was unable to maintain his position and ultimately to manage the Sicilian expedition, although he was most quali®ed to do so (kraÂtista diaqe nti taÁ touÄ pole mou). Like Nicias, Alcibiades was unable in the long run to accomplish his purpose, and eventually he paid a heavy personal price, although he had better success with short-term goals and with persuading individual assemblies to follow a policy of the moment. As Thucydides presents it, Nicias' opposition to the Sicilian expedition was not superior to Alcibiades' support of it; in fact, the policy of each is said to have been motivated by similar personal concerns, Nicias seeking to preserve his reputation, Alcibiades seeking to expand his, although Nicias is credited with a degree of civic concern absent in Alcibiades. Certainly Athens would have avoided disaster had it followed Nicias' advice, although Hellas would have been no closer to ending the war; but Nicias was entirely ine¨ective in persuading others to follow his prudent policy. Alcibiades could persuade others to support his adventurism, but then by his own faults he destroyed e¨ective completion of the project. The ®asco Alcibiades wrought was a failure he shared with Nicias and the Athenian people. Alcibiades' betrayal underlies another controversial Thucydidean assertion, namely that the biggest mistake in Sicily was not the decision to go there in the ®rst place ± although that is an 112 Connor 1984, 164¨.

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error acknowledged by Thucydides ± but the failure to manage the expedition as required because of stasis at home (2.65.11).113 The campaign did violate the Periclean policy of non-expansion during the war, but Thucydides says that the Athenians accurately assessed their opponents' strength and could have won had they not spoiled their own e¨orts by internal strife. In Book 7, especially, the Athenians do seem to have underestimated the Sicilians,114 but it will be noted that before Alcibiades' betrayal the Athenians had the upper hand in Sicily and, as Alcibiades himself says at Sparta, were close to victory (6.91); and Thucydides himself believed in the possibility of a quick and early victory (7.42.3). Athens failed in Sicily because it lost its most capable general who in turn orchestrated the intervention by mainland enemy forces which tipped the scale. The phenomenon of Alcibiades ± his rise to prominence and betrayal of his own city ± is seen as the continuous consequence of a deep erosion, stasis, in Athens. Alcibiades is a phenomenon thrown up by the war, which had ``brought people's passions to match the level of their actual circumstances'' (3.82.2).115 The Spartans were also fascinated by him and followed him willingly. One of the most remarkable things about Alcibiades' speech of betrayal in Sparta is that the Spartans (according to Thucydides) unhesitatingly trusted him, accepting his advice without demur; in fact he stirred up their passions and practically launched them himself on their mission (parwÂxune, e xw rmhse, 6.88.10), strengthening their resolve (6.93.1). Alcibiades merely tapped into feelings and inclinations already present in Sparta. Alcibiades' speech of betrayal in Sparta (6.89±92)116 must have made exceptionally painful reading for Athenians who lived through the war. While exaggerating the Athenians' design of 113 On what follows, cf. HCT v, 43±7; Erbse 1989a, 83±92 and 1989b; Westlake 1969, 161± 73. 114 Under Alcibiades' in¯uence, re¯ecting a lack of knowledge and insight; his appraisal in 6.17.4 is dead wrong, see Macleod 1983, 78±81. The word stasia zousin in 6.17.4 means the instability in individual states which Hermocrates abhors because it gives a great outside power such as Athens both a pretext and a lever for interference in the island. The condition of stasis which produced Alcibiades as leader impaired his ability to assess unity elsewhere. 115 Thucydides' portrait of the Spartan general Gylippus is remarkably understated. Perhaps this is because he did not ®t into the pattern of corrupt and sel®sh individuals, although note the rare editorial comment at 7.86.2. 116 J. Finley 1942, 229±32; Hatzfeld 1951, 206±20.

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conquest, Alcibiades accurately sketches out the bene®ts anticipated by all who supported the expedition: riches, power and victory in the war (90). He correctly informs them of Syracuse's precarious position and the need for outside help in order to save all Sicily from Athenian domination. His recommendations hit the Athenians' weak spots directly: at Alcibiades' bidding the Spartans send hoplites under a Spartan commander, in order both to help Syracuse and to encourage the allies, for part of Athens' strength consisted in the absence of all but local opposition in Sicily (repeating the pattern of its imperialistic build-up); and the Spartans occupy Deceleia, ``the thing which the Athenians always most fear and the only trial they think they haven't experienced in this war,'' for such a measure would establish control of Attica and interrupt the revenues from Laureion and even the allies (91). The deadly accuracy of Alcibiades' remarks was demonstrated by the result: a defeat greater than the Athenians, in their con®dence, had allowed themselves to contemplate. And most galling of all, Alcibiades is made to predict that Sparta will become the leader of all Hellas (92.5). By giving good advice Alcibiades proved his use, but he felt he had to prove his personal worth and sincere intentions as well. Suspicion of his dramatic betrayal would be natural (although the Spartans never show it) and had to be answered. In his opening words, Alcibiades begs for a fair hearing as he speaks about ``matters of common concern'' (taÁ koina , 6.89.1). One expects such a declaration of public concern from a statesman in his own state; yet a traitor must so distort the de®nition and standard of loyalty as to declare common cause with the enemy while retaining his love of country. As he continues, Alcibiades presents himself as a wounded friend and a coerced democrat. He says he eagerly tended Spartan interests and sought their harm only when they empowered his personal enemies (e cqroi ) and brought dishonor (atimi a) on him (89.2). To his mind, the unrecognized truth of his past injury of Sparta is that it was just (dikai wv, 89.3). Alcibiades then explains away his own and his family's association with democracy by marshalling arguments not entirely consistent with each other ± inconsistent, that is, from the perspective of the reader uninvolved in the events, but apparently not troublesome to either Alcibiades or his Spartan audience. First he claims that their opposition to tyrants ± a position well appreciated at

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Sparta, the traditional liberator of other states from tyranny ± made them by default the leaders of democracy, the universal opponent of tyranny,117 and they had to adapt to prevailing conditions in order to retain leadership and try to suppress the more extreme democratic elements. But then he claims that his family were the leaders ``of all the people'' and thought it just to preserve that constitutional form in which the city became ``greatest and most free''; he then, however, turns back and criticizes democracy as ``acknowledged folly'' (6.89.4±6). This confused praise of democracy inevitably recalls Pericles' elevated praise of Athenian democracy, the greatness it brings the city and the highest freedom it a¨ords its citizens. There Pericles (himself an Alcmaeonid), in contrast to Alcibiades here, not only extols democracy as unconditionally the best system, but recommends absolute and utter devotion to it, even at the expense of personal enrichment and promotion (see Chapter 3). Alcibiades all but says that he and his family only tolerated the system in order to preserve their own privileged position of power. Pericles is able to use himself as the prime example of total commitment to the city. For when the city begins to su¨er from the war and his fellow-citizens accuse him, he remonstrates with them by a redoubled demonstration of his own civic devotion. He says that the success of the whole is more important even to the individual than the success merely of the individual, requiring everyone to defend the city (crhÁ pa ntav amuÂnein au thÄÎ); and he calls himself a true patriot, jilo poliv,118 and a competent leader in that he stands above all consideration of personal pro®t and is able to conceive good policy and present it coherently (2.60). In the History the word jiloÂpoliv is used only by Pericles and by Alcibiades. But whereas Pericles uses the term straightforwardly, Alcibiades contorts it in a breathtaking way. He professes love of his state, toÁ filo poli, 117 As Dover points out, ``the de®nition is the converse of the prevailing Athenian assumption . . . that oligarchy and tyranny amount to much the same thing,'' HCT iv, 362. 118 Pusey 1940 argues that even before the war factional interests seem to have prevailed over ``patriotic,'' and that ancient Greek notions of toÁ jiloÂpoli are not the same as modern ones. Yet Connor 1971, 102±3 points out that the term acquired political significance only in the late ®fth century, and the prime examples in both his and Pusey's studies come from Thucydides' History, where, I am arguing, the word is used normatively by Pericles and in a distorted manner by Alcibiades.

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not when I am wronged but when I participated as a citizen in security. I do not imagine that I am now going against a country that is still mine, but rather that I am trying to recover one no longer mine. And the one who may be rightly called a patriot is not he who having lost his country unjustly refrains from attacking it, but he who yearns for it and strains every muscle to recover it. (6.92.4)

It is not important whether Alcibiades actually said this or something similar, for it has a powerful place in the History. Whereas it was precisely the attacks on him by his fellow-citizens which prompted Pericles' de®nition of toÁ jiloÂpoli as unswerving devotion to the city, Alcibiades makes similar attacks on himself the prime justi®cation for his betrayal of Athens, an action which he calls by the same name, toÁ jiloÂpoli. This makes one wonder whether his praise of Athens as greatest and most free, in echo of Pericles, also re¯ects not the condition of the city but his own circumstances: he measures the city's greatness by his own fortune and the city's freedom by his own power and in¯uence. The contrast with Pericles is most dramatic in Alcibiades' betrayal speech, but in fact it had been discoverable in nuances and subtle echoes in previous passages, particularly Alcibiades' speech in the Sicilian debate.119 When Alcibiades argues that his pursuit of his own private enrichment and glory may also bene®t the city (6.16), when he rejects radical equality (6.16.4) and when he advocates military activism as consistent with empire (6.18), he seems to parody Pericles' conception of a leader's necessary self-sacri®ce (2.60) and advancement solely on the basis of merit (2.37.1), as well as his explicit policy not to harm the empire by trying to expand it and ®ght Sparta at the same time (2.65.7). But in the speech of betrayal, and continuing with his reported activities after Athens' failure in Sicily, the contrast with Pericles is no longer subtle but grotesque. In addition to his mutant view of patriotism, Alcibiades adopts Pericles' insight about the nature of power in the world only to use it for harmful ends. For Pericles had disclosed to his distressed fellow-citizens an underlying and unseen truth about power: the world is divided into two parts, land and sea, and the Athenians have an absolute mastery over the sea which no one, ``not even the King,'' can oppose; if they maintained that 119 Others have shown this elegantly. Macleod 1983, 68±87 (the most sensitive analysis of 6.16±18) and J. T. Hogan 1989, 191±214. See also Stahl 1973.

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superiority they would prevail (2.60). This observation comes in the same speech in which Pericles defends his patriotism. Alcibiades makes the same observation to Tissaphernes in order to advise harm not just to Athens but to all of Hellas: if both Hellenic land and sea powers were united, he says, no one would be able to resist, so that the Persians will do well to withhold naval support from Sparta and let the Hellenes wear themselves out on each other (8.46).120 In addition, Alcibiades engages in intentionally false reasoning, for he says that the Spartans would not readily subordinate the same Hellenes they purport to be liberating. The Spartans had already made overtures to the Persians and indicated their readiness to sell out their Hellenic opponents, revealing their truest desire to crush their main opponent by all and any means, even at the expense of the entity which represents their shared and common identity; Alcibiades knows this, and manipulates information (his greatest skill) to change the course of what he himself had wrought. I have argued that Pericles' observation about land and sea power, in fact all of his speeches, are divisive in a broader Hellenic context but unifying within Athens (Chapter 3). Alcibiades adopts the Periclean insight deliberately to harm Athens, Sparta, indeed all of Hellas. Both Alcibiades' declaration of continuing loyalty to Athens and his professions of concern for the Spartans' success and of his friendship with them are of course a sham, for they contradict each other: Alcibiades cannot be at the same time solicitous of Sparta's success and ultimately concerned with saving his own city, nor could he hope to impress the Spartans with undying loyalty to Athens, for that of course could easily and swiftly be turned against them. This point is absurdly obvious, but apparently neither Alcibiades nor the Spartans heard the contradiction. Alcibiades was, in a sense, speaking their language. His speech thus represents profound changes which befell more than one man: in his fanatical devotion to his own survival and advancement and his utter lack of any other principle, and in the misapplication of his intelligence and talents, Alcibiades re¯ects his audience and is emblematic of the entire period. 120 Alcibiades' personal motivations are immediately identi®ed, 8.47.1, in terms very similar to those in Book 5; other statements on Alcibiades' motivations are found at 8.17.2, 45, 56, 81, 88.

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Every leader from the mainland after Pericles falls short. Nicias possessed a measure of virtue and even a modicum of civic concern, but his personal ambition con¯icted with his city's interests, his military talent was uneven and above all he was unable to control the passions of the Assembly and impose his policy. Antiphon had the talent to conceive and express his policy persuasively, but was prevented from entering the Assembly: a man with leadership qualities but barred from leadership. Brasidas' self-promotion and short-sightedness limited the quality of his xunesis, harmed the people whom he had convinced he would help and even con¯icted with his city's policy and interests. Phrynichus' ``intelligence'' almost led him to disaster, and Alcibiades' talents, squandered on factional and private ambitions, brought ruin upon his own city.121 Thus one of the consequences of the Peloponnesian War was the replacement of civic devotion by self-devotion and the corruption or disappearance of intelligence coupled with virtue. the peace of nicias In stasis, oaths made in support of any reconciliation have only momentary validity, as they are made by each side only in the absence of any other source of strength to get out of an impasse . . . (3.82.7)

Thucydides wrote the narrative of the Peace of Nicias (5.14±26) in such a manner as to demonstrate just this phenomenon. According to him, the peace was adopted as a temporary measure by Athens and Sparta, both of whom had sunk into problems from which they had di½culty extricating themselves. They both entered into the agreement in bad faith, so that their subsequent behavior made a mockery of the solemn oaths accompanying the pact. Thucydides brings this out in the elaborate explanation of motive in the chapters preceding the actual oath-taking and the quotation of the texts of the truce and alliance, and at the end of the peace narrative he puts a precise meaning on the event, making explicit his view that the peace agreement but thinly covered the continuing state of warfare between Athens and Sparta: 121 ``Alkibiades is like Pericles without his honesty, prudence, and patriotism; Nikias is like Pericles without his coercive powers,'' Rood 1998, 158.

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Regarding the treaty which came in the middle of the war, if there is anyone who cannot bring himself to see that the war was still going on, then he has not correctly judged the situation. For let him observe the actual events by which it [the war] is characterized and he will discover that the ``peace'' cannot be reasonably de®ned as a real peace, since in that period they did not reciprocally return and recover all the things they pledged to do, and in addition there were the violations occurring in the Mantinean and Epidauran wars and other violations on both sides, and the fact that the allies in Thrace were still quite hostile and the Boeotians had a truce which had to be renewed every ten days. (5.26.2)

The direction and main thematic program of Thucydides' peace narrative are evident already in the beginning (5.14¨.),122 where he explains the reasons why each side entered into the treaty and alliance in the ®rst place. The detailed account of the motives of each side begins at the level of the states and then shifts to the lead individuals in each state. The Athenians are said to have been smarting from the defeats at Delion and Amphipolis, which undermined their earlier arrogant con®dence; they feared uprisings by their allies, ``and they regretted that they had not come to an agreement after the incident at Pylos, when a good opportunity o¨ered'' (5.14.1±2). As for the Lacedaemonians, the war was drawing on contrary to their original projection (paraÁ gnw mhn) of an early victory, they were devastated by the unprecedented disaster in Sphacteria, which was further aggravated by the constant raids from the outposts Pylos and Cythera, and they were alarmed by Helot desertions and the looming threat of a Helot revolt; they were also worried about the imminent expiry of their treaty with Argos, the attraction of other Peloponnesian cities to Argos, and the impossibility of ®ghting two strong cities at once (5.14.3±4). Each side undergoes a kind of change of outlook, but neither side reveals any deeper understanding or appreciation of events; their concerns are rather immediate and short-term, a sort of jockeying for position. Thucydides' description makes clear that if the factors in each side's considerations were removed (for instance, if Athens had another Pylos-scale success), war would resume. This is what is con®rmed in 5.26: during the intervening 122 Steup wanted to exclude much as non-Thucydidean, but see HCT iii, 665±6. Compare the briefer account of motives preceding the armistice in 423 (4.117). On the narrative of the peace and its sequel, Rood 1998, 78±108 is excellent.

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period of false peace the latent war returned to open war with further acts of mutual hostility. The short-term, ill-considered and even insincere considerations which compelled each side to make peace are represented in wordchoice: ``when each side had made these calculations (logizome noiv), they decided that an agreement had to be made'' (5.15.1). When Thucydides uses logi zesqai in his own voice and he does not mean numerical calculation, he always means calculation of immediate advantage, neglecting not only ethical considerations but even one's own long-range interests.123 The best illustration occurs at 4.108.4: the Athenian allies in Thrace were encouraged by the loss of Amphipolis, reaching their judgment more on the basis of the uncertain objects of their desire than on the certain basis of foresight; men habitually give themselves over to unre¯ecting hope when they crave something, but set aside by forced reasoning (logismwÄÎ autokra tori) what does not appeal to them.124

The sentence has two parallel parts, each opposing an emotional response to a mental or rational process, with the irony that at the end, rational powers are forced into service for ends which a valid rational process, secure foresight, would reject. Thus logismos, calculation for an immediate and destructive end, is opposed to foresight and deeper understanding of a situation.125 The word particularly has this meaning in relation to the mental process of people in stasis, when long-range planning or deep understanding are ruled out by the nature of the situation. One who takes revenge on an opponent caught o¨-guard ``was calculating'' (e logi zeto) the advantage both of the safety of such a course and of the accolades for intelligence to be won for having scored victory through guile'' (3.82.7); and ``all who ®nd themselves in a superior position, ®guring (logismwÄÎ ) that security cannot even be hoped 123 E.g., 3.82.7, 83.2; 4.28.5, 73.4; 7.73.3; 8.2.4. Useful examples of logi zesqai from speeches: 5.87 (Athenians in Melian Dialogue), 6.18.4 (Alcibiades in Athens), 2.40.3, 5 (Funeral Oration), also 1.76.2; 2.89.6; 6.36.3; but not 7.77.4. logismoÂv in speeches: 2.11.7; 4.10.1, 92.2, 108.4; 6.34.4, 6. Cf. also e klogi zesqai, which is used only in speeches and is closer in meaning to ``careful consideration,'' 1.70.1, 80.2; 2.40.3; 4.10.1. Cf. Huart 1968, 328±32. 124 Gomme, HCT iii, 582±3 de®es accepted editorial opinion in his correct explanation of logismwÄÎ au tokraÂtori. 125 Note also the opposition between logismoÂv and proÂnoia at 8.57.2.

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for, make provisions to avoid injury rather than allow themselves to trust anyone'' (3.83.2). After Athens and Sparta, calculating their separate injuries and advantages, agree to a one-year truce, during which they would negotiate more lasting terms, Thucydides shifts the focus from the states to the private motives of the leading peace advocate in each state, Nicias in Athens and King Pleistoanax in Sparta (5.16±17.1), about whom the ®rst thing told is that they ``most zealously pursued political power in their respective cities.'' This remark has seemed out of the spirit of peace-seeking, so that the word for political power (hÿgemoni a) has been emended by some to a pronoun referring to the ``peace.'' But this is to misunderstand the situation in each city, and in Hellas as a whole, as Thucydides saw it. For Thucydides not only asserts generally that the leading statesmen in both Athens and Sparta were personally motivated in their advocacy of peace, to the potential harm of their own cities, but he elaborates each man's personal considerations, which we have already studied in detail. Each leader thought peace the best way of securing his own personal and political safety and leisure. It is entirely consistent with these explicit explanations of self-interest that both Nicias and Pleistoanax should be eagerly seeking hÿ gemoni a within their respective cities, and it is entirely believable that this should be phrased in such a way as to suggest the presence in each place of incipient stasis conditions, of which the cause is ``hunger for power (archÂ) inspired by greed and personal ambition'' (3.82.8).126 It is known that there were parties in each city opposed to peace, and the deaths of their main leaders ± Cleon and Brasidas ± opened the way to the prominence of Nicias and Pleistoanax and the eventual peace agreement. During the debate at Athens over the expedition to Sicily, it is Nicias himself who con®rms that the peace with Sparta was doomed to failure. The alliance o¨ers no security, he says; it ``will be a treaty only in name even if you remain inactive'' and will be violated as soon as a serious setback makes Athens appear vulnerable, for 126 Cf. HCT iii, 661: ``if thÁn hÿgemoni an is right, we again have a not very worthy motive, a mild example in fact of the party strife and personal ambitions which could, on occasion, be so disastrous (iii. 82.8, init.).'' See also CT ii, 462±3; Heitsch 1996.

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our enemies ®rst made the pact under compulsion, because of their setbacks, and with more discredit to them than to us; and, moreover, in the pact itself there are many disputed points. There are some states which have not yet accepted the agreement, and they are not even the weakest. And quite probably, if they perceived that our power is divided ± which is exactly what we are so eager to bring about ± they would promptly join the Sicilians in attacking us. (6.10.2±4)

Nicias here states what Thucydides has demonstrated, namely, that oaths have lost all intrinsic power (they were no longer e curoi , cf. 3.83.2) and have become worthless as guarantees, and that each side entered into the agreement for short-term goals and would break it if their longer-term purposes could be achieved by other, violent means. Nicias thereby acknowledges another important point which Thucydides states explicitly: the war, unlike other wars, could not end in a negotiated solution. In 5.26.1 Thucydides determines that the war lasted until ``the Spartans and their allies put a complete end to the empire of the Athenians and gained control over the Long Walls and Piraeus.'' Only the total defeat of one side (Athens) brought the war to an end, because only that total defeat removed what was identi®ed at the outset of the History as the ``truest reason'' for the war. Nicias, in his remark quoted above, acknowledges that Sparta still has every reason it had before to pursue the war. The historian Thucydides de®nes that underlying reason as Sparta's fear of Athens' growing power, and there was no better setting to refer to that than an Athenian debate about expanding the city's imperial power. We may thus understand the full meaning of Thucydides's claim that the Peloponnesian War was a single, twenty-seven-year con¯ict, as well as the vigor with which he defends the idea. The mistaken conception Thucydides was trying to prevent is presented in Plato Menexenus 242c±243d, in which the entire con¯ict is pictured as four wars.127 Separate wars have di¨erent origins, causes and rationales, and in fact Plato's Socrates asserts that ``war between Hellenes should be waged only up to the point of victory 127 See HCT v, 385±7 and iii, 697±8; Rood 1998, 84±8. Thucydides' perception of one, twenty-seven-year-long war means that his references to the ``®rst war'' or ``subsequent war'' (4.81.2, 5.20.3, 5.24.2, 7.18.2), if they represent his ®nal judgment, mean ®ghting and not ``war,'' as Dover, HCT v, 386 points out. In this light, 2.1, xunecwÄv e pole moun, refers to the entire twenty-seven-year war.

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and should not destroy the Hellenic community (toÁ koino n) for the sake of a city's private resentment.'' Thucydides says that although the Athenians and Peloponnesians refrained from open hostilities on each other's territory the Peace was ``unstable'' (ou bebaiÂou), and they merely transferred their hostilities to other theaters. The immediate sequel to the Peace of Nicias, and in a di¨erent way the entire History, shows that Sparta's fear of Athens' empire had not at all been a¨ected by the Peace and the break in ®ghting, and that the ``truest reason'' for the war was as true as it had been at the beginning of the war. Thus either Athens' growing power or Sparta's fear ± or both ± had to disappear in order for the condition which made the war inevitable (anagkaÂsai, 1.23.6) to be removed. The ``truest reason'' for the war made negotiated solutions impermanent. Brasidas had vowed, ``we'll ®ght to the ®nish'' (katapolemouÄ men, 4.86.5). Wars can end in negotiated settlements; staseis usually cannot. The peace narrative recalls the beginning of the war in 431. Connor has explored certain similarities in language, particularly the assertions in 1.23.6 and 5.25.3 that both sides were ``compelled'' to break a peace treaty.128 Other similarities are equally revealing. Thucydides says that in 421 the two sides never trusted each other to hold to the terms of the alliance. Their mutual suspicion grew over time as violations of the treaty accumulated (proiÈ oÂntov touÄ croÂnou u poptoi e ge nonto, 5.25.2), but this suspicion was present from the ®rst: During the entire summer the Athenians and Peloponnesians maintained communication (e pimeixi ai), but the Athenians and Spartans began suspecting each other right after the conclusion of the treaty because of their mutual failure to return speci®ed territories. (5.35.2)129

This closely resembles the situation just before the Peloponnesian War actually broke out, when the aitiai ± the con¯icts at Corcyra and Potidaea ± propelled Hellas irretrievably into the con¯ict: they nevertheless maintained communication (e pemei gnunto) during this period and visited each other without a herald, although not without mutual suspicion; for the events constituted a breach of the treaty [ˆ the Thirty Years Peace] and an occasion for war. (1.146) 128 Connor 1984, 142; Ostwald 1988, 47±8; and now Rood 1998, 83±108. 129 I do not think there is necessarily a contradiction between 5.25.2 and 35.2 (cf. HCT iv, 37): the mutual suspicion started with the conclusion of the treaty and grew more serious over time.

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Each side was psychologically already ®ghting the war. Suspicion guided their actions (uÿpwÂpteuon deÁ a llh louv, a nupoÂptwv deÁ ou ). Their form of communication merely kept up the pretense that war had not essentially already started. The situation lasted until it exploded into manifest warfare. The expression Thucydides uses in the peace narrative is ``open warfare'' (e v poÂlemon janeroÁ n kate sthsan, 5.25.3), which is the opposite of a mere cessation of ®ghting (hÿsuci a, 5.35.8), not peace (eirh nh). The expression poÂlemov janeroÂv, ``open warfare,'' is in itself unusual and would attract notice.130 Thucydides uses it in two key passages, indicating that the distinction between a state of war and actual ®ghting was ®rmly ®xed in his conception of the con¯ict. The delegates at the second conference at Sparta voted to ®ght a war (e yhji santo polemeiÄ n), but they spent nearly a year in preparation until they invaded Attica ``and took up the war openly'' (toÁn po lemon arasqai fanerwÄv, 1.125.2). Similarly, at 2.2.3, the Thebans are said to have chosen their timing for attacking Plataea because there was still formal peace ``and open warfare had not yet broken out'' (kaiÁ touÄ pole mou mhÂpw janerouÄ kaqestwÄ tov).131 Motives and considerations for any action ± logoi ± are part of the pracqe nta of history. Yet Thucydides' record of the Peace, his inclusions and exclusions, are intended to isolate the most important aspects of the story, to clarify what may not be evident to the reader and to correct what was falsely (in Thucydides' view) said and believed in his day. In the detailed prelude to the peace negotiations between Athens and Sparta, the bare facts are dominated by and almost lost in the thick explanations and analysis of motives and calculations of states and individuals, as we have seen. The section displays in concentrated form Thucydides' keen interest in psychology, as the substance of and vehicle for understanding history. We get a sense of what is left out ± of what a di¨erent historian might have drawn special attention to ± in the dismissive four words, pollaÁv dikaiw seiv proenegkoÂntwn allhÂloiv, ``they brought many claims against each other'' (5.17.2). What these were is not considered important enough for further elaboration. On the other hand, the explanation of motive 130 The closest parallel I have found before the fourth century is Hdt. 5.96, e de dokto e k touÄ janerouÄ toiÄ si Pe rshÎsi polemi ouv ei nai. 131 Cf. 5.84.2, 6.91.5.

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and illumination of the Hellenes' inner deliberations demonstrate that any peace concluded under existing conditions and for the reasons illuminated was false and bound to fail. The period after the conclusion of the Peace and before the resumption of open warfare ± most of the rest of Book 5 ± is chaotic and full of treachery, machinations, plots and actual ®ghting. The chaos in the narrative has raised suspicions of incompleteness ± but unnecessarily. In both substance and style it illustrates the lack of vitality of the Peace. The way to read the rest of our Book 5132 could not be laid out more clearly than in the programmatic statements in 5.25 and 5.26, quoted above: mutual suspicion and continuing hostility belied the promises of the Peace. Just as in the patch of narrative before the Peace, so in the subsequent section the reported actions are accompanied by heavy explanations of motivations and reasoning processes. There is no comparable section in Thucydides' History in which his psychological analysis and his omniscient revelation of the minds of the historical actors are so concentrated. This feature intimately links the narratives before and after the Peace of Nicias and lends both passion and force to Thucydides' interpretation of the Peace as false and unworkable. Let us look, for example, at the ®rst series of episodes reported after the Peace, namely the disruptions in the Peloponnesian alliance, to illustrate one of Thucydides' reasons for thinking the Peace ``unstable.'' Corinth tempted Argos with a suggestion that Argos o¨er alliance to ``any Hellenic city,'' expecting many Peloponnesian states to respond ``because of hatred of the Spartans'' (5.27). The Argives responded favorably because, Thucydides writes, they expected war with the Spartans and desired hegemony in the Peloponnese (28). The Matineans and their allies were the ®rst to sign up ``because they feared the Spartans,'' and other Peloponnesian states followed ``because of anger at the Spartans'' and also because ``they were afraid.'' The substance of the fear and anger are then explained in full detail (29). The Spartans ``wished to preempt what was about to happen'' and sent an embassy to Corinth; the contents of the claims and counter-claims are fully reported, including the Corinthians' rather sophistic justi®cations for breaking sworn oaths (30). Next the reasons for the Eleans' alliance with Argos, and the Boeotians' and Megarians' decision to abstain from 132 On which see Seager 1976; Ostwald 1986, 295±305.

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such a measure, are explained (31). And as the last item reported in the year of the Peace of Nicias, Thucydides gives a lengthy account of the charges which the Athenians and Spartans brought against each other regarding the failure of each to meet the sworn terms of the alliance (35). Thucydides records only some of their rhetoric. His voice maintains ultimate authority as he writes about states of mind; doubtless the parties explained their actions di¨erently. Thucydides says, for example, that the Corinthians hid their real reasons behind their expostulations in Sparta and o¨ered others as a pretext, a proÂschma (5.30.2). This narrative style and technique continue up to the Melian Dialogue. Revealing the actors' thoughts and feelings puts their claims and various professions into proper perspective. The continued warfare and particularly treacherous diplomacy directly after the Peace of Nicias also make a mockery of many of the clauses of the quoted documents and their language of oaths, common sanctuaries, formal means of arbitration, the pledge to abide by the agreement dikai wv kaiÁ a doÂlwv, the lack of any formal mechanism to enforce it or of sanctions against violations.133 A certain dramatic e¨ect is created: the tension between the professions (logoi ) of the Hellenes and their actual deeds (erga) is palpable. In the course of the story Thucydides takes the reader inside each city to view the di¨erences of opinion regarding the Peace, the plotting against it and the underlying motives for action. We witness the actions of ephors at Sparta who opposed peace with Athens and were acting both to undermine it and to establish a solid diplomatic footing in anticipation of the dissolution of the alliance (5.36, 39.3). At the same time we see the maneuvers of the faction at Athens, led by Alcibiades, which was trying to undermine the alliance with Sparta (43). Thucydides gives a full account of the faction's parliamentary wranglings in Athens (44±6) and writes speci®cally about Alcibiades' motives: just as Nicias had been motivated by concerns of personal reputation and power to urge the alliance, so Alcibiades was motivated by a perceived 133 I.e., the basis of pistis and shared religious institutions, cf. 3.82.6, 8. See Connor 1984, 146±7 on ``the discrepancy between what the document proclaims and what actually occurs,'' and CT ii, 358±60 for decisive arguments defending the verbatim quotation of the texts as Thucydides' ®nal compositional intention; and now Crane 1996, 14±18; Rood 1998, 91±3.

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slight to his own honor (43.2±3). The rigor of selectivity designed to show the instability of the peace between Athens and Sparta can be appreciated by considering scraps of evidence for things which Thucydides left out: an apparently stable agreement adhered to in good faith between Athens and the restored democracy in Argos in 417/16, inclusion of which might have disrupted the consistent picture of false peace and constant turbulence;134 the rejoicing at Athens after the conclusion of the treaty,135 which contradicts the ®rst things Thucydides reports after conclusion of treaty, i.e. the refusals by certain parties to accept it since it was not ``suitable to their interests'' (5.21.2) Thucydides' account of the Peace of Nicias and its aftermath illustrates the extent to which peace and war between the two great powers a¨ected the rest of Hellas, even though not all of Hellas was party to the peace agreement. Some states did not join at ®rst, and Thucydides gives their reasons, albeit brie¯y: the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleians, Megarians and Thracians are mentioned (5.17.2, 21.2, 30.2±5, 31). But neutrality eventually became impossible for every Hellenic state, either because they were required to enter the war to protect their own interests, or because they were compelled by Athens or Sparta to join.136 As in stasis, ``citizens who maintained neutrality were destroyed by both sides, either for their refusal to join in the ®ght or out of envy of their survival'' (3.82.8). The suppression of Melos is an example of this, appearing just at the end of the sequel to the Peace. Much has been made of the fact that Thucydides placed the Melian Dialogue directly before the Sicilian expedition, dramatically representing Athens' hybris in sailing against the distant island power.137 Yet the reader should remember what precedes the Dialogue as well: the disintegration of the peace agreement between the two great powers, resulting in the further spread of the war. The Dialogue caps the chaotic sequel to the Peace by demonstrating the utter 134 IG i3 86, cf. Thuc. 5.82; HCT iv, 151; Connor 1984, 147; Rood 1998, 83±108. 135 Cf. HCT iii, 682. 136 Most neutral states are not mentioned until the con¯ict a¨ected them, as Bauslaugh 1991 points out. 137 The placement of the Melian Dialogue was far from obvious or natural. It could ± perhaps should ± have come at 3.91, when Athens ®rst threatens and destroys the land. Inscriptions show that Melos was tributary from 425. See Kierdorf 1962; CT i, 498±500. Thus the decisions revealed in the Dialogue were really made in 426, not 416!

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impossibility of remaining neutral in the war and the utter meaninglessness of the term ``peace.'' Melos is a small example of what the Sicilian venture represents on a grand scale: the Hellenic war spread like a disease to all parts of the Hellenic world, bringing states both willingly and unwillingly into the con¯ict. Sicily, Melos and ± for di¨erent reasons ± Mycalessus, as well as other small states,138 discovered that they could not stand outside this Hellenic war. The kinesis, as we were informed in the ®rst sentence of the History, engulfed all of Hellas and much of the rest of the world.139 When Thucydides writes in the stasis model that ``every form of evil-doing arose in the Hellenic world because of the staseis'' (diaÁ taÁ v sta seiv, 3.83.1), he indicates that the ``evil-doing,'' if it originated in the staseis and was typical of them, was nevertheless not limited to them: diaÁ taÁ v sta seiv is not the same thing as e n taiÄ v staÂsesi. We have seen in this chapter that the kinds of brutality and violation of religious and ethical norms, as well as the rampant, destructive self-interest which speci®cally characterize stasis, can be found in many settings not directly identi®ed as stasis. The profound disturbance ± the kinesis ± a¨ected not only individual cities but Hellas as a whole. 138 All the Achaeans except for the Pelleneans originally maintained philia with both sides, but eventually all joined in (2.9.2, cf. 5.82.1, 7.34.2). The Aetolians were similarly dragged into the con¯ict (3.94¨., cf. 100); Thera's status is equated with Melos' at the beginning of the war (2.9.4), and we know from other sources that it came under Athenian control during the war (ML 68, 69); Crete also became involved at an early stage (2.85.5). Thucydides says generally that after the Sicilian expedition, ``those who were allies of neither side'' felt the need to join the Peloponnesians against Athens (8.2.1). 139 toÁ allo ÿ E llhniko n, 1.1.1±2; also w
n a kohÄÎ, cf. 1.4.1; 6.55.1, 60.1. Compare the Spartans using the expression at 4.20.4, and Alcibiades, with great e¨ect, echoing the Spartans, at 6.90.3 (and also the Plataeans at 3.57.2); cf. 1.138.2. Each of these instances has troubled commentators as exaggerated or ill-suited, but they re¯ect the fact that the war did eventually encompass most of Hellas. Similar expression is also found in stasis model, 3.82.1. These are statements so striking, and singled out as unusual by Thucydides himself (wÿv ei peiÄ n), that an ancient reader of the History in scrolls was likely to remember them, if he remembered any particular phrase from one scroll to the next.

chapter 6

The Peloponnesian War and stasis

Thucydides' History is about a war between cities, but a great part of his narrative, and many of the most memorable parts, take place inside cities: the debates, the epidemic, the staseis. Great battles and sieges are described, but the historian's acutest analysis is applied to the internal workings and disruptions of individual men and cities. In a time of languid peace the historian Tacitus excused his inglorius labor (Ann. 4.32). Thucydides had no such need, but his account of the ``greatest kinesis'' in history is characterized by a profound sense of loss. In this chapter we examine Thucydides' presentation of individual staseis and ®nd that he used the smaller civil con¯icts to guide and organize his narrative of the Hellenic war. In what were highly original choices, he emphasized that the ®rst casus belli and the ®rst apparent incident of the war were staseis, he drew attention to staseis at critical junctures of the war, highlighting especially the cluster of staseis around the Peace of Nicias, and he used the Athenian stasis to organize the narrative after the Sicilian expedition. Not only did the larger war spawn staseis in the cities, but the war itself arose from and was fueled by smaller staseis. Stasis is ever before the reader's eyes and represents the very nature of the war. the first aitia The dispute over Epidamnus and the sea battle at Corcyra, as well as the siege of Potidaea, are Thucydides' choice for the most immediate and the most ``talked-about'' causes of the war. Accordingly they ®gure prominently in the Peloponnesian speeches in Book 1, but they were not the only grievances or sources of formal complaint. Thucydides notoriously underplays the Megarian decree as a factor in the war's outbreak, in sharp contrast to the 274

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common belief and rhetoric of the time; in fact it was the Spartans' chief complaint (ma lista pa ntwn, 1.139.1).1 There was also the alleged oppression of Aegina (1.67.2, 139.1) and other disputes which are mentioned only generically (1.67.4, 126.1). Moreover, the decision to begin with the events at Corcyra left an approximately four-year gap between this ®rst aitia and the last event in the Pentekontaetia (signi®cantly, stasis at Samos, 1.115.2±17). Why, then, open with Corcyra? It could be argued that Corcyra and Potidaea were chosen for full write-up because the ®ghting there threatened to bring Athens and Sparta into direct con¯ict, unlike the other, underplayed casus belli. There is nothing disingenuous in the belief that the clash at Corcyra was the ®rst in a chain of events which led directly to the war. It is also true that Athenian o¨enses at Corcyra and Potidaea are the complaints featured in Corinth's ®rst warmongering speech at Sparta, but Thucydides would naturally make the speeches consistent with his narrative and analysis, and the Corinthians' speech does not really concentrate on the list of particulars; having left that task to others they deliberately make a more general show of fear and indignation. It will be noticed, however, that as Thucydides tells it, the clash at Corcyra began with stasis at Epidamnus, which drew in not only Corcyra but also Corinth and Athens. Thus a stasis stands at the head of the entire war narrative. In his preÂcis of Epidamnus' history, Thucydides says that the city had been plagued by stasis for many years ``until ®nally, just before this war,'' the popular faction expelled the rulers, and this con¯ict led step by step to the war between the great coalitions in Hellas (1.24). The ®ght over Epidamnus involved claims and counter-claims of kinship and alienation (1.26.3±5) which Thucydides relates in some detail in order to stress that all the parties in the original con¯ict ± Epidamnus, Corcyra, even Corinth ± were related. Stasis was to remain deeply rooted in that unfortunate area of Hellas, as in 427 Corcyra itself su¨ered from the outbreak made famous by Thucydides. 1 Acknowledged by Pericles, 140.3±4; also 1.67.4. It is a major cause of the war in Aristoph. Ach. 515±39, Pax 606±9 (and cf. Philochorus, FGrH 328 f 121); Andoc. 3.8; Diod. 12.39.4±5 (cf. Ephorus, FGrH 70 f 196); Plut. Per. 29.4±31.1. Important discussions: Gomme, HCT i, 447±52, 465±7 and Dover, HCT v, 422±3; Brunt 1993, 1±16; Lewis, CAH v2, 370±1, 376± 80; de Ste. Croix 1972, 225±89, 381±6; de Romilly 1963, 17±36; Rood 1998, 214±15; Wick 1979; for an unusual interpretation, Rhodes 1987.

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The ®rst aitia, in which Corcyra was a key player, and the Corcyrean stasis in 427, are so written as to inform each other and the entire narrative. The selection and placement of both incidents should be considered a unitary decision.2 There were other staseis, noted by Thucydides, which drew in the big powers before the Corcyrean stasis, most notably the one at Spartolus (2.79) and the especially brutal civil con¯ict at Notion (3.34). The latter con¯ict in particular would have been just as suitable for Thucydides' model; in fact the involvement of Persian ``barbarians'' would have better brought out how stasiotai psychologically alienate their own kin. Thucydides also decided not to expand on the stasis accompanying the Mytilenean revolt (3.2.3),3 the event which occupies most of Book 3 through ch. 50 and might have formed a powerful narrative unit of revolution and stasis. That con¯ict, like the one at Corcyra, would have become the scene of a major military clash between Athens and Sparta ± and thus an example of staseis drawing in the larger powers ± had not Sparta retreated from a confrontation. The Corcyrean stasis of 427 is, to be sure, narrated in its proper chronological place, but already in the ®rst sentence the reader is carried back to the ®rst aitia of the war: The Corcyreans became embroiled in a stasis when the captives, who had been taken in the sea battles o¨ Epidamnus and released by the Corinthians, returned home. (3.70.1)

The cross-reference is of course to 1.55.1, which Hornblower aptly calls ``a kind of literary time-bomb.''4 The course of the ®ghting in Corcyra (3.70±85, 4.46±8) is told in more detail than any other stasis except the one in Athens in 411. Unlike the eruption in Athens, however, the signi®cance of the Corcyrean stasis for the war in general did not demand such treatment, despite the strategic importance of Corcyra for Athens' great ambitions in Sicily ( pointed out already by the Corcyreans, 1.36.2). A di¨erent outcome of the stasis there would not have appreciably a¨ected the 2 The interpretation o¨ered here of the Corcyrean stasis' place in the narrative does not necessarily con¯ict with the interesting views of Rawlings 1981, 211±15 or Connor 1984, 95±105; Stahl 1966, 103±28 has a valuable discussion of Book 3 through ch. 85; on the ®rst aitia see now Rood 1998, 210±13. 3 Contrast 3.39.6, 47.2±3; 4.52, 75. 4 CT i, 97.

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fortunes of the war; Athens would still have sailed to Sicily, where the results could not have been more disastrous. Thus Thucydides saw a connection between the clash at Epidamnus in 433 and the stasis at Corcyra in 427, and he emphasized the link by writing up each incident fully and cross-referencing one to the other. Stasis launches the Peloponnesian War: it is not only the ®rst incident in the war narrative, and it is not only the ®rst in a long series of ever-worsening staseis, but it also establishes the main framework for the History, the guidelines by which the war is understood. the beginning of the war When did the Peloponnesian War begin? For this matter we are wholly dependent on Thucydides; no other reliable contemporary sources exist (later ancient accounts depend on Thucydides or Ephorus). There may have been a popular view that the war o½cially started with the sea battle o¨ Corcyra in 433, which brought Athens into direct confrontation with Sparta's most important ally, Corinth. This is merely a surmise based on a line from Aristophanes' Peace (990), produced in 421, in which an Athenian says ``we have pined for you [ peace] for thirteen years.''5 This is at odds with other lines in Aristophanes adhering to the conventional date (Ach. 266, 890; Hip. 773), but if such a view existed it was not unreasonable, given that the sea battle constituted a violation of the Thirty Years' Peace of 446/5, which forbade hostilities between the signatories, including allies of each, if one party o¨ered arbitration.6 Such a violation at Corcyra, coupled with that arising from the siege of Potidaea, is alleged and debated in the speeches in Book 1 of the History. Single, ambiguous lines of comic poetry have marginal signi®cance 5 Various solutions are quoted and proposed by Platnauer 1964, 150 and Sommerstein 1985, 973; cf. also CT i, 236. Jacoby, in his comment on Philochorus FGrH 328 f 123, ®nds the number 13 impossible and explains it as ``an inde®nite number used to express plenty.'' Atthidographers paid special attention to the ®rst Spartan invasion, out of obvious interest in the fate of the land of Attica, but this re¯ects nothing about how they understood the war's chronology: Androtion FGrH 324 f 39, Philochorus FGrH 328 f 125, Istros FGrH 334 f 30. 6 At least from what can be surmised from fragmentary evidence regarding the terms. The evidence is collected by Bengston 1962, a156 pp. 75±6; see de Ste. Croix 1972, 293±4, whose disputes with everybody are not relevant here.

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next to Thucydides' detailed account and explanation of the outbreak of the war, which he clearly dates to 431. Yet despite, or maybe even because of, the amount of detail, the ®rst incident of the war has proven hard to pin down, and the student may be bewildered by the di¨erent assertions o¨ered in modern textbooks and guides. The scholars who made the current book divisions in Thucydides thought they knew when the war began, and made Book 2 open with the ®rst sentence of what they judged to be the narrative of the war proper, separating it o¨ from what seemed to be the prelude and background material. Thus our Book 2 begins:  qhnai wn kaiÁ Peloponnhsi wn kaiÁ a rcetai deÁ oÿ po lemov e nqe nde hdh A twÄ n eÿ kate roiv xumma cwn, e n w
Î oute e pemei gnunto e ti a khrukteiÁ par' a llh louv katasta ntev te xunecwÄv e pole moun.

I will postpone translation of this sentence until certain elements are clari®ed. The sentence may at ®rst sight look fairly innocuous and straightforward, but it bristles with problems, beginning with the ®rst ®ve words of the sentence:7 1 Does arcetai deÁ oÿ poÂlemov e nqe nde mark the beginning of the narrative of the war or of the war itself ? Both interpretations may be found in the standard translations and commentaries.8 2 Does the word e nqe nde refer backwards or forwards? Again, both have been asserted.9 3 Does e n w
Î in the second part of the sentence refer back to poÂlemov, to e nqe nde, or to something else? Once more, various possibilities have been suggested.10 7 Recently Rawlings has discussed some (but not all) of the principal problems, with a review of past solutions. While his approach is similar to mine, I cannot agree with his conclusion that Thucydides dated the beginning of the war to the last Spartan embassy in Athens. See Rawlings 1981, 18±36, an expanded version of Rawlings 1979; also Thompson 1968 on the place of Thuc. 2.2.1 in the larger chronological scheme; Lendle 1964 associates the problem with Thucydides' reaction to Hellanicus. 8 ``At this point in my narrative begins the account of the actual warfare . . .'' C. F. Smith in the Loeb edition; ``es nimmt aber hier in meiner Dartsellung der Krieg seinen Anfang,'' Classen±Steup. Contra: ``And now the war . . . actually began,'' Jowett; ``the war properly so called begins at this point,'' Gomme, HCT ii, 1; ``Ici commence, deÁs lors, la guerre. . . ,'' J. de Romilly in the Bude edition. 9 Gomme, HCT ii, 1: ``e nqe nde points forward to ch. 2''; Rusten 1989, 95±6: e nqe nde ``can only refer backward,'' following Rawlings and Smart; see Steup in the ``Anhang'' to Classen±Steup ii, 280±1. 10 Gomme, HCT ii, 1 rejects the standard solutions and translates, ``that is, the period in which they no longer communicated with each other without a herald now begins.'' This is close but not identical to what I shall argue.

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In order to solve these problems, one must disregard the bias of the book divisions and recognize that the ®rst sentence of Book 2 (de ) completes a thought begun in the last sentences of Book 1.11 These sentences must ®rst occupy our attention, for despite Thucydides' e¨ort to be clear, they have caused consternation and disagreement among translators and commentators. Book 1 ends with Pericles' ®rst speech (chs. 140±4), and the Athenians' brusque and aggressive answer to the Spartan embassy which had been sent to complain about violations of the Thirty Years Peace at Corcyra and Potidaea (145). Thucydides says that this diplomatic failure was the last formal exchange of embassies between the two states: (1.145) kaiÁ oiÿ meÁ n a pecw rhsan e p' oi kou kaiÁ ouke ti usteron e presbeuÂonto´ (146) ai ti ai deÁ au
tai kaiÁ diajoraiÁ e ge nonto amjote roiv proÁ touÄ pole mou, a rxa menai euquÁv a poÁ twÄ n e n  E pida mnwÎ kaiÁ Kerku raÎ ´ e pemei gnunto deÁ omwv e n au taiÄ v kaiÁ par' a llhÂloiv e joi twn a khru ktwv me n, a nupoÂptwv deÁ ou´ spondwÄ n gaÁ r xuÂgcusiv taÁ gignoÂmena h n kaiÁ proÂjasiv touÄ polemeiÄ n. [ The Spartan ambassadors] returned home and came no more on diplomatic missions. Such were the causes for complaint and the disputes on both sides, arising directly out of the events at Epidamnus and Corcyra, before the war broke out; but they nevertheless maintained communication during this period and visited each other without a herald, although not without mutual suspicion; for the events constituted a breach of the treaty [ˆ the Thirty Years Peace] and an occasion for war.

The link between these lines and 2.1 emerges once the meaning of omwv, ``nevertheless,'' is understood. According to almost universal opinion, Thucydides is saying that after the last Spartan embassy left Athens empty-handed, the two states nevertheless maintained informal communication until the war formally started, as reported in 2.1. This reading, however, cannot be the plain sense, for Thucydides quite explicitly asserts that the two states ``nevertheless'' maintained communication not after the period of ``complaints and disputes'' but during it, e n autaiÄ v. They communicated through embassies and ``without a herald,'' a khruÂktwv ± in other words, as two states in peaceful relations, since a herald is the formal 11 Rusten 1989, 95±6.

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means of communication during war.12 In like manner, the Corinthians earlier had sent messengers to the Athenians aneu khrukei ou, without a herald's insignia, in order not to acknowledge that they were formally at war (1.53.1); and they had previously declared war against Corcyra by means of a herald (1.29.1, 4, cf. 3). If not for the word o mwv, Thucydides would be making a tautological statement: ``before they were at war, Athens and Sparta communicated as two states not at war,'' which in turn would be a banal way of recalling the speeches of Book 1. The strong oppositive o mwv suggests the expectation that the two belligerents would not have communicated by normal diplomatic means during the period of the con¯icts at Corcyra, Potidaea and elsewhere (e n autaiÄ v), but did so anyway. That is, Thucydides implies that Athens and Sparta had been at war at least since the ®rst trouble at Epidamnus, but during this period they nevertheless communicated ``without heralds,'' as if they were not yet at war. For (ga r), he says in the last sentence of Book 1, the treaty had been broken by these incidents and was the ``occasion for war,'' and might lead to actual ®ghting between the two great powers at any time. The thought continues without pause at 2.1: ``The war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians and their respective allies now begins,''13 meaning not the state of war, which had already begun, but the ®ghting by which war is usually identi®ed. The meaning of e nqe nde and e n w
Πshould now be clear. e nqe nde refers both backwards and forwards, which is only natural: ``from this point [i.e., the last diplomatic exchange14] onwards,'' in which later period (e n w
Î) they fought continuously without any formal or informal diplomatic exchanges, communicating only through heralds, as is proper for two states at war with each other. Thus the meaning of 2.1 may be rendered in an interpretive translation: Formal acts of war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians and their respective allies begin from this point onwards, in which period they did not continue communicating with one another without a herald but once they started actually ®ghting, fought continuously. 12 See HCT i, 190 and Adcock and Mosley 1975, 152±4. Note that Pericles had determined to accept neither herald nor presbeia while the Spartans were ranged in arms against Athens, 2.12.2. 13 The nuances of the English present tense in this context are the same as a rcetai in Greek, which is interpreted in the commentaries as either a plain present tense or an historical present. 14 The scholiast's gloss, a poÁ tau thv thÄv ai ti av, is not so far o¨ as Gomme thought.

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It follows from this that 2.1 is the second half of a me n . . . de opposition begun in 1.145 ®n. with oiÿ meÁ n apecw rhsan e p' oi kou, ``the Spartan ambassadors returned home.'' The me n . . . de marks the dividing line between communication with and without a herald. This may seem a long time to wait between me n and de , and there may seem to be too much intervening material (including two de -clauses), but, ®rst, there are similar instances of Thucydides' separating me n and de with a great deal of material, even subsidiary de -clauses.15 Second and more important, neither of the intervening de -clauses in 1.146 provides a logical and sensible contrast to oiÿ meÁ n apecw rhsan: the phrase ai ti ai deÁ au
tai is an obviously unsuitable partner, and e pemei gnunto deÁ omwv is unsuitable because as we have seen it refers to the very period (e n autaiÄ v) in which embassies were exchanged, i.e., the period whose close is described in the me n-clause. Thus in 1.145±2.1 Thucydides is saying something like this: Regarding the hostilities between Athens and Sparta, there was an initial (and not entirely appropriate) period of diplomatic exchanges, and then actual ®ghting, in which (obviously) they did not approach each other diplomatically, i.e. without a herald. Both of these periods, in Thucydides' lexicon, constitute ``the war.'' Yet how can we understand the implication that Athens and Sparta were in a state of war even before they directly clashed in arms, and their herald-free diplomatic exchanges contradicted their actual situation? This sounds very much like the troublesome line from Aristophanes' Peace. The key is to be found in the linguistic echoes of Thucydides' famous statement about the causes of the war in 1.23.4±6. The verbal repetitions between 1.23 and 1.145±2.1 are so close that even the ®rst-time reader going through the text continuously would likely, upon reaching 1.145±2.1, recall the earlier passage if Thucydides' polemic there had been appreciated. At 1.23.4, Thucydides writes: ``The Athenians and Peloponnesians began the war when they violated the Thirty Years Treaty, which was concluded after the recapture of Euboea.'' This is already an indication that the ``war'' began with the ®rst violations, and it is noteworthy that here and immediately following (dio ti d' e lusan), Thucydides attributes the treaty-breaking to 15 E.g., 1.22.1±2, where osa meÁ n loÂgwÎ is answered by taÁ d' e rga. And see Rawlings 1979, 275.

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both sides.16 Thucydides then proposes (1.23.5) to set forth ``the causes for complaint and the disputes'' (aiÿ ai ti ai kaiÁ aiÿ diajorai ), the same expression he uses in 1.146, referring in both places to the con¯icts at Corcyra and Potidaea, which are to be distinguished, he says (1.23.6), from the ``truest reason,'' the a lhqestaÂth proÂjasiv, i.e. Sparta's fear of Athens' phenomenal growth in power. The word proÂjasiv is also repeated in 1.146, but without any modi®er, so that it means there the reason or ``occasion'' for a war, that is, what led to the war which had been brewing and e¨ectively existed. Similarly, in 1.126.1 the Spartans are said to have sent embassies to Athens in order to create the megi sth proÂjasiv for going to war, that is, the ®rmest basis, the most compelling occasion. ``Pretext,'' a common interpretation of proÂjasiv, is not precise. While in 1.126.1 it is the ``best occasion,'' in 1.23.6 it is the ``truest occasion or reason,'' the thing which above all else caused the war. Thucydides seems to be saying in both 1.23 and 1.146 that the war was a condition (if not yet a formality) which existed from the time the fear of Athens was conceived at Sparta, and that this fear was brought out by the incidents at Corcyra and Potidaea and the other aiti ai kaiÁ diajorai . Despite the diplomatic exchanges regarding those two con¯icts, a state of war ± the same mental conditions which made Sparta and Athens ®ght to the ®nish ± existed from at least the time they occurred. Indeed, Thucydides shows the diplomatic e¨orts which followed those con¯icts to be half-hearted ± all but one speech in Book 1 assumes that the war is inevitable, and in the only exception, the Corinthians' assertion at Athens that war is avoidable (1.42) is reversed by their command performance at Sparta soon afterwards. The transition from hostile diplomatic exchanges to formally recognized declared hostilities is thus signi®cant but not de®nitive, at least in Thucydides' account. This may still seem di½cult, but Thucydides says very much the same thing, in clearer terms, regarding the uneasy period between the Peace of Nicias and renewal of ®ghting, during which Athens and Sparta abstained from invading each other's territory, but in other theaters, where the cease®re was ``unstable,'' they harmed each other in the highest degree, until ®nally they were compelled to break their peace agreement ``and return to open war16 Cf. Classen±Steup ad loc.

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fare'' (auqiv ev po lemon janeroÁn kate sthsan, 5.25.2±3; see Chapter 5). This distinction between a state of war and war characterized by open ®ghting (poÂlemov janero v) is the same one implied in 1.145±2.1. The Peace of Nicias brought the actual ®ghting to a temporary end but did not end the state of war. As we have seen, this is the basis of Thucydides' controversial claim that the con¯ict was a single war which lasted twenty-seven years (5.26): the intervening so-called ``peace'' was characterized by violations of the treaty, rendering it nothing more than a ``suspicious truce'' (upoptov a nokwch , compare 1.146: anupo ptwv deÁ ou ) destined to give way to open warfare again. The formal violation of the treaty (5.26.6) and di¨erence or dispute (diajoraÂ) which prompted it were, like the violations of the Thirty Years Peace, signi®cant but not de®nitive of the state of war. We may now return to the original question: What was the ®rst incident of the Peloponnesian War? Thucydides' idea re¯ects Aristophanes' reference to the popular notion of a thirteen-year war, but still does not accept it as the formal outbreak of the war. Again, minute linguistic questions lay at the heart of the larger problem. We read in 2.2.1: ``for (ga r) the Thirty Years Treaty after the recapture of Euboea stayed in e¨ect for fourteen years, and in the ®fteenth year . . . slightly more than 300 Thebans . . .'' This seems to explain (gaÂr) the statement in 2.1, ``the war now begins,'' by relating the ®rst incident of the war, the Theban in®ltration into Plataea in the early spring of 431.17 This is the common understanding. Hornblower states that Thucydides ``clearly implies . . . that the Theban attack began the war.''18 It is indicative of the problem that a commentator has to state a certain passage ``implies'' the beginning of the war that is the History's main subject. Once again, however, the common understanding is beset by di½culties. Most prominently, there are other statements in the text which clearly identify the Spartan invasion of Attica as the ®rst incident of the war. 17 The gaÂr, which has been the pivotal point in some analyses, does not have unanimous ms. support. 18 CT i, 236. The impression that the Plataean incident was the ®rst incident in the war is an old one: cf. Diodorus 12.41.2¨., esp. 42.3, cf. 37.2 (citation of Thucydides); whether he was transmitting his own impression or following Ephorus is not crucial here. Cf. Steup's ``Anhang'' in Classen±Steup ii, 286±7.

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5.20.1 dates the truce between Athens and Sparta in 421 from ``the ®rst invasion of Attica and the beginning (archÂ) of this war.''19 At 1.125.2, the Spartans are said to have prepared for nearly a year before invading Attica ``and taking up the war openly'' (cf. above). At 2.2.3 the Thebans are said to have wanted to attack Plataea ``while still in peace and before the war had formally broken out.''20 They saw that ``there would be war'' (e soito oÿ poÂlemov) and wanted to take Plataea before war actually broke out (prokatalabeiÄ n). Thus the Thebans did not see their own actions as the incident which would start the war between Athens and Sparta; they wanted to get it done before that happened. As the Spartan envoy Melesippus re-crossed the Attic border after being rejected at Athens, knowing that he would return only in the Spartan invasion force, he said, ``This day will be the beginning (arxei) of great evils for the Hellenes,'' 2.12.3. In the same vein, Archidamus' invasion is quite formally and solemnly introduced in the narrative,21 as if it marked the beginning of hostilities between the two great powers. All of these passages indicate that the ®rst incident of the war was not the Theban attack on Plataea but the Spartan invasion of Attica ± which is only natural, since it was the ®rst instance of direct hostility between Athens and Sparta (and cf. 2.71.1). Sparta had not initiated the attack on Plataea, and there is no hard evidence to support the conjectures that Thebes and Sparta 19 Some have suggested that the words hÿ e sbolhÁ hÿ e v thÁn  A ttikhÂn are an interpolation. If we can make the passage consistent with other passages, as I attempt to do here, the interpolation, to which Smart 1986 27 n. 39 saw ``no alternative,'' is unnecessary; also Lendle 1964, who assumes throughout that the Theban attack on Plataea (2.1) marks the beginning of the war. The passage is not discussed by Maurer 1995. There remains the problem of explaining hÿmerwÄn o li gwn parenegkouswÄn in 5.20.1, a vague phrase which either was left intentionally vague or is a mistake; that is, if it is proven that Thucydides regarded the invasion of Attica as the formal outbreak of the war, then this should be the starting point for explaining the vague expression of date, rather than the other way around. For bibliography on this crux, see Smart 1986. 20 Cf. the notes ad loc. by Classen±Steup and by Marchant. 21 CT i, 250. In addition to the passages cited there, see 3.52.1.

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were formally obligated to each other before 431, or that Thebes (or Boeotia) was actually party to the Thirty Years Peace.22 This may seem a radical statement, ¯ying in the face of accepted opinion, but the direct information in the ancient sources is meager in the extreme, and the provisions have largely been reconstructed from the various passages here under discussion.23 Thucydides' terse report of the Thirty Years Peace (1.115.1) says that Athens made the spondai with Sparta and its allies. Diodorus (12.7) says even less about it, and Pausanias (5.23.4) records only one curious clause. The truce freed Boeotia (and Megara) from outside interference, and there were lists of the allies of Athens and Sparta at the end, but the exact status of Thebes/Boeotia vis-aÁ -vis Sparta can only be surmised. Clearly, given events leading up to the treaty ± Tanagra, Oenophyta and Coronea, and Thebes' continuing suspicion and fear of Athens, which retained Plataea as ally ± Thebes and perhaps the rest of Boeotia would have been friendlier to Sparta, but this does not mean that they were formally allies, and once the war broke out Sparta did not o¨er the Thebans help until two years after the trouble began, when Athens had abandoned the ®eld; the Spartans calculated, says Thucydides, that relieving the Thebans at Plataea would be more advantageous to them in the war than invading Attica that year (2.71.1). The list of Sparta's xuÂmmacoi in 431 (2.9.2), which includes Thebes, is no sure proof that any alliance existed before then, and the formal arrangements in 431 are not known: the list of Hellenic states which would ®ght on Sparta's side is part of Thucydides' survey of the resources each side had to ®ght the war, and he notes that Boeotia provided horsemen (cf. 2.9.3).24 Thus ± to straighten out an often-misread sentence ± ``because of what happened in Plataea and because the treaty had been openly broken [at Corcyra 22 See Kahrstedt 1922, 30; Wickert 1961, 77±8. For the opinion that Thebes was an ally of Sparta, Powell 1988, 114; and for the opinion that Thebes and Plataea were both signatories, Hammond 1967, 349. The accounts of the previous con¯icts in Boeotia do not mention alliances, see Diod. 11.80. 23 On the terms of treaty, see n. 6 above (Bengston, de Ste. Croix). Discussion in Lewis, CAH v2, 136±8; Meiggs 1975, 175±204; Badian 1993, 137±45. 24 The terms and length of the alliance between Sparta and Thebes are not known, and 5.36.1, 38.3 and 39.3 indicate that they were not formally allied in 421 (the same is implied in the whole of 5.37); editors have attempted to emend the o¨ending passages (see Classen±Steup and HCT ad loc.), but the fact should be accepted.

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and Potidaea], Athens and Sparta started preparing for the war'' which was sure to come (wÿ v polemh sontev, 2.7.1).25 It should be further noted that, even if Thebes was party to the Thirty Years Peace as an ally of Sparta, the Theban attack on Plataea would be no clearer a violation of the Thirty Years Peace than Athens' participation earlier in the naval battle at Corcyra or its siege of Potidaea. The Peloponnesian allies at the ®rst conference in Sparta (the Thebans' presence is not noted, but they may have been there) concluded that the treaty had been broken (1.87.2), and at the second conference resolved to go to war (1.125.1). There is no reason to consider the Theban attack on Plataea to be the ®rst incident of the war as the ®rst violation of the Thirty Years Peace, because there were earlier violations.26 Of course what distinguishes the Plataean a¨air from the Athenian actions at Corcyra and Potidaea is that responsibility was supposedly laid at Sparta's doorstep for Thebes' actions. This has seemed to be a responsibility which Sparta itself accepted, for ± in the last problematic passage to be examined ± Thucydides says (7.18.2) that the Spartans later felt guilty about the original o¨ence (paranoÂmhma) which started the war, ``because the Thebans had entered Plataea in a time of truce'' (e n spondaiÄ v) and because ``the earlier treaty'' (aiÿ proÂteron xunqhÄ kai) forbade hostilities if one side requested arbitration, which the Athenians had done but the Spartans had refused. This is the sentence which is always quoted to document the assertion that Thebes and Sparta were formal allies according to the Thirty Years Peace, so that Sparta is supposed to have been formally responsible for the Theban attack on Plataea, an Athenian ally. The only part of this construction which is undoubtedly correct is that Plataea was an ally of Athens. Thucydides distinguishes between two treaties, the one violated when Thebes entered Plataea under arms and the ``earlier one'' which required arbitration of disputes. It may be objected that the ``earlier'' treaty at 7.18.2 is meant to distinguish the Thirty Years Peace from the Peace of Nicias, but, ®rst, such a distinction would 25 And not ``The a¨air at Plataea was a glaring violation of the thirty years' truce'' ( Jowett), vel sim.; the kai is not explanatory but a true conjunction. What is said is that the treaty had been broken (at Corcyra and Potidaea), and both sides saw Plataea as the occasion in which they would come into con¯ict. The subsequent chapters (7±9) describe the preparations each side made. 26 This was ®rst noticed by H. MuÈ ller-StruÈ bing in 1883, see Rawlings 1981, 23±5, 35.

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be silly in light of the fact that the ``later'' spondai included an arbitration clause as well (5.18.4). More seriously, not only Thucydides but also his Thebans and Plataeans, in their speeches before the Spartans, acknowledge that the Thebans entered Plataea ``during a time of truce'' (e n spondaiÄ v: 3.56.2, 65.1), but neither mentions any o¨er or the lack of an o¨er of arbitration by either side or the Athenians, or even a provision for it (and none is mentioned at 2.5.5). By contrast, it is certain from the speeches in Book 1 that during the con¯icts at Corcyra and Potidaea, Athens did o¨er Sparta to arbitrate their di¨erences according to the terms of the Thirty Years Peace but Sparta refused (1.78.4, 140.2, 144.2, 145, note Archidamus' rejected suggestion at 1.85.2), and this is what must have been causing the Spartan qualms recorded at 7.18.2. That is, this sentence must be read in the manner suggested above for 2.7.1, as distinguishing the attack on Plataea from the terms of the Thirty Years Peace.27 This leaves the question of which spondai ± referred to by the Plataeans, Thebans and Spartans ± were violated by the Thebans. Here we are forced to surmise, but it is natural to imagine that some local Boeotian arrangement is meant. This impression is reinforced by 2.5.4, where Thucydides explains that the Plataeans outside the walls had not ¯ed or made provisions for their property because the trouble had come ``during a time of peace'' (e n eirh nhÎ), which certainly refers to Boeotia and not all of Hellas. This would at least remove the problems cited above, and turn Sparta's guilt-feelings into qualms about coming to the aid of a city which had violated a sworn pact ± that is, Sparta was helping a transgressor, but not necessarily one to whom it owed formal obligations. The long-held assumption that the attack on Plataea was the ®rst incident of the war is based on misapprehended nuances in Greek syntax (2.1, 2.1, 7.1; 7.18.2), not a de®nitive statement, such as we ®nd in 5.20.1, 1.125.2 and 2.2.3, all indicating that the ®rst incident of the war was the Spartan invasion of Attica. The attack on Plataea may be more properly described as the incident which led directly to the ®rst incident, the invasion, for it was clear that Sparta, with war on its mind and an interest in Boeotia, would not let Athens usurp Theban control there unopposed. Both Athens and Sparta 27 If te e v Pla taian h lqon QhbaiÄ oi e n spondaiÄ v kai is not an interpolation.

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understood that Plataea would likely bring them into direct con¯ict in Boeotia. That it did not in the end is a di¨erent matter. How to explain, then, the ambiguities in the text causing the distinct impression that the attack on Plataea was the ®rst incident of the war? Of those few readers of Thucydides who have recognized the problem, some have thought that Thucydides may have changed his mind and not had time to revise,28 but generally such explanations (in my opinion) are to be resisted if the statements in question can be shown to be consistent.29 The siege of Plataea gained some prominence in the war and overriding importance in Thucydides' History, but as Gomme pointed out, it ``had not much e¨ect on the course of the war,'' and what strategic importance it did have is neglected by Thucydides.30 There were many sieges in the war, and this was not one which brought Athens and Sparta into direct confrontation. Thucydides' elevation of the Plataean incident to exaggerated importance was controversial in his day, like many of his other claims (such as that the Peloponnesian War was a single, twenty-sevenyear war) which have become standard textbook material today. Thucydides deliberately avoids making the attack on Plataea the actual outbreak of the war, yet risks confusion by placing the ®rst episode of the four-year Plataean ordeal at the head of his war narrative introduced by an ambiguous sentence. It was indeed placed in the correct year, but ¯ashbacks are not unknown to Thucydides,31 and the story at Plataea is not picked up again until 2.71. The confusion could easily have been avoided. A clue to Thucydides' purpose may be found in the fact that the con¯ict at Plataea began with stasis, which apparently continued until the demise of the city (3.68.3) when Plataea was repopulated with Megarian refugees from a di¨erent stasis (ibid.). Moreover, the events in the ®rst stage of the Plataean stasis are marked by violence, treachery, brutality and violation of oaths, which are not 28 E.g., Gomme, HCT ii, 69±70; cf. also Jacoby, FGrH iiib (Suppl.) 1.18, 2.15 n. 142; CT i, 236±7. I am not so optimistic as Rusten 1989, 96 that ``previous discussions are . . . largely obsolete'' because of Rawlings' work. 29 Other explanations are even less satisfactory, e.g., Rawlings 1981; Smart 1986 sees ``obsessive'' polemic against Hellanicus' dating scheme, which Hornblower, CT i, 237 rightly dismisses as ``far-fetched.'' 30 HCT iii, 539. 31 Although they do not occur until Book 8, see Connor 1984, 219±21.

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only ®xed elements in any stasis but emblematic of the entire war.32 Thucydides placed the attack on Plataea at the beginning of the war narrative to highlight these elements. The speeches at the end of the Plataean a¨air (3.53±67), which inevitably recall the war's ®rst year, demonstrate the victory of hard brutality over appeals to conventional Hellenic values (see Chapter 2), and the Spartan action itself is presented as a kind of atrocity, which is the counterpoise to the (contemplated) Athenian brutality at Mytilene (3.37±48). These two episodes, the debate at Athens over Mytilene's fate and the debate at Plataea over Plataea's fate, form a kind of unit with the general account of stasis in 3.82±3, which is based on the civil con¯ict at Corcyra. Thus Thucydides decided both to write up Corcyra at length as the ®rst ai ti a and to place the attack on and siege of Plataea at the head of the war narrative because both instances were staseis which drew in the two great powers, a pattern which would be repeated throughout the war; moreover, both demonstrated exceptional brutality. Neither stasis led to a head-on clash between Athens and Sparta, but that is of incidental importance. The two events were chosen and carefully placed by Thucydides to set the tone and thematic agenda of the History. Making Corcyra the ®rst aitia and therefore the ®rst narrated incident allowed Thucydides to frame the entire war narrative with staseis, for he says that the war ended with the ®nal internal con¯ict in Athens (2.65.12). And opening with the Plataean stasis meant that the narrative of the war proper would be framed by acts of massacre, cruelty and brutality; for at the war's end the Spartans executed 4,000 Athenian prisoners, in bitter recollection of Athenian violence, including the decree to amputate the right hands of captured enemy rowers (Xen. Hellen. 2.1.31±2). This framing required, in the case of Plataea, the risk of a lack of clarity about more pedestrian matters such as the formal beginning of the war.

staseis as organizing points of the history Aside from the ®rst aitia and the apparent opening of the war, Thucydides uses smaller staseis generated by the war to guide his 32 Cf. Rusten 1989, 97.

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narrative. So far as we know, he mentions every stasis, small and large, which took place in the war years down to the point where the History breaks o¨. At least, no other source for the period reports an incident of stasis unknown to Thucydides.33 If it can some day be proved that Thucydides' list is not complete, it will nonetheless still be true that Thucydides had a keen awareness of staseis and he recorded them when he saw them. After the stasis in Plataea in 431, the ®rst stasis in the war years took place at Spartolus (2.79.2). A pro-Athenian faction inside the city had some hopes of success, but the Athenian army was soundly defeated outside the walls by the opposite faction, which had received reinforcements from elsewhere in the Chalcidice. But the Spartolus incident set the pattern, in which the two belligerent powers were drawn into the staseis of smaller cities (cf. 3.82.1).34 Many military operations of the two great powers, as well as confrontations between them or their allies, took place on civil battlegrounds. These internal con¯icts became more numerous and more severe as the war continued and impinged more on the a¨airs of the smaller cities. It became increasingly apparent, as the war dragged on, that in a certain sense Athens and Sparta were allied not to cities but to factions within cities. This is acknowledged by none other than Thucydides' Diodotus, who says to his fellow Athenians, In all the cities the people (demos) are well disposed towards you, and they either fail to support oligarchic revolution or, when they have been forced, instantly become the enemy of the insurgents, so that when you go to war against a hostile city you have the masses as allies. (3.47.2)35

Attachment to the city proved to be a weaker force in time of war than fear or lust for personal power. The ever-increasing instability of cities and their divisive factional loyalties between Athens and Sparta represented a deep split in Hellas. 33 A comprehensive list of staseis in the ®fth and fourth centuries can be found in Gehrke 1985, 13±199; see also Losada 1977, especially on the indication of stasis by prodosi a. The stasis in 411 in Paros occurred after the History breaks o¨, and I do not ®nd evidence for a stasis in Andros in the same year (see Gehrke, 22). Gehrke's dating of a stasis in Mantinea to 425±423 is highly speculative and based on extremely late sources, thus hardly a fact; I would take Thucydides' silence seriously. 34 Similarly, rival cities and tribes exploited the war, e.g. 2.30.1 (Sollion succeeding in totally displacing the people of Palairos); 3.94¨., 100¨.; this phenomenon is mentioned in 1.23.2; cf. 4.49 (Anactorium), 5.32.1 (Scione). 35 de Ste. Croix 1954; HCT ii, 322 and CT i, 437±8.

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After Spartolus, Thucydides records more than thirty other staseis to the end of our Book 7, that is, before the explosion of stasis following Athens' crushing defeat in Sicily (Book 8).36 The Athenian campaigns in Boeotia and the Spartan campaign in Thrace, which drew Athens into decisive confrontations, are initiated and subsequently fueled by stasis in individual cities. The Boeotian and Thracian narratives are thus punctuated by staseis which, when there is enough detail to judge, precisely follow the lines of the stasis model and concretely illustrate the involvement of the great powers in stasis in smaller cities. Moreover, most of the staseis before Book 8 are clustered around the Peace of Nicias; that is, most fall between the years 424 and 418, in the precise middle of which is the Peace. Such a proliferation of staseis before and after the Peace could be explained by supposing that the great powers' stumbling and exposing their own weakness before the Peace is what encouraged the factions in the smaller cities to make their move, and that the uncertainty of the Peace, or even hope of undermining it, contributed to stasis after 421. It is of course true that Thucydides did not invent the many staseis he reports, nor did he misorder them chronologically; and we have suggested that he mentioned all staseis he knew about. But he did choose to draw attention to and to write up in some detail those incidents of stasis occurring just before and after the Peace. Thucydides isolates the continuing instability in Thrace and Boeotia, hotbeds of stasis before 421, as a factor in the failure of the Peace (5.26.2). The staseis which surround the narration of the Peace of Nicias highlight the main feature of that narrative, namely that the treaty has all the characteristics of the temporary, treacherous and ultimately ine¨ective agreements that are made during stasis. With the reader's mind ®xed on stasis, the cessation in hostilities appears to have no hope; rivalries are entrenched. The stasis which broke out at Megara in 424, three years before 36 2.102.1, cities in Acarnania. 3.2.1, Lesbos. 3.18.1, Antissa. 3.34, Notion. 3.69.2¨., Corcyra. 4.1.3, Rhegion. 4.7, Eion. 4.49, Anactorium. 4.52.3, Antandrus. 4.66±74, Megara. 4.76±7, 89, 91±2, several staseis in Boeotia. 4.84±5, Acanthus. 4.102±8, Amphipolis. 4.110±16, Torone. 4.120, 129±30, Scione. 4.121.2, Potidaea. 4.123, 130, Mende. 5.3.5, Panactum. 5.4, Leontini, where the con¯ict involved land distribution (cf. CT ad loc.). 5.5.1, 6.74, Messene. 5.33, Parrhasia. 5.62.2, 64.1, Tegea. 5.80¨., Argos. 5.81.2, Sicyon. 5.82.1, Achaea. 5.116.3, Melos. 6.95.2, Thespiai. 7.33.6, Thurii. 7.46, Agrigentum. The many staseis in Book 8 are discussed below, together with the Athenian stasis.

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the Peace of Nicias (4.66±74), is the ®rst stasis to be told in any detail after the Corcyrean. It had been mentioned in passing at 3.68.3, but full description is reserved for a more potent place in the narrative, in anticipation of the failure of the peace.37 Its placement is signi®cant for a second reason: it comes poignantly right after the scene in Sicily (4.58±65) in which the Syracusan statesman Hermocrates speaks with great eloquence to rally the Sicilian Hellenes to unify in the face of a foreign (albeit Hellenic) danger. This scene of Sicilian unity is preceded by the end of the Corcyrean stasis (4.46±8), the possible involvement of Persia in the Hellenic war (4.50), possible renewed stasis on Lesbos (4.52), and Athens' capture of Cythera, causing Sparta to fear revolution (new tero n ti, 4.53±7). The Sicilian reconciliation is thus framed by violent con¯ict between Hellenes on both a local and a national level. The factional strife at Megara proved to be an aptly timed illustration of how Hellas was falling apart, and Thucydides chose to narrate it in detail in order to bring this out as well as to anticipate the failure of the peace between Athens and Sparta. The stasis at Megara is immediately followed by brief mentions of other areas where stasis had broken out (4.75). Athens forcefully recovered Antandrus, which had been delivered into the hands of Mytilenian exiles through ``treachery'' (prodosi a), or internal division (4.52.3); that is, treachery against the Athenian-supported government in the city. The situation in Antandrus is ± poignantly ± clari®ed by reference to ongoing troubles at Samos, which had earlier experienced a revolution and was continually harassed by the Samian exiles at Anaia; the stasis there was, as Thucydides' contemporary readers knew, far from over. From these small instances of civil discord the narrative proceeds directly to staseis with much greater consequences, in Boeotia and Thrace, which developed into two major campaigns in the larger war and eventually led to the peace negotiations between Athens and Sparta. As we have indicated, these staseis are told in such a way as to prepare the reader for the impossibility of any peace resting on a solid basis. Hellas seems grievously split before the Peace, in such a way that reconciliation between the two lead37 Compare Aristoph. Pax 246±9, 481±3, 500±2; Legon 1968; Wick 1979 argues that Thucydides downplayed the Megarian stasis in order to de¯ect attention from the Megarian decree.

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ing powers could not repair. The immediate sequel to the Peace picks up and reinforces precisely these themes. Athenian generals arrived in Boeotia ``immediately after the Athenian withdrawal from Megara,'' as if in reaction to it (4.76± 7). They were negotiating with factions in several cities there ``to change the form of government into democracy.'' We have already examined the religious implications of the Athenian actions at Delion (Chapter 5), and we now return to that section of the History to investigate the signi®cance of the series of staseis in the narrative. The Athenians had helped orchestrate several staseis at once in order to facilitate their own capture of the sanctuary of Apollo at Delion. They were negotiating with democratic factions from Thespiae, Siphae, Chaeroneia, Orchomenus and Phocis to stage a grand plot (e piboulh ) of simultaneous violent takeovers in each place as they, the Athenians, occupied the sanctuary. The Athenians calculated that even if the coordinated actions failed, their establishment of an outpost at Delion would bring about their purpose over time, so that they could settle a¨airs in all Boeotia ``to their advantage'' (e v toÁ e pith deion). Thucydides thus explains both the Athenian perspective and that of the local factions. Gomme felt that Thucydides' attention to such matters amounted to neglect of other, equally important issues, so that Thucydides was ``de®cient in the understanding of or interest in the major strategy of the war.''38 Thucydides' interest is the only important issue. His understanding was not de®cient, and his choice was not to avoid mentioning large strategic concerns but to focus on what he judged the most important and revealing aspects of the war at each juncture; this ruled out recording all details in encyclopaedic fashion. In the Boeotian narrative his focus is on the inner divisions in Boeotia, their exploitation by Athens and their consequences within Boeotia, the nature of local divisions which catalyzed further divisions in the Hellenic world, and the disintegration in staseis of Hellenic convention and morality. The episode is a good example of the particularity of the historian's eye. A tactical error destroyed the Athenians' plans in Boeotia, and, displaying an uncharacteristic lack of energy and will, they withdrew after fortifying Delion. The general inclination in Boeotia 38 HCT iii, 539, quoting Wade-Gery.

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was to let matters be, but the Theban Boeotarch Pagondas swayed opinion in the other direction (4.91). The speech Thucydides composed for him39 reveals what is ultimately a necessary mindset, stressing unity among Boeotians as a coherent people attacked by a foreign aggressor who threatens all Hellas. Although Thucydides' narrative has brought to the fore the divisions among both the leaders and the general population of Boeotia, Pagondas speaks as if they were united in common cause. He addresses the ``men of Boeotia'' (w andrev Boiwtoi ) and in the ®rst two sentences invokes the name of Boeotia as if it were a patriotic charm. Further on he asserts that it is pa trion, a national characteristic of Boeotians, to resist a ``foreign'' invader, using a word (alloÂjulon) intended to distinguish the Boeotians racially from the Athenians,40 that is, to estrange the enemy as far as possible in the minds of his listeners. This argument becomes even more extreme when Pagondas rhetorically separates Athens from all Hellas, equating Athens with Persia and Boeotia, ironically, with Athens in 480±79. The Athenians aim to enslave all Hellas, he says (4.92.4), repeating the main rhetorical line of Sparta, which in turn echoes the standard language used to describe the Persian enemy. The Athenians had once occupied Boeotia, Pagondas recalls, ``while we were divided by stasis'' (hÿmwÄn stasiazo ntwn); but the Boeotians expelled them by (he implies) uniting and winning a victory at Coronea, ``by which we brought to Boeotia great freedom from fear, which has lasted to this very day'' (92.7).41 All of these patterns have by this point become so familiar to the reader that they sound almost routine, ready rhetorical weapons adjusted to local circumstances. It should be noted that Pagondas' speech was not a standard speech before battle, but a speech designed to persuade his compatriots to attack when no immediate need was apparent. The Athenian general Hippocrates, in a brief address to his troops, answers Pagondas' main points: the invasion (contrary to appearances) is defensive, intended to protect Attica from 39 As Gomme points out ad loc., kataÁ loÂcouv in 4.91 means that Pagondas gave ``several speeches, obviously all very much alike, but at any rate all converted into one by Thucydides.'' 40 Pagondas could be referring to the di¨erences between Ionian and Dorian (or even Aeolian), which became a common rhetorical theme in the war; see Chapter 3. 41 Thucydides' account (1.113) con®rms Pagondas' memory. The Athenians entered Boeotia to capture places held by Boeotian exiles ± i.e., a faction ± and were themselves attacked by these exiles at Coronea.

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Peloponnesian invasions; Athenian freedom is what is at stake; Athens is not the enemy of Hellas but its ``®rst state'' (4.95.3). The Athenian answer is based on a fundamentally di¨erent conceptual understanding: Hippocrates re-attaches Athens to Hellas, as it were, and portrays it as representing Hellenic values ± devotion to the land, to freedom and to military glory ± even as it dominates other states. What is obscured in both speeches is the fact that Hellenes were ®ghting Hellenes. Like the Megaran stasis, the Boeotian stasis pre®gures the failed peace of 421 and has another role besides. Pagondas' speech is read with the memory of Plataea's destruction and the desperate claims put forward there still fresh in the reader's mind. Boeotian unity and kinship, if not invented for this war, were raised to thematic prominence in it. The de®nitions and identities, the relationship and obligations of the Boeotians to each other and Hellas, their action in the past and their place in history, all these were under dispute in the Plataean debate and, after Plataea's demise, are revisited by Pagondas. No single conception of Boeotia is validated either by the strength of rhetoric or the outcome of policy. While the Athenians and Boeotians struggled around Delion, the Hellenic poleis in Thrace were embroiled in stasis, or on the verge of it.42 Thucydides' personal experience with Thrace would account for the wealth of detail, but not his decision to make the account so expansive. The instability of the Thracian cities allied to Athens was probably one of the strategic considerations which attracted the Spartans, especially their capable general Brasidas. His arrival there only exacerbated the staseis, as one faction ± nominally ``pro-Spartan'' or ``oligarchic'' ± in each city was emboldened to hoist itself into power. Brasidas proved masterful in exploiting civil tensions for his own personal advantage and that of his city.43 As Thucydides says generally, before relating some episodes in detail, ``he caused most of the places to revolt [against Athens], others he captured through treachery'' (4.81.2). The examples in 42 Babut 1981, 434±6 on the interweaving of the Brasidas and Delion narratives. See discussion of Brasidas in Chapter 5, and on what follows see generally CT ii, 38±61; Connor 1984, 127±40; Hunter 1973, 23±41 and 1982, 119±75. 43 Even as he crossed through Thessaly, on his way to Thrace, he encountered stasis: 4.78.3±5. In the context of stasis, Thucydides makes a general remark explaining Hellenic custom, 4.78.2, thus answering Gomme's puzzled question ad loc.

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the narrative illustrate how Brasidas brought about revolt (apostasis) in those places where the faction friendly to him was able to secure power, if not completely at least su½ciently to in¯uence the population of the city and the opposing faction against their will; in the other places, he installed the friendly faction in power after they betrayed the city to him. Generally speaking, the populations as a whole in the cities were not identi®ed with one faction or another, and in most cases where their feelings can be discerned, they wished to remain loyal to Athens44 ± whether from enthusiasm for democracy or the city of Athens, or desire simply to avoid con¯ict, cannot be known. The ®rst stasis in Thrace broke out at Brasidas' ®rst target, Acanthus (4.84±4.88.1). The party in power, with a wide base of popular support in the city, wished to remain loyal to Athens and opposed Brasidas' entry, but they were not strong enough completely to counter the e¨orts of the rival, pro-Spartan party, who acted in concert with the pro-Spartan Chalcideans in the city (cf. 4.81.1). The city was factionally divided (kat' allhÂlouv e stasi azon) over whether to admit Brasidas. He was allowed to enter for the purpose of addressing the city, after which a vote was taken: Acanthus would accept the Spartan general and revolt from Athens. This decision was coerced. In the speech written for him, Brasidas threatens the Acanthians in clear terms, and Thucydides also points out that the Acanthians were fearful of losing their grape harvest (4.88.1). Brasidas made clear that he and his Acanthian friends would gain control of the city with or without the cooperation of the population there.45 Had an Athenian force been in the vicinity, the result might very well have been di¨erent. Interestingly, the Acanthians ± unlike, for example, the Melians, when faced with a similar dilemma ± do not engage in moral expostulation; they weigh only practical concerns. Acanthus' deliberations and ®nal decision are radically di¨erent from the 44 As Gomme points out repeatedly (ad 2.8.4±5; 4.84.2, 71.1), the people in most of the Thracian cities allied to Athens were not inclined to secede from the league. 45 For this reason, I ®nd Grote's enthusiastic praise of ``Grecian political reason and morality,'' quoted approvingly by Gomme (HCT iii, 557), to miss the point. The Melians, under the same sort of threat, refused to bring the matter before the people for fear of a rash or unconsidered decision (5.84.3±5.85), and the result was drastically di¨erent. In both episodes, Thucydides' focus is not on the di¨erence between democratic vs. exclusive political processes, but on the con¯ict between imperial power, justice and self-interest.

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Melians' in the face of Athenian aggression eight years later; the Acanthians trust (pistwÂsantev) only the Spartan pledge to let them be autonomoi. Whether this re¯ects what was really said during the negotiations of surrender, or whether it arises from narrative and thematic concerns, cannot be known with certainty. It will be worthwhile to pause for a moment to look at Brasidas' speech in closer detail.46 Brasidas did achieve his purpose, so it can be said that his rhetoric was e¨ective. Perhaps he knew that the Acanthians' concern for their own safety and welfare, not his ¯attery of their virtue, would be the most persuasive argument. Not the content of his remarks but his show of force and will was persuasive. His not-so-veiled threat at 4.87.2±5, for which he brazenly invokes the authority of the local gods and heroes, belies his resort to the regular Spartan posturing as liberators of Hellas (4.85.1, 5, 6; 86.1) as well as his expansive and con®dent pledge (pi steiv, 86.2, 87.1) and his a½rmation of the Spartans' oaths (86.1) to let them remain autonomoi.47 Such a reth (86.5), which he avows to be his aim, was not such as to comfort the Acanthians. These promises have about as much value as Brasidas' assertion that he favors no faction within Acanthus (86.4), which Thucydides' account directly contradicts. Interestingly, Brasidas renounces not only participating in an Acanthian stasis, but the techniques of stasis as well. As if he were reading from the stasis model, he says that it is more shameful for respectable men to pursue their aims by specious tricks than by open (i.e., honest) force, for the latter is the just application of strength whereas the former is no more than the ``plotting of intentional injustice'' (4.86.6).48 In this speech and others, in his renunciation of stasis and emphasis on 46 On what follows, Hornblower's commentary has been most useful, CT ii, 276±84. Connor 1984, 138 points out that Brasidas' promises regarding Athenian and Spartan intentions turn out to be false. 47 Raa¯aub 1985, 251¨. And note the transference of the concept of the majority's interest taking precedence over the minority from the context of a single polis to all the Hellenes at 4.87.5. It can be assumed that the pro-Spartan party rose to a position of considerable in¯uence, if it did not take over the reins of power entirely. This may be seen at the next change of political fortune: a clause included in the treaty of 422/1 provides secure passage for any residents of Acanthus and other cities in the area who wished to leave the city ``together with their possessions'' (5.18.5); these must belong to the faction which had lost Spartan protection and no longer felt safe in the city. 48 Note the linguistic echoes of the stasis model: apaÂthÎ gaÁ r euprepeiÄ ai scion toiÄ v ge e n a xiwÂmati pleonekthÄ sai h bi aÎ e mjaneiÄ ´ toÁ meÁ n gaÁ r i scuÂov dikaiwÂsei, hn hÿ tuÂch e dwken, e pe rcetai, toÁ deÁ gnwÂmhv a di kou e piboulhÄÎ .

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the liberation and uni®cation of Hellas, Brasidas takes for himself the same role as Thucydides' Hellen, Agamemnon, Theseus or Themistocles. But Thucydides is careful to correct this misrepresentation (as if the reader could miss the point): it was all a sham; Brasidas' words, ®ne as they were, were false and alluring (e pagwga , 4.88.1). Amphipolis su¨ered a fate similar to Acanthus' (4.102±8). The situation there was less stable because of its heterogeneous population and recent colonization by Athens (437/6); in fact, given the diversity of the population and the relatively brief residence on the part of many, one may wonder whether loyalty to the polis in times of severe stress should have been expected, or whether an internal con¯ict in Amphipolis should be called stasis. Nevertheless, Thucydides describes the course of events as stasis, and Aristotle also refers to stasis there.49 True to the principles underlying his stasis model, Thucydides made the judgment on the basis of what he knew of the people's behavior. Unlike Acanthus, Amphipolis harbored certain parties who were working with Brasidas and were ready to betray the city to him; they are identi®ed as colonists from Argilos, Perdiccas' agents and Chalcidians (4.103.2± 3). Brasidas' sudden arrival outside the walls ``threw the Amphipolitans into great confusion, especially as they were suspicious of one another''; in other words, the presence of one of the great powers in the war brought to the fore underlying mutual suspicions and hatreds (cf. 3.82.5), and in an e¨ort to survive, as well as to maintain the upper hand in the city, each side abandoned the interests of the polis and invited in one of the great powers. The ``opponents of the traitors'' were sent to the Athenian general operating in the region, Thucydides himself (4.104.4±5). Brasidas calculated that a show of ``moderation'' instead of force would be the most e¨ective strategy. His ``moderate o¨er'' (105.2) amounted to the expulsion (instead of execution) of any opponents and the ``traitors''; the Athenians, the openly anti-Spartans and the enemies of the traitors accepted this o¨er when they realized that they would be overpowered (106.1). Thus, the ruling faction was deposed and forced to depart, and the population at large, which 49 Although neither the events he mentions nor the dates are known with certainty: Pol. 1303b, 1306a. Cf. in general Papastavru 1936, 15±23.

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favored Athenian patronage, transferred loyalty (or at least obedience) to Sparta in order to preserve life and property, as at Acanthus; the factional struggles had not yet become uncontrollably violent. Fighting was avoided, but it was stasis all the same, both in the mindset and the concerns of the factions, and in the way the con¯ict played itself out. The same thing recurred frequently in Thrace. Athens' subjects, encouraged by Brasidas' ``mildness,'' secretly invited him to help their revolutions (4.108.3±4). Brasidas' apparent ``mildness'' in other places was what it was at Amphipolis: an o¨er to the pro-Athenian faction in each city to depart unharmed while he installed his own agents, the rival faction, in power (see Chapter 5). This he called ``liberating Hellas.'' Brasidas merely anticipated stasis in each city and imposed a solution before serious ®ghting could take place. Athens' failure to maintain a strong presence in the area (Thucydides' personal failure) was the sole reason why Brasidas could act in such a manner. The Athenians and their sympathizers in Amphipolis despaired of help and left; this was repeated elsewhere. The pro-Spartan factions, who were not in power, were the ones who appealed to Brasidas to come to their aid; otherwise there would have been no need to send the secret messages, the secrecy being required to circumvent the ruling pro-Athenian factions in each city. Once the ruling factions were confronted, they surrendered and accepted Brasidas' terms, which given the expected alternative could indeed seem to be ``mildness.'' The Athenian power was widely underestimated; the Athenians had just been defeated at Delion and were not making a strong showing in Thrace. The cities were ®rst incited not e v apoÂstasin, to revolt from Athens, but e v toÁ newteri zein, to internal revolution; once Brasidas arrived they would rebel from the alliance, a posthÄ nai.50 Internal revolution had to precede rebellion from Athens. Most of the places which Brasidas attacked, yielded (e.g., 4.109.3±5; cf. 88.2). Torone is one which did not, thus its betrayal by the pro-Spartan faction, its capture and the expulsion of the pro-Athenian faction are told at some length, including a recapitulation of the speech which Brasidas ®rst delivered at Acanthus 50 Cf. Connor 1984, 135 n. 68.

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and now used routinely (4.110±16). The events at Torone follow the familiar pattern, and the result, in the absence of signi®cant Athenian opposition, is predictable. (Torone was brought back over to the Athenian side by Cleon, 5.3.2±6.) The scene was repeated at Mende and Potidaea (121.2, 123, 129¨.).51 In the case of Mende, Thucydides makes a point of saying that the pro-Spartan ``traitors'' were few, and Athenian forces at last appeared in substantial enough numbers to defend the friendly faction, which had general popular support as well (4.129.1¨.; note 130.1: a stasiasmoÂv in the city). There was some brutal ®ghting there, as well as the inevitable trials of the losers (130); the patterns of behavior described by the stasis model were in full evidence. After Brasidas had made substantial gains, the Athenians ®nally responded seriously. Cleon arrived with a strong force (5.2). From this point, the internal conditions in Thrace, and particularly within the Hellenic towns, recede to the background while the narrative focuses on the contest between Cleon and Brasidas. The ®ghting in Thrace was a major turning point in the war. The civil battles there, which broke out because of the greater war and the active presence of one of the contestants, turned the region into a battleground where the two great powers eventually clashed, the generals on each side fell, and as a result the two warring states sought to negotiate a truce. Nothing was settled locally in Thrace by the ®ghting. The reader feels unsettled as the narrative slides into the peace negotiations with the local staseis in Thrace unresolved and instability prevailing in Boeotia, two factors which are singled out as reasons for the impermanence of the peace agreement (5.26.2). The spate of staseis which drew in the two rival Hellenic powers continued, as we have indicated, after the Peace of Nicias. In addition to several small con¯icts there is one large one: Argos. The stasis there, a struggle between democrats and oligarchs, is ®tted into the complex diplomatic struggles, machinations and treachery following the Peace. The stasis at Argos is related sporadically and 51 Scione is more problematic: there the popular will seems to have been to join Brasidas (4.120), and the city even contributed 300 soldiers to the Peloponnesian forces (129.3). Athens in response took an extraordinary measure, decreeing destruction of the city (122.2) which they carried out (5.32.1).

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very incompletely, with no special attention to detail (5.82.2±83.3, 84.1; 6.61.3; cf. 5.76.2, 116.1), thus leading the reader to understand that it followed the typical pattern. That this was so ± and that Thucydides thus felt no need to elaborate on the attendant atrocities ± is clear from the incidental, astonishingly brief and matter-of-fact manner in which he relates the violent treatment of hostages from the expelled faction by the ruling faction in Argos (6.61.3); this is quite distant in the text from the original mention of the hostages (5.84.1), and no cross-reference is given. Thucydides ignores a popular version according to which the stasis in Argos broke out because of an insult to a bride.52 Full details about the stasis were in any case not necessary. The purpose of its repeated mention was to highlight the instability in the period of nominal but false peace. Athens' crushing defeat in Sicily opened a new phase of stasis in the smaller cities in the Hellenic world. Thucydides writes, The Athenian subjects were ready to revolt, even beyond their ability, since they judged matters with passion and they would not even entertain the argument that the Athenians would be able to survive the coming summer. (8.2.2)

The rest of the narrative is ®lled with a long string of revolts by allies, beginning with Euboea and continuing to the end of the book as we have it.53 The revolts provided the occasion for the most sustained series of direct clashes between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians (and their respective allies, including Persian) since the beginning of the war. Each of the allied revolts was not only an apostasis from Athens but a stasis within each city, that is, the ousting of a government friendly to Athens and the 52 Paus. 2.20.2, cf. HCT iv, 152; David 1986 gathers all the non-Thucydidean evidence and points out that Thucydides' main interest was ``the struggle between the two factions and the superpowers who backed them'' (114±15). 53 Euboea, 8.5.1, 60, 95; Lesbos, 5.2, 22±3, 32, 100; Chios and Erythrai, 5.4, 7, 9.2±3, 10.1, etc. (see discussion below); Clazomenae, 14.3, 23, 31; Miletus, 17, 25±7; Lebedus, 19.4; Hairai, 19.4; Samos, 21, 63, 73, etc.; Cnidos, 35; Rhodes, 44; Oropus, 60; Abydus, 61, 62; Lampsacus, 62; Thasos, 64; Byzantium, 80; Cyzicus, 107. General notice of staseis without incidents speci®ed: 8.48.5±6, 64, 65, 99. Athens' fear of rebellions: 8.1.3, 4, 15.1. On stasis in Ionia see generally Balcer 1979.

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installation, with Peloponnesian help, of a faction hostile to Athens. The frame of mind prevailing in the cities is similar to that characterizing people gripped by stasis: their passion (orgwÄ ntev) distorts reasonable and balanced judgment, good gnw mh. In addition, they (literally) ``did not leave them [ˆ the Athenians] any basis for saying or thinking (mhd' uÿpolei pein loÂgon autoiÄ v)'' that they would last out the summer. If the allies denied this logos to the Athenians, then they denied it to themselves as well, and thus they proceeded to drastic action without the bene®t of balanced logos ± the same kind of disjunction between logos and ergon which the stasis model spells out. Only two of the revolutions are told in any detail: Samos and Chios. Again we are compelled to ask the reasons for Thucydides' narrative decisions. The internal con¯ict at Samos was obviously important because of its intimate connection with the Athenian stasis.54 But why Chios? It could be argued that its strategic importance, particularly its naval contribution, made its internal unrest consequential to the course of the war. Yet Euboea was arguably even more important ± its revolt sent Athens into an unprecedented panic (8.96.1) ± and the con¯ict there is not told in comparable detail. Rather, I think, Chios struck Thucydides as a particularly good illustration of several of the principles contained in the stasis model, and its fall from stability and success demonstrated particularly well how the war's destruction overwhelmed, with each new phase, what was good and admirable in Hellas. The information is scattered in the chronologically ordered account, but if one assembles the details55 one reads a story of a well-planned, synchronized oligarchical revolution and change of alliance falling victim not only to typical Spartan unreliability and unanticipated Athenian energy but also to unforeseeable circumstance, so that a once-prosperous city which had been ``well stocked and unharmed since the Persian Wars'' (i.e., the Ionian 54 Many details of the con¯ict at Samos remain uncertain (see HCT v, 44±7), but Thucydides left no doubt about the excess and violence there. It could be that Samos and Chios were important as well because, despite their oligarchical governments, they remained loyal to Athens from 439, but this is not pointed out by Thucydides. 55 The more important passages: 8.5.4, 6, 7, 9.2±3, 10, 14.1±2, 15.2, 17.1±2, 19, 22±4, 28, 30, 32, 34, 38.3±5, 40, 55.1±56.1, 61, 63.1±2, 100.2, 101, 106.3. See Quinn 1969 and Barron 1986.

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revolt, 8.24.3) was devastated by both its internal revolution and its involvement in the Hellenic war (see esp. 8.38.3±4). The Chians had been both fortunate and prudent (hu daimo nhsaÂn te a ma kaiÁ e swjro nhsan, 8.24.4). They based their revolt on superb calculation: they had many good allies and the Athenians had undeniably su¨ered crippling losses in Sicily (24.5). And if they failed because of the incalculable circumstances of human life, they shared their error of judgment with the many who thought that Athens would soon completely collapse. (8.24.5)

The Chians failed not because of any defects in their gnwÂmh (note xune gnwsan), which was sound, but because circumstances overwhelmed logos (they were para loga), all rational understanding, calculation and control; an intelligence such as Themistocles', which could foresee circumstances and form policy based on penetrating understanding of the present, would have been of no use.56 It is in this profound sense, as we have seen, that logos and ergon lose coherent connection in stasis, and the human ability to make policy and live securely is overwhelmed and disappears. Moreover, it should be remembered that despite Chios' prudence, its swjrosu nh, the oligarchs would not have even contemplated stasis if not for the war, or more precisely a particularly destructive event ± a turning-point ± in the war. This prudence will disappear as Chios' good fortune (eudaimoni a) is also wiped out.57 The oligarchs had originally planned a bloodless and orderly transition, dealing with the opposition in as moderate a way as possible (metriw tata, 8.24.6), but as the failures of Chios' ships multiplied the condition of the city deteriorated, hope for moderation crumbled, and the oligarchs after seizing power turned to violence and terror: there were trials, some Chians were killed ``for Atticizing'' (e p' attikismwÄÎ ), and the people were now paralyzed by mutual suspicion (uÿpoÂptwv diakei menoi allhÂloiv hÿsu cazon, 38.3); soon this ``well-stocked'' place was su¨ering from ``great famine'' (56.1). Thus the Chian stasis was chosen for full write-up because it was emblematic of the advanced stage which the general condition of stasis had reached in Hellas. 56 See Edmunds 1975a, who, however, does not discuss this incident. 57 Contrast ou paÂnu eu diake menoi (8.38.3) with hudaimo nhsan (24.4).

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a t h e n s' s t a s i s The narration of the stasis in Athens in 411 is the most detailed of any stasis in the History.58 The internal disintegration of one of the major belligerents of the war would have meant an end to the war, and although Athens brought a temporary end to its own internal convulsions its stasis is presented as another stage in the disintegration of Hellas as a whole. Further, Athens' stasis engendered many staseis in the smaller poleis which were its ``allies,'' and these smaller con¯icts both represented the partial breakup of Athens' empire ± one element in the ``truest reason'' for the war ± and became the places of direct confrontation between Athens and Sparta. One result of Athens' stasis, arising directly out of its defeat in Sicily, was the beginning of Persia's role as an active player in the Hellenic war. We ®nd that the Athenian stasis lies at the heart of a complex web of events which Thucydides tries artfully to weave together in such a way as to point out their interconnections.59 The details of Athens' internal history were selected to illuminate the contours and depths of the stasis; the theoretical model of stasis is the guide.60 58 There are many modern accounts of the stasis in Athens, but on balance none is better than Thucydides' own. In what follows I revisit some of the much-studied episodes in order to highlight Thucydides' e¨orts by language and choice of detail to emphasize certain features of the stasis. Modern accounts, while bene®ting from other sources, tend to rationalize events and motives, but this is inappropriate for a situation in which rationality degenerates. Moreover, the information in other sources is made coherent only by comparison with Thucydides' own version of events, even if it is defective because it is both incomplete and particular. Of the huge bibliography, the following are essential: HCT v, 153±256 and passim to 358; Rhodes 1993 and 1972; Ostwald 1986, 344±411; Hignett 1952, 268±80 and 356±78; Raa¯aub 1992, especially on constitutional points and the relation between the revolution and the ``political thought'' re¯ected in contemporary sources; Rood 1998, 271±82 o¨ers a narratological analysis. Also useful (although not in accord with the previous cited works) is Flach 1977. The two articles by Lang (1948 and 1967), although probably wrong in their main thesis, contain much of value and have been dismissed too harshly by critics; Lang also lists earlier bibliography comprehensively. 59 See Rood 1998, 251±84 on the composition of Book 8. 60 Sparta was also a¿icted by internal strife and factional wrangling, but not to the same degree or with the same consequences. There were war and peace factions in 421 (5.16, 36.2, cf. also 4.108.7, 5.34.2; see Chapter 5); already King Archidamus and the ephor Sthenelaidas represented the two sides in the initial question of war. Factional di¨erences may also be deduced from certain modi®cations of Spartan policy in the ®eld, such as Lichas' insistence on renegotiating terms with the Persians; Lichas was one of eleven ``advisors'' (xu mbouloi) sent to Astyochus (8.39.2), and this Spartan practice of imposing ``advisors'' on active commanders may re¯ect political compromises at home. See also 2.85.1, 3.69.1, 5.63.4. Brunt 1965, 278±81 gathers some evidence and declares, ``What is clear is that the twists and turns of Spartan policy towards Athens must often be explained by party struggles at Sparta.'' Cf. also Cartledge 1979, 245±6, 252.

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In his general assessment of the war's course and conclusion after Pericles' death (2.65), Thucydides implies that Athens' stasis started long before 411. The failed Sicilian venture, as well as Athens' critical failure to support it su½ciently, were in Thucydides' ®nal view the product of stasis. The Mytilenian debate, the mutilation of the Herms and the portrayal of Athenians like Nicias and Alcibiades all bring to the surface the characteristics of stasis: the corruption of language, the breakdown of shared values and institutions, the abuse and disappearance of intelligence.61 In the winter of 412/11, the revolution began far from the city, with the trierarchs and other aristocrats in the ¯eet at Samos: ``the disturbance started (e kinh qh) in the camp and from there spread later to the city'' (8.47.2±48.1). The perpetrators, Thucydides says, resented the ®nancial burdens imposed on them and wanted personally to manage the a¨airs of the city and direct the war against Sparta (48.1, 63.4). Their preliminary actions coincided with Alcibiades' scheme for his own recall to Athens. Alcibiades tried to demonstrate his in¯uence with Tissaphernes by persuading the satrap to reduce his naval support of Sparta; this would su½ciently impress the Athenians to overthrow the democracy as one of Tissaphernes' conditions for ®nancial support (45±7). Thucydides makes sure to clarify what was probably already clear: Alcibiades' purpose was to engineer his own recall (47.1). Thus from the very beginning Thucydides leaves no doubt that not only Alcibiades but also the original oligarchical conspirators sought revolution for purely personal ends which potentially negated the general good of the city, and publicized the promise of Tissaphernes' help only as a means to those ends. To the assembled army and others in Samos (oÿ oclov), the conspirators represented solicitation of Tissaphernes and reconciliation with Alcibiades as the only way to prevail against the Peloponnesians. Despite its disingenuousness, ¯agged by Thucydides, this argument was enough to gain at least the temporary acquiescence of the crowd, which also, Thucydides adds, was tempted by easy 61 See already 2.20.4, 21.3, 70, the anomia during the epidemic; also 4.21.2, 41.4. The beginnings of Athens' stasis need detailed investigation, but see now Rood 1998, chapters 6±8. J. T. Hogan 1989 has studied the ``decline of logos'' in the Athenian speeches in the History; see pp. 4±15 for a sketch of Athens' developing stasis. An interesting study on internal developments in Athens in reaction to the war is LeÂvy 1976, but cf. reviews by C. Macleod JHS 97 (1977), 206±7 and M. Ostwald, AJP 98 (1977), 440±50; see also Wasserman 1954; J. Finley 1942, 186±7.

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pay from the Persians (8.48.3). The vigor of the Assembly was sapped already at this early stage. The confusion and greed of the people and the lack of debate on radical proposals demonstrate the general failure of morale and will which allowed the stasis to go forward. Thucydides highlights the inertia of the Assembly, the debilitation of logos, by allowing one daring speaker from within the ranks of the oligarchs to express sensible and perceptive objections to the conspiracy. The general Phrynichus, correctly discerning Alcibiades' real motives, warned against starting a stasis (mhÁ stasia swsin) and argued, again correctly, that the Persian king did not trust Athens and had a better ally in the Peloponnesians, and that new oligarchical governments could neither restore revolted allies nor strengthen the loyalty of existing ones, who only wanted freedom and had no reason to trust an Athenian oligarchy more than the existing democracy (48.4±7, cf. Thucydides in his own voice, 64.5). Phrynichus' words are astute but should not be mistaken as a direct comment by the historian, for the real point is contained not in the content of the speech so much as in its result: the conspirators take no consideration of it at all, they do not even bother answering Phrynichus but continue as if they had heard nothing (49). Such was the fate of logos in this stasis, as in all others. Moreover, Thucydides makes clear that Phrynichus' astuteness was not disinterested but arose from a fear of and animus against Alcibiades, and the failure of his frank remarks frightened him into treacherous dealings with the Spartan admiral that were anything but astute (50±1, cf. Chapter 5). Phrynichus' willingness to sacri®ce the Athenian army at Samos in order to save his own skin blunts the force of his previous remarks concerning Athens' interest and puts into bleak perspective any claim to patriotism; in the present circumstances of stasis, it both originates in impure motives and fails to move any hearer. Unliked by the democrats, a perhaps genuine oligarch but also convinced (Thucydides says) that an oligarchy would never recall his bitter enemy Alcibiades, Phrynichus was a typical player in stasis: relentlessly pursuing personal and factional interests, treacherously plotting and himself the target of plots. In Athens, the overthrow of the democracy began with a formality and a euphemism. The oligarch Peisander formally proposed that the Assembly recall Alcibiades and ``have a democratic government in a di¨erent manner'' (mhÁ toÁ n au toÁn troÂpon dhmok-

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ratoume noiv) in order to attract the King's support (8.53.1). The public understood the meaning of ``a di¨erent manner'' and did not take well to the idea of oligarchy; there was vociferous opposition to Alcibiades' recall as well, but in the end the people ``were afraid'' and authorized negotiations with Tissaphernes, thinking it would be easy to restore their form of government in the future (54.1). Before leaving Athens Peisander prepared the ground for future abuse of legal and political procedure and for the factional violence: he expelled Phrynichus from his generalship on a false allegation and he enlisted into the cause the political fraternities, the xunwmosi ai, at least the ones he knew would be interested and willing ``to take counsel together to overthrow the democracy'' (koinhÄÎ bouleusaÂmenoi kataluÂsousi toÁ n dhÄmon, 54.4). These organizations had existed previously in Athens as societies of aristocrats sworn to help each other in the law courts and in the political arena (e piÁ dikaiÄ v kaiÁ a rcaiÄ v) ± by legitimate means, not (at ®rst) violence.62 But now Peisander united them among themselves and with the revolutionary oligarchs at Samos, who were also members, in a common, nefarious purpose.63 Their later use of violent means cannot be said to con¯ict with Peisander's original intention. These fraternities were soon to act as factions in stasis, when loyalty to toÁ eÿ tairikoÂn ``makes for a greater willingness to take risks without prevarication; for such associations were formed not for mutual bene®t in conformity with established laws, but for greedy pursuit in violation of convention'' (3.82.6). When Peisander returned to Samos, he and his co-conspirators there took two decisions which contributed to their downfall and in time strengthened their democratic opponents. First, in an attempt to protect their military base with a sympathetic government, they tried to stage a simultaneous oligarchical overthrow in Samos itself, although the Samians had recently installed a democracy;64 in the end, they lost the sympathy not only of Samos but of their army, which threw o¨ the oligarchs and became a base for the democratic opposition. Second, after negotiations 62 See Ostwald 1986, 354±8, who identi®es Peisander's ``politicization'' of the fraternities as the ®rst such occurrence. Cf. also Andrewes, HCT v, 128±31. 63 He consulted with touÄ eÿ tairikouÄ twÄÎ ple oni in Samos, 8.48.3; interestingly, the plot there is called a xunwmosi a, 48.2. The associations' extreme political tendencies are con®rmed at 8.92.4, if the OCT reading eÿ tai rouv is correct. 64 See HCT v, 44¨. on chronological problems.

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with Tissaphernes broke down (8.56), in no small measure because of Alcibiades' sabotage, the oligarchs decided to drop the project of Alcibiades' recall, e¨ectively turning this asset over to their enemies (63.3±4). The results of both of these decisions, however, would be known only in the future. Peisander and some of his colleagues returned to Athens, sowing stasis in allied states and collecting an armed force along the way.65 When they arrived in Athens they found that their planned revolution had already started. One of the ®rst actions of the factions struggling to dominate had been murder. The most prominent victim was the democratic leader Androcles. He was killed both because of his political position and also because the conspirators in Athens thought the action would gratify Alcibiades (65.1±2); the oligarchs newly arrived from Samos had not communicated the change in policy regarding Alcibiades. Yet Androcles was only the most prominent victim: ``others who were considered `inconvenient' were made away with secretly in the same manner'' (65.2). The murders removed bothersome rivals, terrorized the opposition, established credentials; all this is a textbook case. Another insidious means of control was the promising talk, which began even before Peisander's return, about a constitution of ®ve thousand for the future (65.3);66 Thucydides is emphatic that all this talk (logos) was merely a way to manipulate the still doubtful and wavering Assembly and afterwards to keep them in check (see below). Once the stasis becomes full-blown in Athens, Thucydides gives a general description of the conditions in the city (8.66), a½rming in e¨ect that the con¯ict closely followed the patterns of the stasis model. No one from the opposing factions, being afraid and seeing the extent of the plot, spoke against them any longer. If anyone dared speak a word in opposition, he was immediately killed in some convenient way, and there was never any search for the perpetrators, nor was anyone held to 65 Thucydides' very vague phrasing in 8.65.1, a ma e stin aj' w
n cwri wn kaiÁ oÿpli tav e contev sji sin au toiÄ v xumma couv, can mean either mercenaries or, more likely (note xumma couv), hoplites from allied states; for on his trip to Athens Peisander had stopped at various allied cities to abolish democracies (64.1, 65.1). Thasos probably dominates the narrative here because of its further internal revolution in 410 and afterwards, cf. Gehrke 1985, 161±3. 66 There was no formal proposal. Classen±Steup were right to suspect proei rgasto as inappropriate for loÂgov in 8.65.3, and the suggestion proei rhto has much to recommend it.

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account if suspected. The people rather stayed quiet and inactive, having su¨ered such a shock that they now considered merely escaping violence, even when they kept silent, a gain. Imagining that the plot was much more extensive than it was in fact, their power of judgment deteriorated, and they were unable to ®nd out information about it because of the size of the city and their ignorance of each other's involvement.67 For the same reason it became impossible for anyone who was in dire straits to con®de his grievances to another in order to defend himself against a hostile schemer, for he would discover that anyone to whom he spoke would either be unknown to him or, if known, could not be trusted (a piston). All members of the democratic faction approached each other with the suspicion that the other had a part in the unfolding events, for some who no one would ever have thought would join an oligarchy participated in the plot. It was these individuals who created the greatest mistrust (toÁ a piston me giston) among the population at large and most enhanced the oligarchs' sense of security, by con®rming the democrats' mutual distrust (a pisti a) of each other. (8.66.2±5)

The echoes of phrases and ideas of the stasis model are unmistakable, and the sentences in this section, describing a general condition, would ®t well in 3.82±3. In both places we read that speaking in opposition to a proposal is dangerous,68 convenient pretexts are found for execution and judicial murder of opponents, the quality and capacity of people's powers of judgment (gnwÂmh) deteriorates, and factional disputes rapidly spread like an infection to the entire populace. In stasis in general, violence is a sign of reliability (pistoÂv), pledges (pi steiv) are con®rmed by crime, breach of trust (pi stiv) sweetens revenge, and battle lines are drawn on the basis of mutual distrust (api stwv) (3.82.5, 6, 7; 83.1). Just so in Athens, the disappearance of trust (toÁ pistoÂn) caused social paralysis and political disruption, which worked further to the narrow bene®t of the factions.69 Trust is an element so basic to the functioning of society that it pervades all spheres, from interpersonal relationships to shared decision-making. In stasis it is replaced by fear and endless suspicion, and actual violence or the threat of violence, so that in Athens we see people e¨ectively silenced in both their public and private lives. Whereas in 67 I omit ouk eicon autoiÁ e xeureiÄ n as redundant; J. Stahl is probably right that an in®nitive dropped out after eicon. 68 oÿ d' antile gwn au twÄÎ upoptov, 3.82.5, compare also 8.66.5, allhÂloiv a pantev uÿpo ptwv proshÄÎsan oiÿ touÄ dhÂmou. 69 wje lhsan, 8.66.5 / ou gaÁr metaÁ twÄn keime nwn noÂmwn wjeli av aiÿ toiauÄtai xuÂnodoi, 3.82.6.

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Samos logos had become ine¨ective and simply neglected because of inertia, confusion and greed (above), in Athens logos was silenced and controlled by force. Thucydides says (8.66.1) that although the assembly and council were convened the agenda was rigorously controlled, so that the speakers came only from the revolutionaries' ranks and ``what should be said'' (taÁ rÿhqhsoÂmena) was carefully charted out. Violence threatened even one who did not criticize public policy and fear of violence prevented even acquaintances from con®ding in each other. Logos ceased to function because it was overwhelmed by raw action. In addition, the values of words transformed just as the stasis model describes. Gain, ke rdov, now signi®ed merely avoiding violence.70 Moreover, fair and attractive proposals by the revolutionaries were merely a specious cover (euprepe v) for their scheme to take power solely to themselves (8.66.1, compare 3.82.8). The purpose of 8.66, like that of the stasis model, is to provide a general description of the con¯ict in order to guide understanding and interpretation of the detailed narrative (and it also sheds light retroactively on the prelude to the revolution, from chs. 45¨.).71 The general description sets the tone and interpretive guidelines for the subsequent detailed narrative. The insights in the concentrated chapter 8.66 are based on the details related in the narrative of Athens' stasis and on Thucydides' insights into stasis in general. Once Peisander returned to Athens, the oligarchs went straight to the task of consolidating power. Thucydides' account of their takeover of the city's constitutional machinery and their establishment of a narrow oligarchy by means of violence, threats and deception, depicts a prevailing faction or group of factions in a stasis 70 The same expression for assigning a word's meaning is used: e noÂmizen, 8.66.2 and e nomi sqh, 3.82.4. Other verbal echoes, although in di¨erent immediate contexts: kata plhxin, 8.66.2 / e kpeplhgme nov, 3.82.5; e pibouleuÂsanta, 8.66.4 / e pibouleuÂsasqai, 3.82.4, 5, proepiboulo menoi, 83.3; asjaÂleia at 8.66.5 and 3.82.4, 7; hn deÁ touÄto eu prepeÁ v proÁ v touÁv plei ouv at 8.66.1 echoes the uses of the word euprepe v at 3.82.4, 8 and eu logov at 82.4. 71 Much like the model and its relationship to the Corcyrean stasis, the descriptive model in 8.66 comes after the ®rst stages of the con¯ict have been reported. Andrewes, HCT v, 164, comments that 8.65±6 ``gives us one of Thucydides' most powerful pieces of political description,'' but then he adds, ``there is however no decisive indication of the character of the source.'' Why, at least for ch. 66, should there be a source? No one had to help Thucydides understand the dynamics of pervasive suspicion in a riven society, or aid him in probing the psychological interior of the historical actors.

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overthrowing a society's institutions under the guise of legality and historical legitimacy. He relates that the oligarchs ®rst convened the Assembly and moved that ten fully empowered syngrapheis be appointed to draw up proposals on how best to run the state (8.67.1). In a second assembly held at Colonus, these syngrapheis introduced the sole suggestion of cancelling graphe paranomon; any measure, even one contrary to the existing constitution, could be suggested (67.2). Unhindered by constitutional safeguards, they proceeded more openly (lamprwÄ v at 67.3 is Thucydides' editorial comment) and proposed ± again euphemistically72 ± to abolish democratic procedure and salary for o½ceholders, and to appoint four hundred men ``with full powers to govern as they judged best, and they should convene the Five Thousand whenever they felt it was appropriate'' (67.3). Logos, it will be remembered, had lapsed into ine¨ective silence, so that the Assembly sanctioned these measures ``with no voice in opposition'' (69.1).73 The conspirators then surrounded themselves with armed men and barged into the boule chamber, dismissed the councillors and installed themselves in power. They thus dominated the two centers of political power and legitimacy, controlling the Assembly with rhetoric and threats, and taking over the boule by brute force. In neither place, Thucydides emphasizes once again (70.1), was any opposition raised through word or action. Having removed the legitimate bouleutai ± those chosen a poÁ touÄ kuaÂmou, Thucydides meticulously notes (69.4) ± and having established themselves in the bouleuterion, the Four Hundred maintained observance of familiar procedure for a time: they chose prytanies by lot and carried out the proper prayers and sacri®ces upon entering o½ce. ``But afterwards they departed widely from the democratic system . . . and in general governed the city by exercising their power'' (kataÁ kraÂtov, 70.1). The prytanies and the religious observances are important details: they were part of the continuing charade of legitimate procedure, which was abandoned once the oligarchs' grip on power was secure. 72 mhÂte archÁn arcein mhdemi an e ti e k touÄ au touÄ ko smou mh te misqorjoreiÄ n (8.67.3), immediately corrected by Thucydides (8.68.1, cf. 68.4). The statement in 8.67.3 refers back to 65.3, see Andrewes, HCT v, 168±9. 73 There is no reason to accept Wilamowitz's emendation of alla to a ma in 8.69.1, since a lla conveys the shocking abnormality of an Assembly, in which vociferous opposition would have been normal, essentially disempowering itself without any debate or resistance.

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The ``democratic system,'' or more literally ``system by which the demos managed a¨airs,'' merely refers to what had been established as normal procedure by the long-standing democracy in Athens. Thucydides immediately spells out the implications of rule by force: the Four Hundred engaged in selective and ``convenient'' (e pithÂdeioi) murder of opponents, imprisonment and exile of others. The Four Hundred now began their urgent appeals to Sparta to negotiate terms for peace (8.70.2, 71.3). Peace with Sparta was essential to their maintenance of power and belies the original announced program of soliciting Persian aid by changing the constitution. The Athenian oligarchs mimic the spectacle of factions within smaller poleis calling in a greater power, under the guise of some ideology, for their personal protection and advancement on their home turf (cf. 3.82.1). The Spartan king Agis handled the appeals with circumspection and reluctance (8.71); a swifter and bolder response would have had direr consequences for Athens. For the oligarchs a bigger problem than the reluctant Spartans was the army in Samos, which would naturally balk at a narrow oligarchy and represented the greatest immediate physical danger to the regime. A careful rhetorical tack was chosen: no mention of negotiations with Sparta, which would have proven incendiary, but vague representations of the necessity of an oligarchy ``for the general salvation'' and assurances about the existence of the Five Thousand, with a ¯imsily fabricated explanation of why the extended oligarchy had not yet been convened (8.72; message delivered at 86.3). Yet the Four Hundred were too late, for an aborted oligarchic coup in Samos had strengthened the democracy both on the island and in the Athenian ¯eet, which at ®rst had grudgingly accepted oligarchy in principle but now joined hands with the Samian democrats and a½rmed its own identity as a democracy. In Samos the oligarchical conspirators were treated with notable mildness and restraint, and individuals mysteriously called ``neutrals'' or ``moderates'' (8.75.1)74 managed to prevent the Athenian sailors, enraged by exaggerated reports of atrocities in Athens, from harming the known oligarchs and sympathizers of the Four Hundred in their ranks. But peace and uni®ed policy among the 74 Stasis in the ¯eet was averted before it became full-blown; thus ``neutrals,'' who typically disappear in stasis (3.82.8), could still exist. But as Andrewes remarks, HCT v, 267, ``one may doubt if many Athenians were genuinely indi¨erent between democracy and oligarchy.''

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troops required considerable e¨ort. Samos was after all where the oligarchs had originally formed their plot, and after the establishment of the Four Hundred in Athens there was contention and strife between the democrats, who were by far the majority, and the remaining oligarchs, over which form of government the army would accept for itself and for the city Athens (8.76.1).75 Violence threatened, but normal political procedures for dealing with a crisis proved su½cient. The Assembly deposed the previous generals and suspect trierarchs and chose others, most prominently the trierarch Thrasybulus and the hoplite Thrasyllus. Then the Assembly collectively decided its own identity and policy. Logos was alive again at Samos. Thucydides records in oratio obliqua the policy hammered out at Samos (8.76.3±7). No speakers are named, and the wording makes it clear that Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus were not chie¯y responsible for the arguments made: ``they stood up and encouraged one another with various arguments'', that is, the policy arose from a collective e¨ort, not a proposal by one dominant speaker. Perspective was ®rst established: the city itself had rebelled from the ¯eet (hÿ poÂliv au twÄn aje sthken)! The Athenian ¯eet at Samos was acting and thinking of itself as the legitimately constituted state of Athens, even though the Four Hundred at Athens occupied the site of the polis and held nominal legitimacy. The Assembly further reasoned that they in fact had the power to enforce their will on Athens, control the allies ``as if based there [in Athens],'' and control supplies to their own bene®t and to the detriment of the Four Hundred. Samos itself, now a friendly democracy, was a further asset. The regime at Athens had little hold over the Athenians at Samos: neither military nor ®nancial control, nor authority in respect to ``good counsel, on account of which a city controls its armies in the ®eld.'' On the contrary, they reasoned, the oligarchs at Athens ``had caused the o¨ense by subverting their ancestral laws and customs (pa trioi noÂmoi), which they themselves were 75 The language of 8.76.1 is almost identical to that of the stasis model. Compare e v jiloniki an te kaqe stasan . . . dhmokrateiÄ sqai . . . o ligarceiÄ sqai (8.76.1) with e v toÁ jilonikeiÄ n kaqistame nwn toÁ pro qumon . . . i sonomi av . . . a ristokrati av . . . eÿ toiÄ moi h san thÁn auti ka jiloniki an e kpimplaÂnai (3.82.8). Cf. also the use of jiloniki a at 5.43.2 (Alcibiades); 7.28.3 (the reason for Athens' super-human strength to persevere in the war); 1.41.3 (the Corinthians on the Corcyreans); 4.64.1 (Hermocrates: moiri aÎ jilonikwÄ n); more neutral uses at 5.22.4, 111.4; 7.70.7, 71.3.

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trying to preserve and would try to compel the oligarchs to do the same.'' They would pursue the war against Sparta and they would seek Persian aid through Alcibiades. And ± controverting the principle on which all the above considerations rested ± the strength of their ¯eet would a¨ord protection if they should fail in all other matters. Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus capped the proceedings by making all the soldiers, democrats and oligarchs alike, swear a most solemn oath: ``to live in harmony in a democratic form of government, to pursue the war against the Peloponnesians with energy and commitment, to be enemies of the Four Hundred and refuse to negotiate with them'' (8.75.2), which fairly sums up their deliberations.76 The reader is presented with a contrast between a healthy, even ``normal'' political process taking place in Samos, where opponents are not liquidated or neutralized but merely outvoted, and an unhealthy process in Athens, where a self-appointed faction rules by force and intimidation under a veneer of legality and constitutionality. Yet there is another layer; the Athenian selfrepresentation at Samos should not be accepted at face value, much less as blessed with the historian's approval. For, ®rst of all, Thucydides reveals that the Athenians' deliberations at Samos rested on a calculation of raw power (to repeat: they reasoned that in the worst case, they possessed the ¯eet to enforce their will) as well as, in some cases, sel®sh personal motivations (8.86.5). Second, the army's declaration of itself as the true Athens not only neglects the silenced majority in Attica, but more importantly invites a problematic comparison to a similar rhetorical ploy of selfrepresentation, namely the Athenians' conviction that when they 76 8.75.2±3 seems to be out of chronological order. An Assembly would ®rst elect new generals and debate policy, then these generals would implement the decided policy and still the oligarchical opposition by committing one and all to the oath. The uproar in the army (75.1) stemmed from an ongoing contention (toÁ n croÂnon touÄton at 76.1); after being calmed down by ``neutrals'' the army immediately (euquÂv at 76.2) held an assembly to resolve the matter. After new leaders were chosen and all the arguments were given (76.2±7), the new leaders administered the oath (metaÁ deÁ touÄto at 75.2). Thrasybulus' patronymic in 75.2, as well as the way he is introduced with Thrasyllus, tells against this reconstruction, but it is hard to understand why those serving under the oligarchs would swear loyalty to democracy and enmity to the Four Hundred (75.2) before being persuaded or compelled by the Assembly of reconciliation, and furthermore how the jiloniki a between democrats and oligarchs could continue, or why the Assembly would be needed, after such an oath. If 8.75±6 is indeed chronologically confused, then, because of the way 75.2 is written, the error is Thucydides' and not that of a copyist or editor who transposed passages.

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famously abandoned their city in the face of Persian aggression, their city lived on in themselves in their ships.77 The analogy equates fellow Athenians with the Persian enemy, an equation reinforced by the oath sworn at Samos of undying enmity against the Four Hundred; worse, the democrats in Samos were the ones in favor of soliciting the Persians for help in the Hellenic war, thus against their Athenian enemies who were trying to make common cause with Sparta. For, Thucydides says in carefully chosen words, not much time passed before the army was on the verge of attacking Athens itself, ``sailing against their own people (e piÁ sjaÁv autouÂv), in which case the enemy [pole mioi ˆ the Spartans] would most certainly have immediately taken posession of Ionia and the Hellespont'' (8.86.4). Only Alcibiades' rhetorical power prevented the volatile Assembly in Samos from harming Athens. Thucydides' remark sets his perspective apart from that of his historical subjects and indicates that the Athenian sailors did not, unlike the historian, view the regime in Athens as ``their own people,'' nor did they foresee the clear danger in the context of their war with Sparta. Moreover, the ¯eet at Samos represented itself as the genuine Athens but the Four Hundred did the same, defending their actions as bene®cial and required by the city. They even represented themselves, like the ¯eet, as adhering to the city's patrioi nomoi (cf. Ath.Pol. 29.3, 31.1). There is nothing in Thucydides' account which compels the reader to prefer the ¯eet's claim to be the protectors of the city's ancestral customs and laws, for this claim is part of the rhetorical struggle for legitimacy which is endemic to any stasis. Thus the self-representation by the ¯eet at Samos as the real Athens, evoking the heroic transfer of the city to the ships in 479, is undermined by the context of civil con¯ict, and ironically ®ts in with the main Peloponnesian rhetorical strategy of equating Athens with Persia, from whom Hellas had to be ``liberated.'' Thucydides is concerned to avoid the impression of excessive violence in Athens and excessive virtue in the Athenian ¯eet. The Four Hundred did forcefully usurp the legitimate government in Athens and maintain themselves in power by violence or threat of 77 E.g. Aesch. Pers. 349: a ndrwÄ n gaÁ r o ntwn e rkov e stiÁ n a sjale v, and the same is implied in Hdt. 8.143±4. Nicias voices the sentiment in a more appropriate context, Thuc. 7.77.7 (a ndrev gaÁ r poÂliv). Yet the idea is older than the Persian Wars, see Alc. fr. 112.10, cf. also Soph. OT 56; App. BC 2.50.205.

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violence, but Thucydides is emphatic that there was no reign of terror. Murders happened but were ``not many'' (8.70.2); Chaireas was ``¯atly lying'' in his report of corporal punishment, gag orders, outrages against women and children and hostage-taking (74); and the admiration Thucydides shows for some leaders of the oligarchy (cf. Chapter 5) contrasts with his neutral or negative attitude towards the democratic leaders. This presentation of facts and the inserted interpretive guides were polemical on Thucydides' part, a concerted e¨ort to correct historical revision which typically follows a political crisis or change of regime. The restored democracy would have had an interest in destroying documents and manipulating the memory of the oligarchies.78 Thucydides is trying to set the record straight, especially the fact that the con¯ict was a stasis and not a struggle between legitimate and illegitimate Athenians. The Athenian stasis entered a new phase when the regime of the Four Hundred began to crack under pressure of external failure and internal dissension (8.89). Their program had failed: Sparta stood quite aloof, the navy had sworn everlasting enmity to them and pledged faith with Alcibiades and their methods and manners had won them no popular favor in the city. These failures stimulated some of the factional rank and ®le to express their dissatisfaction with their leaders more openly than they had previously dared, and certain members of the leadership (whose coalition had always been uneasy) seized on this discontent as an opportunity for self-aggrandizement in confrontation with their colleagues. The trust which had held the faction together began to crumble: the original leaders of the conspiracy found that individuals who had before been trustworthy were now suspect (8.90.2). Thucydides' narrative of the breakup, coinciding with a real military crisis in Euboea and ending with the dissolution of the Four Hundred and establishment of the Five Thousand, is a model of how factions in stasis, in response to setbacks and external pressures, fracture and split. This is how I think 8.89±97 should be read. Thucydides mentions programs and issues, political speeches and military clashes, but these particulars are not the heart but the trappings of the narrative. The real story is the personal struggles 78 Rhodes 1993, 366; Andrewes, HCT v, 246±7. Note ML 85, honoring Phrynichus' murderers.

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for dominance within a ruling faction during a stasis in which each individual is motivated purely by hope of personal gain, and ®nally the collapse of the faction and its replacement by a di¨erent con®guration of power. Ideology or concern for the city were secondary, or o¨ered as pretexts. The issues of reconciliation with Alcibiades, of peace overtures to Sparta, of the fortress at Eetioneia and especially of the Five Thousand were the occasions for action, not its source or cause. Thucydides is careful to instruct the reader on this point in each case. Authorial direction emerges in nuances of language ± word choice, modi®ers, parenthetical phrases, brief editorial comment. Thucydides says, for example, that when the breakup of the oligarchy began, as the reports of the army's attitudes and Alcibiades' role arrived in Athens and the con®dence of the rank and ®le faltered (8.89),79 Theramenes, Aristocrates and ``others'' exploited this discontent in pursuit of personal advantage over their colleagues (kat' i di av jilotimi av), the other founders of the oligarchy. They said the right things, but it was only manipulative talk: the army at Samos, Alcibiades and their colleagues who were making overtures to Sparta, all alike caused them apprehension, they said, and they expressed the wish for establishment of the Five Thousand and a ``more equal'' constitution. Thucydides undermines the conviction of their claim in this ®rst item ± the causes of their apprehension ± by identifying their personal motives and by inserting the phrase wÿ v e jasan, ``so they said'' (89.2), and he soon rea½rms that they were only jockeying for position in a faltering government (89.3). The second claim, the matter of the Five Thousand, he more thoroughly demolishes by tagging it a political scheme which existed in empty words only (schÄ ma politikoÁ n touÄ loÂgou), a mere rhetorical tactic. The fact that the regime took the form of oligarchy, Thucydides says, only intensi®ed the struggle for personal dominance within the faction (89.3).80 Thus the ruling faction broke up into smaller factions. The 79 As Andrewes explains, HCT ad loc.: ``including many who had joined because they wanted more e¨ective prosecution of the war and accepted the argument (53.3, etc.) that an oligarchy was needed to obtain the king's help.'' 80 The vocabulary of 8.89 strongly recalls that of the stasis model, and the phrase kataÁ taÁv i di av jilotimi av in 8.89.3 also recalls 2.65.7, where the phrase is exactly repeated in explanation of the reasons for Athens' downfall (also kataÁ taÁ v i di av diajora v 2.65.11, 12). See also 2.44.4, Pericles de®nes toÁ jilo timon. Literature cited in CT i, 344.

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diehard oligarchs took measures to protect themselves, thereby posing a threat to Athens' welfare: they redoubled their e¨orts to reach accommodation with Sparta and to build a fortress at Eetioneia; they also constructed a system by which to control all the food in the city (8.90.5), in anticipation of a siege, in which control of food is power (90.3, 5). Thucydides endorses the opinion of Theramenes that the fort was designed not to forestall an attack by the ¯eet at Samos but to allow Spartan ships to enter the Athenian harbor for the oligarchs' own protection; for, Thucydides says in a remarkable pronouncement on the motives of the ruling faction, their ultimate aim was, with Spartan support, to control the city and empire, or failing that to be left in ``autonomous'' control of their ships and city-walls, or failing that to negotiate their own safety at any cost whatsoever to the city (90.3, 91.3), not ``restraining themselves at the boundary of justice or the city's true interests, but limiting their actions only by what their own immediate grati®cation required'' (3.82.8). The other faction (identi®ed with Theramenes and called ``the like-minded ones on the outside,'' i.e. out of power), seeing that the mechanisms of the state were being used against them, too, resorted to murder. Phrynichus was their ®rst victim,81 and when there was no swift or decisive reaction from those ``in power,'' they moved more boldly, compensating for their failure to control the state machinery by drawing on the displeasure of the hoplites serving the Four Hundred, as well as on general popular dissatisfaction. They made such speeches as are typical in stasis, exacerbating factional hatreds and suspicions (stasiwtikoiÁ loÂgoi kaiÁ uÿpoyioi ). The result was that those hoplites who were obediently building the Eetioneia fortress turned against their leaders; the soldiers not only stopped the work but arrested one of the generals of the inner faction (8.92.4±5). The members of this faction became enraged and turned on Theramenes, who was indeed responsible but prevaricated to save himself: he would go down to Piraeus to calm passions. But great confusion ensued, and the scene Thucydides describes shows how close Athens came, not merely to armed con¯ict between two factions, but to the state of chaotic violence 81 Thucydides forbears recording the name of the assassin ± on which see ML 85 and HCT v, 309±11 for other traditions ± but clearly attributes the responsibility to Phrynichus' enemies within the oligarchy (8.92.2). The murderer served in the border patrol, a group which had in general become hostile to the oligarchy (92.4±5).

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which characterizes stasis at its height: ``there was great confusion and alarm . . . and people were running all through the city and ¯ying to arms'' (92.7±8). Theramenes feigned anger, which vexed both his colleagues and the hoplites, who were now in control and reluctant to relinquish it; he was safe among armed supporters, and the destruction of the fortress proceeded (92.9±10). To encourage the work, the name of the Five Thousand was again invoked, yet this time by the hoplites supporting Theramenes, for they did not know the Five Thousand did not exist and thus were afraid to resort to outright democratic slogans; Theramenes of course knew the truth but did not correct their error, since the supposed existence of the Five Thousand worked to his advantage as much as to that of his factional rivals. Theramenes and his colleagues at this point had the advantage, for while they did not control the boule, they did control the oligarchy's source of physical strength, the hoplites, who now met independently in an assembly and threatened violence; with di½culty they were persuaded, again by the promise of publishing the names of the Five Thousand, to agree to another meeting on the question of harmony (homonoia). An external military crisis intervened. The Spartans defeated the Athenians in a battle for Euboea, which rebelled (8.94±5). Athens felt panic as never before ± and justi®ably, Thucydides says, for the army at Samos had defected, Athens had no other ¯eet or sailors, the oligarchs themselves were embroiled in internal con¯ict and had lost the crucial asset Euboea, more important than Attica itself. The city was utterly exposed (96.1±3). This crisis was enough to push the disa¨ected members of the Four Hundred, the disa¨ected hoplites and perhaps some of the exasperated population as well, to hold an assembly on the Pnyx, whose signi®cance Thucydides points out: the Assembly had not met in its usual place since the oligarchical takeover (97.1). The Assembly, which consisted of all the citizens in the city,82 abolished the Four Hundred and voted (e yhji santo, underlining legitimacy) to transfer the a¨airs of the state to the Five Thousand, who were (for the 82 Ostwald 1986, 397. Harris 1990 usefully collects the evidence indicating that the Five Thousand were in fact constituted and governed (although Harris' demonstration relies on his own interpretation of Ath.Pol. 30); Vlastos 1952 already refutes the view by von Fritz and Kapp that the Five Thousand were the equivalent of the democracy, or undemonstratively became the democracy.

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®rst time) de®ned as all those who could furnish their own arms (97.1). The details of the constitution were determined by frequent assemblies, the work of duly appointed ``law-givers'' (nomoqe tai) and votes (eyhji santo). The new regime handled the multiple crisis e½ciently and well. This prompted Thucydides to make one of his more debated statements: Not least remarkable is that for the ®rst time in my lifetime the Athenians clearly enjoyed good government, for it was a moderate combination geared to the interests of the few and the many, and this fact ®rst lifted the city out of the wretched condition into which it had fallen.83 (8.97.2)

This sentence has often been asked to bear more weight than was intended. Context is once again crucial: Athens was in stasis, and the government of the Five Thousand, which came about only as a result of life-threatening danger from outside the strife-torn city, provided the leadership needed to meet that danger and bring the city one step closer to ending the stasis. The ``many'' and the ``few'' had been tearing the city apart, both in their con¯icts with one another and in their internal factional struggles. The constitution of the Five Thousand quelled those rivalries by incorporating elements from each; it also apparently satis®ed the ¯eet at Samos and provided the administrative and organizational means to meet the immediate threat at Euboea. Thus the Five Thousand managed the crisis well, i.e. the Athenians ``enjoyed good government'' (eu politeu santev) at a time when they could not a¨ord otherwise.84 The democracy had managed its a¨airs well when a strong leader was in charge, making it in fact one-man rule but in name still a democracy (2.65.9). Afterwards the democracy mismanaged the state's business because of internal rivalries; strictly, Thucydides criticizes the people rather than the system. The democracy sobered up after the Sicilian disaster and took swift and prudent measures, 83 kaiÁ ouc h kista dhÁ toÁn prwÄton croÂnon e pi ge e mouÄ  A qhnaiÄ oi jai nontai eu politeuÂsantev´ metri a gaÁr h te e v touÁv oli gouv kaiÁ touÁv pollouÁ v xu gkrasiv e ge neto kaiÁ e k ponh rwn twÄn pragma twn genome nwn touÄto prwÄton a nhÂnegke thÁn po lin. My translation borrows from Ostwald 1986, 395±6 n. 199, where he lucidly explains the di½culties, accepting much but not all of what Andrewes in HCT (q.v. v, 323±8 for discussion and literature) and Donini 1969 had to say. See now Harris 1990, 273±6; Raa¯aub 1992, 38¨. 84 The fact that politeuÂsantev is active indicates that the Athenians found the formula for good government themselves (my thanks to Martin Ostwald for this point).

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``as a democracy is wont to do'' in a crisis (8.1.4). This again is not exactly high praise, but it is a stronger recommendation than could be given the oligarchy of the Four Hundred, which during a crisis proved unable to do anything except maintain itself in power, and even in that it failed when it fell victim to quarreling. As Thucydides remarks, internal quarreling is most surely fatal to an ``oligarchy which comes out of a democracy'' (8.89.3). The Five Thousand was an oligarchy which came out of an oligarchy, and was just what was needed at that moment to handle the multiple crisis. It does not necessarily follow ± although it is generally assumed ± that a constitution such as that of the Five Thousand was in Thucydides' mind always preferable. What Thucydides admires is good government in which personal rivalries least interfere. He does not endorse any particular structure for all times and circumstances. Thucydides does not, for example, admire one-man rule per se in 2.65.9, but he rather praises the way Pericles ran the state, steering the democracy away from impulsive and unwise decisions, and maintaining internal unity of purpose.85 What is remarkable about the Five Thousand, and what for Thucydides warranted special comment, is that the intermediate, more moderate regime brought the city nearer to the end of stasis before the con¯ict reached the extreme stage witnessed in Corcyra and elsewhere. We have seen that the stasis model speci®es the disappearance of moderation as well as a violent end to one or both sides since negotiation becomes impossible or false. It is true that we know nothing about the restoration of the democracy after the Five Thousand. The account in the Constitution of Athens is terse and uninformative in the extreme: ``the people shortly took control of the state away from them [the Five Thousand]'' (34.1),86 and given the divergences between this text and Thucydides' History (see below), no conclusions may be drawn about whether 85 There are similarly no endorsements of constitutions in 8.24.4, 64.5 or 68.4. In 8.64.5 Thucydides' statement that the cities swjrosuÂnhn labouÂsai has been taken to mean ``became oligarchies'' (North, 113; Andrewes, HCT v, 159±60, although Andrewes, seeing a di½culty, says ``the word here is an ironical label''), but really all Thucydides says is that the cities ``wisened up'' and started aiming for complete independence in their own a¨airs. If there is irony here, it is that what happened in Thasos and the other cities suited neither the Athenian oligarchic revolutionaries nor obviously the democrats. 86 Rhodes 1972, 125±6; de Ste. Croix 1956, 10±11 maintains that the transition was peaceful because the demos was already sovereign.

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democrats wrested control from the Five Thousand or the Five Thousand dissolved themselves; we cannot even say whether the transition was accomplished bloodlessly, and the complete lack of evidence in other sources should not be interpreted as the absence of anything to tell.87 Similarly, Thucydides did not live to write about the trials under the Five Thousand, which, however, to judge from other sources were mild and just.88 But the wording of 8.97.2 suggests that the destructiveness of the internal strife was ended by the Five Thousand because the regime satis®ed enough of the parties, who were panicked more by the external threats to the city than by internal rivals. This end to internal strife was temporary, but unusual nevertheless. Only the inner core of the Four Hundred ± Theramenes' rivals ± had to leave the city. Thus we read: In this way the Boeotians occupied Oenoe after it was captured, and the oligarchy and stasis in Athens came to an end.89 (8.98.4)

The sentence is problematic: Athens was still ruled by an oligarchy (the view of the Four Hundred that ®ve thousand is so many as to be virtually a democracy is not endorsed by Thucydides, 8.92.11) and the stasis was not fully over until the democracy was restored. Furthermore, the sequence of thought makes no sense. From Athens the last we have heard is that the Five Thousand voted to recall Alcibiades and were attempting to reconcile with the still-hostile democratic forces at Samos (97.3). Then we read about the rogue operations of the embittered oligarch Aristarchus, who tricked the Athenian garrison at Oenoe to surrender, thus hurting Athens by bringing control of that border fortress into enemy hands (98.1±3). The ®rst part of 98.4 thus brings a reasonable closure to the episode of Oenoe but has less relevance for the stasis in Athens, where things were left hanging in anticipation of the sequel in the proper chronological place: the Five Thousand will manage a¨airs for a while, democracy will be restored, Alcibiades eventually will return. Thus if 8.98.4 is genuine, the words must be explained as meaning that the narrow oligarchy of four hundred and ± more 87 Aristotle lacked information, see Rhodes 1993. 88 ``A prosecution, not a persecution,'' Ostwald 1986, 401. 89 tou twÎ meÁ n twÄÎ troÂpwÎ Oi noÂhn te lhjqeiÄ san BoiwtoiÁ kaiÁ hÿ e n taiÄ v  A qhÂnaiv oligarci a kaiÁ sta siv e pauÂsato.

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importantly ± the factional ®ghting were over in Athens,90 even though this would be confusing in an account which up to that point has used the same words in completely di¨erent senses.91 The words may equally be an interpolation by a reader or copyist seeking closure, however unsatisfactory and illogical, in an incomplete account. In any case, it is clear from 2.65 that Thucydides did not view the general condition of stasis to have ceased in Athens until the end of the war. Thucydides' account of the takeover and rule of the Four Hundred and their replacement by the Five Thousand, while sparse and (apparently) unpolished, contains no serious internal contradiction, improbability or noticeable lacuna.92 The choice of detail, editorial comment and mode of narration concentrate on the most typical features of speech and action in stasis. Notoriously, however, Thucydides' narrative contradicts the account of constitutional change in Aristotle's Constitution of Athens93 in certain crucial details and in other less important ones. Reconciling these two accounts has caused untold grief and controversy among scholars and engendered a large number of solutions, some quite ingenious, which variously reject one account or the other (usually Thucydides fares better), or try to combine as much as possible into a smooth ¯ow of events. The main di¨erences between the two ancient accounts stem ultimately from their di¨erent purposes.94 Aristotle composed a treatise on constitutions, whereas Thucydides wrote about stasis. Aristotle's purpose was to trace the history of the Athenian constitution and to delineate its actual workings, which allowed him to lift the constitutional material from its immediate historical context of internal war, especially when it o¨ered instructive parallels with past constitutions, and to write a fairly uninterrupted, coherent account of constitutional development and change, starting with what is almost a constitutional convention in Athens in 411 in response to external pressures 90 91 92 93

HCT v, 341. The oligarchs themselves seem to use o ligarci a to describe the Five Thousand at 8.72.1. Flach 1977, 11. For convenience I will call the author of the work Aristotle; either the master or an attentive pupil composed it, see Rhodes 1993, 58±63. 94 This point has been emphasized most recently in English by Ostwald, Andrewes and Rhodes. But Meyer 1899, 413¨. already pointed out that the formal legal acts recorded in Ath.Pol. should not obscure the fact of revolution.

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but nonetheless proceeding in an open and consensual manner, with modi®cations adopted as events dictated. Thucydides by contrast takes the reader into the interior of stasis, telling a story of greed, ambition, cruelty, deceit and mass coercion, in which the constitutional changes only served the perpetrators as tools in their struggle. In such an account, we cannot expect from the main actors or the ¯ow of events a smooth and quiet coherence, rational motives and rational speech, or actions adhering to conventional ethical standards, rules of political procedure, civic concern, or any conventional loyalty or code of behavior. The di¨erences between the accounts of Thucydides and Aristotle have been minutely examined and debated since the discovery of the papyrus containing the Constitution of Athens more than one hundred years ago. There is no need here for another survey of that well-trodden ground, but one point has special relevance for our investigation of Thucydides' compositional methods and themes: the date and circumstances in which the Five Thousand were appointed (and consequently the Four Hundred as well).95 Thucydides, as we have seen, says that in 411 the Four Hundred took power by force and maintained it both by force and by repeated false promises of the existence and planned establishment of the Five Thousand. Thucydides insists strongly and repeatedly ± at 8.65.3, 72.1, 86.3, 86.6, 89.2, 92.11, 93.2 and 97.1±2 ± that the Five Thousand were a rhetorical ploy and never existed until the city was brought to a crisis which forced their appointment. Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 29±34.1), on the other hand, recounts that the Athenians ®rst established the Five Thousand, who chose one hundred men to draft a constitution of ®ve thousand ``for the future'' and a constitution of four hundred ``for the present occasion,'' the latter being chosen immediately to take charge of the government; at this point Aristotle, apparently contradicting himself, says that the Five Thousand existed ``only nominally'' (loÂgwÎ moÂnon, 32.3).96 After four months the Athenians ``abolished the Four Hundred and handed management of the state over to the Five Thousand.'' 95 On other discrepancies, see Rhodes 1993, 362±9; HCT v, 212±56. Wilamowitz 1883, 99± 108 was the ®rst to deal with the problems seriously; useful discussion also in Nippel 1980, 42±81. My inclination is to trust Thucydides, but see now Harris 1990. 96 See Rhodes 1993, 409; Andrewes, HCT v, 238±9. Another contradiction occurs in Ath. Pol. 32.1 with the words uÿpoÁ touÄ plhÂqouv, see Rhodes ad loc.

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The heart of Aristotle's account is a collection of four documents, including a draft constitution of each of the oligarchical regimes. The consistency and force with which Thucydides denies the prior existence of the Five Thousand suggest that he is not only countering misleading propaganda but trying to demolish a popular belief, such as that represented in the Constitution of Athens. The History, unlike the Constitution of Athens, records that the revolution began not from a constitutional convention or honest debate on the exigencies of war but from a secret and violent aristocratic conspiracy against the people of the city itself; a more balanced and civic-minded regime formed only when the original conspiracy failed. Thucydides was closer than Aristotle to the actual events, but if Aristotle was right, then Thucydides' judgment of the reality and purpose of the Five Thousand becomes even more forceful, albeit at the expense of strict accuracy. For what Aristotle reported as a signi®cant step in constitutional change ± complete with the anagrapheis missing from Thucydides ± Thucydides will have dismissed (by omission) as a showy trick to enhance control. Even Aristotle admits that the original formation of the Five Thousand had little immediate signi®cance, for their role was to surrender power to the Four Hundred. If so ± and it is very questionable ± Thucydides omitted this detail along with the particulars of the constitution of the Five Thousand (if that was real), for even mentioning such a constitution, whether a draft or an a½rmed proposal,97 would have given it the force and legitimacy which the Four Hundred aimed at. Similarly, only certain details, most of them damning, are provided for the constitution of the Four Hundred. Thucydides will not abet the propaganda and legal/constitutional tricks of the Four Hundred. Rather his purpose is to expose them. Details exclusive to the History bring out the oligarchy's coercion and control of all legal and constitutional procedures and bodies relating to their appointment and subsequent activity, whereas The Constitution of Athens includes information about forms and procedure which does not contradict the History but would have altered the tone of the narrative. For example, Thucydides' 97 Its existence may be implied in 8.67.2. See Ostwald 1986, 376±7; Rhodes 1972. Lang 1948, 286 rightly called this document ``a masterpiece of deception.''

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inclusion of the process by which the Four Hundred took over the bouleterion and seized power (8.69±70.1), the removal of the crucial assembly to Colonus,98 even the fact that the original syngrapheis were autokra torev, fully and exceptionally empowered, all contribute explicitly or implicitly to the story of usurpation, whereas these two items would have required explanation in Aristotle's account of constitutional change. Conversely, Aristotle's matterof-fact statement that the Athenians had no choice (hnagkaÂsqhsan) but to convert their democracy into an oligarchy of four hundred,99 without a hint of the violence employed or of dissent in Athens, as well as his account of procedure in the Assembly dissolving the democracy, including a formal speech by Melobius (absent from Thucydides), lend an air of inevitability and orderliness. Aristotle's citation of Solonic and Cleisthenic precedent, which was obviously mooted by the oligarchs themselves and meticulously omitted by Thucydides, suggests legitimacy and continuity; the absence of Alcibiades from the Constitution of Athens abets this impression. Thus comparison of Thucydides with an external, divergent source100 sheds light on his historical vision, how it differed from other prevailing ones, and how he conveyed it through choice of detail and narrative emphasis. Unfortunately the History breaks o¨ before reaching the restoration of the democracy. Thucydides would probably have shaped, re®ned and ®lled out the rough-hewn material of ``Book 8,''101 further clarifying the inner workings of the stasis and the words and actions of its prime belligerents. The Athenian stasis brought an interlude of moderate government praised by Thucydides, albeit ambiguously, and the factional ®ghting apparently ended without rampant violence; the extremist faction within the Four Hundred dropped o¨ the scene (Theramenes is exceptional in remaining politically active). A peaceful, negotiated solution (if there was one) is not expected in stasis. But Thucydides, far from viewing 98 Which was ``subtly terroristic,'' Lang 1948, 280. 99 I believe this means ``forced by circumstance'' and not coerced by the oligarchs, contra Rhodes 1993, 369±70. 100 Even one which used Thucydides, as the Ath.Pol. surely did, see Rhodes 1993, 15¨., 363. 101 This is my belief, but the correctness of it is not crucial, for as I have tried to demonstrate the themes and narrative choices had been made. For discussion of Book 8, see Andrewes, HCT v, 369±75; in the opposite direction, Erbse 1989a, 1±82.

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the Athenian stasis as beginning and ending with a particular oligarchical government in 411, interpreted the internal condition of Athens after Pericles' death as one of prolonged and everdeepening stasis. As he looked back at the end of the war, he wrote that Pericles' successors managed the city poorly ``because of their pursuit of private ambition and private gain''; their successes increased their personal standing (timhÂ) and advantage; their private feuds over political supremacy brought general internal discord and unrest to the whole city, so that they were in a state of stasis (taking e n staÂsei ontev as a general continuing condition); and they were ®nally defeated by nothing other than their own internal feuds (2.65.7, 11, 12).102 The breakdown was not sudden but gradual; factional squabbles fueled by a destructive form of jilotimi a eventually engulfed the whole state. In Thucydides' view this is how staseis work. Thus he thought the condition of the stasis to have held its grip in Athens until the very end of the war, with milder or more serious outbreaks, and this general condition, unlike the speci®c con¯ict of 411, did end, as many staseis do, not by the violent triumph of one side over the other or their mutual destruction, but by means of a third conquering party from the outside. The total victory of Sparta over Athens also ended the stasis which had gripped Hellas as a whole. By the time Thucydides must have died, neither Athens nor Hellas had fully recovered from the Peloponnesian War. conclusion We have now completed our study of Thucydides' portrayal of the Hellenes' logoi and erga during the Peloponnesian War. On the evidence of the speeches in the History, we have discovered that, beginning somewhat before the outbreak of the war, common linguistic usages became corrupted and fundamentally changed. Central terms in the Hellenes' political and moral universe ± such as justice (di kaion), friendship (jili a) and virtue (arethÂ) ± became unstable and were associated with actions (erga) which contravened the conventional force of the words. That is, words became transvalued in the way described in the stasis model. Conventional uses 102 See Rusten 1989, 212±13; LeÂvy 1976, 37±9.

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of moral terminology remained the sole province of parties speaking from positions of weakness or disadvantage, and these parties always lost the contest of words and in most cases su¨ered violence as well. At the same time, the Hellenes ®ghting the war engaged in radical rede®nition of the entity Hellas, to which they all claimed proprietary rights in a way which excluded their opponents. That is, Hellenes made sharp distinctions between true and false Hellenes so that their Hellenic opponents became in their eyes legitimate opponents whose defeat was required for the very survival of Hellas and Hellenic ``freedom,'' a peculiar de®nition of which the Peloponnesians and Athenians each purveyed in different ways. In Athens' case, Pericles advanced an even more radical concept, dividing superior Athens from the rest of the world, although other Athenians, speaking abroad, mooted a di¨erent idea, defending Athens' place as an imperial Hellenic leader. All these rede®nitions also re¯ect changed conceptions and linguistic usages in stasis which interfered with smooth communication: the Hellenes stopped understanding one another. Two prime examples of this failure of communication are the Athenians' speech at Sparta and the Melian Dialogue. Regarding erga, we have seen that Thucydides draws special attention to the darker side of the Hellenic war, so that instead of praiseworthy heroics the reader ®nds a mostly unremitting pattern of ever-increasing brutality and violence, as well as violations of religious norms, sites and institutions. Such actions, and the widespread su¨ering they entailed, represent the fuller signi®cance of Thucydides' identi®cation of the war as the ``greatest kinesis.'' Moreover, as corporate structures broke down individuals motivated primarily by sel®sh concerns destructive to their own states rose to positions of leadership and prominence. Moderation, as well as true ``intelligence'' according to Thucydides' de®nition, all but disappeared. Attempts at reconciliation, above all the Peace of Nicias, were merely acts of desperation or attempts to gain temporary advantage and were therefore doomed to failure. The underlying ``truest reason'' for the war, that is the growth of Athens' power and Sparta's fear, de®ed all attempts at reconciliation between the two states. Negotiated peace as well as neutrality by single states became impossible as the con¯ict eventually engulfed all Hellas. All these features of the larger war ®t the criteria for logoi and

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erga in stasis and strongly suggest that the Hellenes engaged in the generation-long con¯ict were a¿icted by a condition much like, perhaps identical to, stasis. It will be remembered that Thucydides takes an original approach to de®ning stasis, which starts not with the de®nition of the kind of entity within which a con¯ict is taking place ± for that method leads to a paradox and impasse ± but with observation of the symptoms, that is, how the combatants speak and act. Only after that, if their logoi and erga ®t the criteria of stasis, can one inquire about the entity within which the stasis is taking place. It is now time to take that step in our own investigation.

part iv

Thucydides and Hellas

chapter 7

The Archaeology, the Pentekontaetia and the Persians

the archaeology The rise of Hellas Thucydides' conception of Hellas is laid out in rudimentary form in the Archaeology. It may be said that the reader enters into the narrative of the war proper instructed in the idea of Hellas as a uni®ed entity. This enables the reader to appreciate the fullest extent of the war's destruction: the primary casualty, that is, the casualty of prime historical importance, was Hellas itself. Commentators rightly remark on the originality (by comparison with what survives) and intellectual power of the twenty terse chapters of the Archaeology.1 It provides precisely the proof required logically by the bold superlatives at the head of the work, i.e., a comparison of Thucydides' subject ± the ``greatest kinesis'' in history ± with all previous ``great''and ``noteworthy'' events, mostly wars.2 This procedure, in accordance with ®fth-century intellectual habit, led to speculation on the causes or requisites for greatness and worthy achievement. If Thucydides' sole aim in the Archaeology had been to compare previous wars with the Peloponnesian War, he would have begun with the Trojan War (1.8.4¨.), but there are (in the standard text divisions) seven chapters 1 On the massive literature, cf. HCT i, 92±134 and CT i, 7±56, which themselves represent some of the best comment. Especially helpful here: Erbse 1970; Hunter 1982, 17±49; de Romilly 1956a, 240±98; also Allison 1989, 11±27, although the guiding principle she ®nds in 1.18±19 I shall interpret as a paradox; Howie 1984; Stahl 1966, 26±9; Farrar 1988, 138± 46; TaÈubler 1927, 19±89; Bizer 1937; Crane 1998, 125±71 (with whom my disagreements have been productive). Erbse 1970 argues convincingly that the Archaeology is ®nished and has a logical structure and sequence of thought. 2 The terms megaÂla and a xioÂloga are repeated, after being applied to the Peloponnesian War, in 1.1.1, in 1.1.3, 14.2, 15.2, 17 and 23.1.

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which schematically survey important causal developments before that point. The inquiry into cause, in turn, gives the Archaeology its form and structure. That is, Thucydides does not merely assemble a list of previous wars and accomplishments for comparison, but traces the rise of Hellas from its dim prehistory to its greatness and strength in his own time, in order to prove and illustrate his discovery of the causes, which are four: naval prowess (for both military and commercial purposes), amassed capital, ®xed and forti®ed settlements and political centralization. Hellas was born and grew as its members became strong and wealthy and learned to form combinations for mutual interest, in which the weak were subordinated to the strong. The Archaeology is in one sense Thucydides' ®rst demonstration of the principle he enunciates in 1.22, whereby all oral reports are subjected to rigorous scrutiny and comparison with one another in order to reconstruct the truth. This aptly describes his treatment not just of contemporary testimony but also of the oral historical traditions circulating in the second half of the ®fth century, the di¨erence being that the witnesses to the distant events were unavailable for cross-examination, and in the course of transmission information had become garbled, reformulated, poeticized and lost. Thucydides understood all this perfectly well, but judged the information at hand good enough to trace the rise of Hellas from its birth to the coherence and power it had attained in his day. He relies on no evidence which had not been available to his predecessors.3 Thucydides is writing for a knowledgeable audience and does not need to explain what the Trojan Wars or Persian invasions were, just as he does not need to identify Minos, Agamemnon, and so on. Thus the Archaeology is an interpretation of known events. Thucydides in fact reinterprets myths and oral history, records personal observations of phenomena in his contemporary Hellas and applies rational processes ± extrapolation, deduction ± to that same material. He is ever aware that he is o¨ering a personal, ®rst-time reconstruction (esp. 1.3.2, 4.1), even 3 Compare e.g. Hdt. 1.56±9. Hornblower writes (CT i, 9±10): ``It cannot be emphasized too often that Th. had no good evidence for his reconstruction of early Greek prehistory. He proceeded by analogy, and by the constant application of a crucial assumption, namely that less complicated and less organized ˆ early; what can be called a dogma of progress.'' See also M. Finley 1975, 18±19; Crane 1996, 32¨., 66¨.

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if he does employ rather cutting-edge views of his time, such as the idea of historical progress.4 In his brief investigation of causes and origins, Thucydides' probing mind took him back to the time before the existence of ``what is now called Hellas'' (hÿ nuÄn ÿ EllaÁv kaloume nh, 1.2.1), when the land was inhabited by roving groups of individuals without any Hellenic or historically signi®cant identity, or any of the basic elements of civilization, viz. commerce, agriculture, surplus capital, walled cities or ®xed settlements, or political organization of any complexity. In the absence of any other name Thucydides calls these groups ``tribes'' (implied in a llojuÂlwn at 1.2.4) and peoples (e qnh 1.3.2). Since these tribes had no sophisticated government individually5 there was a fortiori no political organization among them. Thus ``Hellas did nothing in common (koinhÄÎ ) before the Trojan War'' (1.3.1). Here Thucydides has, by his own criteria, misused the name Hellas, for: It seems to me that Hellas as a whole did not yet have this name, but before the time of Hellen son of Deukalion the general designation did not even exist; rather the di¨erent peoples, and above all the Pelasgian, gave their own names to di¨erent regions, but then when Hellen and his sons became strong in Phthiotis and were called in to the aid of various cities, each of the other peoples came to be called Hellenes as a result of this contact, although it took a long time for the name to apply to all of them. (1.3.2)

The evidence is ex silentio from Homer, who neither describes all the assembled force with the common name Hellenes nor uses the term baÂrbaroi, ``non-Hellene,'' ``because, as it seems to me, the Hellenes had not yet separated o¨ so as to acquire a single distinct name'' (1.3.3). Combining under the same name also meant adopting the same language, the language of Hellen (1.3.4). The deduced fact that there was a considerable stretch of human history without Hellas or Hellenes ± or gods or heroes ± but merely nameless human beings inhabiting the earth, may have 4 On which the earliest statement is Xenophanes DK 21 b18. For a few contemporary examples see Aesch. Prom. Vinc. 442±68, 478±506; Soph. Ant. 332±71; Eur. Suppl. 201±13; Critias, DK 88 b25; Hipp. De vet. med. 3; and see Edelstein 1967; Dodds 1973; den Boer 1977; S. Blundell 1986, 165¨.; Longrigg 1993 ( I cannot enter the debate here). 5 Attica has the earliest-mentioned political development, 1.2.6, but this is not before Hellen!

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been surprising or unsettling to Thucydides' generation, for the idea was relatively new and (to judge from surviving evidence) not developed in the form which Thucydides presents. Hellen and Agamemnon are treated as real ¯esh-and-blood, politically driven individuals who brought people together to provide them with what they lacked: name and purpose, and common enterprise. Herodotus had worked out some of the implications of Greek myth and knew there had to be a signi®cant historical time before Hellas (e.g., 1.1.2, 58, 60.3; 2.51.2), but neither inherited myths nor the progressive rationalized genealogies of the logographoi allowed for an unsettled, long but unde®ned period of near-anonymity, aimlessness and disunity.6 Di¨usion and prolonged obscurity were not what was ®rst inferred from the fresh, shocking discovery of the antiquity of the East, as represented, for example, in Hecataeus' comparison of generation records in Egypt with his own, which forced acknowledgment of the relative youth of the Hellenes (Hdt. 2.143±6).7 In any case this does not seem the main source for Thucydides' conception of Hellas' pre-history, and researchers of genealogy and chronology were themselves slow to incorporate the stunning new information in any coherent way. The more immediate motivation for Thucydides' account was rather his conviction that Hellas accomplished nothing in war or any other ®eld unless it was ``in common'' (koinhÄÎ). He reasoned that there must have been a speci®c moment in history when that critical mass and joint identity and will were achieved, and he extrapolated what must have existed before that. Acquiring common identity and language was a necessary but not su½cient condition, for afterwards the Hellenes still did not do anything as a group ``because of weakness and lack of mingling with one another'' (1.3.4), and ``it was only at a somewhat later stage in this process of development that they went on the expedition against Troy'' (1.8.4). After noting the accomplishment of Hellen, Thucydides speaks of ``Hellas'' in an unquali®ed manner for the rest of the Archaeol6 For the di¨erences between Herodotus and Thucydides on this point, HCT i, 94±7. On the Greeks' conception of their own history, see Raubitschek 1989, Drews 1973; still worthwhile is Forsdyke 1956. 7 A. B. Lloyd 1975, 194 speaks of the ``considerable embarrassment'' caused the Greeks by the ``traumatic discovery'' that Egyptian history predated the beginning of Greek history by thousands of years.

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ogy. Cultural, commercial and political development were ®tful and uneven, but the entity Hellas was ®rmly established in history. The early Hellenes may have engaged in piracy (1.5.1) and unlike Thucydides' more advanced times openly carried arms (1.6.1), as some more backward parts of Hellas still did (1.6.2), and while still in an early stage of development ancient Hellas (note the abstraction toÁ palaioÁ n ÿ EllhnikoÂn, 1.6.6) may have resembled presentday ``barbarians'' (twÄÎ nuÄn barbarikwÄÎ ) in customs and cultural habits. But even then Hellas was on its way to becoming not only more distinct from the rest of the world ± i.e., more than Hellenes were from each other ± but also able to accomplish noteworthy things as a corporate entity. The ®rst notable accomplishment ± the one which compelled the inquiry into pre-history ± is of course the Trojan War. Thucydides attributes a strong Hellenic identity to those who sailed against Troy (1.10.5), even though this involves him in a contradiction with his evidence, for Homer is his source both for the war itself (cf. 1.10.3) and, as we have seen, for the fact that at an early stage the Hellenes were not distinct enough a group to deserve the name. According to the premises of the Archaeology, Hellas had to have formed already in order to launch the expedition, and indeed ``they were sent from all Hellas in common'' (apoÁ pa shv thÄ v `Ella dov koinhÄÎ pempoÂmenoi 10.5). The Trojan War did not make Hellas per se (as, e.g., we think of the awareness of ``Greekness'' as enhanced but not created by the Persian Wars). This is too obvious a problem to have escaped Thucydides' notice or methodological rigor, although modern critics have not discussed it. Thucydides does say that ``much time'' (1.3.2) passed before the name Hellene was adopted by all, but this is imprecise, and it still contradicts the clear assertion that Hellas united as Hellas for the Trojan expedition (1.3.4, etc.). Apparently Thucydides felt that Homer had captured old linguistic habits re¯ecting pre-Hellenic reality, which had changed in fact, if not completely in speech and awareness, before the Trojan War.8 In fact, ``even after the Trojan War, Hellas was in the process of dislocation and settlement'' (1.12.1). After the Trojan War, the focus remains on Hellas' unsteady 8 It should be remembered that Thucydides expressed serious reservations about the reliability of the Homeric poems as historical evidence: 1.9.4, 10.3.

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progress towards greater achievement. Thucydides records events and developments in individual cities and regions, but they are part of the whole. Hellas is the main subject: ``Hellas quieted down . . . and started sending out colonies'' (1.12.4); ``Hellas became more powerful and started acquiring wealth'' (13.1) while tyrannies sprang up ``in the cities''; ``Hellas began out®tting ¯eets'' (13.1), Corinth being only one example, ``the ®rst in Hellas.'' Corinth's rise to wealth and power is the story of Hellas' rise, not the private history of one polis, as most Hellenes, particularly Corinthians, would have presented it; for ``when the [other] Hellenes became better sailors,'' Corinth was in a position to police the seas and protect Hellenic naval enterprises. This is an extraordinarily nonparticularistic history of the Hellenic poleis. Individual navies and naval achievements are named and admired, but they all fall under a larger rubric: ``these were the last noteworthy navies established in Hellas before Xerxes' expedition'' (1.14.2), and ``such were the navies of the Hellenes'' (15.1).9 These early Hellenic navies, although su½cient for commercial enterprise and limited conquest, were not yet large enough, individually or combined, for a great expedition outside Hellas (1.15.2), thus for an inde®nite time the Hellenes were, so to speak, stuck in Hellas, especially when the Ionian Hellenes fell under the Persian yoke, so that ``Hellas everywhere was for a long time kept from accomplishing in common any distinguished achievement, and the individual states remained rather unenterprising'' (17). Anything that a single city accomplished would be attributed to the general Hellenic achievement. Sparta is credited with removing the ®nal obstacle by ``the abolishment of tyrants from Hellas'' (18.1). Attempts by commentators to put historical meat on these bones are only natural but may obscure the importance of Thucydides' deliberate avoidance of speci®c examples. Deposition of the tyrants cleared the way for the great Hellenic combination which defeated the Persians (Athens is given due credit for the victory at Marathon, but the individual heroic achievement is not dwelt on as it was at Athens itself ), an accomplishment intrinsically ``worthy to be told'' and also the greatest in a series of actions which marked the formation and growth of Hellas into a formidable commercial and naval power. 9 Note also 1.15.3, toÁ a llo ÿ E llhniko n was involved in the Lelantine War.

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It is odd and telling that, in his e¨ort to show that the Peloponnesian War was the ``greatest kinesis in a considerable part of the non-Hellenic world, one might say most of mankind'' (1.1.2), Thucydides does not survey world history but instead con®nes his analysis to Hellas. Herodotus had written extensively on ``great and marvellous actions'' predating Hellas' ®rst modest accomplishments. Thucydides avoids such comparative material. It would be petty and unsatisfactory to explain this con®ned focus by either evidentiary or compositional factors. Perhaps more than any other Greek prose writer, Thucydides controlled his material rather than letting the material control him. So far as evidence is concerned, there was an ever-growing mass of knowledge about oriental empires, of which Herodotus' History represents only a part. Regarding composition, Thucydides was perfectly willing and capable of introducing discourses on events distant from his main subject ± such as the exploit of Harmodius and Aristogeiton ± when he felt it necessary. Thucydides' Hellenic focus rather reveals an important conclusion, namely that the creation and development of Hellas constituted the one thing in human history most worthy to be told. This is not just because Hellas had acquired the skill and resources twice to defeat the most powerful empire on earth ± although that would have been su½cient ± but also because Hellas itself had become its own unique achievement. This is the best explanation, at least, of the various cultural data which Thucydides records in his tightly controlled survey, and which have little to do with the four essential elements for achievement ± settled habitation, accumulated capital, naval skill and centralized political power. His purpose is to describe not just military and political accomplishments, but also the essence of Hellas. Thus he starts by a½rming that Hellen's original union brought about uni®cation of language ± which is merely a positive way of saying that the languages of the weaker parties died out. The progress from habits resembling those of the barbarians to more exclusively Hellenic modes of life is observed with relative precision, with careful attention paid to precedents and ®rst-time events: the Athenians were the ®rst to abandon the regular carrying of arms and adopt a more cultured lifestyle, the Spartans the ®rst to dress in modern fashion as well as to strip naked for athletic competition. Generally speaking, ``one could demonstrate that early Hellenic customs are rather similar to those of the barbaroi today'' (1.6.6). The Archaeology thus

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demonstrates that Hellas itself, while it followed historical patterns and rules of development, not only became able, through progressively stronger unions, to achieve ever more noteworthy accomplishments, but was itself a unique achievement in history. Strong and weak The formation of Hellas, as well as every subsequent notable achievement by Hellenes in the Archaeology, follows a kind of historical law or pattern by which a stronger power organizes weaker ones around itself.10 Thucydides says this in so many words: In their desire for gain, the weaker were willing to endure servitude (doulei a) to the stronger, while the more powerful, with their ample resources, made the lesser cities their subjects (uÿphko ouv). And this was their situation when later they made the expedition against Troy. (1.8.3±4)

This is not two processes but one, a combination of powers of unequal strength for mutual bene®t, each seeking to gain (``in their desire for gain,'' e jie menoi twÄn kerdwÄn, refers to both the weak and the strong). The weaker powers gave up independence of identity and action while the stronger powers accepted responsibility for them. This process ®rst appears with the creation of Hellas itself, when Hellen and sons, ``becoming strong'' (iscusaÂntwn) ruled over other peoples for mutual bene®t, all eventually using the same name, Hellene (1.3). The identities of the weaker parties perforce disappear in such an action, as Thucydides deduces from Homer's evidence. Even the pirates of earlier times, when piracy is supposed to have been socially acceptable, organized under the most powerful ®gures in pursuit of ``personal gain and to support their weaker followers'' (1.5.1). The same process is speci®cally identi®ed as the enabling factor and motivation for the Hellenes to unite under Agamemnon's authority and sail against Troy. Thucydides' position is unorthodox in that it dismisses the story of the oath by Helen's suitors to Tyndareus as containing not even a grain of truth (unlike other parts 10 This was also the form of fourth-century ``Panhellenic'' programs, apparently not in¯uenced by Thucydides; see below, p. 377, and Momigliano 1934, chs. 5 and 6. On stronger and weaker powers, contrast now Crane 1998, especially chs. 5±7.

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of Homer). The real reason for Agamemnon's leadership, Thucydides suggests, is that he (like the founder of the Hellenes) was the most powerful individual (duna mei prouÂcwn, 1.9.1) and he had the largest navy (9.4). No matter that his power and wealth were inherited: the founding ancestor Pelops united the region and founded the dynasty by virtue of his wealth and ``acquired such power that, although a foreigner, he gave his name to the region'' (9.2) ± just like Hellen. By virtue of this inherited power Agamemnon was able to bring a Hellenic force together and lead the ``common'' Hellenic e¨ort (koinhÄÎ) against Troy. To be sure, Agamemnon ruled ``through fear'' (joÂbwÎ ), and while Hellen and Pelops seem to have enjoyed the voluntary cooperation of their weaker adherents, later centralized powers were based on unwelcome force. An example is provided: the tyrant Polycrates is singled out in a review of important naval powers in Hellenic history; he ``became strong'' (iscuÂwn) and brought some islands into his power (uÿphkoÂouv, 1.13.6). But the question of coercion is irrelevant to Thucydides' main point, which is that the Hellenes accomplished axioÂloga only when they had mastered the sea and combined forces under the leadership of the strongest power. Nothing could be clearer than the statement that the naval powers acquired for themselves considerable strength through money revenues and control over others; for they ± especially those who held insu½cient territory ± sailed against and subdued the islands. By land there was no war from which any signi®cant increase in power (duÂnamiv) arose. The con¯icts that did occur were all border wars, and the Hellenes did not go out on any foreign expeditions far from their own land for the purpose of conquering others. For they were not yet united as subjects to the most powerful states (ou gaÁ r xuneisth kesan proÁv taÁ v megi stav poÂleiv uÿphÂkooi), nor again did they make common expeditions on an equal footing, but rather it was against each other that the neighboring peoples made war. (1.15.1±2)

After the Trojan War the Hellenic states could do nothing because they were embroiled in internal ± i.e., inter-Hellenic ± disputes. Thucydides mentions the Lelantine War to prove the point, for that war, in which Hellenic states lined up against each other, represents a gross failure to unite for notable ends and thus was a setback in the string of ever-greater accomplishments, as well as a temporary reversal in the process which allowed the Hellenes to

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undertake the Trojan expedition in the ®rst place.11 In the same way, the tyrants in various cities did not lead Hellas to any worthy achievement because they were too concerned with their own private interests to take any common interest in Hellas or a union of Hellenic states, so that, to quote a central passage again, no noteworthy achievement (e rgon a xio logon) was accomplished by them . . . Thus Hellas everywhere was for a long time kept from accomplishing in common (koinhÄÎ . . . katerga zesqai) anything distinguished (janeroÂn), and the individual states remained rather unenterprising (a tolmote ra). (1.17)

The principle of a stronger power attaching weaker ones to itself for a higher, noteworthy purpose may be found outside the Archaeology as well. A most important example is Thucydides' account of the synoikismos of Athens (2.15±16).12 Thucydides says that before Theseus Attica consisted of many separate villages which acted independently, even dared to attack the king, so long as they had nothing to fear. But Theseus, who was ``both powerful and intelligent,'' abolished the separate village governments and established in Athens a centralized authority over all Attica. As a result, Athens ``became great'' (mega lh genome nh, 2.15.2), which means that it became powerful and able to accomplish great things. Long after the Athenian synoikismos, local loyalties were still felt, and each resident who ¯ed to the city as a result of Periclean naval strategy regretted having to desert his paÂtria iÿ eraÂ, feeling as if he were abandoning ``his own polis,'' but that did not in any way impair the legitimacy, much less the existence, of the larger united whole and its political center in Athens. Thus Athens, like the Hellenic combinations outlined in the Archaeology, was composed of various smaller elements which united under a dominant power for a common purpose.13 It is perhaps necessary at this point brie¯y to anticipate criticism 11 Thucydides' understanding of the Lelantine War is di¨erent from certain modern reconstructions; see Tausend 1987; Lambert 1982, who shows the war was indeed Panhellenic. 12 Hornblower, CT i, 259±69, points out the di¨erence between political and physical synoikismos. See also Moggi 1976, 44±81. 13 Cf. also 3.2.3, 3.1, the Mytilenians' revolt from Athens in 428 consisted in their attempt, as the leading power in Lesbos, to synoecize the island. Other events as described by Thucydides ®t the pattern, e.g. 1.24 (the foundation of Epidamnus), 2.68 (the Amphilochians), etc. Note that these are examples of Hellenic unions of some sort forming and then falling apart because of internal di¨erences.

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or misunderstanding. The formulation and illustration of a historical principle is far di¨erent from advocacy of any political entity or moral position. Historical description and analysis, o¨ering a pattern of domination and subordination (voluntary or coerced) to explain ``noteworthy'' and even ``great'' accomplishment in history, does not imply power worship in any form, much less advocacy of naval empire.14 Thucydides nowhere says whether he thought the combination of strong and weak states per se a good or bad thing, and he is even further in his authorial remarks from advocating or criticizing the principle ``might makes right'' which we ®nd, for example, vigorously defended by Thrasymachus in the ®rst book of Plato's Republic. His purpose in writing history was not to make de®nitive judgments on these abstract issues. True, in the description of Athens' synoecism and Hellas' ®rst uni®cation, the combination of strong and weak seems a good thing; but the historian's opinion about Agamemnon's use of fear, or Polycrates' use of raw force, aside from the place of each in a general historical development, is not evident. Nor does Thucydides say that such unions were the inevitable consequence of nature. He says only that every achievement he ®nds worthy of telling in Hellenic history happened because of such an arrangement of power. It will be remembered that Aristotle (Pol. 1252a31) identi®es the association of ruler and ruled for mutual bene®t as one of the ®rst principles of societal organization. It is true that Thucydides does allow (in 1.15.2, quoted above) for the possibility of an Hellenic union based on equality, but this is not o¨ered as a preferable alternative to the unequal alignment of states of unequal strength, only as one possibility of Hellenic union for common action.15 The fact remains that in every example of noteworthy accomplishment by united Hellenes in the Archaeology, weaker Hellenic states line up behind a stronger one. These observations will be important when we turn to the question of Thucydides' opinion of the Athenian empire. Above all I have not meant to imply that the Archaeology contains a latent approval or admiration of the Athenian empire, or power per se. This complicated question will be dealt with in due course. One further note. In contrast to the historian, various charac14 Contrast (on di¨erent grounds) de Romilly 1963 and Crane 1998. 15 Perhaps he was thinking of the Delian League in its original form, which even then, however, was led by the state which had most distinguished itself ± on the sea ± in the Persian Wars.

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ters in the History do discuss the relationship between strong and weak states in a way which reveals heavy personal involvement and strict judgment. The Athenian speaker at Sparta in Book 1, for example, defends the Athenian empire by protesting that his city has acted in accordance with acceptable and even natural motives (oud' apoÁ touÄ anqrwpei ou troÂpou) by receiving power (archÂ) when it was o¨ered and maintaining it under compulsion of ``honor, fear and interest'' (1.76.2). Athens established no precedent, he argues, and ``it is universally established that the weaker is kept down by the stronger''; moreover, he says, nobody has ever let moral claims such as justice override an opportunity to acquire strength. Such a contention was congenial to the Athenian's argument that someone had to rule over the other Hellenes, that Athens was more suitable than Sparta, and that the Athenians exceeded the requirements of both nature and convention by acting with a certain degree of justice and moderation. The Athenians repeat the notion that the strong will naturally seek to dominate the weak in the Melian Dialogue (5.105.2), where they repeat also the idea that their hearers would act precisely as they do in the same position.16 The context is entirely di¨erent: instead of justifying the past the Athenians are seeking to legitimize an imminent act of brutality. The axiom serves di¨erent rhetorical purposes in the di¨erent settings and must be distinguished both from each other and from what the historian is willing to assert on his own authority. There is no reason to assume that Thucydides subscribes to the utterances in his Athenian speeches (or any speech). In the Archaeology, Thucydides never deviates far from his purpose of reviewing all noteworthy achievements in the past and comparing them to the war which is his main subject. In an attempt to explain causes, Thucydides observes a pattern in Hellenic history, and this pattern remains on the level of observation; it does not become a recommendation. t h e p e n t e k o n t a e t i a a n d t h e ``t r u e s t r e a s o n'' for the war Just after they reached their pinnacle of achievement, the Hellenes split and turned against one another.17 16 Andrewes, HCT iv, 173±4 cites similar but not identical examples. 17 The ``paradox'' in this phenomenon is analyzed in Price 1997.

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Although by a common e¨ort they repelled the barbarian, not long afterwards the Hellenes . . . separated into two camps, some following the Athenians and the others following the Lacedaemonians . . . The defensive alliance lasted only a short time, but18 then the Lacedaemonians and Athenians fell out and, with their allies, made war on one another; and if any of the other Hellenes fell into a dispute, they inevitably turned to one or the other. (1.18.2±3)

This split deepened during the ®fty-year period preceding the Peloponnesian War, the ``Pentekontaetia,'' to which Thucydides devotes a special section (1.89±118.2), tracing the growing split in terms of Sparta's mounting fear and Athens' expanding empire, which are the two elements in what Thucydides identi®es as the ``truest reason'' of the war: In my judgment the truest reason (for the war), but the one least talked about [lit.: least apparent in speech], was that the Athenians' growing in power and becoming a source of fear for the Lacedaemonians made war unavoidable.19 (1.23.6)

We shall avoid the controversies surrounding this half-sentence20 to focus on one point: neither superlative form ± ``truest'' and ``least talked about'' ± excludes other possibilities. The speci®ed prophasis was the ``truest'' but not the only true reason for the war. Some have wondered whether there could be varying grades of truth in such a matter, but the problem lies in our modern languages and notions, not in ancient Greek. Thucydides means that his explanation for the war encompasses all other legitimate ones. Every other identi®ed cause, including all the complaints and disputes detailed in Book 1, only set a match to the tinderbox which became ever more combustible as Athens' power and Sparta's fear grew in tandem. Similarly, that the deepest reason was ``least talked about'' does not mean that it was never talked about. Some in fact did talk about it, but they must have been intellects as rare as the omniscient historian. For signi®cantly, although both Peloponnesian and Athenian speakers in Book 1 acknowledge Athens' 18 Classen±Steup may be right about reading de after e peita, as ®ve out of the seven best mss. do. 19 thÁn meÁ n gaÁ r alhqesta thn proÂjasin, ajanestaÂthn deÁ lo gwÎ, touÁv  A qhnai ouv hÿgouÄmai mega louv gignome nouv kaiÁ joÂbon pare contav toiÄ v Lakedaimoni oiv a nagkaÂsai e v toÁ polemeiÄ n . . . 20 Ostwald 1988 and Heath 1986 make detailed discussion of this passage unnecessary here; Heath especially disposes e½ciently of previous misinterpretations; cf. also Rhodes 1987; further literature referred to in CT i, 64±6, to which add now Sertcan 1997.

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power, and the Spartan speakers (both Archidamus and Sthenelaidas) and other Peloponnesian speakers and actors are clearly motivated by fear, none openly recognizes the combination of factors as the reason for their actions or for the war. The Peloponnesian speeches are symptomatic of the Spartan fear identi®ed by the historian. By the same token, Athenian speeches illuminate the contours of the imperial Weltanschauung and the changes it underwent during a long and punishing Hellenic war. The most common explanation of the war had to do with formal complaints, violations of treaty and the autonomy of individual states. Wars often started in Hellas from such formal causes suited to diplomatic exchanges and deliberative bodies, which are in turn unsuitable settings for admission of fear. Yet there was nothing in the ``truest prophasis'' that had to remain hidden: it was least talked about because it was least in their minds, and because the perception and utterance of such truths is not part of action but of post factum analysis. In the two years preceding the war, the Hellenes were absorbed in their immediate disputes, which dominated their speech ± they spoke about them ``openly'' (e v toÁ janeroÂn, 1.23.6). Perceiving the ``truest reason'' for the war, like the symptoms of stasis, required a degree of detachment uncommon in people who are in the thick of the action. When Thucydides expounds causes, he blames neither Sparta nor Athens for starting the war; it is not his purpose to assign responsibility to any individual state. His ``truest reason'' is what ``made the war inevitable'' (anagkaÂsai e v toÁ polemeiÄ n, 1.23.6).21 This general situation of Athenian growth and Spartan fear is the subject of a nagkaÂsai. Similarly, the narrative of the war after this statement was not written to cast blame on one party. Thucydides describes an evolving historical process. This evolution is the subject of the Pentekontaetia,22 which opens and closes with statements of the same theme: 21 See Ostwald 1988, 1±5 and passim; Rood 1998, 225±48; in what follows I have bene®ted from the important theories of de Ste. Croix 1972, mainly in my disagreements with him. 22 The correct chronological place of the Pentekontaetia is right after the Archaeology, and Thucydides broke up the tight chronological sequence of emotions and decision-making at the two congresses at Sparta by inserting the digression to explain those same emotions. See Connor 1984, 42±7 and Hammond 1940. I do not accept Badian's extreme theory (1993, 125±62) of heinous distortion by Thucydides of what happened at the two Peloponnesian congresses. Of the many studies of the Pentekontaetia, Walker 1957 is still among the most lucid; I have incorporated many of his observations. Gomme's com-

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The Lacedaemonians voted that the treaty had been broken and that they had to go to war, not so much because they were persuaded by the arguments of their allies as because they feared that the Athenians would become ever more powerful, seeing that they already controlled most of Hellas. (1.88) [During the Pentekontaetia] the Athenians established their rule on the strongest footing and aimed at acquiring great power. The Lacedaemonians watched this but made only intermittent e¨orts to prevent it and for most of the period kept their peace; even before this they had not been quick to go to war unless compelled, and they felt to a certain degree constrained by enemies close to home. But when the power of the Athenians became manifestly overbearing and began to encroach on their [the Spartans'] own allies, they could stand it no longer and decided that they must devote themselves entirely to attacking and if possible suppressing the source of Athenian strength by undertaking this war. (1.118.2)

The programmatic statements at 1.88 and 118 accurately re¯ect the contents and purpose of the excursus. The selection of detail and authorial comment in the Pentekontaetia concentrate on Athens' growth and Sparta's fear not as two separate elements but as a single emerging process, a series of developments involving Athens' actions and Sparta's reactions but a¨ecting all Hellas, creating the conditions for war among the Hellenic states. We should note that Thucydides is neither openly judgmental of Athens' empirebuilding nor openly sympathetic to Sparta's fear. What interests Thucydides is how each of these historical factors combined fatally to bring about a great war between two great powers, neither of which entered the war in hope of territorial gains, and each of which judged its own cause to be self-defense; the Pentekontaetia traces not just a sequence of actions but developing states of mind. mentary and analysis are indispensable (HCT i, 256±413), as are now also Kallet-Marx 1993, esp. 37±69, and Rood 1998, 225±48 (a remarkable analysis, seen after the present one was completed). For the purposes of the present discussion, the following have been especially helpful (even if only to argue against them): French 1971; Rhodes 1987; CAH v2, 15±146; Meiggs 1975, and cf. App. i, pp. 444±6; ATL iii, esp. 183¨.; de Ste. Croix 1972, 167±210; the scheme by McNeal 1970 is ingenious but does not hold; Unz 1986 tries to solve notorious chronological problems by suggesting a topical organization of the excursus; see now Sertcan 1997; further bibliography in CT i, 133±4 and 134±96 passim. My focus di¨ers from that of most scholarship on the Pentekontaetia, which is concerned with establishing facts, or alternatively determining the degree (if any) to which the section is un®nished. Here I am interested more in Thucydides' selection and arrangement of material as we have it.

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The seeds of each element of the ``truest reason'' are apparent already in the ®rst fully narrated episode of the digression, although they take time to mature. After a brief notice of the Athenian naval mopping-up operations following the Spartans' return home from the Persian Wars (1.89.2) ± which could have served as a point from which to expand the di¨erent directions, motives and activities of the two states ± Thucydides gives an unusually long and detailed account (relative to the space given other events) of the rebuilding of the walls of Athens (89.3±93), in which motives on both sides are spelled out, albeit in di¨erent ways. The Spartans ``thought it better'' that no state have walls, but they were moved also by their allies who ``feared'' (joboume nwn) both the Athenians' growing navy and their daring against Persia (1.90.1). The fear was not yet the Spartans', although they were concerned enough to ask Athens to refrain from the project, while providing a false justi®cation for their concern (90.2). The Spartan prevarication (con®rmed as such at ch. 92) was answered by deception on the Athenian side, under the direction of Themistocles (90.3±91.3), allowing the walls to be built without Spartan obstruction. The Spartans' complicated emotions are a topic which Thucydides took pains to explain. They were not yet as fearful as their allies, but they were nervous and suspicious (upopton, 90.2), and then angry and annoyed (o rghÂn, hcqonto, 92) after being duped. At the same time they remained well disposed to the Athenians (prosjileiÄ v ontev, 92), and they especially admired Themistocles (91.1). On the whole, Thucydides says, the Spartans were content to resign the leadership of the Hellenic alliance and pass it on to the competent hands of the Athenians, who they thought were well disposed to them (95.7).23 Thucydides o¨ers no comparable psychological analysis of the Athenians. He reports the Athenians' actions at great length and with open admiration for the wall-building project (esp. 1.93), yet 23 I do not see a contradiction between 1.92 and 95.7 (CT i, 142±3). A single chapter, ch. 92, contains both elements of the supposed contradiction ± the Spartans were both annoyed by the new Athenian walls but also friendly toward the Athenians because of their role in the Persian Wars; 95.7 repeats the Spartans' con®dence in Athens from the Persian Wars, as well as their belief that their own friendly feelings were reciprocated. There is no reason why the Spartans, being human, could not feel both emotions mentioned in 92. Evidence outside Thucydides that Sparta felt deeper discomfort and did not retire entirely from foreign ventures is another matter (Hornblower cites the relevant sources). Thucydides' interpretation of the Pentekontaetia is peculiar and original.

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so far as their motivations are concerned he records only what Themistocles said to the Spartans after the walls were ®nished. This procedure is strictly consistent with Thucydides' purpose in the Pentekontaetia, since the ``truest reason'' requires demonstration of the Spartans' psychological state and merely an account of an historical and material accomplishment by Athens. In fact, while Thucydides does give the reader insight into the Athenians' reactions to various disasters (e.g., the epidemic and the defeat in Sicily), their motivations for building their empire and ®ghting the Peloponnesian War can be judged only from statements he has them make in direct discourse. Thucydides avoided direct comment either because he felt the matter obvious ± in which case, judging from the lack of accord among readers, he was sorely mistaken ± or, more likely, he did not feel it strictly relevant to his program. Athens' empire was inchoate, unformed; Sparta's fear only latent; the Hellenic leaders still spoke of unity. In his slightly indignant justi®cation of Athens' walls to Sparta, Themistocles is made to distinguish, as Thucydides in his own voice did in 1.18.2, between two blocs within Hellas, the Spartans and their allies versus the Athenians and their allies, but both he and the Spartans allege concern for the common Hellenic interest, and it is clear from the entire account that this was a point of rhetorical contest, perhaps even genuine for a time. There is little hint of Athenian megalomania in Themistocles' words: he speaks of parity within the Hellenic alliance, respect for Sparta's position but concern not to be subordinate to it. The context in these chapters is still the after-shock of the Persian Wars, and Sparta was still the recognized head of the main Hellenic alliance, whose main defensive purpose was turned now to retaliation against Persia (this will be the latent assumption through at least ch. 97). Themistocles reveals the Athenian exasperation and desperation at the Spartan decision during the Persian invasion to abandon all territory above the Isthmus,24 and the resolve never to be left defenseless again. Thucydides in his own voice does say that Themistocles established a naval policy with an aim to acquiring power (e v toÁ kthÂsasqai duÂnamin, 1.93.3), but even this lies within the context of Athens' striving for parity with Sparta and protecting itself against 24 Cf. the Athenian speaker at 1.74.2; Hdt. 8.40, 9.6±9; Plut. Arist. 10.

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attacks from ouside Hellas (93.6±7); it certainly does not refer to establishing a Hellenic empire. Likewise, the building of the forti®cations is even called an imperial act in a much-discussed phrase (thÁn archÁn euquÁv xugkateskeuÂazen at 93.4) which means only that Themistocles put in place an essential element for dominating others, not that he envisioned an Hellenic empire or aimed for it at that point (cf. 1.15.1).25 Sparta apparently saw things the same way (92, 95.7). While the Spartans still harbored good intentions, Athens' power (dynamis) grew swiftly since the city had acquired the four essential axiomatic elements for growth and power (cf. 1.15.2, 17, 18.2, also 9.2, 10.2):26 a navy, forti®ed settlement, political centralization (cf. 2.15) and surplus capital. Athens had the means to begin dominating others. There is a de®nite indication that Athens and the allies entered into the relationship with di¨erent notions of purpose and mutual intention. At ®rst, Thucydides says, the allies ± especially the Ionians ± who resented Pausanias' behavior turned to the Athenians to assume leadership (1.95.1), and ``the Athenians accepted their proposal and made it their policy not to be negligent and to arrange a¨airs as appeared best to them'' (95.2). The exact purport of this vaguely worded sentence is unclear but ominous.27 Athens was already thinking solely of its own interests at the expense of the alliance. This indication is soon strengthened: after a brief account of Pausanias' recall and the Spartans' complete withdrawal from the ®eld because they thought Athens competent and well disposed towards them, Thucydides writes that Athens ``in this way, because of hatred of Pausanias, took control of the hegemonia, with the consent of the allies'' (96.1). ``In this way'' refers to the willingness (for di¨erent reasons) of both Sparta and the allies to let Athens take over. The Athenians' ®rst act as head of the hegemonia was to establish a systematic method of collecting levies and a place to put the money, and to ensure that they themselves controlled both (1.96).28 ``The 25 Thucydides is tracing an historical evolution, as in the Archaeology. Translating arch as ``beginning'' makes the sentence ¯at and insipid, and there are other reasons against such a translation, see CT i, 140. 26 See Walker 1957; French 1971, 3±4; McNeal 1970, 312. 27 On the assumption that autoiÄ v refers to the Athenians (cf. Poppo±Stahl), which is easier grammatically and semantically. Maddalena ad loc.: ``GiaÁ allora avevano dunque intuito l'utilitaÁ d'essere egemoni e animosamente avevano accettato l'incarico.'' 28 The notorious problem of the sum collected is less relevant here than the fact that Thucydides was interested in the exact amount. See Kallet-Marx (1993), 43±58, 167±8; ATL iii, 234¨. and CT i, 145±6.

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pretext (proÂschma) was retaliation for their losses by ravaging the King's country.'' A ``pretext'' suggests a hidden motive which the historian does not disclose.29 A hidden motive also signals a deviation from the patterns of the Archaeology. Athens not only did not attend to the interests of the subordinate powers (which was also a violation of the spirit of the original anti-Persian alliance), but the pursuit of its own interests in fact con¯icted with the interests of its allies (although they did not know it immediately). The combinations described in the Archaeology, even those based on compulsion, were all for mutual bene®t, yet in those combinations there was never any suggestion of common status: subordination of the weaker to the stronger was the pattern. During the Persian Wars, the ``common purpose'' which Thucydides stresses (1.18.2) involved also autonomy of the individual states; the way Thucydides presents it, subordination was only formal, for the purpose of joint military operations, not intended as permanent status (cf. 3.11). This is now openly stated: The allies whom they [the Athenians] led were at ®rst autonomous30 and reached common decisions in general meetings, but the Athenians in both military action and their management of a¨airs between the Persian War and the present one embarked on the following series of enterprises against the barbarians, their own allies who tried to rebel and the Peloponnesian allies whom they encountered on various occasions. (1.97.1)

This description of Athens' aggression ± against barbarians, allies, Peloponnesians ± is of interest because it concerns a union of one strong and many weaker Hellenic powers for which there was no exact parallel:31 the leader of an Hellenic combination formed originally for mutually bene®cial ends uses the alliance both to pursue sel®sh aims contradicting the interests of the weaker allies and to confront another Hellenic alliance. This was also the ®rst 29 CT i, 144. 30 The question of whether autonoÂmwn is a technical or legal word, while crucial for Greek history, is not relevant to the present inquiry; see Ostwald 1982, 30¨. It could be, though, that the autonomous status of the Hellenes was what distinguished the empire from the power relationships described in the Archaeology, where the word autonomos does not appear. 31 This explains the next three events narrated: the attack on the Persian-held Eion, in which Athens had an enduring personal interest (the Persians there were an excuse), and the operations against Scyros and Carystus. Neither of these latter two ®ts into any of the three categories. French's suggestion (1971, 34) that the colonization of Scyros is what attracted Thucydides' attention seems right, and Carystus was probably subdued later in a private quarrel, although on more lenient terms (ibid.; French rightly questions the hypothesis of collaboration as the reason for the attack). Of course, Athens would also have been concerned about the grain supply from the Black Sea.

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time ± at least in the account of the History ± in which a strong state (Sparta) voluntarily relinquished control when it had the power to retain it. As Athens' power grows, Sparta's fear is realized and matures, and Hellas becomes ever more divided between the two powers. All three of these elements intertwine as strands in the subsequent narrative. The allies began trying to secede from the alliance before the campaigns against Persia were formally completed. The reasons (ai ti ai) for the rebellions were various, Thucydides says, but mostly they involved the tribute, contributions of ships and cases of desertion; yet the allies themselves were mostly responsible (ai tioi) for relinquishing their equal status since, while the Athenians were both vigorous in their pursuit of their military objectives and strict in exacting the appropriate contributions, the allies, from reluctance to share the rigors of expeditions far from home, surrendered control to the Athenians and preferred to convert their contributions of ships into money (99).32 The allies thus became ``unprepared and militarily inexperienced'' (apara skeuoi kaiÁ a peiroi e v toÁn poÂlemon) to resist the Athenian power, while conversely the Athenians transformed the increased revenue into stronger naval power. The result of Athenian energy and strictness as well as the allies' negligence is that any semblance of equality within the alliance was destroyed: the Athenians no longer ``went on expeditions from a position of equality'' (oute xunestra teuon apoÁ touÄ i sou, 99.2), and this in turn belied the pretense of mutual interest which, while still genuine and not a pretense, had allowed the Hellenes to defeat the Persians ``in common'' (1.18.2). The unprecedented nature of the Hellenic combination headed by Athens explains peculiarities in the way Thucydides narrates Naxos' revolt and subjection. It was ``the ®rst ally to be subdued against established practice'' (1.98.4),33 so that it warranted not only mention as an historical ®rst but also analysis of the new methods of applying force in an Hellenic combination, that is, the process by which Athens consolidated power. Naxos was ``subdued,'' not ``enslaved.''34 This translation of e doulwÂqh is required because in the preceding sentences Athens is said to have made 32 HCT i, 282±3; CT i, 151±2; ATL iii, 244¨. 33 prwÂth te auth po liv xummaciÁ v paraÁ toÁ kaqesthkoÁ v e doulwÂqh. 34 Meiggs 1975, 70: ``Naxos was not literally enslaved, but she had to submit to dictation and may have lost her vote at League meetings on Delos.''

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real slaves out of the inhabitants of both Eion and Scyros (hndrapo disan in 1.98.1 and 98.2; cf. also in 5.9.9). Thucydides' use of the word should be distinguished from his speakers' quite di¨erent use of it. The word doulei a, which was guaranteed to create an instant, visceral reaction in an Hellenic audience, appears most often in speeches, where it becomes the centerpiece of Peloponnesian propaganda against Athens.35 Thucydides hardly ever uses the word in his own voice to describe interstate relations or intentions, and when he does, the word implies submission but not oppression.36 He speci®cally equates doulei a with the status of uÿphÂkoov, subordination, in the Archaeology (1.8.3),37 in a way which does not imply all the humiliations and indignities which slavery entails or which, for example, the Syracusan generals associate with Athens' attempted ``enslavement'' of the city, in a speech before the ®nal battle at Syracuse (7.68.2, cf. 7.57.7).38 The doulei a of Naxos is thus not equivalent, in the historian's lexicon, to the Persian enslavement of Hellenes (1.16, 18, cf. 138.2), nor yet to ancient patterns traced in the Archaeology. Naxos was subordinated and forced, among other things, to accept Athens' policy decisions. The coercion of Naxos was ``against established practice,'' that is, in violation speci®cally of the rules understood (not written) in the Hellenic alliance and generally of the norms of Hellenic behavior.39 Athens' action was unprecedented, establishing a new historical pattern. Moreover, neither the ``enslavement'' of Naxos nor the ``responsibility'' of the allies for their own subjection evokes authorial moral censure. Thucydides matter-of-factly describes a process. 35 Discussion of doulei a in Thucydides in ATL iii, 155±7; Kalkavage 1989, 404±22; see also Ostwald 1982, 38; Chapter 3 above. 36 He does use it many times for personal status, as ATL points out. Borderline cases in which Thucydides reports a thought or motivation but seems to concur with the use of the word: 4.52; 7.56.2; 8.64.3, 5. A far clearer case of mixing political and personal slavery is 1.101, the Spartans' ``enslavement'' of Helots; ATL iii, 155 calls this the ``only'' case in which the two are mixed, ``possibly not unintentional.'' Compare the striking remark Thucydides gives Pericles, that subject states (uÿ ph kooi) prefer safety in submission (a sjalwÄv douleuÂein, 2.63.3). 37 The authors of ATL say that in 1.8 ``douleuÂein is merely a rather forceful synonym for uÿ pakou ein''; see also Kalkavage 1989, 412. 38 The fear can even be raised by Peloponnesians about other Peloponnesians, cf. 5.27.2, 29.3 and 69.1. 39 For attempts to make historical sense out of the phrase ``established practice'' in the absence of any other source, see ATL iii, 156±7 and the di¨erent view of CT i, 151. Gomme appropriately quotes the scholiast: paraÁ toÁ noÂmimon kaiÁ pre pon´ e leu qeroi gaÁr oiÿ  Ellhnev toÂte.

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Once again Thucydides o¨ers insight into the motives of those who oppose Athens, but no corresponding explanation of Athens' actions. This is an apodeixis (1.97.2) ± a presentation, demonstration ± not an exegesis or explanation, such as the Athenians give for their empire (1.72.1).40 Nor will all instances of repression be recounted: Naxos is mentioned because it was the ®rst,41 and others are mentioned if they have some special importance. Thasos is next because the island's rebellion drew Athens and Sparta into direct and open con¯ict.42 For the defeated Thasians appealed to Sparta for help, which Sparta agreed to provide, albeit secretly (1.101.1±2). This single act marks the beginning of Sparta's fear and the end of its ambivalence toward Athens. Sparta's fear seems to come as a result of Athens' expanding aggression and power described in the immediately preceding chapters. Thus the ``truest reason'' fully ¯edges at this point. The importance ± and perhaps also originality ± of this determination is revealed in the fact that nothing came of Sparta's promise to Thasos because of the earthquake and Messenian revolt which followed. That is, Thucydides made a point of rescuing from secret diplomacy the ®rst signal that both elements of the ``truest reason'' for the war were in place, in order to correct the impression that the open rupture resulted from Sparta's snubbing Athens in the Messenian campaign. There is a causal link between the Spartans' fully developed fear and their treatment of the Athenians in the Peloponnese. As Thucydides presents it, the Messenian revolt made the Spartans so desperate as to require help from Athens, above all but not exclusively Athenian skill in siege oper40 The word apodeixis is used again by Thucydides only in 2.13: Pericles provides the facts which may inform an explanation, but they are not themselves the explanation. On Herodotus' use of the word in the preface to his History see Lateiner 1989, 7±10. 41 Actually, Naxos, although ®rst, is not the best example for the analysis in 1.99 since it probably contributed ships instead of money until 450, i.e. after the rebellion, but we do not learn this from Thucydides; see French 1971, 35. For probable rebellions unrecorded by Thucydides, see Meiggs 1975, 109±28, cf. ATL iii, 265±74. 42 Holding this site was also strategically important to Athens' repeated attempts to colonize Ennea Hodoi, and for securing the grain route. The failed attempt at colonization in the year of the Thasian revolt has sometimes been confused with Thasos' reason for revolting, which is indeed not explained; nor should it have been, given Thucydides' general explanation of allied revolts. The importance of Thasos' revolt in the 460s may explain why Thucydides chose the Thasian revolt in 411 to explain the general feelings of Athens' imperial ``allies'' (8.64), but one cannot connect the two events with a straight line and claim that 8.64 represents what the allies had consistently felt for the previous ®fty years. On the contrary, 8.64 is embedded in an account of very particular circumstances, that is, the partial breakup of the Athenian imperial organization and widespread faction in its dependencies.

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ations. Conspicuously there is no mention of lingering goodwill as before (compare 1.92, 95.7).43 On the contrary, the Spartans now de®nitely feared (dei santev) the Athenians' aggression and in fact considered them an ``alien'' people (alloÂjuloi): with this word Thucydides signals the psychological shift from the feeling of unity and connection attending the original anti-Persian pact to the current feelings of fear, animosity, estrangement; the mindset that had enabled ``common action'' against the Persians had turned into profound alienation. The Spartans dismissed the Athenians from the Peloponnese, to which the Athenians reacted by renouncing their alliance (xummaci a) with Sparta and forming one with Argos (1.102). The formal assumption up to that point ± quite late ± had been that the Hellenic alliance was still in e¨ect. It should be stressed that this whole episode only made a latent condition apparent: ``the rupture came out into the open,'' Thucydides says (diajoraÁ janeraÁ e ge neto, 1.102.3). Once the truest reason for the war was fully developed and fully evident, the two sides could be said to exist in a kind of state of war which needed only more immediate reasons ± aitiai ± to burst into actual ®ghting.44 This soon happened: Athens interfered in a war between Megara and Corinth, leading Megara to sever ties with Sparta and ally with Athens, which action in turn became the source of Corinth's ``extreme hatred'' of Athens (103.4); and this was followed by widespread ®ghting among the two blocs of Hellenes, which was only temporarily halted by a ®ve-year and then a thirtyyear truce (105±8, 111±115.1). The historical importance of Corinth's hatred of Athens ± for the Peloponnesian War as Thucydides wanted to tell it ± is the reason for the disproportionate attention devoted to the great injury (paÂqov me ga) su¨ered by the Corinthians at the hands of the Athenians at Megara. Hellas became sharply divided: whereas in ch. 101 it is the Lacedaemonians only who are about to invade Attica, in 114.1 it is the ``Peloponnesians.''45 43 Also conspicuous, especially to one who reads outside Thucydides, is (again) the absence of any indication of Athens' motives for getting involved, not to mention the debate at Athens over the issue (cf. Plut. Cim. 16.4±17.2). Cimon's view was that Athens and Sparta were and should remain joint leaders of Hellas; such a suggestion seems outdated at this point in Thucydides' account (the internal rivalries at 1.107.4 involve Athenian political issues, not foreign policy). 44 On the expression po lemov janeroÂv, see Chapter 5. 45 See also Kalkavage 1989, 376 n. 14 on ``Peloponnesians'' and ``Lacedaemonians and their allies'' in 1.112.1 and 1.115.1. On Thucydides' special interest in and knowledge of Corinth, see Stroud 1994, suggesting that Thucydides was in Corinth during his exile.

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Only after the Thasian revolt and the incident at Ithome does Thucydides begin routinely to refer to ``Athens and its allies'' and ``Sparta and its allies,''46 representing the split in Hellas announced in the ®rst sentence of the History (and cf. also 1.18.2); every notice of a new alliance between an Hellenic state (e.g. Megara) and one of the great powers is viewed as a stage in the struggle between the powers and in the deepening division in Hellas, which continued even as the two blocs which rent Hellas were still in the process of formation.47 The radical selectiveness in the account of the years 460±439 is notorious. Most of the numerous omissions48 would be more egregious in a di¨erent history from that which Thucydides intended to write ± a history, for example, which tried to cover the period comprehensively.49 Yet even given Thucydides' tight focus on the 46 Athens: 1.105.2, 107.5, 109.1, 110.4, 111.1, 112.2, 113.1. Sparta and Peloponnesians: 1.105.3, 107.2, 108.1, 115.1. For Athens, note that the allies in 1.89.2 and 95±97.1 are still Hellenic and not Athenian; Thucydides has left out Herodotus' implication of Athenian manipulation of the allies. 47 In concentrating on the build-up of Athens' empire and Sparta's consequent fear, Thucydides somewhat underemphasizes Sparta's own considerable resources; by contrast 1.18±19 gives the impression that the two powers realized roughly equivalent levels of strength. 48 See HCT i, 365±89; Rood 1998, 216±22. 49 1.97.2, justifying the Pentekontaetia as ®lling in a lacuna and correcting Hellanicus, was probably slipped in at a later time (see e.g. Hammond 1940); this is the only passage for which I will make such a determination. (1) 1.97.2 contradicts 1.88 and 1.118, whose Hellenic focus contrasts with Hellanicus' Attic project. (2) Thucydides criticizes Hellanicus' chronological inaccuracies but is himself notoriously vague and imprecise on the same matter; he resorts largely to relative chronology in instances for which dates were either known or could have been discovered, and even in this scheme there are deviations (an inescapable conclusion from such cruces as 1.103.1, see Walker 1957, McNeal 1970, Unz 1986). (3) ``Filling in the record'' was decidedly not the purpose of all other digressions (Archaeology, Pausanias and Themistocles, ``Sicilian Antiquities,'' even the corrected account of Harmodius and Aristogeiton); I shall demonstrate that the Pentekontaetia similarly has a speci®c point connected with the purpose of the History. The ``irrelevance'' of information (Westlake 1969, 1±38, and see still Schadewaldt 1929, 67¨.) depends in great part on the outlook of the reader; cf. the ingenuity of Sieveking 1964 on geographical data. (4) Hellanicus published his Attic History very near the end of Thucydides' life, de®nitely after 407/6 and most likely after 404/3 or 403/2 (see Jacoby's introduction to 323a in FGrH iii b supp., pp. 5±6, 19±21), by which time Thucydides must have conceived his theory of the alhqesta th proÂjasiv and written his programmatic statements and the supporting material in the Pentekontaetia. I do not agree with Jacoby (ibid.), followed by Hornblower (CT i, 147±8) and others, that Thucydides wrote the Pentekontaetia only to account for Athens' empire and that therefore only the second part of the ®rst sentence of 1.97.2, citing a secondary polemical purpose, was written after the appearance of Hellanicus' work; for as stated the entire sentence in 1.97.2 contradicts Thucydides' other programmatic statements which place Sparta's fear on the same level of importance as Athens' empire; presumably 1.97.2 would have been ®xed.

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growth of Athens' empire and Sparta's fear, and the Hellenic divisions as background to the great war, some omissions seem to be missed opportunities. More information about Tolmides' threatening periplous of the Peloponnese, for example, might have enriched the picture, as well as details about Athens' settlement program and the internal mechanisms of the empire, some items mentioned by Thucydides himself outside the Pentekontaetia, and information culled from other sources.50 Athens' various ``alliances'' and imperialistic gestures known from inscriptional evidence51 would only have strengthened the picture Thucydides was trying to create. On balance, however, the items which did su½ciently attract Thucydides' attention to be included in the present narrative, and particularly those which he chose to analyze or supplement with editorial comment, present a consistent pattern. This is true regardless of the narrative's actual state of completion; in fact, if it is incomplete, then the preliminary choices are even more strongly indicative of direction and theme. If anything is to be dubbed peculiar, it is that all of the material in the Pentekontaetia, especially from the Thasian revolt, is so closely organized around Athens and Sparta. In light of the fortuitous way in which some of the omissions can be supplied, the gaps in our knowledge may be even more drastic than usually supposed; some important events may have disappeared completely from the record. A history of the same ®fty-year period would look quite di¨erent if written, for instance, by a hypothetical Corinthian or an Ionian historian, or by any contemporary historian setting out to write the history of Hellas in general, without using the rift between the great powers as an organizing theme. Even some events which Thucydides does include would be di¨erently narrated, such as the ``sacred war'' at Delphi, which in Thucydides' 50 From Thucydides e.g.: 1.40.5, 41.2 (Peloponnesian deliberations about whether to aid Samos); 2.68.7±8 (Phormio in Acarnania); 3.2.1, 13.1 (Lesbian appeal to Sparta); 3.102.2 (capture of Molycreium); 4.102.3±4 (foundation of Amphipolis); 5.14.4, 22.2, 28.2 (Sparta±Argos treaty). From other sources: of Gomme's category ``external policy'' (HCT i, 365±70), his items 5, 10 and 14 (I do not, however, ®nd the omission of the foundation of Thurii ``inexplicable'' except as a sign of incomplete composition). Gomme's items 1, 2, 4 and 8 are peripheral to the main purpose of the Pentekontaetia, as I have interpreted it; item 3 is speculative and 15 and 16 chronologically uncertain, so that Thucydides cannot be held accountable for them. Pericles' call for a Panhellenic congress (Gomme's item 9) is discussed below, p. 375. On the Peace of Callias, below p. 368. 51 CAH v2, 127±33; Brunt 1993, 112±36.

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record consists of two actions: the Spartans transfer control of the sanctuary to the Delphians, and the Athenians subsequently return it to the Phocians (1.112.5). The reason for the Spartans' original action, the probable seizure by the Phocians, the role of the Amphictiony and other pertinent details are missing.52 Sparta and Athens were at that time under truce; there was therefore no direct confrontation between them, but their actions were innately hostile to each other, thus Thucydides recorded the essential fact of the con¯ict, the other details remaining outside the periphery. While readers with certain expectations have seen the Pentekontaetia as discursive, uneven, unfocused and poorly organized, it can also be read as an investigation into the origins of the ``truest reason'' of the war, and a sustained account of the deepening con¯ict in Hellas, with the stages clearly marked and partially analyzed. The Pentekontaetia as presented by Thucydides is a kind of anti-Archaeology, in that Hellas, whose creation and achievements are accounted for in the Archaeology, begins to break apart as the elements of Hellenic greatness are turned inward on Hellas itself. Just as the Archaeology traced the rising crescendo of precedents ± the biggest con¯icts preceding the Peloponnesian War, ®rst-time cultural events in the formation of Hellas, and so forth ± so the Pentekontaetia records precedents marking the break-up of Hellenic unity and achievement: the ®rst ally to be subdued against established practice, the ®rst Hellenotamiai, the origins of Corinth's hatred of Athens, etc.53 This special attention to precedents continues throughout the whole of the History. Thucydides meticulously documents the pinnacles of achievement and extremes of su¨ering which cumulatively brought great destruction to Hellas.54 Impressive, unprecedented 52 Zeilhofer 1959, 48±50; CT i, 181±3. Similarly, Thucydides' explanation of Sparta's motives at Phocis in an earlier action (1.107.2) is often disbelieved in favor of a supposed planned attack on Athens; but Thucydides is to be preferred, see Lewis, CAH v2, 113±15. I do not, however, think we should go so far as Westlake 1968, 42 n. 22 and conclude that more precise chronology was irrelevant to Thucydides. 53 This evinces the ``paradox'' in 1.18±19, which I discuss in Price 1997, namely that the disunity of Hellas and the Hellenes' constant preparation for war against each other is what made them more prepared for war ± and notable achievement ± than they had ever been. See also TaÈ ubler 1927, 85¨.; Allison 1989, 19±27. 54 Thus the precedents and superlatives are less ``turning-points'' in themselves (Dover HCT v, 413) than signs of the unprecedented and critical nature of the whole war. See Lateiner 1977 and Grant 1974, 83±5; and cf. KleinguÈ nther 1933, esp. 131±5. I exclude from this discussion superlatives in speeches, as lacking Thucydides' authority.

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military achievements before and during the war were all ultimately contributory factors to the Hellenes' mutual harm. For instance, the naumachia between Corinth and Corcyra in 433 was ``in the number of ships the largest ever of all those before fought by Hellenes against Hellenes'' (1.50.2: but obviously not the largest between Hellenes and Persians). The Peloponnesian army ranged against Argos in 418 was ``the ®nest Hellenic force up to that time'' (5.60.3), and part of that army fought at the battle of Mantinea, which was the ``greatest between Hellenic states that had occurred for a long time, fought by the most famous states'' (5.74.1).55 Thucydides does not fail to notice the longest stay of the Peloponnesian invading force in Attica (2.57.1) or the most destructive invasion ``after the second,'' which is somewhat going out of the way to record a precedent (3.26.3). The launching of the Athenian ¯eet to Sicily is described with a ¯ood of superlatives (6.31), among them that the ¯eet was the ``most expensive and most splendid, of a single city with an entirely Hellenic force.'' Other military and political precedents occur with remarkable frequency in the narrative.56 The Hellenes' pinnacles of achievement were self-destructive. This is reinforced by the even more frequent notices of disaster and extreme su¨ering: not only ®re, earthquake and epidemic but stasis of unheard-of magnitude;57 the ®rst dead at Athens (2.34.1) and later their ``best men'' lost (3.98.4); shocks and defeats never before experienced by Sparta (4.40.1; 5.14.3, 66.2). The destruction of the Ambraciots in battle in 426/5 is said to be the greatest calamity to befall a single Hellenic city in as many days during the entire war (3.113.6); the worst disaster to a¿ict a single city was the atrocity a¿icted on Mycalessus (7.29.5, cf. 30.3; above, pp. 214± 16).58 The disasters befalling the Ambraciots and Mycalessians, 55 On problems of translation see HCT iv, 126. On comparison of 5.60.3 with 6.31.1 and 1.1.2, see Stroud 1994. 56 2.52.2; 3.19.1; 4.74.4; 5.63.4, 64.2; 7.36.6, 44.1, 70.4; 8.97.2 (see Chapter 6). 3.17.1 is obelized by some, see CT ad loc. The military innovations described at 4.100 and 7.36 are not speci®cally said to be unprecedented. See Macleod 1979, 66 n. 17, and pp. 54±6 for illuminating (but later) ideas about the origins of civilization, principles which are controverted in stasis. 57 2.77.4±5, if the description of natural ®res is an interpolation (Calder 1984), the superlative is still genuine; 8.41.2; 2.47.3, 47.4, 50, 53.1; 3.82.1. All this is summarized in 1.23. 58 There is not necessarily a contradiction between the two superlatives: the Ambraciots' paÂqov me giston involves the number of soldiers lost over a period of days, whereas the xumjoraÁ adoÂkhtoÂv te kaiÁ deinh at Mycalessus signi®es a disaster measured in other than numerical terms.

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in turn, are to be distinguished from ``the greatest catastrophe (me giston diaÂjoron) ever to befall an Hellenic army'' (7.75.7), namely, the ®nal destruction of the Athenian forces in Sicily. The superlatives used to describe Athens' defeat there counterbalance the string of superlatives used in Book 6 to describe the size and splendor of the original ¯eet when it ®rst set out. We are told that the slaughter of Athenians at the river Assinaros was ``second to none in this war'' (7.85.4),59 and that the Athenian loss in Sicily, ending with the miserable fate of the prisoners in the quarries, was ``the greatest Hellenic event in this war, it would seem to me of all Hellenic events which we have heard about, the most glorious for those who prevailed, the most catastrophic for the vanquished'' (7.87.5).60 Finally, we read of three times when ``the greatest panic'' was felt in Athens, indicating that each successive panic was greater than the last, as indeed the source of each represented a greater danger than the previous occasion.61 All of these precedents and superlatives in the war narrative evoke the Archaeology while at the same time subverting it, for instead of contributing to the Hellenic achievement, the new Hellenic pinnacles (and nadirs) brought unprecedented su¨ering and destruction to Hellas. In this light, it is to be noted that while most of the precedents a¨ected only some states, they are generalized as Hellenic events, just as in the Archaeology the achievements of single states are identi®ed as stages in the advancement of Hellas as a whole. The military precedents are speci®cally ``Hellenic,'' for instance, and most tellingly the last battle at Syracuse was ``the greatest Hellenic event ever.'' The su¨ering in the quarries, like 59 Deleting SikelikwÄÎ , with Dobree, Hude et al., see Dover HCT iv ad loc. 60 xune bh te e rgon touÄ to ÿ EllhnikoÁn twÄn kataÁ toÁ n po lemon toÂnde me giston gene sqai, dokeiÄ n d' e moige kaiÁ w
n a kohÄÎ ÿ E llhnikwÄ n i smen, kaiÁ toiÄ v te krath sasi lampro taton kaiÁ toiÄ v diajqareiÄ si dustuce staton. This important sentence has fallen victim to editorial zeal. A majority follows KruÈger in bracketing ÿ EllhnikoÂn, which appears in all manuscripts, on stylistic grounds: w
n a kohÄÎ ÿ EllhnikwÄ n i smen is not far away in the sentence. Yet there is nothing objectionable about stressing the Hellenic implications of the Athenian defeat, and as Connor 1984, 206 n. 54 points out, ``it is hard to see why the alleged mistake would be made. . . . our e¨orts should be directed at understanding the whole remarkable phrase e rgon . . . ÿ EllhnikoÂn. . . . the greatest accomplishment of the Greeks is now to destroy other Greeks. The repetition of `Hellenic' underlines this point . . .'' 61 2.94.1 (following Spartan raid on Salamis), 7.71.7 (after the defeat in Syracuse harbor), 8.96.1 (when Euboea revolted). Inevitably, these passages have raised the question of compositional strata, cf. Dover, HCT v, 406±7, 412±13. The superlative in 8.1.2 is, I think, generalizing.

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the ravages of the epidemic mentioned in 1.23.3, is not said to be speci®cally Athenian but is generalized to all Hellas. As the narrative unfolds, the reader comes to understand the full meaning of the superlatives in the opening statements of the work, which are at once more limited and more profound than expected. While the Peloponnesian War was a con¯ict on a larger scale from an Hellenic perspective and of longer duration than any war Thucydides' generation knew, the deeper signi®cance is not what was achieved by Hellas but what happened to it. Whole cities su¨ered unprecedented destruction from plague, war and stasis. The whole string of unprecedented achievements ± the largest navies and armies, the greatest battles and most destructive sieges, etc. ± are only agents for Hellas' self-in¯icted harm. The ``greatest kinesis'' started only ®fty years after the peak of Hellenic unity and achievement. The Pentekontaetia was written to chart and explain this transition. Neither the Pentekontaetia nor the History as we have it, however, presents clear, fully workedout answers to the questions arising naturally from Thucydides' explanatory superlatives: why Athens' empire and and why Sparta's fear? The answer is not so obvious, for as we have seen each of the interrelated phenomena breaks historical patterns in Hellas. Thus the Pentekontaetia is unsatisfactory, but in ways other than those usually suggested. The ultimate explanation of the growing empire and fear and the consequent deep rift in Hellas, as opposed to the origin and development of these factors, which were satisfactorily traced, may be something Thucydides did not entirely understand himself ± or did not have time to write. Like his account of the epidemic in Athens, which he was at a loss to explain, Thucydides merely reported the facts as carefully (and suggestively) as he could, rigorously selecting what he thought was relevant to report. It is important, however, to keep in view what Thucydides did not write because he did not intend to do so. Thucydides presents the Athenian empire only insofar as it was part of a larger process. Many details which seem of central importance to us are thus left out of focus or omitted altogether, because of the greater programmatic requirement to describe how the di¨erent Hellenic states lined up behind Athens or Sparta. There is, after all, much less evidence than usually assumed for Thucydides' personal opinion about the Athenian empire. This absence, which marks not

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only the Pentekontaetia but the entire History, is not always admitted. There are of course many opinions about the empire expressed in speeches and the Melian Dialogue, at a high emotional pitch.62 Thucydides is very clear about what certain Hellenes were thinking and saying about the Athenian empire, but he lets slip little emotion of his own, and an authorial opinion, with or without emotion, also proves to be elusive.63 Thucydides' reticence to express openly his own opinion of the Athenian empire on the one hand, and the mass of possible material in the History to interpret on the other, have given rise to a huge modern literature characterized by almost every possible suggestion regarding which passages contain Thucydides' own opinion, and what that opinion is.64 Above all, it has been said many times and in many guises that the entire History is an account of the tragedy of the Athenian empire, or a severe reaction against the excesses of empire, or a gloomy meditation on the nature of imperial power and its abuse. These views, however, are not purely Thucydidean, but a hybrid of Thucydides and modern opinions, predilections and preoccupations. An opinion about empire was in any case not required by the announced purpose of the Pentekontaetia or the History as a whole, for that declared aim is not to explain or judge the Athenian empire, much less empire per se, but to explain the circumstances and causes of the con¯ict between the Athenian and Peloponnesian alliances. The empire does indeed lie at the heart of what Thucydides himself identi®es as the ``truest reason'' of the war: it is the source of Sparta's apprehension so profound as to go to war; it is what gave Athens the strength to pursue the war against all expectations of the Hellenes themselves and after so many devastating setbacks, making the Peloponnesian War the ``greatest kinesis''; and it is what had either to be destroyed or to prevail in order for the great war to end. The Spartans gained 62 An oddity, however: except for the Mytilenians' speech at Olympia, there is no extended discussion of the Athenian subjects' grievances by the subjects themselves. Opportunities abounded to put an elenchos of the empire in the mouth of an ``ally.'' Yet we hear about resentment and grievances in cliche s and slogans from the Athenians' Peloponnesian enemies and the Athenians themselves (see Chapter 3). Cf. de Ste. Croix 1954 and Bradeen 1960; de Romilly 1963, 92±6; Crane 1998, 176±87. 63 On what follows, see the thoughtful remarks by Hornblower 1987, 171¨. 64 Most notable is de Romilly 1963, see now Crane 1998; Cawkwell 1997b, 92±106 is convinced Thucydides was an ``imperialist''; for a recent bibliography, mostly on technical historical issues, CAH v2, 535±9.

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hope after Athens' defeat in Sicily, Thucydides says, because they knew that if they won the war they would be free from all the dangers the Athenian empire imposed (8.2.4). In fact, at the end of the war the Peloponnesian allies suggested totally destroying the city of Athens, but Sparta settled for totally destroying the empire, not the city: they required surrender of the ¯eet, destruction of the Long Walls and the walls around Piraeus, dismantlement of the mechanisms of the empire (Xen. HG 2.2.19±23). In Thucydides' History, the Athenian empire is a reported fact and part of a large historical process, not the subject for isolated judgment or investigation. the persians The Persian Wars concentrated the Hellenes' sense of identity, common culture and purpose. Persia became a symbol for everything not Hellenic. Rhetoric which set the cultured, freedomloving Hellene against the barbaric, Persian slave of tyranny, became a ®xture in Greek literature and a common theme in politics throughout the ®fth and fourth centuries.65 It is signi®cant, then, that a central rhetorical strategy of the Peloponnesians was to turn against the Athenians the proud and fearful phrases forged in consequence of the Persian Wars (Chapter 3). The theme of liberation required little invention, merely transference of decades-old rhetoric from a foreign, non-Hellenic enemy to a Hellenic one. As we have seen, the speakers in Thucydides' History seem not to have struggled very long with the implications of directing those familiar arrows against fellow Hellenes, but this nonchalance matches the ease with which certain Hellenes actually solicited aid from the King during the war, promising as recompense control over other Hellenes. This is information which Thucydides handles very carefully, yet in such a way as to have raised numerous interpretive problems and as many theories about his ultimate intentions. Everyone can agree at least that Thucydides exercised exceptional control over what were among the most relevant facts regarding 65 E. Hall 1989; cf. the articles in Arethusa 29.2 (1996) on the ``new Simonides,'' particularly Boedeker 1996. For the ``oriental other'' in art, Miller 1995. On what follows see also Erbse 1989a, 93¨. Tzifopoulos 1995 properly stresses the importance of the Persian Wars in Thucydides' historical conception, but I cannot agree with his analysis of the ``topos'' in Thucydides' speeches.

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the nature and depth of Hellas' division in the Peloponnesian War. Already before the war breaks out the Spartan king Archidamus ± who is considered by most readers to be a voice of moderation ± advises turning to the Persian king for help in ships and money, the two things which the Spartans most obviously lacked: It should not be begrudged those who, like ourselves, are plotted against by the Athenians, to see to their own safety by procuring the aid not only of Hellenes but also of barbaroi.66 (1.82.1)

This is almost certainly a deliberate echo of words the Spartans had just heard the Athenians themselves use: It should not be begrudged to anyone to make the most of his advantages in matters of gravest danger.67 (1.75.5)

Ironically, the Athenians feel completely justi®ed in maintaining a hegemony whose origin is the common cause against the barbaros, while Archidamus assumes every right to ®ght that Hellenic hegemony by introducing the barbaros. This suggests substantially different assessments of the relationship between the Hellenes and the barbaros, as well as of the Hellenes' responsibilities to one another and to their common Hellenic identity, toÁ ÿ EllhnikoÂn. The Spartans adopted Archidamus' ideas in this matter, if not in his main purpose of delaying the war. They sent out embassies to Persia before the war broke out (2.7.1). In the year 430 Athens seized and killed a Peloponnesian embassy to the King (2.67, Hdt. 7.137) and again in 425 a Persian envoy returning from Sparta was captured, carrying a dispatch disclosing the existence of many previous contacts (4.50). Spartan diplomatic e¨orts did not bear fruit, however, until much later. The Athenians may also have sent embassies to the Persians during this early period in the war, but their purpose would have 66 anepi jqonon de , osoi wsper kaiÁ hÿmeiÄ v uÿ p'  A qhnai wn e pibouleuo meqa, mhÁ  Ellhnav moÂnon, allaÁ kaiÁ barba rouv proslaboÂntav diaswqhÄ nai. See Lewis 1977, 63±4; he thinks that kaiÁ hÿmeiÄ v ``suggests . . . plots against the barbarians as well,'' but this is not necessary. It will be remembered that the Lacedaemonians had cleared everyone out and were holding a private assembly. Thus kaiÁ hÿmeiÄ v means ``in addition to other Hellenes,'' i.e., the Corinthians. Cf. also Lewis 1989, 230. 67 paÄsi deÁ anepi jqonon taÁ xumje ronta twÄn megi stwn pe ri kindu nwn eu ti qesqai. Quite unlike the ``answers'' planted by the omniscient hisorian in speeches separated from each other, both Archidamus and his audience heard the Athenian speech, so that authorial arti®ce is less of an issue here.

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been di¨erent. It is usually thought, on the basis of the following sentence, that the Athenians, like the Spartans, solicited Persian aid as part of their preparations for war: . . . the Athenians started preparing for war, and the Spartans and their allies also started preparing, intending to send embassies to the King and to barbarians elsewhere, each in the hope of securing help wherever they could.68 (2.7.1)

The syntax is unclear (thus the awkward translation). The scholiast recognized a problem in the apparent implication that the Athenians sent embassies to the King, and commented, ``The Lacedaemonians sent to the Persians, the Athenians to the Thracians,'' which accords with the information in the text: the Spartans as we have seen did communicate with the Persians from the beginning of the war, while the Athenians developed contacts with the barbaroi in Thrace and Macedonia (2.29). This solution was accepted by Classen but rejected by Wade-Gery, and after him by Gomme and Hornblower on grammatical grounds,69 since eÿ kaÂteroi would naturally ± but not necessarily ± refer to those who sent embassies to the King and ``barbaroi elsewhere.'' Yet strictly grammatical expectations, as often in Thucydides, are disappointed. One should ask what the respective purposes of embassies to the King from Sparta and Athens would be. Thucydides is speci®c about Sparta's purpose but not Athens': Sparta sought money and ships, which the King was most able to provide. Athens had both of these in abundance. If the war remained limited to the Hellenes, the Periclean naval strategy did not require more strength on land or other material support than was already available. The ®rst Athenian embassy to Persia recorded later by Thucydides is not a discrete piece of information but part of the report of the capture of the Persian envoy Artaphernes from Sparta (4.50.3). Athenian ambassadors accompanied Artaphernes back to the King; that is, the embassy was initiated by the capture of the Persian envoy on a mission to Sparta. At this stage, the Athenians had things well in hand, having rejected Sparta's peace o¨er, prevailed at Pylos and scored further successes; their defeat 68 oiÿ  A qhnaiÄ oi pareskeuaÂzonto wÿv polemhÂsontev, pareskeuaÂzonto deÁ kaiÁ Lakedaimo nioi kaiÁ oiÿ xuÂmmacoi, presbei av te me llontev pe mpein paraÁ basile a kaiÁ a llose proÁv touÁv barba rouv, ei poqe n tina wjeli an hlpizon eÿ ka teroi proslhÂyesqai. 69 Wade-Gery 1940; Gomme and Hornblower commentaries ad loc.

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at Delion was in the future. For the same reasons, the Spartans' felt need (whether or not it was real) for Persian aid would have been more pressing than ever before. This is exactly what the Athenians would have wanted to stop, and it would thus have been their logical reason for sending an embassy to the King.70 The mission to Persia coincided roughly with a change in reign, and Thucydides reports that the Athenian emissaries got as far as Ephesus before learning of Artaxerxes' death and returning home. The supposed Athenian treaty with the new king Darius,71 of which there is no trace in Thucydides, would have had the same purpose: the Athenians and the Persians would stay out of each other's way. It is true that by then, Athenian con®dence would have been impaired by the defeat at Delion, but equally Darius was having di½culty ®rming up his hold on power and wanted no interference from the Athenians, who had well proven their resilience after setbacks and their willingness and ability to carry on wars on more than one front. Thus even if 2.7.1, quoted above, says (although I do not believe it does) that Athens sought the King's aid at the beginning of the war, Athens' purpose would still have been to counteract the Spartan embassies. Apparently Persia was persuaded by Athens or had reasons of its own for staying out of the war until Athens' weakness after the Sicilian debacle signaled an opportunity, for indeed signi®cant Persian assistance to the Spartans and meddling in Hellenic politics, as well as the machinations of the two rival satraps, begin in Thucydides' account of the year 412. If the Athenians struck some sort of mutual non-intervention agreement with Darius in or around 424/3, that does not, given 70 See CT ii, 207±9 for discussion and bibliography, esp. regarding work on Persian sources. 71 Andoc. 3.29, ML 70; the dating and context of this evidence (and the veracity of Andocides) are insecure; see Lewis 1977, 76±7, 82. The favored date of 424/3, when Darius was struggling to establish his rule more ®rmly, would ®t with my suggested construction, as would Raubitschek's suggestion of 415 (Raubitschek 1964). Aristoph. Ach. 646±51, produced in 425, reveals knowledge of Spartan embassies to Persia and perhaps even something of their content (request for ships), and the appearance of the Persian ambassador at the beginning of the play (returning in any case with Athenians sent out six years before the war, see l. 67), if it means anything historical at all (see Lewis 64 n. 93), makes sense in this context. Regarding the reference at Knights 478 to Cleon accusing his enemies of collusion with the Persians, Gomme aptly remarks, ``we must not make much of it, for the comedy lies in the fact that all Kleon's accusations are from stock, readymade, and the charge of Medism was one of the oldest and now had least meaning'' (HCT iii, 499).

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their energy, opportunism and ultimate designs, contradict their probable support of Pissouthnes' rebellion a few years later or their de®nite support (con®rmed by Thucydides) of the continuation of his rebellion by his bastard son Amorges a few years after that (8.28.3±4, 54.3±4, cf. 19.2).72 On the contrary, their purpose would have been the same: keeping Persia out of the war and guaranteeing themselves freedom of movement. Rebellion in the western Asian satrapies absorbed Persian attention and resources and in general destabilized the Persian government there. Athens' support of Amorges' rebellion in Caria became untenable after the heavy losses in Sicily, which forced the city abruptly to shift its policy and enter into a diplomatic struggle with Sparta for Persia's material support: the Athenians turned from prevention to solicitation. That meant that Amorges had to be dropped ± an easy thing to do since his action had little hope of success and the bene®t both he and his father had provided had turned into a liability. The Athenian Phrynichus found the right arguments (8.27.3), re¯ecting the reality in the year 412; probably the decision to withdraw support from Amorges had already been taken. The exact month and occasion of this decision are not known. Thucydides could write at 8.5.5 that Tissaphernes was planning to use the Spartans to weaken the Athenians, who had interfered with the collection of tribute in his satrapy, and at the same time deal with Amorges. The Athenians had not yet made overtures to Persia and were still seen by the King as dangerously supporting the Persian rebel. At 8.28.3±4 Thucydides records Amorges' being taken alive by Tissaphernes after the Athenians stopped protecting him, and at 8.54.3±4 Peisander accuses Phrynichus of abandoning Amorges. The latter passage is the basis for the belief that Athens had been supporting Amorges up to the point of capture and had intended 72 The date of Pissouthnes' insurrection, an event recorded only in a late source, is unknown, but the end of the 420s seems most plausible (Ctesias, FGrH 688 f15; Lewis 1977, 80±1). The Athenians were in high con®dence then. According to Ctesias, Pissouthnes was aided by ``Hellenic'' soldiers commanded by an Athenian, Lycon; Lewis rules out that these soldiers were in the o½cial employ of Athens, but I do not see why this is necessary, nor why Lycon's switch to the Persian side in return for money could not be interpreted as pure and simple corruption. Pissouthnes' death is also undated, but occurred before 413/12, when we hear about Amorges' rebellion, Thuc. 8.5.5, cf. Andoc. 3.29. ML 77, l. 79 records a payment in 414 possibly made in support of Amorges (less plausibly Pissouthnes); Lewis, 86. For further bibliography and illumination of more minute points of Athens' involvement with Persia, see HCT v, 12±18 and CT i, 180±1.

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to continue doing so but for the capture. But this was the subject of an internal Athenian quarrel and shall not detain us.73 Thucydides' virtual silence about Persian activity during the war until 412 matches a pre-war omission, the ``Peace of Callias,'' which, if real, represented an important stage in the build-up of Athens' empire, removing all remnants of the original pretext of the Delian League.74 These silences have caused consternation among critics. Andrewes o¨ered the explanation of incomplete composition and revision: Thucydides' late realization of the importance of Persia made him go back and insert important items before 411, but he was unable to complete this task for the same reason that he was unable to ®nish writing the History. As with all such hypotheses, this one is not provable. Yet in the present case, not internal inconsistency but external information gave rise to doubts and questions; and given Thucydides' extremely rigorous selection of data, we should never automatically construe missing information as a sign of incompletion. Without such sources as Ephorus (in Diodorus), Andocides and inscriptions, a problem would not be felt. That is, the question should be asked: can we make sense of what we have? The Persian items absent from Thucydides' text all have to do with the withdrawal or limitation of Persian involvement in Hellenic politics. Thucydides duly records Persian involvement in the Samian war (1.115.4) and at Colophon in 430 (3.34), and as we have seen Spartan and eventually Athenian overtures to Persia during the Peloponnesian War, as well as active Persian involvement after that (1.82.1; 2.7.1, 67.1; 3.31.1 (cf. 34.2); 4.50; 5.1; Book 8 passim). No one has found an instance of Persian interference in 73 Thucydides declares Peisander's charge a slander (diabalo ntov, die balen), and the same Assembly in which Peisander falsely accused Phrynichus a½rmed the plan to negotiate with Tissaphernes, who had been appointed satrap speci®cally to suppress the revolt and whose aid the Athenians now urgently needed. The Athenian assemblies in Athens and Samos are not said to have had qualms about Persian aid, only about recalling Alcibiades and about the form of the government in Athens. Peisander tried to use judicial and political procedure to attack an opponent ± an act which is to be expected in stasis. Thus 8.54.3 marks the change in policy which had occurred earlier ± but exactly when is not known. 74 So great is Thucydides' authority that some scholars have cautiously doubted the existence of the peace. Literature and discussion by Lewis, CAH v2, 121±7; see now Cawkwell 1997a (arguing that the peace in 449 was real); cf. Andrewes 1961, 15±18; also Badian 1993 ch. 1.

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Hellenic a¨airs which Thucydides omits.75 Thucydides uses the Persian presence to underscore the division in Hellas: less than two generations after Persia had come to represent abomination and the antithesis of Hellas, Hellenic states allied with Persia against other Hellenic states. Thucydides' ®nal judgment regarding the historical importance of Persian involvement is quite clearly expressed in 2.65.12, where he records the decisive factors in Athens' ultimate demise: the defeat in Sicily, the stasis in Athens, the revolt of most of Athens' allies, and Cyrus, ``who provided the Peloponnesians money for a ¯eet.'' This sentence was necessarily written after the war and thus re¯ects Thucydides' ultimate thoughts. According to his interpretation, the material support Persia o¨ered did not become crucial in the war until a very late stage indeed, in fact later than the period the extant History covers; the meddling of the satraps after 412 was important enough to be recorded but had not yet vitally changed the course of events. As Lewis remarked: ``It is frequently overlooked that, for Thucydides, looking back at the end of the war, the contributions made to the war against Athens by Tissaphernes and Pharnabazos could be simply ignored and . . . he found Cyrus alone worth mentioning.''76 The rival satraps do ®gure prominently in the interwoven narratives of Athens' stasis, the outbreak of smaller staseis throughout the Aegean and the series of skirmishes between Athens and Sparta (see Chapter 6). The involvement of Persia spelled the end of uni®ed Hellenic identity. Just as factional loyalties in individual stasis-riven cities took precedence over family ties and all the more so loyalty to the city as whole, so on a larger scale the parties in the Hellenic war did not hesitate to bring in Persia, Hellas' enemy of near-mythical proportion. Thus Persian contacts were recorded in some detail when they advanced beyond the level of exploratory diplomacy. The satraps' involvement or even the threat of it spurred people and states to action. There was also a reason to mention the diplomatic activity before that, especially on Sparta's part, even if full details did not have to be given. The very fact of appeals to the 75 See the assembled evidence in Wade-Gery 1940, 143¨. 76 Lewis 1977, 132 n. 139; quoted also by Hornblower CT i, 348±9.

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Persians from the very beginning of the war revealed the actual condition of Hellenic disunity at an earlier stage; furthermore, it belied Sparta's claim to be liberators of Hellas and undermined the rhetorical equation of Athens with Persia. But in the ®nal account, as Lewis said, Thucydides did not attach crucial signi®cance to Tissaphernes' and Pharnabazos' involvement at this stage. Tissaphernes is held in the spell of Alcibiades and constantly equivocates. Thucydides even remarks that ``it was all too obvious that [ Tissaphernes] was not joining the war with any enthusiasm'' (8.46.5).77 The invitations to the Persians were disgraceful, according to later opinion.78 We cannot know whether the rhetoric of the fourth century abominating Persian assistance began during the war. There is no trace of it in Thucydides' History. The report of Gorgias' admonition near the end of the war is too fragmentary to judge, although our source reports that Gorgias was watching his words so as not to o¨end and thus avoided the topic of Hellenic unity at Athens.79 The chorus in Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae (356±67) express the same doubts about soliciting Persian aid as must have been raised in the Athenian assembly at the time, but this does not match the post-war revulsion. Thucydides' Spartans justify Persian involvement by adapting Athens' own rhetoric justifying empire (Chapter 3), and Athens' other enemies adopt the Persian Wars as a model for their own war against the tyrant-city Athens. Thucydides' Athenians are strangely silent on the matter and, before they themselves become involved with Tissaphernes, do not take the easy rhetorical pro®t from the Peloponnesians' collaboration with the Persian. For his part, Thucydides reports the activities of Tissaphernes and Pharnabazos in both the Hellenic war and Athens' stasis matter-of-factly, with few programmatic statements to guide the reader's opinion and understanding, and (notoriously) without any direct speeches on the subject per se to provide insight into the participants' own minds.80 What we ®nd 77 8.87.4±5 o¨ers a tentative analysis of Tissaphernes' reasons, but essentially they follow Alcibiades' advice to him in ch. 46. 78 See e.g. Pl. Menex. 243b; cf. Wade-Gery 1940, 152±4. Our Athenian sources mention only Spartan involvement with Persia as a factor in Athens' defeat. 79 DK 82a1; Hellenic unity was, however, his theme at Olympia, DK 82b7±8. 80 On this point, speculation about what would have been in the ®nal version is exceptionally idle.

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are merely indications of the worsening condition. Alcibiades, for instance, in an indirect speech, advises Tissaphernes to let the Hellenes wear themselves out on each other and eventually ally himself with the Athenians, with whom the Persians have a better basis for common cause; the Spartans, he is reported as saying, would be betraying their announced purpose of liberating the Hellenes if they leagued with the Persians, so they are not to be trusted. Alcibiades' accurate analysis of the corruption of Spartan rhetoric is used to support a false conclusion ± that the Spartans would not actually ful®ll their bargain with the Persians ± and only draws Persia deeper into the struggle.81 Even the Spartan envoy Lichas, objecting indignantly that the Spartans were bringing the Hellenes ``Persian rule instead of freedom,'' suggests that a ``di¨erent and better'' treaty be negotiated, not that Persian aid should be dispensed with altogether; and the second treaty incorporated as much a betrayal of the Hellenes in Asia as the ®rst. Thucydides' quoting the texts of Persian treaties with Sparta only strengthened his picture of utter corruption. Whether or not he would have kept them verbatim in the ®nal version of the History (I believe he would have), each document's repeated emphasis on Persia and Sparta waging war against Athens ``in common'' koinhÄÎ (8.18.1, 37.4, 58.7) served his thematic purpose well. Common cause between Hellenes and Persians against Hellenes ± especially those Hellenes claiming legitimately to be the heroes of the Persian Wars ± would have elicited from the readers of Thucydides' generation a visceral and instinctive reaction, particularly in those who identi®ed with the Hellenic outlook of Thucydides' Archaeology and the theme of noteworthy Hellenic accomplishment achieved by common action, koinhÄÎ. t h u c y d i d e s' h e l l a s After seeing the centrality of Hellas in Thucydides' thought, and its disuni®cation and disintegration as a main theme of his writing, one would like to know more about the precise nature and characteristics of Hellas in Thucydides' mind. Surely the abstract 81 Tissaphernes is convinced: 8.47.1, 56.2, 87.4; it is interesting that Thucydides admits he must extrapolate Tissaphernes' motives, 8.46.5, 56.2, 87.4; see Lewis 1958, Lateiner 1976. Thucydides presents Tissaphernes as interfering in the Hellenic war in order to seek his own advantage at the King's court; cf. 8.5.5, 28.2±3, 6 (Pharnabazos).

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neuter term toÁ ÿ E llhniko n (1.1.1, 6.6, 15.3; 3.82.1; cf. 4.20.4) represents an overarching notion, ``the Hellenic entity'' or ``the whole Hellenic world'' as opposed to just ``Hellas'' in a geographical sense.82 We have argued that the Archaeology provides a basic Thucydidean notion of Hellas. This has served our argument so far, but when we turn actually to examine in detail the features of Thucydides' ``Hellas'' we ®nd insu½cient information. The Archaeology's unerring focus on ``noteworthy achievement,'' measured primarily in military and political terms, means that other aspects are brought in only as needed to reinforce the central argument. The cultural details in the Archaeology, as we have stated, indicate a notion of Hellas, but they do not amount to a comprehensive picture, and there is no single passage in the rest of the History which can be quoted as a clear and concise expression of Thucydides' idea. The History contains no statement like Herodotus' famous de®nition of Hellas, set in a patriotic Athenian speech, as ``our shared Hellenic identity: our kinship and common language, the gods' shrines and sacri®ces which belong to all of us as well as our habits and character which stem from a common upbringing'' (8.144.2). There is, to be sure, nothing in Thucydides' History which contradicts this; the cultural indicators of Hellas' development in the Archaeology are even consistent with it. But those cultural aspects are clearly not the only or even the main factors which comprise Hellas as presented in the Archaeology. Hellas in Thucydides' History incorporates Herodotus' de®nition, but intends something more.83 To be sure, the speakers in the History refer to Hellas as a coherent unity which must be preserved and defended. In the ®rst debate in the History, the Corinthians proclaim, ``Our claims based on justice are consistent with Hellenic practice and understanding'' (1.41.1), and such expressions repeat fairly regularly, as we have seen. Sparta's main propagandistic claim to ``liberate Hellas'' is prominently featured in several speeches (Chapter 3). Athens' answer to the charge of ``enslaving Hellas'' was that it was in fact Hellas' leader, and at home Athenians told each other that they had advanced beyond the Hellenic commonality. Thus Thucydides' 82 See Solmsen 1971 on Thucydides' use of neuters. 83 In what follows, I di¨er strongly with de Romilly 1963, 100±1, but see de Romilly 1968, 216¨. for Greek ideas of Greek unity; Walbank 1951 is also helpful.

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speeches indicate a sense of common, shared identity with physical contours which had to be defended against un-Hellenic enemies and organized under its strongest state. The speakers reveal an awareness, at least at ®rst, that not only was the leadership of Hellas at stake in the war, but also that Hellas itself was in jeopardy. This cannot be pressed too far, however, for as we have seen practically every mention of Hellas in the speeches is divisive, exclusive of other Hellenes rather than inclusive ± a retreat from or corruption of Thucydides' Hellas in the Archaeology ± and thus only another sign that Hellas became disuni®ed as a result of the war. Hellenic unity in the face of common danger was of course a Herodotean theme,84 and the awareness of a special Hellenic character and identity is everywhere evident in his History. Naturally Herodotus does not present a rosy picture of perfect Hellenic unity, since certain Hellenic individuals and states, even with the Persians pressing down hard, are shown to act in a sel®sh and short-sighted manner; but these ¯aws only bring out the humanity in the general picture of the Hellenes' struggle with both the Persians and themselves. It is signi®cant that Herodotus calls rivalry among the Hellenes stasis emphylos (8.3.1), which is so far as as I can tell unparalleled.85 Herodotus' vision was not unique but fairly represents the general attitude and feeling of Hellenes in the ®fth century arising from the great victory over Persia. Archaic ``Panhellenism'' was much more limited.86 Yet while Hellenic unity was easy to talk about, no one o¨ered a better or more extensive 84 See esp. Hdt. 7.145, the Hellenes decided they should unite: e n te ge noito toÁ ÿ EllhnikoÂn. Herodotus either demonstrates or intimates Hellenic unity passim, e.g. 5.49.2; 7.101±4 (Spartan a reth and noÂmov), 157±62; 8.30 (but note 8.27); 9.7 (note Spartan ambivalent response, 9.8±10; etc. By contrast, in the age of Herodotus the following could still be written: ``The greatest undertakings are carried through by means of concord, including wars between city-states; there is no other way'' ( Democritus DK b250). Thrasymachus DK b1, written during the war, was probably speaking not about Hellas but the stasis in Athens during the war; see Yunis 1997 against White 1995. 85 Theog. 781 does not mean stasis between Hellenes but as a general condition a¿icting Hellenic poleis. 86 Hesiod, WD 528; Archil. 102.1; Pind. Isth. 2.38, 3.47; Ion 26.3; Cratinus 1.3; Aristoxenus 45.1.2; (Homer Il. 2.530 is probably a later interpolation); the term Pane llhnev may distinguish northern Hellenes from southern, see M. L. West 1978, 292 and E. Hall 1989, 7¨. At most, these early uses indicate only the embryonic form of Herodotus' idea, distinguishing those who speak Greek and participate in the festivals, without such a sharp contrast with the rest of the world. It should be remembered that our attribution of ``Panhellenic'' to festivals, deities, sanctuaries and poets (see Richardson 1992, who

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de®nition of Hellas than Herodotus'. It will be useful to remember this in our attempt to understand Thucydides. Fifth-century literature routinely glori®es the victory over Persia ± the outstanding example in our surviving corpus is Aeschylus' Persae (cf. e.g. 402¨.) ± and states the need for Hellas to end its internal ®ghting and unite for common cause. Aristophanes' insistence on this point in his wartime plays has been interpreted as ``Panhellenism,''87 and Gorgias was said to have delivered a strong speech at Olympia with the same theme.88 Euripides speaks of the ``nomos of all Hellenes'' (oÿ PanellhÂnwn no mov), surely one of the elements every Hellene thought separated himself from the rest of the world.89 These authors, if pressed to de®ne carefully what they meant by ``Hellene,'' would probably have produced something like Herodotus' de®nition. It has been rightly emphasized that these ®fth-century expressions of Hellenic identity are vague, more of a feeling ± ``sentimental Panhellenism''90 ± than a carefully worked out world-view, and certainly nothing so strong or compelling as to inspire any type of coherent political program for Hellas as a whole. The understanding of Hellas in opposition to the barbarian world remained, without contradiction, both an idea and a sentiment which turned into a linguistic habit. It never had an ultimately political purpose. Granted Hdt. 8.144.2 has repercussions which are political in a pure sense, since the Athenians decided to ®ght together with the Hellenes instead of going over to the Persians, but this sort of ``Panhellenic'' feeling had no internal political consequences at the level of ``Hellas.'' In the ®fth century, political union was not the unrealized logical result of the unifying characteristics the Hellenes perceived in themselves. It is true that hegemonies ±

87 88 89 90

[ pp. 243±4] suggests a link between the disappearance of epinician poetry and the divisiveness of the Peloponnesian War) is a modern usage, and moreover does not contain a hint of Isocratean ``Panhellenism.'' See Luccioni 1961, 1; Perlman 1976, 4±6. For a survey of ``Panhellenic'' expressions before Demosthenes, see Luccioni, 1±10; Strasburger 1954a; note also J. Hall 1995 observing the ``oppositional'' character of Hellenic self-de®nition. The several funeral orations we have, and the ones we know about, decidedly do not propound Panhellenic themes, see Loraux 1986a, 92±5. See already Hugill 1936 who focuses mostly on the Lysistrata (esp. 572±86, the allegory of carded ¯eece, and 1128±34, and Pax 302f., 1098). DK 82b7±8; cf. Ar. Rhet. 1414b 30. Supp. 526, 671, also 311; pane llhnev elsewhere in Euripides, Tr. 413, 721; IA 414, and 1272±5 for an oft-quoted contrast of Hellene and barbaros. See Walbank 1951, 54 n. 48. Luccioni 1961, 3.

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i.e. the Athenian ± spoke occasionally of realizing Panhellenistic ideals in political form, and Pericles initiated the three ``Panhellenic'' experiments of a conference of all Hellenes, the expansion of the Panathenaea festival and the foundation of Thurii ± all failures, if judged by their announced purpose, for they did nothing to unite the Hellenic world behind Athens in spirit. Thus Periclean ``Panhellenism'' (except for the conference, which failed utterly) has been recognized from the ®fth century to the present day as a means of strengthening Athens' control of its own empire, or alternatively as the product of internal rivalries in Athens, in any case not as any signi®cant Panhellenic accomplishment in fact or theory.91 For his part Thucydides mentions none of the experiments. What, then, can we know about the de®nition of Hellas in Thucydides' History? In the absence of a clear, declarative de®nition, I would propose that the story of the Hellenic war and the great damage Hellas in¯icted on itself amounts to a kind of de®nition. Knowledge of the breakdown allows retroactive de®nition, within limits, of what broke down. A great, if partial narrative of a vastly destructive internal war contains within it a notion of what was destroyed. Although Thucydides' de®nition extends beyond Herodotus', we may recall that every single element in Herodotus' de®nition is corrupted or destroyed in Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. The Hellenes' ``common language'' became severely disturbed. Certain key terms in Hellas' moral vocabulary ceased to rest on shared and implicit understanding, and the Hellenes redrew their koinwni a and rede®ned each other. The overall result of these linguistic disturbances was that successful communication disappeared. Thucydides' own view may lie between the contradictions in the competing de®nitions of and claims on Hellas, Hellenic kinship and Hellenic character. Contingent on the 91 See Perlman 1976, 6±17, and esp. his three points on pp. 5±6. On Pericles' Panhellenic congress decree see also Larsen 1944, 158±9; the authenticity was challenged by Seager 1969 with an argument con®rmed but modi®ed by Bosworth 1971; Walsh 1981 defends the authenticity but in a complicated argument bizarrely dates the Peace of Callias to the 460s; a level-headed defense of the decree is now Cawkwell 1997a; Bloedow 1996 also defends it. For the argument that ``the view that Greek history is the struggle for the national state must be rejected'' and a review of scholars who have held that view, see Walbank 1951, esp. p. 56; also M. Finley 1975 (who does not di¨er from Walbank as much as he thinks).

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transvaluations of words, the Hellenes' actions ceased to be governed by shared ethical concepts, which may be implied in Herodotus' phrase, ``habits and character.'' New extremes of brutality and cruelty, carefully recorded by Thucydides, were reached in the war, and ``the gods' shrines and sacri®ces'' were abused and exploited. Treaties were disregarded or used opportunistically, neutrality became impossible, lust for revenge and personal power motivated individuals and states. Thus while in the Archaeology Thucydides demonstrates Hellas' gradual but emphatic separation from the cultural habits of the barbaroi, in the course of the war Hellenes everywhere reverted to the worst forms of behavior that the barbarians represented in the ®fth-century mind:92 brutality, the abandonment of noble qualities, violations of Hellenic conventions or, again, Herodotus' ``habits and character.'' Macleod's observation that stasis in Thucydides' view ``is the undoing of human progress by the very means of that progress''93 applies to the entire war. The way the massacre at Mycalessus is described, for example, the Thracians' ability to be ``like the most barbaric tribe, most murderous when they are least afraid,'' is shared by the Hellenic genos, who by Thucydides' own evidence, in the heat of this war, violated temples, trampled sanctions, crudely exploited oaths, disregarded appeals to justice and pity, and carried out awful massacres, the only di¨erence between them and the barbaroi being that the Hellenes appealed to principle while they killed. ``Every form of wickedness arose in the Hellenic world . . . and that simple goodness which is a major part of nobility was derisively mocked out of existence'' (3.83.1). Thucydides places greater emphasis on the ethical and moral aspects of each one of Herodotus' elements of Hellenic identity, but there is a further di¨erence. In light of the main themes of the Archaeology and the main focus of the war narrative, Thucydides' Hellas had a fundamentally political potential. Hellas formed originally, and afterwards achieved noteworthy things, only when united politically as Hellas. By the time of the war, Hellas of course ± one might say willfully ± had lost the ability to unite for great enterprise. After passing the critical point of the Persian 92 E. Hall 1989, passim and esp. 102¨.; Diller 1961; Green 1996, containing references to previous work. 93 Macleod 1979, 54.

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Wars, its powers and potential were turned in on itself and a great rift developed. If Herodotus directly addressed the question of Hellenic solidarity in the face of a monstrously un-Hellenic enemy, Thucydides probed further the question of the true nature of any war between Hellenes. We re¯exively hesitate to conclude that Thucydides was a Panhellenist ahead of his time. In the fourth century, looking back over the wreckage of the Peloponnesian War, Hellenes were able to see the con¯ict as fratricidal.94 That realization did not, of course, bring an end to inter-Hellenic strife, but it did, especially when coupled with the Macedonian threat, give birth to grand Panhellenic programs and ideas.95 The rudiments of those ideas were present already in Thucydides' time, perhaps pondered and discussed by his intellectual contemporaries more extensively than we know. Yet if Thucydides explored this issue and took it further than most, he did not write his History solely for that purpose, even less to advocate a political program. There is very little authoritative, unambiguous material in the History to use in reconstructing a platform on almost any issue. We would go even further astray if we tried to see Thucydides as laying the groundwork for modern paci®sm, even if, in vaguely similar fashion, the two world wars of this century have been construed by some as European ``civil wars.'' Thucydides' subject was a single, long, intense, destructive war. This war was the ``greatest kinesis'' to occur in recorded history, both because of the strengths of the warring alliances and the length of the con¯ict, and because of the extent of human suffering and general loss, above all, of what had in Thucydides' eyes made Hellas great. 94 There were intimations of this already in the ®fth century, see above, nn. 86±89. And note the extreme view of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in comparing Herodotus' subject matter with Thucydides', that the Peloponnesian War should have been consigned to oblivion (Letter to Gn. Pompey 3.2). On stasis and the end of the polis, see Runciman 1990, 349±50, from which I have learned a great deal through disagreement. 95 Note Pl. Resp. 470b±d; Ar. Pol. 7.7.3, a much-discussed passage, despaired of Greek political unity ever being achieved. Note further that Isocrates in his Panegyricus pays little attention to the ®fth century from the Persian invasions to the end of the Peloponnesian War. More congenial to his purpose was history from mythological times.

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General index

Abydus see stasis Acanthus 230, 252, 296±8, see also stasis Acarnania 232, 357 n. 50, see also stasis Achaea see stasis Acte 252 Aegina 164 n. 79, 172, 214, 275 Aeolia, Aeolians 155, 294 Aetolia 221, 227 n. 47, 273 n. 138 Agamemnon 298, 334, 336, 340±1, 343 Agis 312 Agrigentum see stasis Alcibiades 146, 171, 188, 218, 226, 227, 242, 246±8, 249, 254±63, 271±2, 305±8, 314, 315, 316, 317, 322, 326, 368 n. 73, 370, 371, see also speeches Alcidas 145 n. 40, 213, 214, 263 Ambraciots 156 n. 61, 359 American Civil War 33±4, 35 Amorges 367±8 Amphilochia 232, 342 n. 13 Amphipolis 223, 228, 252, 253 n. 104, 264, 265, 291, 298±9, 357 n. 30, see also stasis Anactorium see stasis Anaia 292 Anaximander 22 Andocides 366 andragathia 97±8 Androcles 308 Andros 290 n. 33 Antandrus see stasis Antiphon 53, 54, 240, 245, 250 n. 92, 263, 265 Antissa see stasis Aphrodite at Eryx 229 n. 56 Apollo at Actium 232 at Delion 217, 225±6, 293 at Delos 221, 223 at Delphi 221, 223, 228±9, 230, 233 at Leucas 232 at Naupactus 232

at Triopion 232 Pythaeus 230 Temenites at Syracuse 227 Archaeology (Thuc. 1.1±23) 11, 170, 176±8, 179, 187±8, 207±8, 333±44, 358, 360, 372, 376 Archidamus 27, 53 n. 100, 111, 124 n. 77, 172 n. 92, 194, 248 n. 97, 287, 304 n. 60, see also speeches arete 86, 88, 141±2, 242±4, 245, 250, 253±4, 297 Argilos 298 Argos 72, 155, 157, 213, 223±4, 230, 255±6, 264, 270, 272, 355, see also stasis Aristarchus 322 Aristocrates 317 Aristogeiton see Harmodius Aristotle on Athenian constitutions 323±7 on friendship 138±9 on stasis 31±2, 68 on war speeches 173 Artaphernes 365 Artaxerxes 366 Artemis at Rhegion 227 Assinaros River 360 Astyochus 246±7, 304 n. 60 Athena at Amphipolis 228 at Torone 228 of the Brazen House 230 Polias at Athens 228 Polias at Sparta 228 n. 53 Athenian Empire 164±9, 343, 348±63, 368, see also Delian League Athens alliance with Plataea 108, 114±15, 119± 20 character of Athenians 147±51 epidemic 11, 16, 17, 28±30, 221, 227±8, 244, 305 n. 61, 361

397

398

General index

Athens (cont.) stasis in 37, 208 n. 5, 218 n. 26, 226±7, 245±8, 258, 304±27, 373 n. 84 synoecism 342 violation of Herms 226±7, 305 violence 213±16 see also speeches, stasis, Athenian Empire, Delian League Boeotia 104, 117±19, 225, 251, 270, 272, 285, 287±8, 293±5 see also Plataea, Thebes, speeches (Plataean Debate) Bottiaea 140 n. 29 Brasidas 53 n. 100, 131, 142 n. 31, 214 n. 18, 228, 230, 231, 237, 240, 241, 248±54, 263, 266, 295±300, see also speeches Byzantium see stasis Camarina see speeches (Hermocrates, Euphemus) Caria 367 Carthage 256 Carystus 351 n. 31, 353 Cephallenians 155 Chaeroneia 293 Chaireas 316 Chalcidians 101, 158, 223, 249, 290, 296, 298 Chalcis 160 n. 170 Chios 132, 133, see also stasis Chrysis 231 n. 60 Cimon 355 n. 43 Clazomenae see stasis Cleisthenes 59 n. 109, 326 Cleon 91±100, 145, 188, 237, 240, 241, 257, 266, 300, 366 n. 71, see also speeches Cnidos see stasis Colonus 311, 326 Colophon 368 Corcyra 211, 274±7, 285, 359, see also stasis, speeches Corinth 6, 136, 230, 270, 272, 280, 338, 355, 359, see also speeches Coronea 117, 118, 119, 121, 285, 294 Covenant of Plataea 111 n. 52 Crete 273 n. 138 Cyrus 369 Cythera 264, 292 Cyzicus see stasis Darius 366 Deceleia 259 Delos and Delian games 220±3 Delian League 132±3, 343 n. 15, see also Athenian Empire

Delion 293, 365±6 Delphi 357±8, see also Apollo Demeter at Plataea 234 at Eleusis 234 Demosthenes 156, 224, 227, 232 Dieitrephes 215, 216 Diodotus 91±100, see also speeches Dioscuri 7 n. 2, 231±2 Dorians 154±61, 221, 294 n. 40 douleia 128±38, 145±7, 352±3 Eetioneia 317, 318 Egesta 229 n. 56 Egypt 336 Eion 351 n. 31, 353, see also stasis Elis 132 n. 7, 219, 230, 270, 272 English Civil War 35±6 Ennea Hodoi 354 n. 42 Ephesia 221 n. 35 Epidamnus 86, 274, 277, 342 n. 13, see also stasis Epidaurus 224, 230, 264 ergon see logos Erythrai see stasis Euboea 148, 281, 283, 302, 319±20, see also stasis Euphemus see speeches Eurymedon 8 Eurytanians 216 Fifty Years Peace 297 n. 47 Friendship 138±45, 201 gnome 24, 26, 51±2, 89, 90, 135, 303, 309 Gorgias 40 n. 75, 374 Gylippus 157, 258 n. 115 Gymnopaidiai 224 Hairai see stasis Harmodius and Aristogeiton 25 n. 34, 339, 356 n. 49 Hellanicus 356 n. 49 Hellen 335±6, 339, 340, 341 Helots 106, 115, 264 Hera at Plataea 232 at Corcyra 7, 8, 230 n. 58 Heraclea in Trachis 158, 233 Heracles 158 n. 66, 224 n. 41 Hermes, temple of 217 Hermocrates 53, 239, 244, 248, 258 n. 114, 292, see also speeches Herms 226, 305 Herodotus 233±5, 339, 356 n. 46, 373, 377

General index hetairia 61 Hippias 213 Hippocratic corpus see Medicine, ancient Homer 337 human nature 27±8, 37 Hysiai 213, 214 Imbrians 157 intelligence 50±7, 244±8, 253±4 Ionia, Ionians 102 n. 32, 145, 154±61, 221, 222, 294 n. 40, 350, see also stasis Isthmian games 219, 222 Ithome 150, 356 Justice (in speeches) 82±103 in Corcyra±Corinth debate at Athens 82±9 in Melian Dialogue 91, 100±1, 196, 200±1 in Mytilenian debate 91±100 in other Athenian speeches 90, 101±3 in Plataean debate 106±9, 114±18 in Sparta's speech at Athens 91 Karneia 223±4 kinesis 208±9, 210 koinonia 59, 81, 134±5, 137, 138, 188±9, 192±3, 375 Lampsacus see stasis Language in stasis 39±50, 58±9, 81±2, 88±9, 112±13, 145, 185±6, 190 Laodicium 232 Lauerion 259 Lebedus see stasis Lelantine War 338±9, 341±2 Lemnians 157 Leontini 159, 160 n. 70, see also stasis Lesbos 132, 133, 137 n. 20, see also Mytilene, stasis Leucas 156 n. 61, 232 Lichas 146, 304 n. 60, 371 logismos/logizesthai 57, 265±6 logos/ergon 45±57, 198±9, 204, 245, 271, 302, 303, 306, 309±10, 313 Lycon 367 Lysander 251 n. 103 Macedonia 365, 377 Mantinea 13, 72, 225 n. 43, 264, 270, 290 n. 33, 359 Marathon 163 n. 77, 164, 180, 338 Medicine, ancient 14±17, 18, 21, 27, 30 Megara 229±30, 253, 270, 272, 285, 355, 356, see also stasis Megarian Decree 274±5 Melesippus 284

399

Melian Dialogue 11, 91, 98, 100±1, 109, 142 n. 31, 162, 166, 167 n. 84, 169, 195± 204, 214, 265 n. 123, 272±3, 328, 344, 362 Melobius 326 Melos 99, 160 n. 70, 210, 212 n. 14, 252, 296 n. 45, see also Melian Dialogue, stasis Mende 252, 253, see also stasis Messene see stasis Metapontium 156 Miletus 156, 157, see also stasis Minos 334 Molycreium 357 n. 50 Mycalessus 210, 214±16, 273, 359, 376 Myonessos 213 Mytilene 210, 213, 222, 223, 230 n. 58, see also speeches, stasis Naxos 352±4 Neapolis 156 n. 61 Nemean games 219, 222 Nicias 220 n. 33, 237, 240±4, 256, 257, 263, 266, 305 see also Peace of Nicias, speeches Nicostratus 7 nomos 34, 59±60, 106, 111±13, 117, 121±2, 211±12, 353, 374 Notion see stasis Olympia 132 n. 7, 228 Oenoe 322 Oenophyta 118, 285 Olympic games 218±19, 222, 224 Olympieion at Syracuse 227 Orchomenus 293 Oropus see stasis Paches 213, 230 n. 58 Pagondas 226, 294±5 Palairos 290 n. 34 Panactum see stasis Panathenaea 221, 231 n. 60, 375 Panhellenism 69±70, 218±24, 371±7, see also Herodotus Panionia 221 Parrhasia see stasis Parmenides 14 n. 10 Paros 290, see also stasis Parthenon 180 Peace of Callias 357 n. 30, 368, 375 n. 91 Peace of Nicias 210, 230, 255, 263±73, 282, 283, 286±7, 291±3, 300, 328 Peisander 306±8, 310, 367±8 Peithias 7, 145 n. 40 Peisistratus 52, 220

400

General index

Pelargikon 221 n. 36 Pelops 341 Pentekontaetia (Thuc. 1.89±118) 77, 231 n. 60, 344±63 Pericles 51 n. 96, 53, 90 n. 11, 94 n. 19, 189, 228, 242 n. 84, 280 n. 12, 321, 328, 375 as model of civic virtue 237±40, 244, 248±9, 254±63 see also speeches Persians 140, 188, 234, 304, 306, 363±71 Persian Wars 106, 107, 121, 135, 164, 190±1, 208±9, 338, 351, 363 Pharnabazos 369, 371 Phocis 229, 293, 358 Phormio 357 n. 50 Phrynichus 46, 53 n. 100, 146 n. 42, 245±8, 263, 306, 307, 316 n. 78, 318, 367, 368 n. 73 Pissouthnes 366±7 Plataea 9 n. 4, 13, 213, 224, 234, 285±9, see also speeches, stasis Plato on dialectic 198 on friendship 138±9 on language 43±4 on stasis 31, 68±70 Pleistoanax 230, 241, 266 Polycrates 220, 341, 343 Poseidon at Mende 232 at Tainaros 230 Potidaea 160 n. 70, 172, 216, 268, 274, 275, 277, 279, 286, 287, 300, see also stasis Prodicus 43 n. 80 prophasis 282, 345±6 Protesilaus, temple of 232±3 Pylos and Sphacteria 91, 144, 163, 264, 365 Pythian games 220, 221±2 Religion 65±7, 109, 217±36 Rhegion 160 n. 70, see also stasis Rheneia 220 Rhodes see stasis Sallust 36 n. 65 Salamis 164, 180 Samos 37, 133, 145 n. 40, 213, 247, 248, 292, 305±8, 312±15, 317, 318, 319, 320, 322, 357, 368 n. 73 Scione 212 n. 14, 214, 223, 252, 253, 290 n. 34, 300 n. 51, see also stasis Scyros 351 n. 31, 353 Scythians 53 n. 99 Selinous 231 n. 60 Siceliots 156 n. 61

Sicily 146±7, 169±71, 257±8, 273, 292, see also speeches Sicyon see stasis Siphae 293 Sollion 290 n. 34 Sparta as ``liberator of Hellas'' 128±32, 145±7 character of Spartans 147±51, 192±4, 204 fear of Athens 345±63 strategy in Peloponnesian War 124 violence 212±13 see also speeches Spartolus see stasis speeches Alcibiades at Sparta 102 n. 33, 162, 258, 273 n. 139 Alcibiades in Sicilian debate 101, 256±7, 261±2, 265 n. 123 Archidamus at Sparta 89 n. 9, 131, 151, 188, 191, 247 n. 96, 346, 364 Athenians at Sparta 90, 161±2, 164±9, 190±5, 344, 364 Brasidas in Thrace 145±6, 157, 163, 252, 296, 297±8, 299±300 Cleon and Diodotus at Athens 35, 91± 100, 136 n. 16, 150, 165 n. 31, 214, 289, 290, 305 Corcyra and Corinth at Athens 82±9 Corinthians' two speeches at Sparta 112 n. 35, 128±30, 147±53, 155, 193±4, 228±9, 275, 372 Euphemus at Camarina 102, 143, 145, 147, 158±9, 162, 164, 165±9 Hermocrates at Camarina 46, 102 n. 32, 142, 146±7, 157±8, 162, 171 Hermocrates at Gela 158, 159, 170±1 Hermocrates at Syracuse 171 Mytileneans at Olympia 51 n. 97, 131± 44, 149 n. 77, 218±19, 362 n. 62 Nicias in Sicilian debate 77 n. 96, 101, 102 n. 33, 142 n. 31, 241±2, 257, 266±7 Pericles' ®rst at Athens 172±8 Pericles' Funeral Oration 64, 98, 141±3, 150, 162, 172±4, 177±86, 260±3 Pericles' third at Athens 97, 172±4, 183, 185, 186±9, 260±3 Plataean Debate 103±26, 131, 165, 190, 214, 230 Spartans at Athens 91, 144±5, 190 Sthenelaidas at Sparta 91 n. 12, 131, 164, 191, 194±5, 346 see also Melian Dialogue, Thucydides Sphacteria see Pylos stasis in Abydus 301 n. 53

General index in in in in in in in in in in in in

Acanthus 252, 291 n. 36, 296±8 Acarnania 291 n. 36 Achaea 273 n. 138, 291 n. 36 Agrigentum 291 n. 36 Amphipolis 298±9 Anactorium 291 n. 36 Antandrus 291 n. 36, 292 Antissa 291 n. 36 Argos 300±1 Athens see Athens Byzantium 301 n. 53 Chios 137 n. 20, 219, 233, 301 n. 53, 302±3 in Clazomenae 301 n. 53 in Cnidos 301 n. 53 in Corcyra 6±11, 34±5, 37, 46, 66, 72, 145 n. 40, 153 n. 54, 155, 218 n. 26, 232 n. 61, 275±7, 289, 291 n. 36 in Cyzicus 301 n. 53 in Eion 291 n. 36 in Epidamnus 9 n. 4, 153 n. 34, 275 in Erythrai 301 n. 53 in Euboea 301 n. 53 in Hairai 301 n. 53 in Ionia 301 n. 53 in Jerusalem 33, 35 in Lampsacus 301 n. 53 in Lebedus 301 n. 53 in Leontini 12, 291 n. 36 in Lesbos 291 n. 36, 292, 301 n. 53 in Megara 288, 291±2 in Melos 291 n. 36 in Mende 232, 291 n. 36, 300 in Messene 12, 291 n. 36 in Miletus 301 n. 53 in Mytilene 9 n. 4, 32, 276, 342 n. 13 in Notion 9 n. 4, 12, 27, 213, 276, 291 n. 36 in Oropus 301 n. 53 in Panactum 291 n. 36 in Paros 290 n. 33 in Parrhasia 291 n. 36 in Plataea 103±4, 116±17, 122±3, 125, 210, 211, 225 n. 43, 288±9 in Potidaea 291 n. 36 in Rhegion 12, 291 n. 36 in Rhodes 301 n. 53 in Rome 36±7 in Samos 275, 301 n. 53, 302, 309±10 in Scione 291 n. 36 in Sicyon 291 n. 36 in Spartolus 276, 290 in Tegea 291 n. 36 in Thasos 301 n. 53, 308 n. 65, 321 n. 85 in Thespiae 291 n. 36 in Thurii 156 n. 61, 291 n. 36

401

in Torone 231±2, 291 n. 36, 299±300 modern theory of 32¨., 38 see also Thucydides, model of stasis Sthenelaidas 304 n. 60, see also speeches Sybota Islands 6 Syracuse 149, 360, see also Sicily, speeches, stasis, Olympieion, Apollo Tanagra 285 Tegea see stasis Thasos 133, 354, 356, 357, see also stasis Thebes 284±8, see also speeches (Plataean debate), stasis (in Plataea) Themistocles 52, 53, 234, 241, 254, 298, 303, 348, 349±50 Thera 273 n. 138 Theramenes 53, 317±19 Thespiai 106, 293, see also stasis Theseus 52, 53, 227, 241, 254, 298, 342 Thirty Years Peace 85, 87, 151, 268, 277, 279, 281, 285±7 Thrace 215±16, 295±300, 365, 376, see also Brasidas, speeches (Brasidas), stasis (individual cities) Thrasybulus 313, 314 Thrasyllus 230 n. 58, 313, 314 Thucydides compositional layers in History 78, 236±7 concept of Hellas 371±7 general in Thrace 298, 299 historical method 13±22, 37±8, 73±6, 216, 269±70, 293, 323±6, 347, 356±63 method of writing speeches 73±6, 162±3, 171±2 model of stasis 12±72, 137, 209±10, 211, 215, 239, 246, 255±6, 307, 308±10, 313 n. 75, 317 n. 80, 318, 327±9, 376 and passim see also language in stasis Thurii 375, see also stasis time 64, 195 Tissaphernes 262, 305±8, 367, 368 n. 73, 370, 371 Tolmides 357 Torone 214 n. 18, 252, 253, see also stasis Trojan War 209, 337, 340±1 war as ``teacher of violence'' 26±7 relation to stasis 29±30, 67±72 Zacynthians 155 Zeus at Chios 233 at Nemea 227 at Olympia 230

Index locorum

Aeschylus Eum. (525f.) 72 n.138; (976±8) 31; (980¨.) 25 n.34 Pers. (349) 315 n.77; (402¨.) 374 Prom. Vinc. (442±68) 335 n.4; (478±506) 335 n.4 Sept. (16) 69 n.134 Suppl. (404) 109 n.47 Alcaeus fr. (112,10) 315 n.77; (130, 26) 31 n.51 Alcmaeon of Croton DK 24, (b4) 21; (b28) 19 n.26 Andocides (3.8) 275 n.1; (3.29) 140, 366 n.71 Androtion FGrH 324 (f 39) 277 n.5 Appian BC, (2.50.205) 315 n.77 Archilochus fr. (38) 68 n.130; (102.1) 373 n.86 Aristophanes Ach. (266, 890) 277; (515±39) 275 n.1; (646± 51) 266 n.71 Hipp. (478) 366 n.71; (773) 277 Lys. (572±86) 374 n.87; (1128±34) 374 n.87 Nub. (419) 50 n.92 Pax (246±9) 292 n.37; (302f.) 374 n.87; (481±3) 292 n.37; (500±2) 292 n.37; (606±9) 275 n.1; (1082) 145; (1098) 374 n.87 Thesm. (356±67) 370; (1136±47) 228 n.53 Aristotle Eth. Eud. (1234b¨.) 139 n.25; (1241b12) 139 n.25 Eth. Nic. (1158b1) 139 n.25; (1159b) 139; (1161b8) 139 n.25; (1167b17¨.) 142 n.32 Met. (983b 20¨.) 14 n.9 Pol. (v) 31; (1252a 31) 343; (1253a) 34 n.61; (1255b 37) 68 n.131; (1256b 23) 68 n.131; (1258a1¨.) 134 n.11; (1260b27¨.) 134 n.11; (1266b 14) 150; (1270a25) 68 n.131;

(1275b 34±1276b 15) 34 n.61; (1301a) 22 n.29; (1301b 29) 31; (1302a 17±1307b 26) 32; (1303a 25) 31; (1303b) 298 n.49; (1304a 4¨.) 32 n.54; (1304b 4±5) 245; (1306a) 298 n.49; (1325a 6) 68 n.131; (1328a) 377 n.95; (1333b 38) 68 n.131 Rhet. (1367a¨.) 42 n.79; (1359b) 173 n.94; (1369b 12) 25 n.34; (1381a±1382a 139 n.25; (1396a) 173 n.94; (1414b 30) 374 n.88 [Aristotle] Ath. Pol. 323±6; (8.5) 61 n.114; (29±34.1) 324; (29.3, 31.1) 315; (30) 319 n.82; (32.1) 324 n.96; (32.3) 324; (34.1) 321; (54.7) 222 n.39; (56.3) 222 n.39; (62.2) 221 n.37 Rhet. ad Alex. (1425a) 173 n.94; (1424b37) 134 n.11 Aristoxenus (45.1.2) 373 n.86 Bacchylides fr. (24) 31 n.51 Cassius Dio (46.34.5) 36 Cratinus (1.3) 373 n.86 Critias DK 88 (b25) 335 n.4 Ctesias FGrH 688 (f15) 367 n.72 Democritus DK 68 (b249) 31 n.52, 72 n.138; (b250) 71, 373 n.84; (b252) 62 Ep. Phil., (2) 27 n.41 Diodorus Siculus (11.80) 285 n.22; (12.7) 285; (12.37.2) 283 n.18; (12.39.4±5) 275 n.1; (12.41.2¨.) 283 n.18; (12.42.3) 283 n.18; (12.42.5) 221 n.34; (12.59.4) 158 n.66

402

Index locorum Dionysius of Halicarnassus 8 n.3 De Thuc. (29) 39 n.71, 41 n.77, 42; (32.2) 55; (37±8) 196 n.8 Letter to Gn. Pompey (3.2) 377 n.94 Ephorus FGrH 70 (f196) 275 n.1 Euripides Alc. (339) 46 Antiope (fr.32) 49 n.90 Bacch. (266¨.) 49 n.90 Elec. (945±6) 49 n.90; (1351) 109 n.47 Hec. (800±5) 60 n.110; (1235) 109 n.47 Helen (441±2) 48; (1638) 109 n.47 Heracl. (965, 1010) 212 HF (1403±5) 142 n.32 Hipp. (297±9) 48; (503±6) 48 n.88; (706±7) 48 n.88; (1081) 109 n.47 Ion (1045±7) 142 n.32; (1575±88) 154 n.56, 160 n.69 Iph. Aul. (414) 374 n.89; (983¨.) 144 n.39; (1206) 49 n.90; (1272±5) 374 n.89 Or. (500±1) 109 n.47; (665±9) 142 n.32; (901±2) 49 n.90 Phoen. (494±503) 46±7; (531±5) 64 n.119 Suppl. (312±13) 60; (201±13) 335 n.4; (245) 72 n.138; (247, 299±300) 49 n.90; (311, 526, 671) 374 n.88 Tro. (413, 721) 374 n.89; (967±8) 49 n.90 Gorgias DK 82 (a1) 370 n.77; (b7±8) 370 n.77, 374 n.88 Hellanicus FGrH (323a) 356 n.49 Heraclitus (fr. 80) 68 Herodotus (1.1.2) 336; (1.56±9) 334 n.3; (1.58) 336; (1.59.3) 31 n.51; (1.60.3) 336; (1.143.3) 161; (1.164) 160 n.71; (1.170.2±3) 160 n.71; (2.51.2) 336; (2.143±6) 336; (3.72.2) 50 n.92; (3.82.3) 31 n.51; (3.134.6) 46 n.83; (4.142) 160 n.71; (5.28) 30 n.49; (5.49.2) 373 n.84; (5.96) 269 n.130; (6.9.8.1±2) 208 n.3; (6.12.3) 160 n.71; (6.13.2) 234 n.65; (6.25.2) 234 n.65; (6.32) 234 n.65; (7.20.2) 208 n.3; (7.33) 234 n.65; (7.94) 160 n.69; (7.101±4) 373 n.84; (7.132.1) 106 n.40; (7.134) 234 n.65; (7.137) 95 n.21, 364; (7.138±9) 170 n.89; (7.139) 196; (7.145) 373 n.84; (7.145.2) 170 n.89; (7.157) 170 n.89;

403

(7.157±62) 373 n.84; (8.3) 170 n.89; (8.3.1) 31 n.52; (8.10.2) 160 n.71; (8.27) 373 n.84; (8.30) 170 n.89, 373 n.84; (8.32.2) 234 n.65; (8.33) 234 n.65; (8.35±9) 234 n.66; (8.40) 349 n.24; (8.41) 234 n.66; (8.44) 160 n.69; (8.55, 135) 234; (8.57) 170 n.89; (8.73) 154 n.55; (8.129) 234 n.65; (8.140±4) 195 n.1; (8.142±4) 170 n.89; (8.143±4) 315; (8.144.2) 71, 374; (9.6±9) 349 n.24; (9.7) 373 n.84; (9.8±10) 373 n.84; (9.13.2) 234 n.65; (9.42±3) 234 n.66; (9.65) 234; (9.101) 234; (9.120) 234; (9.122) 211 n.10 Hesiod WD (351) 142 n.32; (528) 373 n.86 Hippocratic Corpus Aer. 27 Aphor. (1.20) 150 n.48 Epid. (1, 3) 16 Humor. (6) 150 n.48 Morb. Pop. (2.1.4) 150 n.48 Morb. Sacr. 14 n.9 Nat. Hom. (4) 22 n.29 VM 19 n.26 (2) 18 n.25; (3) 335 n.4; (9) 14 n.9, 18; (12) 14 n.9, 18; (14, 19) 22 n.29 Homer Il. (2.530) 373 n.86; (16.811) 27 n.41; (18.109) 68 n.130; (18.497¨.) 62 n.115 Od. (17.218) 138 Ion (26.3) 373 n.86 Isocrates (3.13) 109 n.47; (4.100) 212 n.14; (9.26, 38) 109 n.47; (12.63) 212 n.14; (14.2) 109 n.47; (15.76, 284, 321) 109 n.47; (16.11) 27 n.41 In Soph. (2) 51 n.95 Paneg. (45) 142±3 n.32; (377 n.95 Istros FGrH 334 (f30) 277 n.5 Josephus BJ (5.376±419) 33 n.58; (5.429±30) 30 n.48 Julius Caesar BC (1.22.5) 36 n.66; (1.67.3) 36 n.66; (2.29.3) 36 n.66; (3.1.3) 36 n.66; (3.1.4) 36 n.66 Ep. ad Cic. (fr. 24) 36 n.66 Lucan (1.1) 36 n.65 Lucian Salt. (16) 222 n.39 Lysias (9.20) 142 n.32; (10.7) 41 n.77; (13.15) 46 n.83

404

Index locorum

Marcellinus Thuc. (36) 43 n.80 Pausanias (2.9.2) 285; (2.9.3) 285; (2.20.2) 301 n.52; (2.71.1) 285; (4.4.1) 222 n.39; (5.23.4) 285 Philochorus FGrH 328 (f 121) 275 n.1; (f 123) 277 n.5; (f 125) 277 n.5 Pindar fr. (109) 31 n.51 Isth. (2.38) 373 n.86; (3.47) 373 n.86 Paean (9, 15) 31 n.51 Pyth. (2.83) 142 n.32 Plato Crat. (383a±b, 384d) 43; (391c) 43 n.80; (394) 41 n.76; (418a) 41 n.76 Crit. (49c±50a) 102 n.33 Ep. (vii, 336e) 72 n.136 Euthphr. (11e±12e) 109 n.47 Gorg. 27 n.42; (507e) 135 n.13; (507e±508a) 138 n.24 Laws (628b) 72 n.136; (628b±d) 70; (628d) 30 n.49; (629d) 70; (630b) 242 n.86; (740a) 69 n.134; (744d) 30 n.49; (804d) 27 n.41; (837b) 138; (869d) 61 Lysis (214b) 138 Menex. (237e) 69; (242b±d) 72 n.136; (242c± 243d) 267±8; (243b) 370 n.77; (243e) 30 n.49 Meno (71e3) 142 n.32 Phaedr. 138; (82a) 243 n.88; (228d) 41 n.76 Pol. (262c±e) 70 Prot. (331a±e) 109 n.47 Resp. (vii ) 31; (331e±332a) 142 n.32; (351d) 135 n.13; (414d±e) 69; (470b) 68±70; (470b±d) 377 n.95; (470c±471b) 69; (470d) 30, n.49, 31,70; (539b±d) 198; (539d) 199 n.10; (545d) 31 n.51; (560d±e) 31 n.52 Symp. (221c) 254 n.106 Tim. (40b) 69 n.134 Plutarch Apopth. Lak. (230c±d) 220 n.32 Arist. (10) 349 n.24; (21.103) 111 n.52 Cim. (16.4±17.2) 355 n.43 Her. Mal. (864d±867b) 107 Nic. (3.3±8) 220 n.33; (6.7) 214 n.17 Per. (29.4±31.1) 275 n.1 Sol. (20.1) 61 n.114 Pythagoras DK 58 (b1a) 138 n.23

Solon fr. (4) 31 nn. 51, 52; (4a) 160 n.69; (19±20) 31 n.51 Sophocles Ant. 48±9; (184¨.) 183 n.110; (332±71) 335 n.4; (723) 49 n.90; (1045±7) 49 n.90 El. (252±3) 48 OC (1000±2) 49 n.90; (1234) 31 n.51 OT (56) 315 n.77 Phil. (925±6) 102 n.32 Strabo (10.485) 222 n.39 Tacitus Ann. (4.32) 274 Theognis (50±2) 31 n.51; (77±8) 65 n.123; (780±2) 31 n.51; (781) 31 n.52, 373 n.85; (1081±2) 31 n.51 Thrasymachus DK 85, (b1) 25 n.35, 373 n.84 Thucydides, History Book 1 (1.1) 207, 333 n.2, 372; (1.1±2) 273 n.139; (1.2) 130 n.5, 179 n.101, 207, 209 n.7, 339, 359 n.55; (1.2±2.2) 201 n.11; (1.3) 333 n.2; (1.7) 176 n.99; (2.1) 335; (2.2) 176 n.99; (2.4) 146 n.41, 335; (2.6) 160 n.69, 179 n.101, 335 n.4; (3) 340; (3.1) 176±7, 335; (3.2) 334, 335, 337; (3.3) 176, 179 n.101, 335; (3.4) 335, 336, 337; (3.7) 176; (4.1) 273 n.139, 334; (5.1) 337, 340; (6.1) 337; (6.2) 179 n.101, 337; (6.3) 160 n.69; (6.5) 218 n.28, 231 n.60; (6.6) 337, 339, 372; (8) 353 n.37; (8.3) 176 n.99, 353; (8.3±4) 340; (8.4) 336; (8.4¨.) 333; (9.1) 341; (9.1±2) 176; (9.2) 341, 350; (9.4) 337 n.8, 341; (10.1) 179 n.101; (10.2) 231 n.60, 350; (10.3) 337, 337 n.8; (10.4) 176 n.99, 177; (10.5) 337; (10.17) 177; (11) 176; (11.2) 176 n.99; (12.1) 337; (12.2) 26 n.39; (12.3±4) 154; (12.4) 160 n.69, 338; (13) 176; (13.1) 338; (13.6) 231 n.60, 341; (14.2) 333 n.2, 338; (15.1) 338, 350; (15.1±2) 176, 341; (15.2) 333 n.2, 338, 343, 350; (15.3) 338 n.9, 372; (16) 353; (17) 333 n.2, 338, 342, 350; (18±19) 333 n.1, 356 n.47, 358 n.53; (18) 353; (18.1±2) 129; (18.1.) 338; (18.2) 118, 177, 349, 350, 351, 352, 356; (18.2±3) 345; (20.1) 179 n.101; (20.2) 231 n.60; (21.1) 179 n.101; (21.2) 207; (22) 73±4, 334; (22.1) 51 n.96; (22.1±2) 281 n.15; (22.2) 13, 19; (22.2±3) 18, 21; (22.4) 18, 28 n.45, 63 n.117, 211 n.9; (23) 209,

Index locorum 281±2, 359 n.57; (23.1) 333 n.2; (23.1±3) 207±8; (23.2) 290 n.34; (23.3) 361; (23.4) 281; (23.4±6) 281; (23.5) 282; (23.6) 145, 268, 282, 345, 346; (24) 275, 342 n.13; (24±30) 153 n.54; (24.7) 218 n.26, 230 n.58, 232 n.61; (25.4) 230; (26.3±5) 275; (28±29.1) 87; (29.1, 4) 280; (29.3) 232, 280; (30.1) 211; (31.3) 162; (32±43) 82±9; (32.1) 82±3; (32.1±33.2) 143 n.34; (32.5) 185 n.120; (33.2) 88, 142 n.31; (34.1±2) 84; (35.4) 83; (36.1) 84±5; (36.2) 276; (37±9) 86; (37.1) 86 n.4; (37.2) 86, 88, 142 n.31; (37.3) 250 n.102; (37.4) 86; (37.5) 86, 88, 142 n.31; (38.2) 86; (38.4) 86 n.4; (38.5) 86; (39.1) 86; (39.3) 86 n.4; (40.1) 86, 87, 97 n.24; (40.4) 59 n.109, 87; (40.5) 97 n.24, 164 n.79, 357 n.50; (41.1) 87, 372; (41.2) 357 n.50; (41.3) 313 n.75; (42) 282; (42.1±2) 87; (42.2) 164 n.79; (42.4) 88; (43.2) 87 n.7; (43.4) 97 n.24; (44) 90; (44.1) 162; (45.1) 51, 90; (50.2) 359; (53.1) 280; (55.1) 6 n.1, 276; (67.2) 164 n.79, 275; (67.4) 275 n.1; (68.1) 194; (68.3) 128; (69.1) 128, 142 n.31, 164 n.79; (69.4) 194; (69.5) 46 n.85, 129, 164 n.79; (69.6) 194; (70) 193; (70.1) 148, 194, 265 n.123; (70.2±9) 148; (70.3) 51 n.97, 112 n.55; (70.6) 61 n.113, 183 n.110; (71) 150; (71.3) 89; (71.4) 160 n.70, 194; (71.5) 89 n.10; (72.1) 168, 192, 354; (73) 168; (73±5) 196; (73±8) 161, 190±5; (73.1) 183 n.113, 196; (73.2) 129, 161; (73.5) 183 n.113; (74.1) 53 n.100, 168; (74.2) 349 n.24; (75.1) 52, 53 n.100, 168; (75.3) 167, 195; (75.3±76.2) 165; (75.4) 167 n.83; (75.5) 168 n.86, 247 n.96, 364; (76±7) 196; (76.2) 27 n.42, 90, 183 n.113, 195, 265 n.123, 344; (76.3) 183 n.113; (76.4±77.4) 165; (77.3) 183 n.113; (77.5) 193; (77.6) 193; (78) 196; (78.1) 193; (78.4) 192, 287; (79.2) 53 n.99, 89 n.9, 248 n.97; (80.2) 265 n.123; (82.1) 247 n.96, 364, 368; (84) 151; (84.3) 53 n.100, 56 n.103; (84.4) 151; (85.2) 89 n.9, 287; (86.1) 89 n.9, 164; (86.2, 4, 5) 89 n.9; (87.2) 286; (87.2, 4) 89 n.9; (88) 347, 356 n.49; (89±118.2) 345; (89.2) 348, 356 n.46; (89.3±93) 348; (90.1) 348; (90.2) 348; (90.3±91.3) 348; (91.1) 348; (92) 348, 350, 355; (93) 348; (93.3) 349; (93.4) 350; (93.6±7) 350; (95±97.1) 356 n.46; (95.1) 160 n.69, 350; (95.2) 350;

405

(95.7) 348, 350, 355; (96) 350; (96.1) 350; (96.2) 231 n.60; (97) 349; (97.1) 351; (97.2) 354, 356 n.49; (98.1) 353; (98.2) 353; (98.4) 352; (99) 352; (99.2) 352; (101.1±2) 354; (102) 355; (102.3) 146 n.41, 150, 154 n.57, 355; (103.1) 356 n.49; (103.2) 231 n.60; (103.4) 355; (105±8) 355; (105.2) 356 n.46; (105.3) 356 n.46; (107.2) 154 n.57, 356 n.46, 358 n.52; (107.4) 355 n.43; (107.5) 356 n.46; (108.1) 356 n.46; (109.1) 15 n.16, 356 n.46; (110.4) 356 n.46; (111±115.1) 355; (111.1) 356 n.46; (112.1) 355 n.45; (112.2) 356 n.46; (112.5) 230 n.57, 231 n.60, 358; (113) 294 n.41; (113.1) 356 n.46; (114.1) 355; (115.1) 285, 355 n.45, 356 n.46; (115.2±17) 275; (115.4) 368; (116.1± 2) 133; (118) 347, 356 n.49; (118.1) 233; (118.2) 150 n.49, 347; (118.3) 221, 229; (119) 151, 152; (120±4) 151; (120.1) 153; (120.2) 97 n.24; (121) 152; (121.3) 221, 228; (121.4) 152±3; (121.5) 129; (122.2) 153; (122.3) 26 n.37, 129; (122.4) 53 n.100; (123.1) 153, 221, 229; (123.2) 89 n.10; (124.1) 129, 153, 155; (124.3) 129; (125.1) 152, 286; (125.2) 269, 284, 287; (126±7) 230; (126±34) 163 n.77; (126.1) 172, 275, 282; (126.5) 218 n.28; (128±35) 230; (132.2±3) 230 n.57; (138.2) 273 n.139, 353; (138.2±3) 52; (138.3) 52; (139.1) 275; (139.2) 230; (139.3) 163, 163 n.76, 172; (139.4) 53, 172, 241; (140±4) 172, 279; (140.1) 51 n.96, 53 n.100; (140.2) 287; (140.2±141.1) 175; (140.3±4) 275; (141.2± 143) 175; (141.3) 176±7; (141.6) 146 n.41, 175; (141.7) 177; (142.6±9) 152 n.52; (143.1) 229 n.54; (143.3±5) 175; (143.5) 175; (144.2) 287; (144.3) 26 n.37, 172; (144.4) 162 n.74, 174 n.96; (145) 173, 279, 287; (145±2.1) 281, 283; (146) 268, 281, 282±3; (238.3) 241; Book 2 (1) 103, 278±81, 283, 287; (2±5) 111; (2±6) 224 n.41; (2.1) 231 n.60, 278 n.7; (2.2) 103; (2.2±4) 123; (2.3) 122, 269, 284, 287; (3.2) 165 n.80; (4) 201 n.11; (5) 111 n.53; (5.4) 287; (5.5) 287; (5.5±6) 111; (5.7) 124, 211; (6) 154, 201 n.11; (7±9) 286 n.25; (7.1) 286±7, 364±5, 366, 368; (8.4) 46, 130; (8.4±5) 296 n.44; (8.5) 130; (9.2) 273 n.138; (9.4) 273 n.138; (9.4±5) 221 n.34; (11.2) 131; (11.7) 265 n.123; (12.2) 280 n.12; (12.3) 284; (13) 172 n.92, 354 n.40; (15) 350; (15±16) 342; (15.2) 52, 241, 342; (15.2±5) 231

406

Index locorum

Thucydides, History (cont.) n.60; (16.2±17.1) 227; (17.1±2) 221 n.36; (20.4) 27, 305 n.61; (21) 283; (21.2±3) 173; (21.3) 305 n.61; (21) 305 n.61; (22.1) 172 n.92, 173; (22.11) 173; (29) 365; (30.1) 290 n.34; (34.1) 359; (34.6) 52, 53; (35±46) 172; (36) 180; (36.1) 142 n.31; (36.3) 182; (36.4) 162, 174, 178±9; (37.1) 142 n.31, 179, 179 n.101, 189, 261; (37.2) 189; (38.1) 150; (39) 181±2; (39.1) 179, 181, 188±9; (39.2) 60 n.111, 179 n.101; (39.3) 187; (39.4) 181, 183 n.113; (40) 182; (40.1) 182 n.109; (40.2) 179, 185; (40.2±3) 182 n.109; (40.3) 82, 179, 185 n.121, 265 n.123; (40.4) 179; (40.4± 5) 141; (40.5) 142, 143 n.33, 265 n.123; (41) 179 n.101, 182; (41.1) 182; (41.1±3) 179; (41.2) 182; (41.4) 181, 187; (42±3) 182; (42.1) 174, 179 n.101, 181 n.106; (42.2) 142 n.31, 178±9, 182; (42.3) 98, 182, 189; (42.4) 183 n.110; (43.1) 142 n.31, 183; (43.1, 3) 97 n.24; (43.4) 184; (43.5±6) 184; (43.6) 189; (44.1) 178; (44.4) 64, 317 n.80; (45) 178; (45.1, 2) 142 n.31; (46.1) 142 n.31; (47.3) 16, 359 n.57; (47.3±54) 16; (47.4) 15 n.16, 359 n.57; (47¨.) 186; (48.1±51.3) 17; (48.3) 15 n.14, 15 n.16, 17, 18; (49.3) 16; (49.6) 15 n.14, 29; (50) 359 n.57; (50.1) 15 n.16, 28 n.45, 29; (51.1) 15 n.16, 16, 17 n.20; (51.4) 29; (51.4± 53) 17; (51.5) 30, 244; (51.5±6) 29 n.47; (52.2) 359 n.56; (52.3) 29, 227, 236; (52.3±4) 29; (52.4) 29 n.47; (53) 29, 30; (53.1) 359 n.57; (53.3) 29 n.47; (54.3) 28 n.45; (54.4) 61 n.113, 221, 233; (57.1) 359; (59.3) 173; (59.5) 53; (60) 260, 261; (60±4) 173; (60.2±3) 182 n.109; (60.4) 242 n.84; (61.1) 186; (61.2) 51 n.96, 186 n.122; (61.3) 186; (61.4) 97 n.24, 186; (62.1) 174; (62.2) 187; (62.3) 143, 183; (62.4±5) 185 n.121; (62.5) 53 n.100, 182 n.108, 185 n.121; (63) 186±7; (63.1) 143; (63.2) 90, 97, 143, 185; (63.3) 185, 353 n.36; (64.3) 143, 187, 188; (64.4) 185; (64.5) 247 n.96; (65) 53, 239±40, 248, 305, 323; (65.1) 173; (65.5±8) 238±40; (65.7) 183 n.110, 239±40, 261, 317 n.80, 327; (65.8) 97 n.24; (65.9) 94 n.19, 320, 321; (65.11) 258, 317 n.80, 327; (65.12) 289, 317 n.80, 327, 369; (67) 188, 364; (67.1) 368; (67.4) 95 n.21, 212, 213; (68) 342 n.13; (68.7±8) 357 n.50; (70) 305 n.61; (70.1) 216; (71) 288; (71.1) 124 n.77,

284; (71.2) 131, 230; (71.3) 124 n.77, 142 n.31; (72.1) 111, 124 n.77, 131; (72.3) 124 n.77; (74.3) 124 n.77; (77.4±5) 359 n.57; (78.2) 124; (79) 276; (79.2) 290; (85.1) 304 n.60; (85.2) 152 n.52; (85.5) 273 n.138; (87.9) 97 n.24, 142 n.31; (89.2) 97 n.24; (89.6) 265 n.123; (91.1) 232; (94.1) 360 n.61; (97.4) 59 n.109; (97.6) 53 n.99; (102.1) 291 n.36 Book 3 (1±50) 276; (1¨.) 32 n.54; (2.1) 291 n.36, 357 n.50; (2.3) 276, 342 n.13; (3.1) 342 n.13; (3.3) 223; (8) 218; (8.3) 136; (9) 87 n.6; (9±14) 132; (9.1) 59 n.109; (9.2) 135, 140; (9.3) 136 n.16; (10.1) 92 n.13, 134, 135, 138, 149 n.47; (10.2±11) 133; (10.3) 132, 135; (10.5) 137 n.20; (10.5±6) 133; (11) 351; (11.2) 140; (11.3) 135; (12± 13.1) 133; (12.1) 51 n.97, 135, 137, 138, 185 n.121; (13.1) 132, 136, 357 n.50; (13.3±4) 93; (13.3±7) 134; (13.5) 60 n.111; (13.7) 135; (14) 134; (14.1) 137, 219; (15.2) 137 n.20; (16.2) 137 n.20; (17.1) 359 n.56; (18.1) 291 n.36; (19.1) 359 n.56; (20.1) 49 n.91, 124; (26.3) 359; (28.2) 230 n.58; (31.1) 368; (32.1) 213; (32.2) 145 n.40; (34) 12, 213, 276, 291 n.36, 368; (34.1) 27; (34.2) 368; (36.2) 93 n.17; (36.4) 95 n.20, 216; (36.6) 94 n.19, 240; (37±48) 92, 289; (37.1) 51 n.96; (37.2) 97; (37.4) 53 n.100; (37.5) 53 n.100; (38.1) 25 n.34, 51 n.96, 92 n.13, 96; (38.4±7) 150; (39.1) 92 n.13, 95; (39.1±2) 93; (39.2) 35 n.63, 136 n.16; (39.3) 92 n.15, 95; (39.4) 92 n.13; (39.4± 5, 7±8) 92; (39.5) 27 n.42; (39.6) 92 n.13, 275 n.3, 276 n.3; (39.6±7) 93; (39.8) 93; (40.1) 93; (40.2) 94 n.18; (40.4) 96±8; (40.5) 92 n.13, 95; (40.6) 94 n.18; (40.7) 95, 97 n.24; (42.2) 53 n.100; (42.4) 53 n.100; (42.6) 51 n.97; (44.1) 92, 98; (44.2) 92 n.13; (44.3) 92, 94 n.18; (44.4) 99; (45±6) 92; (45.2) 94; (45.3) 27 n.42; (46.2) 93; (46.4) 99; (46.5±6) 93; (46.6) 93; (47) 93; (47.2) 165 n.80, 290; (47.2±3) 276 n.3; (47.3) 92 n.13; (47.4, 5) 92 n.13; (47.5) 99; (48.1) 92 n.13, 94 n.18; (48.2) 98; (49.1) 94; (50.2) 223; (52.1) 284 n.21; (52.2) 105, 124 n.77; (52.3) 105; (53±9) 131; (53±67) 103±25, 289; (53.1) 105; (53.2) 115; (53.4) 106; (54.1) 106, 110; (54.2) 106; (54.3) 111; (54.5) 106, 115; (55.3) 106, 115, 119 n.62, 165;

Index locorum (55.3±4) 108; (55.4) 122; (56.1) 106; (56.2) 106, 112, 113, 117, 224 n.41, 287; (56.3) 107, 112, 115, 116; (56.4±5) 111; (56.5) 142 n.31; (56.6) 106, 108; (56.7) 107±8, 142 n.31, 143 n.34; (57.1) 98 n.27, 110, 115; (57.1±4) 107; (57.2) 106 n.42, 142 n.31, 230, 273 n.139; (58) 109; (58.1) 115, 142 n.31; (58.2) 108, 110, 115; (58.3) 109, 113, 115; (58.3±5) 230; (58.4) 110 n.49, 111 n.52, 224 n.41; (58.5) 107, 111; (58.5±59.1) 109±10; (59.1) 106, 115; (59.2) 110 n.49; (59.3) 110 n.49; (59.4) 111; (60) 125; (60.1) 51 n.97; (61.2) 118; (62) 114, 121; (62.2) 120; (62.3) 121; (62.5) 118, 121; (63±6) 125; (63.1) 113; (63.2) 118; (63.3) 120; (63.3±4) 115; (63.4) 115; (64.1) 120; (64.1±2) 115; (64.2±3) 116, 120 n.64; (64.4) 97 n.24, 98 n.27, 116, 121; (65±66.1) 122; (65.1) 117 n.59, 224 n.41, 287; (65.2) 104, 116, 117 n.59; (65.3) 60 n.111, 103±4, 123 n.70; (66.1) 116; (66.2) 116, 117 n.59; (66.2±3) 112; (66.3) 117 n.59; (67.1) 117, 117 n.61; (67.2) 97 n.24, 115, 164; (67.2± 6) 117; (67.5) 105, 112, 117, 117 n.59; (67.5±6) 122; (67.6) 112; (67.7) 26 n.39; (68.1) 124 n.77, 125; (68.1±2) 124 n.73; (68.3) 123 n.72, 232, 288, 292; (68.4) 124; (69.1) 304 n.60; (69.2¨.) 291 n.36; (70±81.1) 6 n.1; (70±85) 276; (70.1) 6 n.1, 46, 276; (70.3) 145 n.40; (70.4±6) 218 n.26; (73) 7; (74.2) 6; (75.2) 208 n.5; (75.3) 232 n.61; (75.5) 7 n.2, 218 n.26, 232 n.61; (79.1) 218 n.26, 232 n.61; (81) 12, 218 n.26, 232 n.61; (81±2) 12; (81±3) 3; (81.2± 83.4) 8±11; (81.4) 37; (81.5) 9 n.4, 14, 62, 215; (82) 60 n.110; (82±3) 67, 289, 309; (82.1) 12, 125, 208, 215 n.20, 273 n.139, 290, 312, 359 n.57, 372; (82.1±2) 22±6; (82.2) 6, 13, 15, 18, 26, 54, 59, 76, 227, 236, 258; (82.3) 14, 25, 26 n.37, 65, 77, 89; (82.4) 39±50, 44 n.81, 53±4, 58± 9, 113, 141, 310 n.70; (82.4±5) 31 n.52, 32, 61; (82.4±83) 39±72; (82.5) 49, 50, 51 n.94, 54, 57, 62±3, 65 n.122, 185 n.120, 298, 309, 310 n.70; (82.6) 27 n.43, 29 n.47, 59 n.109, 60±1, 65 n.123, 84, 123, 137, 271 n.33, 307, 309; (82.6± 8) 59±67; (82.7) 47±8, 54, 55±7, 63, 65, 81, 137, 263, 265±6, 309, 310 n.70; (82.7±8) 22; (82.8) 24, 30, 32, 44, 58, 63±4, 66, 72, 104, 117, 218, 239 n.77, 246, 247 n.96, 256, 266, 271 n.133, 272,

407

310, 312 n.74, 313 n.75, 318; (83) 59 n.108; (83.1) 14, 58, 65 n.122, 137, 215, 273, 309, 376; (83.2) 66, 265 n.123, 266, 267; (83.3) 25, 310 n.70; (83.3±4) 50±7, 55 n.102, 245; (83.4) 182; (84) 8 n.3, 27 n.43; (85) 55 n.102; (85.2) 7 n.2; (86.2) 159, 160 n.70; (86.4) 159; (87.1) 15 n.14; (87.1±2) 221; (91) 272 n.137; (92) 154 n.57, 158; (93) 158; (94.2) 232; (94.5) 216; (94¨.) 273 n.138, 290 n.34; (95±8) 221; (96.1) 227; (98.3) 15 n.16; (98.4) 359; (100¨.) 290 n.34; (100) 273 n.138; (102.2) 357 n.50; (104) 220; (104.3, 4) 221; (109.3) 49 n.91; (113.6) 359; (114.1) 232 Book 4 (1.3) 12, 291 n.36; (7) 291 n.36; (10.1) 53 n.100, 265 n.123; (17±20) 91; (17.1) 144; (17.3) 53 n.100; (17.5) 91; (18.4) 91; (18.5) 53 n.100, 91; (19.1) 144; (19.2, 3) 142 n.31; (19.2±3) 144; (19.4) 51 n.97; (20.4) 145, 273 n.139, 372; (21.2) 145, 305 n.61; (21.3) 163; (22.2) 163; (23.1) 214; (28.5) 265 n.123; (34.1) 175, 186 n.122; (40.1) 51 n.97, 175, 359; (41.4) 305 n.61; (46±8) 276, 292; (48.5) 72; (49) 290 n.34, 291 n.36; (50) 292, 364, 368; (50.3) 365; (52) 353 n.36; (52) 276 n.3, 292; (52.3) 291 n.36, 292; (53±7) 292; (55.2±4) 150 n.49; (57.4) 214; (58) 170; (58±65) 292; (59±64) 170; (59.1) 170; (59.1) 170; (60.1) 158 n.65, 170; (61.1) 170; (61.2) 158, 170; (61.3) 159; (61.5) 27 n.42; (62.3) 142 n.31; (64.1) 313 n.75; (64.3) 158; (64.3± 4) 170; (64.4) 146 n.41; (64.5) 170; (65.1) 171; (66±74) 291 n.36, 292; (71.1) 296 n.44; (73.4) 265 n.123; (74.4) 359 n.56; (75) 276 n.3, 292; (76±7) 225, 291 n.36, 293; (76.4) 208 n.5; (78.2) 294 n.43; (78.3±5) 294 n.43; (80.4) 232 n.61; (81) 248±50, 252; (81.1) 296; (81.2) 53 n.100, 250 n.102, 267 n.127, 294; (81.2±3) 249±51; (84±5) 291 n.36; (84±88.1) 252, 296; (84.2) 296 n.44; (85.1) 145 n.40; (85.1, 5) 297; (85.6) 53 n.100, 297; (86.1) 145 n.40, 146, 297; (86.2) 297; (86.4) 145 n.40, 297; (86.5) 142 n.31, 146, 268, 297; (86.6) 297; (87.1) 297; (87.2) 230; (87.2± 5) 252, 297; (87.4) 146, 153; (87.5) 297 n.47; (88.1) 252, 296, 298; (88.2) 299; (89) 291 n.36; (89±101.1) 225; (91) 294; (91±2) 291 n.36; (91±93.1) 226; (92) 146 n.41; (92.2) 265 n.123; (92.4) 294; (92.6)

408

Index locorum

Thucydides, History (cont.) 118; (92.7) 294; (95) 226; (95.3) 180 n.102, 294; (97.2) 226; (97.2±3) 226; (97.2±99) 226; (97.3) 226 n.45; (97.4) 226; (98.2, 6±7) 113 n.57; (100) 359 n.56; (102±8) 291 n.36, 298; (102.3±4) 357 n.50; (103.2±3) 298; (104.4±5) 298; (105.2) 298; (106.1) 298; (108.2) 145 n.40, 251; (108.3±4) 251, 299; (108.4) 265, 265 n.123; (108.5) 252; (108.5±6) 251; (108.6) 253±4; (108.7) 250, 253, 304 n.60; (109.3±5) 299; (109.5) 252; (110±16) 252, 291 n.36, 300; (110.1) 231±2; (114.3) 145 n.40, 146, 252; (116.1) 214 n.18; (116.2) 228; (117) 264 n.122; (118) 231 n.60; (118.3±4) 229; (120) 291 n.36, 300 n.51; (120.3) 145 n.40; (121.1) 145 n.40; (121.2) 291 n.36, 300; (122.2) 300 n.51; (122.6) 214, 253; (123) 300; (123) 291 n.36; (123.1) 253; (123.2) 51 n.97; (123.4) 214 n.18; (124) 225 n.43; (126.2) 142 n.31; (127.2) 51 n.97; (129±30) 291 n.36; (129.1¨.) 300; (129.3) 232, 300 n.51; (129¨.) 300; (130) 291 n.36; (130.1) 300; (130.4) 232; (132.3) 250; (133.1) 120 n.66; (134.1) 232; (135.1) 253 Book 5 (1) 220, 368; (2) 300; (3.2±6) 300; (3.4) 214 n.18; (3.5) 291 n.36; (4) 291 n.36; (4.3) 12; (5.1) 12, 140 n.29, 291 n.36; (8.2) 157; (9.1) 157; (9.9) 353; (10) 225 n.43; (10.2) 228; (11.1) 253; (14±26) 263± 73; (14.1±2) 264; (14.3) 51 n.97, 359; (14.3±4) 264; (14.4) 357 n.50; (14¨.) 264; (15.1) 265; (16) 253, 304 n.60; (16±17.1) 266; (16.1) 240 n.82, 241, 250; (16.2±3) 230; (17.2) 269, 272; (18) 231 n.60; (18.4) 287; (18.5) 297 n.47; (18.7) 232; (20.1) 284, 287; (20.3) 267 n.127; (21.2) 272; (22±3) 301 n.53; (22.2) 357 n.50; (22.4) 313 n.75; (23) 231 n.60; (24.2) 267 n.127; (25) 270; (25.1) 208 n.5; (25.2) 268; (25.2±3) 283; (25.3) 268, 269; (26) 264±5, 270, 283; (26.1) 267; (26.2) 264, 291, 300; (26.4) 221 n.36; (26.5) 13±14, 19; (26.6) 283; (27) 270; (27.2) 145 n.40, 353 n.38; (28) 270; (28.2) 357 n.50; (29) 270; (29.3) 353 n.38; (30) 270; (30.2) 271; (30.2±5) 272; (30.54) 230 n.59; (31) 230, 271, 272; (32) 301 n.53; (32.1) 214, 223, 290 n.34, 300 n.51; (32.2) 225 n.43; (33) 291 n.36; (34.2) 304 n.60; (35) 271; (35.2) 268; (35.8) 269; (36) 271; (36.1) 285 n.24; (36.2) 304

n.60; (37) 285 n.24; (38.2) 136; (38.3) 285 n.24; (39.3) 271, 285 n.24; (41) 231 n.60; (43) 271; (43.2) 313 n.75; (43.2±3) 272; (43.3) 255, 256 n.109; (44±6) 271± 2; (45) 256; (46) 256; (47) 231 n.60; (49± 50) 219; (53) 230; (54.2) 231 n.60; (54.3) 223±4; (55.3) 231 n.60; (60) 301 n.53; (60.3) 359, 359 n.55; (60.6) 230 n.58; (62.2) 291 n.36; (63.4) 304 n.60, 359 n.56; (64.1) 291 n.36; (64.2) 359 n.56; (65±74) 13; (66.2) 359; (68.2) 21; (69.1) 353 n.38; (74.1) 359; (75.2±6) 224; (76.2) 301; (77) 72; (79) 72; (80.2) 154 n.57; (80.3) 224; (80¨.) 291 n.36; (81.2) 291 n.36; (82) 272 n.134; (82.1) 273 n.138, 291 n.36; (82.2) 224; (82.2±83.3) 301; (83.2) 213; (84.1) 301; (84.2) 269 n.131; (84.3±85) 296 n.44; (85) 196, 202; (85± 113) 195±204; (86) 100; (87) 167 n.84, 197, 265 n.123; (89) 101, 162, 169, 200, 202; (89±99) 199±203; (91) 200±1; (93) 201; (94) 201; (95) 201±2, 301 n.53; (96) 202; (97) 201±2; (98) 202; (99) 201±2; (100) 203, 301 n.53; (101) 98, 203; (102) 203; (103) 185 n.121, 203; (104) 109, 160 n.70, 203±4; (105) 204; (105.2) 27 n.42, 197, 344; (105.3) 142 n.31; (105.4) 91, 142 n.31, 204; (106) 204; (111.4) 313 n.75; (116.1) 231 n.60, 301; (116.3) 291 n.36; (116.4) 214 Book 6 (1.4) 170; (3.1) 231 n.60; (6.1) 159; (6.2) 160 n.70; (8.2) 229 n.56; (8.4) 241; (8.5) 147 n.44; (9.1) 146 n.41; (9.2) 51 n.96, 51 n.97, 242; (10.2±4) 267; (10.5) 101±2; (11.5) 51 n.97; (11.6) 142 n.31; (12.1) 102; (12.2) 102; (15) 256±7; (15.3) 256 n.111; (15.4) 257; (16) 261; (16±18) 261 n.119; (16.2) 218 n.28; (16.4) 102, 261; (17.4) 258 n.114; (18) 261; (18.2) 169 n.87; (18.4) 265 n.123; (20.4) 231 n.60; (23.1) 146 n.41; (27±9) 226; (31) 359; (31.1) 359 n.55; (32.1± 2) 226; (33±4) 171; (33.1) 171; (34.1) 140 n.29; (34.3) 208 n.5; (34.4) 171, 265 n.123; (34.8) 51 n.97; (36.3) 265 n.123; (39.1) 53 n.100; (44.3) 227; (46.3) 229 n.56; (54.5) 52, 247 n.96; (54.6) 59 n.109; (55.1) 273 n.139; (55.4) 231 n.60; (55.6±7) 231 n.60; (56.2) 231 n.60; (57.1) 231 n.60; (57.3) 25 n.34; (59.1) 47; (60.1) 273 n.139; (61.3) 214 n.18, 227, 301; (64.1) 227 n.49; (67¨.) 225 n.43; (68.2) 48

Index locorum n.88; (69) 171; (70.4) 227 n.49; (71.1) 227 n.49; (72.2) 53; (74) 291 n.36; (75.1) 227, 227 n.49; (76±80) 171; (76.2) 146 n.43; (76.4) 147, 171, 193 n.5; (77.1) 146 n.43, 147 n.44, 157±8; (78) 171; (78.1) 140 n.29; (78.3) 46; (80.2) 158; (82±7) 162, 165±6; (82.1) 166; (82.2) 102 n.32, 159; (82.3) 102, 167; (82.4) 167; (83.1) 168; (83.2) 166, 167 n.84, 168 n.86, 247 n.96; (83.4± 84.1) 166; (85) 102; (85.1) 143; (86.2) 102; (86.5) 167 n.84; (87.2) 159; (87.3) 122 n.69; (87.3±5) 169; (87.4) 102.167 n.84; (88.7) 160 n.70; (88.10) 258; (89± 92) 162, 258±61; (89.1) 259; (89.2) 259; (89.3) 259; (89.4±6) 260; (90) 259; (90.3) 273 n.139; (91) 258±9; (91.2) 167 n.84; (91.5) 269 n.131; (92) 246±7 n.94; (92.4) 102 n.33, 260±1; (92.5) 259; (93.1) 150 n.49, 258; (95.2) 291 n.36; (99.3) 227; (100.2) 227; (101) 167 n.84; (105.4) 167 n.84; (111.2) 167 n.84; (111.4) 167 n.84; (132.2) 59 n.109 Book 7 (1) 287; (3.3) 227; (3.4) 214 n.18; (4.6) 227 n.49; (5.4) 157; (13.2) 51 n.97; (18.2) 124 n.77, 267 n.127, 286, 287; (26.2) 232; (27.3) 217 n.24; (28.3) 175, 313 n.75; (29.1±3) 216; (29.3) 215, 217; (29.3±5) 210; (29.5) 15 n.16, 214, 215, 359; (30.3) 214, 359; (33.6) 291 n.36; (34.2) 273 n.138; (36) 359 n.56; (36.6) 359 n.56; (37.2±3) 227 n.49; (42.3) 242, 258; (42.6) 227 n.49; (44.1) 21, 359 n.56; (46) 291 n.36; (48.3) 242; (48.4) 102 n.33, 242; (50.4) 242; (53.3) 214 n.18; (55.1) 150 n.49; (55.2) 149; (56.2) 147 n.44, 353 n.36; (57) 156 n.61; (57±8) 155; (57.1) 156; (57.1±11) 221 n.34; (57.2) 157; (57.5) 155; (57.6±7) 155; (57.7) 155, 353; (57.9) 155; (57.10) 156; (57.11) 156; (58) 156 n.61; (58.3) 156 n.61; (68.2) 353; (68.5) 244; (70.4) 359 n.56; (70.7) 313 n.75; (71) 21; (71.3) 186 n.122, 313 n.75; (71.7) 360 n.61; (73.2) 224 n.41; (73.3) 265 n.123; (75.7) 360; (77.2) 102 n.33; (77.2, 3) 247 n.96; (77.4) 265 n.123; (77.7) 315 n.77; (85.4) 360; (86.2) 258 n.115; (86.5) 242±3; (87.5) 360; (120) 234; (139.1) 168 n.86; (139.2) 160; (144.2) 160 Book 8 (1.2) 360 n.61; (1.3) 301 n.53; (1.4) 301 n.53, 321; (2.1) 273 n.138; (2.2) 301; (2.4) 265 n.123, 363; (3.1) 373; (5.1) 301 n.53; (5.2) 301 n.53; (5.4) 301 n.53, 302 n.55;

409

(5.5) 367, 371 n.81; (5.7) 301 n.53; (6) 302 n.55; (6.4) 137 n.20; (7) 302 n.55; (9±10.1) 219; (9.2±3) 301 n.53; (10) 302 n.55; (10.1) 301 n.53; (14.1±2) 302 n.55; (14.3) 301 n.53; (14.23) 301 n.53; (14.31) 301 n.53; (15.1) 301 n.53; (15.2) 302 n.55; (17) 301 n.53; (17.1±2) 302 n.55; (17.2) 262 n.120; (18.1) 140 n.28, 371; (19) 302 n.55; (19.2) 233, 367; (19.4) 301 n.53; (19.24) 301 n.53; (19.63) 301 n.53; (19.73) 301 n.53; (22±4) 302 n.55; (24.3) 303; (24.4) 303, 321 n.85; (24.5) 303; (24.6) 303; (25±7) 301 n.53; (25.3) 156 n.62, 157; (25.5) 156, 157; (27.1) 248; (27.3) 367; (27.5) 46, 53 n.100, 245; (28) 302 n.55; (28.2±3) 371 n.81; (28.3±4) 367; (28.6) 371 n.81; (30) 302 n.55; (32) 302 n.55; (34) 302 n.55; (35) 301 n.53; (35.3) 232; (37.1) 140 n.28; (37.4) 371; (38.3) 303, 303 n.57; (38.3±4) 303; (38.3±5) 302 n.55; (39.2) 304 n.60; (40) 302 n.55; (41.2) 359 n.57; (43.3) 146; (43.52) 146; (44) 301 n.53; (45) 262 n.120; (46) 188 n.125, 262; (46.3) 146 n.42; (46.5) 370, 371 n.81; (47.1) 262 n.120, 371 n.81; (47.2±48.1) 305; (48.1) 208 n.5, 305; (48.2) 307 n.63; (48.3) 306, 307 n.63; (48.4±5) 246; (48.4±7) 306; (48.5) 146 n.42; (48.5±6) 301 n.53; (48.6) 122 n.69; (48.64.65) 301 n.53; (48.99) 301 n.53; (49) 306; (50±1) 306; (50.1) 246; (50.2) 246; (50.3) 247; (50.5) 247; (51.1) 247, 248; (51.3) 248; (53.1) 307; (53.2) 227; (54.1) 307; (54.3) 248, 368 n.73; (54.3±4) 367; (54.4) 61 n.112, 307; (55.1± 56.1) 302 n.55; (56) 262 n.120, 308; (56.1) 303; (56.2) 371 n.81; (57.2) 265 n.125; (58.7) 371; (60) 301 n.53; (61) 301 n.53, 302 n.55; (62) 301 n.53; (63.1±2) 302 n.55; (63.3±4) 308; (64) 301 n.53, 354 n.42; (64.1) 308 n.65; (64.3) 353 n.36; (64.5) 146 n.42, 306, 321 n.85, 353 n.36; (65±6) 310 n.71; (65.1) 308 n.65; (65.1±2) 308; (65.2) 61 n.112, 308; (65.3) 308, 308 n.66, 311 n.72, 324; (66) 308, 310; (66.1) 310; (66.2) 310 n.70; (66.2±5) 308±9; (66.4) 310 n.70; (66.5) 309 n.68, 309 n.69, 310 n.70; (67.1) 311; (67.2) 218 n.26, 311, 325 n.97; (67.3) 311; (68) 53, 53 n.100; (68.1) 54, 245, 311 n.72; (68.3) 248, 250 n.102; (68.4) 245, 311 n.72, 321 n.85; (69±70.1) 326; (69.1) 311; (69.4) 311; (70) 218 n.26; (70.1) 311; (70.2) 312,

410

Index locorum

Thucydides, History (cont.) 316; (71) 312; (71.3) 312; (72) 312; (72.1) 323 n.91, 324; (74) 316; (75±6) 314 n.76; (75.1) 312, 314 n.76; (75.2) 314, 314 n.76; (75.2±3) 314 n.76; (76.1) 313, 314 n.76; (76.2±7) 314 n.76; (76.3±7) 313; (80) 301 n.53; (81) 262 n.120; (84.3) 230 n.58; (86) 37; (86.3) 312, 324; (86.4) 315; (86.5) 314; (86.6) 324; (87.4) 371 n.81; (87.4±5) 370 n.77; (88) 262 n.120; (89) 316, 317; (89±97) 316±17; (89.2) 317, 324; (89.3) 317, 321; (90.1±2) 248; (90.2) 316; (90.3) 318; (90.5) 318; (91.3) 318; (92±3) 302 n.55; (92.2) 248, 318 n.81; (92.4) 307 n.63; (92.4±5) 318; (92.7±8) 319; (92.9±10) 319; (92.11) 322, 324; (93±94.1) 218 n.26; (93.2) 324; (94±5) 319; (94.3) 67 n.127; (96) 150; (96.1) 302, 360 n.61; (96.1±3) 319; (96.5) 15 n.16, 148±9, 151; (97.1) 319, 320; (97.1±2) 324; (97.2) 22, 320, 322, 359 n.56; (97.3) 322; (98.1±3) 322; (98.4) 322; (100) 154 n.57; (100.2) 302 n.55; (101) 302 n.55; (102.3) 233; (106.3) 302 n.55; (107) 301 n.53; (108.4) 223; (109.3) 234; (144.2) 189, 233, 372

Tullius Cicero Fam. (4.7.2) 60 n.110; (4.8.2) 36; (4.9.3) 25 n.35; (4.11.1) 61 n.113; (7.4) 37 (7.5) 61 n.113; (9.3) 37 Tyrtaeus (11.27) 27 n.41 Xenophanes DK 21 (b18) 335 n.4; (b34) 19 n.26 Xenophon Cyrop. (7.5.73) 211 n.10 Hellen (2.1.31±2) 289; (2.2.3) 212 n.14 HG (2.2.19±23) 363 Mem. (2.4±6) 142 n.32; (2.6.5) 142 n.32; (2.6.35) 142 n.32; (3.1.5) 27 n.41; (3.3.12) 222 n.39; (3.7.9) 183 n.110; (4.2.15) 211 n.10 Inscriptions ML (38) 140 n.28; (68) 273 n.138; (69) 273 n.138; (70) 140, 366 n.71; (73) 222 n.39; (77) 367 n.72; (85) 316 n.78, 318 n.81; (89) 156 n.61; (196) 229 n.55 CIA (2.814, 1217, 1319) 222 n.39 IG (i3 76) 140 n.29; (i3 86) 272 n.134; (ii 2 213) 140