Jonathan J. Price-Thucydides and Internal War (2001) PDF

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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 diag-
nostic 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 com-
munication 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 Pelopon-
nesian War as a destructive internal war had profound con-
sequences 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
ab
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Contents
Preface page ix
part i: the model of stasis 1

Introduction 3
1 Beyond Corcyra 6
Corcyra 6
A model of stasis: purpose and method 11
The genesis and eëcts of stasis 22
The problem of stasis 30
The pathology of stasis 39
Stasis and polemos 67
Stasis and the Peloponnesian War 73
part ii: logoi 79

2 The transvaluation of words 81
Corcyra and Corinth: justice and expediency 82
Athenian justice: Cleon and Diodotus and their successors 89
Stasis and rhetoric in Boeotia 103
3 Hellenic states rede®ne the community of Hellas 127

The Peloponnesians 128
The ``Liberation of Hellas'' 128
Inherent natures 147
Ethnic arguments 151
Athens' world 161
Athens' response to the ``Liberation'' theme 161
The Periclean speeches 171
4 The failure of communication 190

Athens at Sparta 190
The Melian Dialogue 195
vii
viii Contents
part iii: erga 205
5 The ``greatest kinesis'' 207
Brutality and barbarity; moral and ethical violations 210
Religion 217
Individuals 236
The Peace of Nicias 263
6 The Peloponnesian War and stasis 274

The ®rst aitia 274
The beginning of the war 277
Staseis as organizing points of the History 289
Athens' stasis 304
Conclusion 327
part iv: thucydides and hellas 331

7 The Archaeology, the Pentekontaetia and the Persians 333
The Archaeology 333
The Pentekontaetia and the ``truest reason'' for the war 344
The Persians 363
Thucydides' Hellas 371
List of works cited 378

General index 397
Index locorum 402
Preface
The commentaries by Gomme (and his successors) and by Horn-

blower have been my constant companions during research and
writing; full acknowledgment of their in¯uence cannot be repre-
sented even by my many references to them. A fortiori I have by no
means intended to provide a survey of all literature on Thucy-
dides. I have not felt compelled to react to or account for every-
thing 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 im-
plicitly answered. Nonetheless, many readers may still ®nd that
too many works have been cited, and I would have di½culty dis-
agreeing 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 ac-
cumulated 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 gnwÂ mh (Chapter 1), ``self-interest''
(Chapter 5) and the relations between Sparta and Thebes, in rela-
tion 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, particu-
larly Yun Lee Too, who read and critiqued Chapter 1. I am grate-
ful also to Tel Aviv University for releasing me from my duties
that year.
Other friends read parts of the manuscript in earlier versions
and oëred 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. Like-
wise, 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 oëred
perceptive and informed criticism and saved me from embarrass-
ing 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 oëred criticism on those occasions.
Pauline Hire of Cambridge University Press encouraged the proj-
ect in its initial stages and expertly oversaw its development into a
publishable book; Michael Sharp competently brought it to com-
pletion. 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 pho-
tocopy 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 oëred 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 Mi-
cha ± 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 ven-
tured 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 lan-
guage 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 under-
standing 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 under-
standing the diërence between war and civil war more urgent,
yet at the same time it has also made that diërence 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 fundamen-
tally internal con¯ict, are worth presenting in some detail, al-
though 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 oërs
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 con-
dition matches the criteria of stasis and only then, how to de®ne
the identity and nature of the corporate entity which is aëcted.
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 charac-
teristic 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 disap-
peared, 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 imme-
diate causes and ®rst incidents of the war, Thucydides used indi-
vidual 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 Thucy-
dides' Panhellenism, which remains unclear, should not aëct
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 diërent from
a polemos, and viewing the Peloponnesian War as a destructive in-
ternal con¯ict had profound consequences for Thucydides' his-
torical 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 realign-
ment 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 pro-
Athenian democratic regime which currently governed in Corcyra,
but pure ideology was lost in the violent power struggle which fol-
lowed. At ®rst, the returning Corcyreans tried to eëct 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 pres-
ently 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 Thucy-
dides' 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 com-
panions launched a violent attack on Peithias and killed him with
about sixty other council-members and private citizens. The oli-
garchs 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 ges-
tures 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 uncer-
tain, 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 Mes-
senian 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 demo-
crats persuaded him to leave ®ve of his ships for their own pro-
tection, oëring ®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 Pelo-
ponnesian 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.
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 fur-
ther attack only by the Peloponnesians' lack of initiative to follow
up success. In alarm, the Corcyreans moved their oligarchic pris-
oners on the island back to Corcyra as a precaution, and tem-
porarily 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 [ the democratic faction], when they became
aware that the Attic ships were sailing towards them and their enemies'
ships [ 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 oër of a trial, and when they saw what was hap-
pening, 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 em-
broiled in war and an alliance was available to each side for the detri-
ment 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 con-
trol; 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 geÂ 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 Epi-
damnus (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 `àt that time,'' contrasted with u steron in the next clause. This still re-
quires 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 peraiteÂ 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 `òligarchy'' hardened into rhetorical weapons in the cities' inner con¯icts. The same
thing or worse was subsequently repeated in city after city, `ìn¯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 `àmong the
®rst'' and `ìn the ®rst rank among the examples of stasis.'' The clause, however inter-
preted, ensures that the word staÂ siv must have a de®nite article, as KruÈger suggested;
omitting the h after wmhÂ was one of the easiest kinds of error a scribe could make.
relation to the facts, according to their own perception of what was jus-
ti®ed. For reckless daring was now considered courage true to the party,
whereas prudent hesitation was considered specious cowardice, modera-
tion and discretion a cover for unmanliness, and intelligence which com-
prehended the whole an unwillingness to act in anything. Impulsive
rashness was attributed to the part of a real man, while prolonged plan-
ning 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 suc-
ceeded 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 antici-
pated 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 mea-
sures 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 valid-
ity, 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 op-
position 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 sta-
sis), 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 in-
spired 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 gov-
ernment 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 re-
venge: 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 im-
mediate grati®cation required, and they were ready to satisfy their lust to
dominate by seizing power either through an unjust vote of condem-
nation or through brute force. As a result, both sides abandoned all re-
ligious 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 re-
fusal 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 provi-
sions 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 fre-
quently 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 con-
centrated and profoundest re¯ections on historical truths.5 Most
other comments on the human condition in the History are con-
tained 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 de-
scription of the epidemic in Athens ± indications of his own
deeply held convictions on historical processes not connected ex-
clusively 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.
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 com-
pression 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 book-
and 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 slaugh-
ter, lethal subversion of judicial process, violation of religious
places and sanctities, personally motivated crime masked by polit-
ical pretext, atrocities of every form defying imagination (paÄsa
ideÂ a) ± these are all standard features of a stasis, stereotypical be-
havior, 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 narra-
tive 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 be-
haved 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 narra-
tive.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 diërence in the case
of stasis is that, by describing one typical episode in detail, Thucy-
dides 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, Thucy-
dides 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 gen-
eral aspects of developed human society ± language, family ties,
and political, legal and religious conventions. This will ensure in-
telligibility for future readers.
The method is implied in the purpose and revealed in the ex-
position: pertinent details are rigorously selected and accurately
de®ned to provide the basis for precise yet generalizing interpre-
tations of human behavior. The stasis model is a good demonstra-
tion 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 inves-
tigated every detail `às accurately as possible'' (1.22.2), and the
other in the so-called ``second introduction'': `Ì was at an age to
understand what I observed (aisqanoÂ 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.
both cases Thucydides stresses personal observation (ai sqhsiv) and
painstaking accuracy (akriÂ 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
`èvery 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 under-
standing of the underlying condition. On a larger scale, the ``form''
(ideÂ a) of the entire stasis: Thucydides notes that later outbreaks of
stasis in the Peloponnesian War, like episodes in a widespread epi-
demic, were more severe than the ®rst ones (82.3); they should not
be mistaken as a diërent condition because of this diërence.
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 dur-
ing 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 (teÂ cnh
iatrikhÂ), which was the least speculative, most empirical science
9 See the Hippocratic work Ancient Medicine 9, 12 for ai sqhsiv and akriÂ beia; for akriÂ beia
in Thucydides, cf. TreÂdeÂ 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 Horn-
blower 1987, 110±35 on Thucydides' `ìntellectual 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.
Beyond Corcyra 15
of that time.11 The practitioners of the new medicine produced
thoroughly detailed records of diseases and their peculiar symp-
toms, or tekmeria.12 The Hippocratic accounts of diseases were
necessarily selective, and therein lay the art (teÂ cnh). A physician
with a trained eye and full knowledge of previously recorded in-
stances was supposed to distinguish symptoms of one disease from
unrelated phenomena, as well as understand variations in the
symptoms of a single disease among diërent patients and the
various stages of a disease as it progresses. A disease which breaks
out in diërent places and in diërent times will not appear iden-
tical in each case; a competent physician discerns the underly-
ing similarities and disregards surface variations.13 Similarly, in
his account of stasis, Thucydides describes how the condition ``be-
fell'' or `à¿icted'' the cities (e peÂ pese)14 and how it ``progressed''
(proucwÂrhse), using words which medical authors used to de-
scribe 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 underly-
ing 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 de-
11 Hankinson 1992. Major discussions of the intellectual in¯uences, particularly medi-

cine, 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 Horn-
blower 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 wmhÂ and
proucwÂrhse, see Connor 1984, 103.
16 eidov (and the closely related i deÂ a) in Hippocratic literature was used to distinguish dif-
ferent 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 deÂ a in Thucydides
is an expression of hyperbole and contradicts Thucydides' expectations regarding the
war misses the point.
veloped by Thucydides' day; there is nothing exclusively medical
about Thucydides' words translated as `à¿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 com-
mon in medical texts, as well as his frank avoidance at 2.49.3 of
`àll 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 assump-
tions 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 diërent places (cf. 2.47.3, 2.51.1). The account does contain
imprecisions and inaccuracies, and not all of the symptoms Thu-
cydides 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, un-
detected, 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 accu-
17 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 corre-
spondence between Thucydides and medical texts, and certain insupportable biographi-
cal speculations; yet by oëring 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
loÂ 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: `Ì 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 au-
thority 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 diërences, 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 eëcts 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
diërs from the medical experts in at least one important aspect.
20 Not `ìmpossible to describe,'' as some have thought, for Thucydides describes it in some
detail, e piÁ paÄn thÁn i deÂ 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 `ùsefulness'' of the History.
Nowhere does he intend to provide future generations an in-
strument for prognosis, much less treatment.22 His programmatic
statement in 2.48.3, quoted above, stresses cognition (skopwÄ n,
proeidwÂ v, agnoeiÄ n, i dwÂn), nothing more, just like his assertion
that the characteristics of stasis so carefully described `òccur and
will always occur so long as human nature remains the same''
(3.82.2). No possibility, much less intention of prediction is sug-
gested here, in sharp contrast to the Hippocratic authors. In this
aspect, then, Thucydides diërs from his medical models, as well
as from modern criteria which (for most sciences) require repro-
ducible results ®tting a predictable pattern; only his method ®ts the
term ``scienti®c.''23 Even a work such as the Hippocratic Epidemics,
which oërs no explicit guidance for prognosis and seldom sug-
gests treatments but is devoted almost entirely to a detailed ac-
count 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 accu-
racy 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 trekestaÂ-
tou, 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:
`Èverything 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).
Beyond Corcyra 19
knowledge about both the past and their own time, Thucydides'
History will be a kthÄma e v ai eiÂ , a ``possession for all time,'' perma-
nently `ùseful.'' 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 ex-
cellence 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 mas-
sive 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 suëring 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 `òbjectivity'' 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.
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 ®fth-
century historian. The debate has practically polarized around
labels: Thucydides is either the least or most objective of all an-
cient historians, a scientist without emotion or a passionate artist
without science, a promoter of rational and intelligent control of
human aäirs 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 con-
tradictory 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 inter-
pret. That in itself indicates deep personal involvement without
re¯ecting negatively on the quality of the investigation. Are theo-
retical 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 emo-
tion (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 ref-
erence 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).
Beyond Corcyra 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 Thucy-
dides 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 oppor-
tunities personally to witness staseis in the Hellenic cities, he relied
primarily on his own observations, con®rmed by those of other in-
formants, 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 Thucy-
dides. The idea, developed by natural scientists and political phi-
losophers 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 `èqual rights'' (i sonomiÂ a) of the
forces, moist and dry, cold and hot, bitter and sweet, and the rest,
whereas the single rule (monarciÂ 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-
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 dispro-
portionate 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 aban-
doned, 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: `ìt 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 eirhÂnhÎ) a. In peacetime (e n meÁ n gaÁ r
such behavior impossible eirhÂnhÎ ) such behavior im-
b. In wartime (polemoumeÂ nwn possible
deÂ ) 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 iso-
nomia 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.
Beyond Corcyra 23
It seems otiose, but, given the still-prevalent trend to ®nd im-
perfection 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 na-
ture 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 de-
tails 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 oërs the same
analysis in general terms, free of any particular context.30 Both
sentences explain the ones preceding them by showing how people
behave diërently under varying conditions, speci®cally war and
peace. In the ®rst sentence (82.1a±b),31 Thucydides says that in
30 The transitional word `ànd'' (kaiÂ ) in 82.1b has practically the same sense as the transi-
tional ``for'' (gaÂ r) in 82.2b.
31 Which is itself in a±b±a±b form: ``no pretext'' and ``not prepared'' correspond, respec-
tively, to `àn alliance was available'' and `à facile matter.'' The `àvailable 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 meÂ n
clause and, if the genitive absolutes remain, the lack of a copula (ontwn) for eÿ toiÂ mwn.
Among the suggested emendations has been e toÂ lmwn for eÿ toiÂ mwn, which creates further
grammatical di½culties; Marshall's emendation (1990) of oud' eÿ toiÂ mwn to oudeteÂ rwn is
inspired by his belief that eÿ toiÂ 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 abso-
lutes in the meÂ n and deÂ clauses lend a certain force to the intended contrast. The anaco-
luthon 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.
peacetime ``they would not have been prepared'' (ou k an . . .
eÿ toiÂ mwn) to use external alliances for internally destructive pur-
poses, 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 ex-
plained further by two passages in the model: (1) the later state-
ment that the stasiotai ``were ready (eÿ toiÄ moi) to satisfy their lust to
dominate by seizing power through either an unjust vote of con-
demnation or brute force'' (82.8), describing a readiness to commit
acts unthinkable in normal times; and closer to home, (2) its paral-
lel in the section, i.e. the second sentence (82.2a±b): in peacetime,
states and individuals have ``better gnwÄmai,'' which are over-
powered when their orgaiÂ 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 delibera-
tion. By contrast, o rgaiÂ are strong emotions, passions which cir-
cumvent or overwhelm rational processes.32 Thus the focus is on
what happens internally to living organisms, both states and in-
dividuals, during stasis, and the contrast is between the prevalence
of mental powers and faculties of judgment (gnwÄmai) in times of
security and raw emotion (orgaiÂ ) 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 (newteriÂ 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 newteriÂ zein ti boulomeÂ 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 kateÂ roiv. That is, those partisans who called in
Athens and Sparta were the ones desiring to revolutionize the state; they were not exist-
ing elements suppressed in times of peace, but were created by the conditions which led
to stasis.
Beyond Corcyra 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 diërent meaning (83.3;
see below). Likewise, the theme of the take-over of crude emo-
tional 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 inter-
personal relations.34
Thus Thucydides says that war changes men internally, trans-
forming 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 mod-
ern cadre of emenders. Yet the text is sound, and no change is re-
quired. The main di½culty can be resolved by realizing that the
®rst neuter subject refers to the aäirs of the cities (e stasiÂ aze . . .
taÁ twÄn poÂlewn), while the second represents the people and their
actions in the cities (taÁ e justeriÂ zonta . . . e peÂ jere), for only people
(not events) could go to ``much further extremes, both in the in-
genuity of their attacks and in the enormity of their acts of re-
venge.'' Thus the language is highly compressed, with a point. As
Macleod astutely observes, Thucydides ``systematically avoids dis-
tinguishing 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 timwrhtikaÂ . 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 Thucy-
dides: 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 stasiÂ azeÂ te oun taÁ twÄn poÂlewn, kaiÁ taÁ e justeriÂ zontaÂ pou puÂ stei [Dion.: e pi-
puÂstei ] twÄn progenomeÂ nwn poluÁ e peÂ jere thÁn uÿperbolhÁn touÄ kainouÄsqai taÁ v dianoiÂ 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.
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 or-
ganisms 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' investiga-
tion probes the disrupted interiors of two vitally related organ-
isms, 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 biÂ aiov didaÂskalov, a
teacher of violence, since its role in stasis is to ``shape human behav-
ior,'' to make men violent by taking away secure livelihood and
introducing violence as the modus vivendi. This means that, in Thucy-
dides' view, men are predisposed neither to tranquil existence nor to
violence: when comfortable and unworried about daily survival ±
diaÁ toÁ mhÂ 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 `ìnvoluntary''
(the a kouÂsiai anaÂgkai at 82.2): obviously, in times of peace peo-
ple do not yearn for the deprivations of war; likewise, in stasis en-
gendered by war, people do not yearn for peace but have diërent
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 in-
dividuals, cf. also 1.122.3, 1.144.3; also Farrar 1988, 153, and now Morrison 1994. Thucy-
dides has two other purposes in 3.82.3: (a) to demonstrate the proposition that diërent
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 diërent layers of compo-
sition, 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.''
Beyond Corcyra 27
The stasis at Notion, for example, was a ``private stasis'' (staÂ siv
idiÂ 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 `à teacher of violence'' (not ``grim teacher'' vel sim., as often
proposed) in that it disposes men to violent acts which in a peace-
ful mindset they would never have contemplated. The phrase,
``War is a teacher of violence'' (poÂ lemov . . . biÂ 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 under-
stood; 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 sys-
tems prevalent in his time and our own, based on ®xed moral
standards as well as on a conception of human nature as essen-
tially ``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 partic-
ular 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 analy-
sis of and deductions from natural patterned occurrences would
lack coherency and purpose without the assumption of an indif-
40 There is no reason to accept KruÈ ger's emendation of i diÂ an to i diÂ aÎ ; cf. Gehrke 1985, 80,
281, and CT i, 415±16.
41 Il. 16.811, didaskoÂ menov poleÂ moio; Tyrt. 11.27, didaskeÂ sqw polemiÂ 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 run-
ning rampant when unrestrained. Another misinterpretation, namely that the phrase
`òccur and will always occur'' indicates a cyclical view of history, will be dealt with
below.
ferent ``human nature'' which will always respond similarly to sim-
ilar 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 be-
come ill when exposed to unhealthy conditions, so in the un-
healthy 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 cir-
cumstance 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 Thu-
cydides 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 nqrwpeiÂ a juÂ siv at 2.50.1 (epidemic narra-
tive) 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.
Beyond Corcyra 29
times before,46 yet the diërences 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 eëcts 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, anomiÂ a, spread indiscriminately to the entire popula-
tion, 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 diërence: while social institutions, laws, piety
and family loyalties simply disappeared during the epidemic, leav-
ing chaos, in stasis all these elements continue to exist in changed,
distorted forms, or are replaced by other similar but harmful sub-
stitutions. 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), where-
as stasis itself is a state of sickness, which so changes people that
they willfully violate those same norms. Human eörts to com-
bat the plague were overpowered, almost literally by violence
(uÿperbiazomeÂ nou touÄ kakouÄ , 2.52.3); combatants are vigorous and
purposeful in stasis, for war has instructed them in violent (if un-
accustomed) ways ( biÂ aiov didaÂ 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 diërent 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 allotriÂ av, contrasting with an implied puraÁv suggeneiÂ av, and 3.82.6,
toÁ xuggeneÁ v touÄ eÿ tairikouÄ allotriwÂteron e geÂ neto. On social breakdown in the epi-
demic, cf. Stahl 1966, 79¨.
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 over-
crowding 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, unex-
pected and agonizing death, during stasis this same threat is posed
by sudden violence from enemy quarters on a daily basis. The re-
sult 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 sur-
rendered themselves to the pleasure of the moment (2.53, cf. 3.82.8)
± and this individual collapse is what brings on general social col-
lapse. 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 (noÂ sov) as a metaphor for stasis; it ap-
pears elsewhere in ®fth- and (more often) fourth-century Greek.49
But he is the only writer in extant Greek literature to have ex-
plored 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 ac-
tions 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 ex-
actly 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.
Beyond Corcyra 31
that the word stasis, in the sense of ``factional rivalry,'' `ìnternal
discord'' vel sim., ®rst appears in the sixth century, after the classi-
cal polis had substantially formed (even if further stages of devel-
opment 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: `Ì 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 his-
torians. The standard view is expressed by Socrates in the Republic,
when he says that the word stasis `às it is commonly used'' refers to
`à polis which is internally divided'' (an . . . diasthÄÎ poÂliv, Resp.
470d; this passage presents a problem which will be discussed be-
low). 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 Thucy-
dides 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 consid-
ered, even in passing (see esp. 1303a 25). He concludes that the
source of stasis is the ``desire for equality'' (toÁ i son zhtouÄntev sta-
siaÂ 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; com-
pare 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.
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 fun-
damentally diërent. Aristotle identi®es causes of many diërent
sorts (1302a 17±1307b 26), but some of these causes, psychological
phenomena like insolence and contempt, would not be causes but
eëcts in Thucydides' scheme (cf. 3.82.4±5); others, namely de-
mands 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 histori-
cal circumstances (ibid.). The diërence 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 attrib-
utes 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 war-
ring factions and the great powers, and then shifts the focus to the
struggle itself.
The problem of de®ning stasis, and the originality of Thucy-
dides' 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 com-
batants, in less well-circumscribed polities. Modern social and po-
litical 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, up-
rising, insurrection, guerilla warfare, mutiny, jacquerie, coup d'eÂtat,
putsch, riot and terrorism are all diërent 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 `ìnternal disorder,'' invented as a
54 Ar. Pol. 1304a 4¨., Thuc. 3.1¨.

Beyond Corcyra 33
kind of compromise, does not mean the same thing to everyone. It
is revealing that, in one of the pioneering volumes on the subject,
diërent authors propose three diërent 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 reli-
able 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 Thucy-
dides' 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 conten-
tion 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 oëred
yet another de®nition in his essay a year later (1965), and in his recent book of essays
(1992) he describes his ®rst eört 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 espe-
cially 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 de-
fending the Temple.
Civil War, Southern ideologues went so far as to devise entirely
separate genealogies for their ``people,'' and to invent a ``Civiliza-
tion 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 lloÂ 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 pol-
ity, 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 Aristo-
tle 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 stasio-
tai 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.
Beyond Corcyra 35
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, `èach city preferred
to place its own divisions under the all-encompassing heading of
diaphoraÂ, whereas the civil wars of its neighbors were categorized
as staÂ sis.''62 Thus, in conventional thinking, a stasis (especially in a
system other than a Greek polis) may, in some cases, be perceiv-
able as such only after the con¯ict is over and one side, or both,
have suëred 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 inter-
necine ®ghting in Jerusalem during the year 70 called it a stasis or
equivalent name; a diërent result, that is, the victory of one side,
would have been remembered and recorded diërently, 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 antici-
pated 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: `òranges and apples should be
62 Loraux 1991, 49.

63 e paneÂ sthsan maÄ llon h a peÂ sthsan (apoÂstasiv meÂ n ge twÄn biÂ aioÂn ti pascoÂ ntwn
e stiÂ 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.''
distinguished,'' Eckstein warned.64 But a diërent 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 ac-
knowledge 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 pro-
paganda battles over the question of legitimacy. Julius Caesar de-
clared, 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 per-
sonal 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 con-
scientiously Thucydidean fashion: ``Those who succeeded were esti-
mated to be prudent and lovers of country (jilopoÂlidev), whereas
those who failed were called enemies of the country and guilty
of grave oënse'' (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 ali-
qua res publica . . . sin autem nulla sit, Fam. 4.8.2) and resorted to the
much vaguer, even hopeful phrase patria when referring to his be-
64 Eckstein 1992, 306.

65 Sallust's use of Thucydidean language and thought regarding stasis reveals deep under-
standing 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 digni-
tatem 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 contro-
versiis. 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 descrip-
tion 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 rheto-
ric 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 as-
sembly 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. Thucy-
dides does not de®ne the condition by the entity within which the
con¯ict takes place or by the political relationship of the oppo-
nents. 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 ac-
count 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 con-
ditions 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.
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 diërent 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 eëctively once they
have broken out, above all to determine the legality, appropriate-
ness and possibility of international intervention.69 Thus the ob-
sessive 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 practi-
cal 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. Thucy-
dides arrives at the de®nition in an eört to understand not just
the phenomenon itself, but the human condition through the phe-
nomenon. And since stasis is not strictly a struggle within any spe-
ci®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 aëcted 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 con-
vention, fundamental to any society, is language. It will be conve-
nient 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 compre-
hended 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 syn-
tax 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 diërent
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 diërent from mine, may be found in Macleod 1979, 56±7, 60±2; MuÈ ri 1969;
Edmunds 1975b; Loraux 1986b. In a diërent 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 loÂ gistov vs. andreiÂ a, is set o¨ from the following pairs by meÂ n . . .
deÂ . In the meÂ n clause, a negative value, ``reckless daring,'' is paired with a value of relative
worth, whereas in the subsequent pairs (deÂ ), unequivocally positive values (prudent hesi-
tation, moderation, etc.) are coupled with negative values; moreover, the meÂ n clause in-
dicates what people in stasis praise, whereas the deÂ clauses indicate what they condemn.
I II
reckless daring in stasis was called courage true to the
party
prudent hesitation " " specious cowardice
moderation and " " cover for unmanliness
discretion
comprehending " " unwillingness to act
intelligence
impulsive rashness " " manliness
careful planning " " excuse for evasion73
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 de-
scribe 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 objec-
tively 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 unaëcted by fever and able to
diagnose delirium and its causes, Thucydides judges how people
changed semantic conventions `ìn 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 conven-
tional meaning of words, is ``reckless daring.''
In view of explanations commonly oëred, it is perhaps neces-
sary to stress that Thucydides does not say that people in stasis
73 Or `àbandonment of party'' (a potrophÂ)?

74 e v taÁ e rga is to be understood with a xiÂ 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 diërent 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 com-
mentators' own languages. Most notably, Thucydides is usually
thought to be saying that people ``changed,'' in the sense of trans-
forming 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 `èx-
changed the valuation'' of words (a xiÂ wsin . . . anthÂ 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 xiÂ wsiv, but its combination with a
word meaning `èxchange,'' 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 diaÂ 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: taÂ te
ei wqoÂ ta onoÂ mata e piÁ toiÄ v praÂ gmasi leÂ gesqai metatiqeÂ ntev allwv hxiÂ oun au taÁ kaleiÄ n
(29).
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 `ìntelligence'' to certain behavior
which by Thucydides' own standard is clearly not `ìntelligent'' (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 `èvil'' 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 ap-
plauded.'' 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 crimi-
nally violating it, make new convention opportunistically, `àc-
cording 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 trans-
formations 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 `èxchange valuations'' of words. Dionysius (De Thuc. 29) deemed
it a ``poetical circumlocution'' (periÂ jrasiv poihtikhÂ ). Circumlo-
cution 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 oërs two translations of thÄÎ dikaiwÂsei: `ìn their estimate'' and `às 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 ex-
plained 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 diërent behaviors
without undergoing any semantic shift.
In this as in other matters Thucydides' insights were not regis-
tered 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 real-
ity. 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: `èach 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 ex-
position 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¨.).
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 crimi-
nal 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 onoÂ-
matov 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
(euprepeiÂ aÎ loÂgou) . . .
It should be clear by now that the ``specious'' or ``falsely attractive
names'' in the ®rst sentence are not examples of `èxchanged
values'' ± they were political slogans expressing ideals, like all po-
litical 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 `òligarchy'' on the other. As Gomme points out (HCT ad
loc.), democracy is not really a dirty word and there was no rea-
son 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, diërent 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 un-
natural, 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 `èxchanged valuation of words''
characteristic of stasis, it may not necessarily be correct to assume
that the ``specious phrase,'' even if eëctive on the victims of invid-
ious acts, was disbelieved by the perpetrators. The word eu prephÂ v,
which I have translated as ``specious,'' can mean `àttractive'' 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 interpreta-
tion 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
(loÂ 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 relation-
ship 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 ``diëring 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 opposi-
tion; 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 (comple-
mentary 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 loÂ 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.
he made his word as good as his action,'' writes Herodotus,83 de-
scribing Darius' decision to act in a certain matter. This particular
phrase is a formula found even in Thucydides, who says, e.g., of
Phrynichus: `às 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 `ìn
both word and deed'' (kaiÁ loÂ gwÎ kaiÁ e rgwÎ xunepilambaÂ nein, 2.8.4).
When logos and ergon are antithetical, logos represents either mis-
conception 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 jiÂ loi, 339). Thucydides' Hermocrates admonishes the
Camarineans, `Òne might suppose (loÂ gwÎ meÂ n) that he is protect-
ing our power, but in fact (e rgwÎ deÂ ) 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 sophisti-
cated. As antithesis the opposition is often found in political con-
texts, a typical example being the prosecutor's complaint, in a
bitter trial of the early fourth century, against `à nominal oër of
peace which in fact spelled the dissolution of the democracy.''84 A
famous Thucydidean example of antithetical logos/ergon is his pro-
nouncement that Athens under Pericles ``was in name (loÂ gwÎ meÂ n) a
democracy but in fact (e rgwÎ deÂ ) 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
`àllegedly (twÄÎ meÁ n loÂ gwÎ ) because of a bail of 800 talents paid by
their proxenoi, but in fact (e rgwÎ deÂ ) 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 as-
83 tauÄta eipe kaiÁ ama e pov te kaiÁ e rgon e poiÂ ee, 3.134.6. I am not convinced that Her-
odotus' use of the opposition here is ``heedless of its implications,'' Parry 49.
84 onoÂmati meÁ n ei rhÂnhn legomeÂ nhn, twÄÎ deÁ e rgwÎ thÁn dhmokratiÂ an kataluomeÂ nhn, Lys.
13.15.
85 Cf. the Corinthians' charge against the Spartans that their reputation exceeds reality, oÿ
loÂgov touÄ e rgou e kraÂ 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 rela-
tion 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 `èxchanging 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 reck-
less daring as ``courage true to the party.'' Nor does logos (onomata
here) represent mistaken perception, for there was no deeper un-
perceived 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 mean-
ings are perforce assumed, otherwise the target of the decep-
tion would be missed and chaos and confusion would ensue. In
stasis, however, it is just that chaos which prevails, for the rela-
tionship between words and reality, which rests on convention, is
undermined.
Thucydides' ®rst example of the transvaluation of words in sta-
sis 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 im-
plications 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:
taÂ te a poÁ twÄ n e nantiÂ wn kalwÄ v legoÂmena e nedeÂ conto e rgwn julakhÄÎ , ei
prouÂ coien, kaiÁ ou gennaioÂ thti.
Fair proposals from the opposition were received with actual protec-
tive measures by the faction which felt itself to be superior, and not in a
noble spirit.
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. Com-
mentators 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 con-
trast to legoÂ mena (``proposals''), which seems the most likely expla-
nation, 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). Exam-
ples 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 leÂ gw) or yield to words reasonably
spoken (eu lecqeiÄ si loÂgoiv).''88 Similarly, the Chorus says to Elec-
tra in Soph. El. 252±3, `Ìf I do not speak well (kalwÄ v leÂ gw), then
have it your way,'' i.e., if I do speak well, then you should act ac-
cordingly, which is exactly what Menelaus says at Eur. Helen 441±
2: `àll these things you say well (kalwÄ v leÂ geiv); so be it; I will
obey; just refrain from your wrath . . .''89 These examples are su½-
cient 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 ndeÂ 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 op-
portunistically 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 leÂ geiv.
Beyond Corcyra 49
an honorable thing.''90 This is not empty moralizing but an ex-
pression of what was considered normal political process. Yet in
parodic contrast, Thucydides writes that, during stasis, fair pro-
posals are answered with ``protective measures,'' i.e., an unreason-
able and un®tting response, and an indication of the depth to
which violence penetrates people's thoughts and instinctive re-
actions during stasis. This strikingly unconventional relationship
between logos and ergon is not a standard complementary or anti-
thetical relationship but a disjunction between the two, illustrating
how political procedures become dysfunctional in stasis.
Normal political processes are also mocked in Thucydides' ob-
servation that `ànyone who spoke against [the display of violent
anger] was suspect '' (3.82.5), where a ntileÂ gein, which in context
means to speak in opposition to a proposal, is strikingly juxtaposed
with upoptov, ``suspicious,'' a wholly improper response. More-
over, the term for normal political deliberation, bouleuÂ ein, ap-
pears 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 ex-
pected precedence of true erga over false logoi, or true logoi over
false erga. Not only do logoi and erga arise from diërent and
opposing sectors, unlike in the Assembly, which is the scene of
diëring opinions but common action, but one is completely un-
matched 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 be-
tween 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 loÂ gwÎ ) and what
was done (taÁ d' e rga), but diërent 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 pibouleuÂ sav appears in a clearly negative sense. I do not
think that the middle voice of the ®rst instance can explain the diërence. Thucydides
can use the same word in diërent meanings even in the same sentence, see HCT i, 249.
because of the diërent 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 poluÂ -
tropon gnwÂ 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
(gnwÂ 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 solu-
tions 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 pleonex-
iÂ an kaiÁ jilotimiÂ an, or an explanation how, in a stasis of this kind, men
of second-rate intelligence get the better of the intelligent, who, as intel-
ligent 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 oërs as exclusive alternatives. Thucydides says
92 I have not found any exact parallel to this phenomenon outside Thucydides. Even ex-
amples of real hostility between logos and ergon are fundamentally diërent. E.g., Hdt.
3.72.2: pollaÂ e sti taÁ loÂgwÎ meÁ n ou k oi aÂ te dhlwÄsai, e rgwÎ deÂ ´ alla d' e stiÁ taÁ loÂgwÎ
meÁ n oiaÂ te, e rgon deÁ oudeÁ n a p' au twÄn lamproÁn giÂ netai (and cf. Macleod 1979, 67 n. 34).
Aristoph. Nub. 419: nikaÄn praÂttwn kaiÁ bouleuÂwn kaiÁ thÄÎ glwÂtthÎ polemiÂ zwn. Cf. Parry
1957, although in a diërent line of argument from the present one: `è 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.''
Beyond Corcyra 51
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 `ìntelligent'' 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 gignwÂ skw means ``come to know'' through a
process of perception and cognition,95 so gnwÂ mh indicates the re-
sult 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 gnwÂ mh has not changed, they mean that their judgment
has not been so in¯uenced by circumstances as to aëct their pol-
icy.96 When rebellious imperial subjects protest that their friendly
reception of the imperial power was paraÁ gnwÂ 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 gnwÂ mh,'' he refers both to the pol-
icy adopted and the deliberations through which it was decided
(1.45.1).
The concept gnwÂ 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 pos-
sible 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 `ìntelligence''; see also Edmunds
1975a, 9¨. for a diërent 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' declara-
tion that he never speaks paraÁ gnwÂmhn (6.9.2). This informs the diërently nuanced use
of the word in Thucydides' claim that he recorded e gguÂtata thÄv xumpaÂshv gnwÂmhv
twÄn alhqwÄv lecqeÂ 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.
``knowledge'' or `ìntelligence.'' The latter su½ciently translates
xunetoÂn and xuÂnesiv, although as in all translations the com-
promises 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 gnwÂ mh is not intelligence per se, the two
are clearly linked, for intelligence can naturally improve the qual-
ity of one's judgment and policy. That is, a more intelligent per-
son is better equipped to assess any situation, and a stupid person
will exercise poorer judgment. As Thucydides remarks on The-
mistocles' intellectual capacities: ``by virtue of his native intelli-
gence (or insight: oikeiÂ aÎ xuneÂ 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 conjectur-
ing 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' gnwÂ mhv xuÂnesiv,
literally `ìntelligence 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 im-
plied criticism of the less brilliant and ultimately less eëctive pol-
icies (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 un-
intelligent (axuÂ netov) in his judgment (gnwÂ 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 gen-
98 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.
Beyond Corcyra 53
eral Hermocrates combined intelligence with experience in war
and courage (6.72.2), the Athenian oligarchic revolutionaries Anti-
phon, Phrynichos and Theramenes succeeded in their takeover
because of their innate intellectual talents (8.68).99 Pericles is per-
haps the individual most admired by Thucydides. That he is not
speci®cally called xunetoÂ v, intelligent, is irrelevant, for all the qual-
ities of intelligence are ascribed to him. Pericles not only had the
reputation for intelligence (2.34.6), but in Thucydides' famous as-
sessment 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 naiÂ te taÁ deÂ onta kaiÁ eÿ rmh-
neuÄ 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 intel-
ligence abstractly, unattached to any particular personality, is in
the stasis model. An `ìntelligence 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 `àn unwill-
ingness to act in anything'' because factional interests usually re-
quire the situation to be seen from only one angle. By the same
token, `ìmpulsive 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: `ùnwillingness'' 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), espe-
cially p. 19.
word for rashness, oxuÂ , which may also have a positive sense,
``sharpness of mind,'' has turned into what Gomme (HCT ad loc.)
poignantly calls an `ìntellectual vice.'' Logos is opposed to a true
intellectual virtue, thoughtful deliberation, reaching a careful de-
cision (asjaleiÂ aÎ toÁ e pibouleuÂ sasqai), which to a mind aëcted
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 re-
mains 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'' (xuneÂ sewv agwÂ -
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'' (jauloÂ-
teroi gnwÂmhn), i.e. those who are less able to judge quickly and
eëctively 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 `ìntellectual versatility,'' are
more likely to prevail because their quick wit and ¯exible intellect
allow them to respond rapidly, creatively and eëctively to various
situations as they come up. Similarly, Thucydides says (3.82.2) that
in times of peace cities and people have ameiÂ 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 rea-
son, 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¨.
Beyond Corcyra 55
ergon in such cases is not one of mutuality, relative value, or false-
hood 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 corrup-
tion as well. The explanation comes, however, in a notoriously
di½cult sentence (3.82.7):
rÿaÄÎ on d' oiÿ polloiÁ kakouÄ rgoi ontev dexioiÁ keÂ klhntai h a maqeiÄ v a gaqoiÂ ,
kaiÁ twÄÎ meÁ n ai scuÂ nontai, e piÁ deÁ twÄÎ a gaÂ 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 multiplic-
ity of interpretations oëred for it.
Dionysius correctly identi®ed one of the main problems: `ìt 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 parti-
ciple 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 oëred solutions ranging from tex-
tual emendation to rather drastic readings of admittedly obscure
Greek. Yet deciding these points can be made easier by ®rst cor-
recting 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.
that most people, even in normal times, are malfeasants, ka-
kouÄ 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 dis-
tinguishing the historian's perspective from that of his subjects:
Thucydides says People in stasis say
malfeasants clever
good and honest 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 `ìntelligence.'' 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 evil-
doers, 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
diërent 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 ex-
hibited 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 malfea-
103 Or `ùnlearned,'' ``boorish,'' behaving in society as an educated and cultured person

never would, as emerges by comparison with 1.84.3.
Beyond Corcyra 57
sants, eagerly seek out (``more willingly accept'' is a Thucydidean
understatement) the accolades attending what they view as `ìntel-
ligence,'' which they do not know how to distinguish from wicked
cleverness. The sentence is another example of Thucydidean gen-
eralization 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 advan-
tage: ``such a one calculated the advantage (e logiÂ zeto) both of the
safety of such a course and of the accolades for intelligence (xuneÂ -
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 deterio-
rates 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 noth-
ing 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 un-
explained. 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 re-
ceived 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, `ìt 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 gaqoiÂ . (4) The sentence is chiastic: (a) kakouÄrgoi ± (b)
dexioiÂ ± (b) amaqeiÄ v ± (a) agaqoiÂ : 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) ele-
ments. Macleod 1979, 67 n. 38 objects that chiasmus would be a ``wilful obfuscation''
and `àrbitrary 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 inter-
pretations 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.
speci®cally says disappears in times of stasis: ``that simple goodness
(toÁ euhqev) which is a major part of nobility (toÁ gennaiÄ on) was de-
risively 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 `àmoral,'' as
some recent interpreters have tagged him; for the moral terms,
despite their varied manifestations in diërent societies, will have
certain common features and an identical purpose. The term toÁ
euhqev means simplicity, guilelessness rather than a lack of sophis-
tication, 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 `èxchanged 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 mur-
derous 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 `èxchanged 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.
Beyond Corcyra 59
failures, the abandonment of the intellect to the realm of the im-
pulses and emotions (as was said in 3.82.2). This is the case with
prudent hesitation, moderation and discretion, comprehending in-
telligence 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 them-
selves dangerous, volatile and unpredictable: reckless daring, im-
pulsive rashness, violent anger, treacherous plotting. Paradoxically,
although members of a stasis-riven society change words in approxi-
mately 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 use-
fulness of language underpins all institutions of society ± political,
legal, religious ± and their corruption is what Thucydides de-
scribes 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 koinwniÂ a. Political decision-
making, 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
`èstablished,''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 `èchoes'' of 3.82.6±8: they are all part of the same demon-
stration, not so far separated as to qualify as echoes.
109 The diërence in Thucydides' two expressions for `èstablished laws'' in 3.82.6, twÄn kei-
meÂ nwn noÂ mwn and touÁv kaqestwÄtav, does not seem to possess any encoded meaning; I
have translated `èstablished laws'' and ``convention'' in order to bring out the diërent
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 sta-
sis, see now Swain 1995.
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 pro-
ceeds 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 llotriwÂ 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 xuggeneÂ v) are never alien or unnatural, yet, in peaceful times,
neither are political associations (eÿ tairiÂ ai) among citizens of the
110 Hec. 800±5, cf. Suppl. 312±13, and see Nussbaum 1986, 404 for a comparison of this pas-
sage with Thucydides 3.82, as well as discussion of the moral terms in Thucydides. Fur-
ther 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 xuggeÂ neian
oi keiouÄntev; LSJ s.v. provides the range of meanings.
Beyond Corcyra 61
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 estab-
lished 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 expres-
sion indicates that familiar ties became foreign in stasis, and loy-
alty to the faction created in stasis (as opposed to that created in a
healthy polis) can turn family members into the `òther,'' ``(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 `às if he
killed an enemy'' (kaqaÂ per poleÂ mion apokteiÂ nav, 869d) is absolved
from pollution.114 Thucydides observed that stasiotai place supreme
value on andreiÂ a jileÂ tairov, ``courage true to the party,'' and
they reserve extreme censure for the thÄ v eÿ tairiÂ av dialuÂthv, ``de-
stroyer 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 idiosyn-
cratic or unpopular as some critics think. It is widely held that Thucydides here con-
demns 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 inter-
nal 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).
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 prop-
erly 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 `àssociations of this
sort'' (toiauÄtai xuÂ 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 estab-
lished laws or conventions. A brutal example of such an aberra-
tion 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
oënse is at the same time a moral oënse.''115
It is no accident that, in Greek literature starting in Thucydides'
time and continuing through the fourth century, the standard op-
posite 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 aäirs of the polis, that it may
be well run; one must not pursue quarrels (jilonikeÂ onta) contrary to
what is reasonable, nor assume a power which runs contrary to the com-
mon 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 dissolu-
tion 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 `àrchaic pessimism.''
116 See Gehrke 1985, 357±8; and Loraux 1991 on the contrast between theory and practice.
Beyond Corcyra 63
When the object of competition is glory in battle or athletic con-
tests, 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 niÂ kh, victory, and not neiÄ kov,
strife, although translating `àn 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 con-
texts: ``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 qarshÄ-
nai), enjoyed a sweeter revenge . . . and calculated . . . the acco-
lades for intelligence to be won for having scored victory through
guile'' (o ti apaÂthÎ perigenoÂmenov xuneÂ sewv a gwÂ nisma prose-
laÂ mbanen, 82.7). The rival factions in stasis make the public inter-
est their ``prize'' (aqla, 82.8), that is, they do harm and evil to the
public interest because `ùsing every available means in the com-
petition (a gwnizoÂmenoi) to get the better of each other they boldly
committed villainous outrages and took even more villainous re-
venge, not stopping where justice or the city's interest demanded,
but limiting their actions only by their own pleasure.'' Competi-
tion is pursued with `èvery 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, `èither for their refusal to join in the ®ght (ou xunhgw-
niÂ 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 dis-
eased city leads to its further harm. The competition turns ``sav-
age,'' ®erce and cruel (w mhÁ staÂ 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 com-
petition, 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.
The disease of stasis arises not from the introduction of a for-
eign 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 rchÂ ) inspired by greed (pleo-
nexiÂ an) and personal ambition (jilotimiÂ an)'' ± that is, archÂ in
itself is not destructive, but the kind inspired by greed and ambi-
tion is ± `ànd, following from these, the zeal for victory (jiloni-
keiÄ n) in the heat of the con¯ict'' (3.82.8).118 The word jilotimiÂ 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 jiloÂ timon a ghÂ 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 timhÂ ), but it is a relative value,
for it is what society recognizes as honorable. Here jilotimiÂ a has
become a negative value because of the context and its link with
``greed'' (pleonexiÂ a).120
In these distortions we see the full power of an earlier state-
118 Two problems: (a) Thucydides actually says that the ``cause (ai tion) of this entire condi-
tion was the hunger for power (a rchÂ) . . .'' Since the whole point of the model seems
to be that abstract things like a rchÂ are in themselves innocent (surely the whole of the
Archaeology would argue against the notion that a rchÂ is in itself the root of evil), ram-
pant and uncontrolled ``hunger for power'' cannot be the ``cause'' but the eëct, 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 unnec-
essary. 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 ka-
qistameÂ nwn toÁ proÂqumon ± the word kaqistameÂ nwn is universally construed to mean
people engaged in stasis. But could it go with autwÄn? It would thus mean `òut 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 diaÂ , and in the context
means fanaticism. Or e v toÁ jilonikeiÄ n kaqistameÂ nwn may be ``those set on eager con-
tention,'' meaning therefore `ànd 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 troÂ pwÎ, so that, even though this deÂ technically
answers just taÁ meÁ n koinaÂ . . . , it is as if everything from oiÿ gaÂ r to e poiouÄ nto is a meÂ n-
clause, leading up to the pantiÁ deÁ troÂ pwÎ, which explains proÂ 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 jilotimiÂ a is usually a positive quality.
Beyond Corcyra 65
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 re-
venge (Thucydides' word is timwriÂ a, not tiÂsiv) is a psycholog-
ical disturbance. Aristotle associates it with passion and anger, the
opposite of reason.121 So extreme is the condition of stasis that, ac-
cording to Thucydides, the lust for revenge overwhelms not only
any civic loyalty, but a natural concern for personal safety: ``re-
venge 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 precau-
tions; then (te), in the sentence we have just quoted, that revenge
was valued more than avoiding harm; and ®nally (kaiÂ ), 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, spe-
ci®cally, agreement-making between opposing parties in a city.
The sequence conveys that revenge was a latent motive in mak-
ing 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 (piÂ 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, antileÂ gwn, indicating the breakdown of normal
political processes, and 3.83.1, a ntitetaÂcqai, indicating that this was not normal com-
petition 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 par-
anomhÄsai, 3.82.6, placing common action and lawbreaking side by side, and piÂ stin
e timwreiÄ to, 3.82.7 doing the same with trust and revenge. Note Theogn. 77±8: `Ìn
harsh stasis, a trustworthy man (pistoÁv anhÂr) is worth more than gold and silver.''
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 spe-
ci®c provisions will change according to political and social cir-
cumstance. 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 sebeiÂ 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 (loÂ gov) was strong
enough, no oath awful enough (joberoÂ 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 suc-
cinctly put it, `Òaths are public acts, usually political or legal in
nature, in which religious beliefs are utilized for legal and polit-
ical 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 sanc-
tuaries 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 re-
sort. Thucydides explains in the continuation of 3.83.2: `àll 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 sen-
124 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 sebeiÂ a in 3.82.8 (quoted below) has no religious signi®cance; such a notion is dic-
tated by predisposition about Thucydides' own beliefs (or lack thereof ), see Chapter 5.
125 Ostwald 1986, 94±5.
Beyond Corcyra 67
tence,126 but also to the disappearance of all the standard safe-
guards 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 vary-
ing 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 sta-
sis; 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 ques-
tions, 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 narra-
tives. Thus we will forever lack Thucydides' theoretical under-
standing of polemos.127
In such a dilemma, one hopes to ®nd other texts for compari-
126 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 real-
ities'' (101, cf. 83), is true if the breakdown during the Peloponnesian War was not re-
paired afterwards.
127 The passing distinction at 8.94.3 between internal and external war (Thucydides is re-
porting 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 diërent, as her
purpose was to equate rather than distinguish the two phenomena.
son. Yet no other ancient author avails, and modern theorists, de-
spite their massive output on just this problem, have found no
useful, universal distinction between conventional war and inter-
nal war.128 Greek literature down to Thucydides' day contains no
systematic, theoretical treatment of war, much less of the diër-
ences between war and stasis, and even in the changed circum-
stances 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 na-
ture, 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, com-
mon, expanding on a sentiment found in Homer.130
It is instinctive to turn once again to Plato and Aristotle. De-
spite their basic diërences concerning the origins of the state,
both assumed that war was a necessary component of urban cul-
ture, although one which had to be controlled for the good of the
state and its citizens. They both viewed war (albeit in diërent
ways) as an area of training and legislation; in fact, the virtues re-
quired for waging war overlap with those required in other areas
of the life of the polis. As Aristotle says, `àll 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 diërent words, polemos and
stasis, so in fact there are two diërent things which are distinguished
by two diërent criteria. The two things are the domestic and blood-
related, on the one hand, and the foreign and external, on the other.
128 Note, e.g., the wildly diërent calculations of simply the number of civil wars in recent
history, cited by Licklider 1993, 5±6; he concedes (7): `èven the experts can't agree on
the distinctions between civil and interstate wars.'' On what follows, compare the pro-
vocative 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: `ìn 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 ùniversal', àll-pervading', ùnifying' . . . 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.
Beyond Corcyra 69
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 `ènemies 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 `à formal declaration of Plato's political faith in the Panhellenic
ideal,'' to quote an old but still widely accepted opinion.133 Dis-
tinctions among mankind in the interest of supporting war are part
of the ``noble lie'' expounded earlier in the dialogue, in similar lan-
guage. 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 cwÂ ra are tellingly
equated), who is their common ``mother and nurse'' (mhtroÁv kaiÁ
trojouÄ, 414d±e), so here, all Hellenes are related by blood (sug-
geneÂ 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 mhteÂ 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 men-
dacious nature of the entire genre of patriotic funeral speeches;
this only reinforces the association of the idea with the ``noble lie,''
132 jaiÂ netaiÂ moi, wsper kaiÁ o nomaÂzetai duÂo tauÄta onoÂmata, poÂ lemoÂv te kaiÁ staÂ siv,
outw kaiÁ einai duÂ o, onta e piÁ duoiÄ n tinoiÄ n diajoraiÄ n. leÂ gw deÁ taÁ duÂo toÁ meÁ n oi keiÄ on
kaiÁ xuggeneÂ v, toÁ deÁ alloÂtrion kaiÁ o qneiÄ on. e piÁ meÁ n oun thÄÎ touÄ oi keiÂ ou e cqraÎ staÂsiv
keÂ klhtai, e piÁ deÁ thÄÎ touÄ a llotriÂ 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.
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 espe-
cially 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 `à polis which is inter-
nally divided'' (470d). A further common understanding is ex-
ploited 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 poleÂ mou), with stasis
being ``the harshest of all wars'' (paÂ ntwn poleÂ mwn calepwÂ 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 diërent 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 diër-
ences between stasis and polemos is no slight thing. Of course, with-
out Thucydides' theoretical understanding of polemos, we will not
know fully or surely what those diërences 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 diërences by logical extension of certain elements in Thu-
cydides' theory of stasis.
According to Thucydides, the states of mind of adversaries are
Beyond Corcyra 71
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 sta-
sis, 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 pat-
terns, such as the pursuit of revenge (as opposed to avoiding
harm), deceit and so forth, as Thucydides explains ± again, be-
haviorial 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 accord-
ing 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 encom-
passing 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 in-
stitutions 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 im-
pressed 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 LeÂ vy 1976, 209¨., who
dates its ®rst use in this political sense to 411.
future time), or the factions' mutual destruction. The most de-
tailed 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 diërent. As one modern
theorist put it: `Ònce 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 vic-
tory 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: `òf 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 nego-
tiations are attempted in stasis, they are only temporary devices,
untrustworthy and unsanctioned by gods or other conventions.
`Òaths made in support of any reconciliation had only momen-
tary validity,'' according to Thucydides, `às 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 neutral-
ity 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 bru-
taliteÂ 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.
Beyond Corcyra 73
stasis and the peloponnesian war

We have learned from Thucydides' analytical model that the de®ni-
tion of stasis concerns not external structures but internal psycho-
logical 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 aëcted.
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 sensi-
tive (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
diërent standards when recording speeches and actions,141 ex-
plaining that for speeches it was di½cult both for him and his in-
formants to remember accurately (or verbatim: thÁ n a kriÂ 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 Thucy-
dides 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 loÂ 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 too-
precious distinction between ``content'' and ``form.''
142 wÿv d' an e doÂkoun e moiÁ e kastoi periÁ twÄn ai eiÁ paroÂntwn taÁ deÂ onta maÂlist' ei peiÄ n, e co-
meÂ nwÎ o ti e gguÂ tata thÄ v xumpaÂshv gnwÂ mhv twÄn alhqwÄv lecqeÂ ntwn, ou twv ei rhtai.
For erga, by contrast, despite the di½culty of determining what
actually happened ± even those events at which Thucydides him-
self was present ± an eört was made to achieve absolute accu-
racy, 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 (infor-
mation 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 vari-
ous 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 diërent 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 re-
ported 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, es-
tablishing the text of each speech was extremely di½cult because
diërent hearers, who are partial or deceived by tricks of memory,
remembered the same speeches diërently? Obviously an exact
record of a speech is a somewhat diërent 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 ®ll-
ing in gaps with what might or should have been said on each oc-
casion. No such eört 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 accu-
racy from the start and wrote what was required in each set of
circumstances, while paying due respect to the general gnwÂ mh, or
143 Some have thought that the use of toiaÂ de and a verb in the imperfect tense when in-
troducing some speeches may indicate that an exact reproduction is not oëred, but
such mechanical schematism is foreign to the History; cf. Rusten 1989, 15 n. 48 and 138.
Beyond Corcyra 75
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 deÂ onta). And how did he interpret the gnwÂ 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 him-
self 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 Thu-
cydides 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 deÂ onta) for
poorly documented erga would have been absurd (at least for Thu-
cydides, in contrast with later topos-dependent historians); he ex-
plicitly worded his methodology to rule out such an approach. It is
also clear that the problem lies not in the diërent di½culties in
remembering words and actions. The problem is rather the im-
perfect connection between a speaker's actual words and his in-
tended meaning. For each rhetorical occasion, taÁ deÂ onta cannot
be determined absolutely or by convention, even by an omniscient
historian, but are decided by each speaker's perspective and pur-
pose, which it is the task of the omniscient historian to discover. In
his treatment of speeches Thucydides has not ruled out the hypo-
thetical case in which he had an exact transcript in his hands (taÁ
alhqwÄ v lecqeÂ nta) but decided to compose a diërent speech ac-
cording to his own interpretation of taÁ deÂ onta and the gnwÂ mh of
the speaker. Thucydides might even have produced a diërent,
``better'' or ``more accurate'' version of a speech which he knew
quite well in order to bring out more clearly the connection be-
tween 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 Athe-
nians, Corinthians, and Lacedaemonians at the time; he selects
144 Contra Plant 1988.

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
diërent from a standard struggle between two diërent 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 be-
coming 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 Pelopon-
nesians developed their own peculiar, mutually incomprehensible
ways of speaking, and their linguistic diërences are symptomatic
of deeper diërences 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: am-
bassadors 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 dis-
ease 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 diërent cities. More-
over, as in stasis, individuals exhibiting intelligence and civic virtue
became rarer, along with those very qualities; moderation disap-
peared, 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.

Beyond Corcyra 77
brought degeneration to Hellenic civilization in much the way sta-
sis 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 Thucy-
dides' judgment, and I shall try to show that the greater war did
bring ever more cruel and brutal, even barbaric, behavior. Thu-
cydides' 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 some-
thing 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 out-
break, 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 con-
sequently 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 Pente-
kontaetia. Thucydides' conception of the war anticipated the per-
spective 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.
had little in¯uence on the Hellenes' actual behavior. In this re-
spect 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 cer-
tain 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 composi-
tional layers of the History, Gomme's pronouncement thirty-®ve
years ago ± `à 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 diërent stages in
his intellectual development, left a unitary stamp on the compo-
sition 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 none-
theless 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 `à 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 koinwniÂ a ± in such a way as both to de-legitimize
their opponents and to con®rm their own legitimacy. The con-
tending 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 institu-
tions, 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 eëctively 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 con-
versely 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
82 Logoi
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 connec-
tion 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 dif-
ferent 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 diërent outlooks, temperaments and pur-
poses 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 diÂ kaion, ``jus-
tice'' (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, opportunis-
tic 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
diër from other Hellenes in their assignment of diërent values
to important words. This is correct, in diërent ways, for all Hellas
in the war; the chaos in moral and ethical terminology in the His-
tory 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 prece-
dence 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 Thucy-
dides ( 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 diërent
approach, Ober 1993.
The transvaluation of words 83
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 in-
action as the best, most just and most advantageous course to take.
Corycra's strongest point is the advantage of immediately attach-
ing 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 accord-
ingly 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 con-
cern 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 `ìt is right'' (diÂ kaion) for them to prove the `àdvantage'' (xuÂm-
jora) of the alliance they oër (1.32.1). Here the word diÂ 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 diÂ kaion
comes out in their somewhat presumptuous warning,
you will be allowing them to acquire military power from your own em-
pire, which it is not just (diÂ kaion) for them to have; rather (it is diÂ 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, diÂ kaion, is de®ned in ac-
cordance with Athens' perceived military interests; and in fact
substituting `èxpedient,'' xuÂmjeron, for diÂ 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 kinduneuÂ ontav
kaiÁ ouk e cqrouÁv ontav a pwÂsesqe ± exactly of whom the Corinthians are enemies is am-
biguous; technically it should be the Corcyreans, but the Athenians could also be under-
stood, 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 can-
not claim to be) and harming enemies turns into a cold calculation of advantage.
84 Logoi
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 (diÂ 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 suërs
injustice (a dikoumeÂ 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 (hdiÂ koun), for when invited to arbitrate they preferred to prose-
cute their charges by war rather than equity. (1.34.1±2)
Here diÂ 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 `èquality'' 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 `àlienated'' (allotriouÄtai, cf. 3.82.6) by injus-
tice as they choose to de®ne it. For the Corcyreans it follows natu-
rally that Corinth has violated justice (h diÂ koun) by seeking to settle
diërences 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 quib-
bling 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 (xumjeÂ r-
onta) 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-
vision for Athens' interests if, when faced with a war which is approach-
ing 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 op-
ponent. 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 proëred alliance, which
would in this formulation amount to breaking the treaty, then ac-
cepting 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 alli-
ance, 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 di½-
culty 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 con-
cerns, 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'' diërs little from the conventional use of `èxpediency.''
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 diërent 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 diÂ kaion, the Corinthians focus their remarks on
justice yet begin with the word a nagkaiÄ on, necessity: we are
86 Logoi
compelled to prove, they say, that justice is on our side and that you
Athenians, for that reason, should reject their proëred 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 injus-
tice,''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 arethÂ (1.37.2, 5), they are vio-
lent (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 know-
ingly and tongues cluck.
Yet the argument founders on facts. They must admit that the
Corcyreans oëred 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 oëred the case to be
arbitrated, which surely should not have much weight coming from the
side which has the upper hand and oërs it from a position of security;
rather, (it is meaningful when oëred 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 posi-
tion would have more to lose in arbitration and therefore would
be seen to act honorably by oëring it; and it is also contradicted
by the next sentence, which conveys the complaint that the Cor-
cyreans waited until they were in trouble before oëring arbitra-
tion. 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 `èquality'' (i son) is a
deceptive non-answer to the Corcyreans' correct and coherent
claim that the Corinthians, when invited to arbitration over Epi-
damnus, ``preferred to prosecute their charges by war rather than
4 a dikeiÄ n, adiÂ khma, 1.37.1, 2, 4 (bis), 38.4, 39.3 (bis).

5 HCT i, 174.
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 oëred arbitration before re-
sorting to arms, but that is exactly what happened (cf. 1.28±29.1).
These contradictions are the inevitable by-products of the over-
riding need to keep the presentation of justice consistent despite
the facts. The Corcyrean oër of arbitration is portrayed alter-
nately as a trick to maintain the upper hand and a desperate mea-
sure, 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 (biÂ aioi kaiÁ
pleoneÂ ktai, 1.40.1), but also dangerous, for Athens would then
have Corinth as an active enemy. This strategy becomes expli-
cit when the Corinthians shift their argument about justice from
moral to legal considerations (cf. dikaiÂ wv 40.1, dikaiwÂ mata 41.1).
The Thirty Years Peace, they say, does not allow any new alliance
which would bring war. Further, Hellenic convention forbids ac-
cepting a revolted ally from the other side.6 They exhort the Athe-
nians, in a striking sentence, to prove their own justice (diÂ kaioiÂ g'
e steÂ ) by not establishing a new Hellenic custom in this matter
(40.4); and they insist that their ``claims based on justice are con-
sistent with Hellenic practice and understanding'' (dikaiwÂmata . . .
iÿkanaÁ kataÁ touÁv ÿ E llhÂ 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 ap-
propriate arguments, would be the right combination of justice
and expediency: ``let no one suppose that justice (diÂ kaia) is ®ne
to talk about, but that if war breaks out a diërent course will be
expedient (xuÂ 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 oÿmoiÂ oiv amuÂ nesqai 1.42.1, toÁ i son a ntapoÂdote 43.2.
88 Logoi
A ®rmer power consists in refraining from committing injustice against
equals (a dikeiÄ n touÁ v oÿmoiÂ 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 conven-
tional thinking and vocabulary in the face of uncomfortable facts.
They cannot deny the immediate advantage both Athens and Cor-
cyra 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 compet-
ing 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 dikhÂ mata)
would also be unable to make a claim to a rethÂ (37.2, 5).
The rhetorical quarrel between the Corcyreans and Corinthians
pertains not to the precise meaning of justice, but to its appli-
cation 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 ex-
pense 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,'' diÂ kaion, to pressing circum-
stance, 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 jus-
tice 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.
when arguments based on more conventionally de®ned Hellenic
values are contained in an ultimately unsuccessful speech. Sub-
sequently, in the two Peloponnesian congresses which decided on
war, all of Athens' alleged oënses are grouped under the general
charge of adikiÂ 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 con-
sistency 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 disrup-
tions of established practices, which undergo a kinesis (in peacetime
the noÂmima are akiÂ nhta). Conventions are subjected to e piteÂ cnhsiv,
which is here put in a positive light to mean progressive invention, but
perhaps looks forward to periteÂ cnhsiv, clearly wicked contrivance, in
the stasis model: as the war continued stasiotai were ``revolutionized
to much further excesses, both in the ingenuity (peritecnhÂ 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, orgaiÂ , 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 de-
liberate in two assemblies and decide to make a defensive alliance
(e pimaciÂ 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 (adikhmeÂ naiv). See Boedeker 1991, an interesting study of the subver-
sion of logos by the breaking of oaths in Euripides' Medea ( produced 431).
90 Logoi
Athenians' reasoning (their gnwÂmh, 1.45.1), which closely resembles
the Corcyreans' own arguments; the added factor, that Corinth
and `òther 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 eört 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 oëred an opportu-
nity 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 ac-
cording 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 arro-
gant 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 acknowl-
edges the general view that the Athenian acquisition of power was
`ùnjust,'' 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 diÂ 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 tan-
dem with Cleon's.
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, oër peace and friendship in
exchange for the prisoners at Pylos (4.17±20). This is the only oc-
casion 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 ap-
peal is preoccupied with good and bad luck, not the genuine dy-
namics of power. The ambassadors de®ne as diÂ 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 oëred at Sparta seven years pre-
viously. 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'' (nomiÂ zousi taÁ xumjeÂ ronta diÂ 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 oppor-
tunistically ®tted to the occasion. The Spartan arguments certainly
had none of their desired eëct on the Athenians.
Unlike the Spartans' changeable standard, the Athenians' under-
standing of justice remains remarkably constant throughout their
internal debates, just as it diërs fundamentally from that ad-
vanced by all other speakers. Cleon and Diodotus, in what has
been seen, among other things, as a debate over justice and expe-
diency, in fact understand the terms adikiÂ a and diÂ 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.
92 Logoi
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 dikiÂ a,13 they both equate that
adikiÂa with harm to Athens, and Diodotus even says, ``the con-
tested point, if we handle this prudently, is not their adikiÂ a but
our own best counsel (eubouliÂ a)'' (3.44.1). This does not by itself
rule out diërences over how to de®ne adikiÂ a and its opposite, but
as Diodotus continues to use that word it becomes clear that he,
like Cleon, is thinking not of oënse against some abstract stan-
dard 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 encour-
age 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 ac-
cording to circumstance and advantage? These are the central ques-
tions of the Mytilenian debate, whatever else the two speeches
may represent.14 And the questions are not just theoretical prob-
lems but actual ones which other empires in history have also
faced, and solved in diërent 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 diÂ kaion kaiÁ a rethÂ (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 oëred as an example of their brazenness,
but his argument would have been more consistent without it.
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 diërences 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 suc-
cessful 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 per-
ceived 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 particu-
lar 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 as-
sessments: 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 diërence. 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 anqrwpiÂ nwv), which he admits would be forgivable, but
a premeditated action (40.1).17 Diodotus cannot deny the Mytile-
nians' 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).
94 Logoi
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 rea-
sons such as hope or passion. Both Cleon and Diodotus advise the
Athenians to assess the city's interests on the basis of hard deter-
mination of fact alone, without resort to moral or emotional con-
cerns. Cleon's urgent appeal to avoid pity, the temptations of
eloquence and an abstract sense of fairness (e pieiÂ keia) is echoed
word for word by Diodotus.18 Although the two orators agree on
this, they accuse each other of making irrelevant emotional ap-
peals. 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 oënse missing
from Diodotus' speech. His brutal tone and passion, his aggressive
and cunning (if confusing) dismissal of his rivals, his somewhat in-
sulting admonishment of the assembly,19 as well as Thucydides'
explicit loathing of him, mark him o¨ from his rhetorical adver-
sary. 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 ad-
here 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 `ùnder 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 keiÂ nou [sc. KleÂ 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, de-
pending on a kind of equality or reciprocity (proÁv touÁv oÿmoiÂ ouv is said in each case), dif-
fers 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 piqanwÂ 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.
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 jus-
tice 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 `ìnjustice,'' adikiÂ 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 `às their crime deserves'' (axiÂ wv thÄv
adikiÂ av, 3.39.6) would then seem most easy and natural, inasmuch
as the pursuit of justice, in a strict sense, demands appropriate re-
quital of adikiÂ 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 insen-
sitive than those who devised it. Consider what they would likely have
done to you if they had prevailed, especially since they ®rst committed
a dikiÂ 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 eört con-
centrates on showing how the demands of justice are advanta-
geous to Athens.
20 wmoÁ n toÁ bouÂ leuma kaiÁ meÂ 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.
96 Logoi
The ultimate expression of this idea contains nuances which
should be appreciated:
e n te xunelwÁ n leÂ gw´ peiqoÂmenoi meÁ n e moiÁ taÂ te diÂ kaia e v MutilhnaiÂ ouv
kaiÁ taÁ xuÂ mjora a ma poihÂ sete, a llwv deÁ gnoÂntev toiÄ v meÁ n ou carieiÄ sqe,
uÿmaÄ v deÁ autouÁv maÄ llon dikaiwÂ sesqe. ei gaÁ r outoi orqwÄ v a peÂ 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 koÂ v toi kaiÁ touÂsde xumjoÂ rwv deiÄ kolaÂ zesqai, h
pauÂ esqai thÄ v a rchÄ v kaiÁ e k touÄ a kinduÂ nou a ndragaqiÂ 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 diërent policy you will not win their grati-
tude 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 diÂ kaia,
orqwÄ v, crewÂ 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 suër self-imposed justice ±
that cannot be, given Cleon's understanding of justice at the be-
ginning 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 condi-
22 And in German ``Recht,'' see Classen±Steup iii, 78±9 on what follows. The BudeÂ trans-
lation solves some of the problems: ``si vous m'eÂcoutez, vous prendrez des mesures justes
envers les MytileÂ niens et utiles en meÃ me temps, tandis qu'une autre deÂ cision, sans vous
gagner leur faveur, sera plutoÃt votre condamnation. S'ils ont bien agi en faisant deÂ-
fection, vous ne derivez pas exercer l'empire. Et si en revanche vous preÂ tendez, fuÃt-ce
sans aucun titre, l'exercer quand meÃ 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.''
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, `ìt is your business to rule'' (crewÂ 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 inter-
rupts itself to express the same thing contrarily to add more force
to the statement. Cleon begins to say, `Ànd if ( 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 impos-
sible) opposite condition in order to emphasize how pressing the
exigency really is, saying, in eëct: ``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 em-
pire entirely, but since maintaining an empire is both just and ap-
propriate 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 andra-
gaqiÂ zesqai in the above-quoted passage is snide and dismissive,
but it is consistent with Pericles' explicit dismissal of conventional
andragaqiÂ 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 prob-
lems 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 geÂ 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, Atheno-
centric de®nition of justice.
98 Logoi
Pericles, a ndragaqiÂa is a virtue only in a strictly Athenian frame-
work 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 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 ndra-
gaqiÂ 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
andragaqiÂ 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 jus-
tice. On the contrary, he says quite boldly, `èven 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 expe-
dient (ei mhÁ xumjeÂ ron)'' (3.44.2). That is: suppress the consider-
ations of justice if they con¯ict with your best interests. This has
proved to be one of Diodotus' more surprising statements, since
his most `èxpedient'' 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 polemiÂ oiv joberaÂ , 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 diërent 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 ceiÂ rosi diÂ kaion thÁn e v touÁv poleÂ mouv uÿpeÁ r thÄv patriÂ dov a n-
dragaqiÂ an protiÂ qesqai. Note that the Plataeans tell the Spartans that they are paraÂ d-
eigma andragaqiÂ av for most Hellenes, 3.57.1, while the Thebans dismiss the Plataeans'
andragaqiÂ a at 3.64.4 (see below).
in a rather dark and troubling episode. There are no signs, how-
ever, 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 im-
plicit 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 (di-
kazoÂmeqa) on them in answer to the requirements of justice (taÁ diÂ 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 emo-
tional 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.
100 Logoi
This is clearly expressed in another statement at the end of the
speech, which is worth quoting because of wide diërences 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 cer-
tainly conceivable; history oërs 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 stan-
dard of justice. Cleon brought justice to bear only because the ac-
cepted de®nition at that time was congenial to his argument; had
it not been, he would have found himself making Diodotus' argu-
ment, 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 inter-
locutors 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 stan-
dard 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 kaÂ qexin thÄv archÄv, eÿ koÂntav hÿmaÄv
adikhqhÄnai h dikaiÂ wv ouv mhÁ deiÄ diajqeiÄ rai´ kaiÁ toÁ KleÂ wnov toÁ au toÁ diÂ kaion kaiÁ xuÂ m-
joron thÄv timwriÂ av ou c euÿriÂ sketai e n autwÄÎ dunatoÁn on a ma giÂ gnesqai.
view of justice. The Melians are the ®rst in the dialogue to use the
word diÂ 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 delibera-
tions, 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 con-
fused with justice. There can be found in Greek literature ex-
pressions 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 oëred here. There is a further implied distinction between
what the Athenians regard as justice `ìn normal human speech''
and their private view of justice, which as we have seen is quite
diërent. The Athenians seem to acknowledge that their con-
ception of justice contradicts the conventional one, but they mis-
represent what that diërence 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 possi-
ble only between two exact equals; justice was rather imagined as,
among other things, a way to level out natural diërences.31 The
Athenians expect the Melians to understand and agree with their
statement (e pistameÂ nouv proÁv eidoÂ 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 ad-

vantage 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 adikiÂ 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.
102 Logoi
same way that the Mytilenian revolt was in Cleon's and Diodotus'
speeches, and it is right or just (diÂ 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 ``jus-
tice'' 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
adiÂ 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 mu-
tual interests in Sicily so that an alliance would be advantageous
to both; it would be ``not the right thing'' (ou diÂ 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 ®ght-
ing 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 diërent from that assumed or argued by all
other actors in the History. Each party displays a diërent, 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 con-
nection, 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 teÂ lei kluÂein | toÂ t' e ndikoÂn me kaiÁ toÁ sumjeÂ ron poeiÄ .
33 The one exception to this proves the rule. Alcibiades at Sparta (6.92.4): toÂ te jiloÂpoli
ouk e n wÎ a dikouÄmai e cw, all' e n wÎ a sjalwÄ v e politeuÂqhn. oud' e piÁ patriÂ da ousan e ti
hÿgouÄmai nuÄn i eÂ 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 stan-
dard, 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 judg-
ment, 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 underly-
ing the Mytilenian debate. In order to maintain consistency in his concept of justice Alci-
biades has to deny not the justice of the city's action but the existence of the city itself.
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 exam-
ples 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 ac-
count 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 repre-
sent 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 em-
ploys 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
104 Logoi
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 paÂ tria twÄ n paÂntwn BoiwtwÄ n,
2.2.4) and in the Thebans' speech (taÁ koinaÁ twÄn paÂ ntwn Boiw-
twÄn paÂtria, 3.65.2; taÁ twÄ n paÂntwn BoiwtwÄ n paÂtria).34 Thus
as each speech puts a diërent interpretation on the origins of
the Plataean stasis which broke out four years previously, we wit-
ness 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' (aristokratiÂ av swÂ j-
ronov, 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 relation-
ship to other Hellenic states ± as a Boeotian unity or as individ-
ual 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' responsibil-
ities 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 paral-
lels 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.
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 Pla-
taeans had to improvise on the familiar.
The original Spartan oër 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 diÂ kh (53.1, 67.5), the trial, is not a
real trial. The Plataeans' arguments are pathetic, hopeless, irrele-
vant 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 keiÂ noiv crhÂsasqai, touÂv te adiÂ kouv kolaÂ zein, paraÁ diÂ khn deÁ oudeÂ na.
38 ou toiaÂnde diÂ khn oi oÂ menoi uÿjeÂ xein, nomimwteÂ ran deÂ tina e sesqai . . . hÿ gouÂ menoi toÁ i son
maÂlist' an jeÂ resqai.
39 Macleod 1977.
106 Logoi
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 (in-
accurately) 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 be-
liefs, 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 con-
duct for most Hellenes'' (paraÂdeigma toiÄ v polloiÄ v twÄ n ÿ EllhÂnwn
andragaqiÂ 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 oënses not only against Plataea
but against Hellenic religious and moral standards (56.1). Deciding
against the Plataeans would be an abandonment of Hellenic prin-
ciple 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 in-
justice, adikiÂ a: the Spartans have not been wronged by them (ouk
adikeiÄ sqai uÿmaÄ v, 3.54.2, cf. 59.1), the Plataeans themselves com-
mitted no wrong (ouk a dikouÄmen, 55.3, cf. 56.6), the Thebans are
responsible for a series of wrongs (hÿ maÄv hdiÂ 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 oënse
against all Hellas because it violated basic principles which inter
alia sanction self-defense: ``We took revenge according to the estab-
lished universal law'' (e timwrhsaÂ meqa kataÁ toÁn paÄsi noÂmon ka-
qestwÄta, 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 panoikhsiÂ aÎ, 57.2; further
examples are cited in the discussion below.
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 clear-
eyed appraisal of the situation, but the Plataeans possess neither.
The `èxpediency'' 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 The-
ban 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
suëred 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 Hel-
las (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 tiÂ ka crhsiÂ mwÎ uÿmwÄn te kaiÁ e keiÂ nwn polemiÂ wÎ toÁ diÂ kaion lhÂ yesqe, touÄ meÁ n
o rqouÄ janeiÄ sqe ouk a lhqeiÄ v kritaiÁ o ntev, toÁ deÁ xumjeÂ ron maÄ llon qerapeuÂontev.
44 HCT ii, 341.
45 See also Macleod 1977, 243 n. 13.
108 Logoi
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 realiza-
tion 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; determina-
tions 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 main-
tain 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: dikaiÂ wv
. . . kerdaleÂ wv), and ®nally that they have warred with Sparta
`ùnder 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 diërences between mine and standard renderings are ex-
plained in what follows.
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 execu-
tion ill suits the Spartans, that doing such a shameful favor (ai s-
craÁ caÂriv) for the Thebans will bring wickedness (kakiÂ a) and
disrepute (duÂ 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 dikaÂ 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 dikaiÂ ouv (5.104), which modern trans-
lators have rendered by using the same word for each: for ex-
ample, ``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 com-
bination of osion with diÂ 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 terri-
tory 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
diÂ 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 diÂ 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.
110 Logoi
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) oënding against the common practices48 of the Hel-
lenes as well as against your ancestors, and destroying us, your bene-
factors, 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 con-
tent 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 (tiÂ mh) and justice, heroism and rep-
utation (doÂ xh), freedom and slavery, ancestors and family and kin-
dred, 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'' (diÂ 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 pre-
48 See Ostwald 1986, 105±6 for the interpretation of noÂ 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 Pla-
taeans 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.
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 eëct, revealing an aston-
ishing blind-spot. For the Plataeans insist on the continuing valid-
ity 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 Pla-
taeans' 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 mas-
sacre 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 vio-
lated 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.
112 Logoi
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 `ìt 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 with-
draw from Plataean territory ± whether according to sworn agree-
ment 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 Pla-
taeans had promised to preserve the prisoners and that the murder
was an `àtrocity'' (deinaÂ), an `ìnjustice'' (a dikiÂ 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 atroc-
ity 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 The-
ban 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, under-
lines the ineëctiveness 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.
as the Plataeans are now before the Spartans, were killed `àccord-
ing to universally established law'' (3.56.2) and then, not long after-
wards, 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 Thu-
cydides 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
noÂ mov is revealed as ambiguous.''57 Thus the Plataeans' notion of
justice and morality, although at ®rst sight quite conventional, is
radically diërent 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 hdikhÂ-
kate, 3.63.1) addresses not only what was done ± the erga which
they claim were misrepresented by the Plataeans ± but the rela-
tion 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 `ùnjust 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 regu-
larity 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 rebut-
tal of Plataean claims, but there are additions and omissions. The
most important addition is the problem of Boeotian loyalty, intro-
duced 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.
114 Logoi
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 eörtless
trump of the Plataeans' necessarily strained eört. Yet, whereas
the Plataeans try to universalize the moral issues in their direct
appeal to Sparta, the Thebans focus on an attack on Plataean ar-
guments 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
eëctive calculation is revealing. The Thebans' moral remonstra-
tions are self-centered, their ®eld of vision limited to their Boeo-
tian 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 Pla-
taeans 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 scroÂ 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-
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 dikaiosuÂ nhv) falls due but incurs in-
justice (adikiÂ a) when paid (3.63.3±4); past virtues (aretaiÂ) should
help those who have been wronged (adikoumeÂ 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 shame-
ful conduct (swÂjronaÂ te antiÁ ai scraÄ v komiÂ 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 Pla-
taean 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 diërent formula to condemn Plataea. So
long as Plataea's actions are all viewed in the mirror of Athens' im-
perialism, 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 every-
body 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)
`ùnreasonable'' (ouk ei koÂv). (3.64.1±2)
The theme of reasonableness (eikoÂ v) was prominent in the Pla-
taeans' speech: they had said that it would be `ùnreasonable'' (ouk
eikoÂ 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 `ùnreasonable'' to let the Thebans harm them
(56.3), the only ``reasonable verdict'' is to spare them as honor-
able men (57.1), they are not enemies who could ``reasonably'' be
avenged (58.2, cf. 53.2). In a mocking imitation of Plataean rheto-
ric the Thebans undermine the basis for the Plataean claim to vir-
tue and justice. By their reckoning the Plataeans are worse than
the Athenians. The Thebans pitilessly pronounce the Plataeans
hated by the Hellenes ``more justly'' (dikaioÂ teron) than anyone
else ± even Athens ± since the Plataeans alone have harmed under
116 Logoi
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 self-
interest 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 trans-
gressions 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 (oukeÂ ti
kaloÂn, 56.3) to betray the Athenians, the Thebans represent that
as the only honorable course which the Plataeans had ± but re-
fused to take.
The Thebans eëctively 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 (tiÂ adikouÄmen; they ask
rhetorically, 3.65.2), and once inside they wronged no one (ou te
hdikhÂsamen oudeÂ na, 66.1). This explanation is not acceptable, as
even the Thebans themselves understand, for they acknowledge
that it was anepieikeÂ 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 `ìn 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 self-
justi®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.''
those who were killed during the truce.59 As Gomme points out,
the word a nepieikeÂ steron seems to be an eört to avoid openly ad-
mitting an injustice,60 yet while admitting that they acted `ùnfairly''
they accuse the Plataeans, in words which conventionally de®ne
justice, of reacting far out of proportion to the original oënse:
``You did not give us back equal return'' (taÁ oÿ moiÄ a ouk a ntapeÂ -
dote). Thebes construes its vengeance as its pursuit of justice and
holiness.61 The same items of moral vocabulary have a diërent tone
in each speech, and in neither the proper and expected tone, as
each speech rests on mendacity ± or a severely distorted presen-
tation 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
oënse 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 pre-
varicate 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 uni-
versally established law'' (3.56.2). The Thebans say ¯atly that they
seek to be ``more righteously avenged'' (oÿsiwÂteron tetimwrhmeÂ 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'' (dikaioteÂ ra iÿ keteiÂ a),
the Plataeans' just suëring (dikaiÂ wv) is a cause of joy, the Pla-
taeans neglected and now cannot possibly pay back the full due
(ou k antapodoÂntev nuÄn thÁ n i shn timwriÂ an), it would be consistent
with nomos to bring the Plataeans to justice (e nnoma . . . e v diÂ khn),
the Spartans should come to the defense of the Hellenic nomos vio-
lated by the Plataeans and satisfy the Theban desire for just re-
compense (antapoÂdote caÂ rin dikaiÂ 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 dikaiÂ wv au twÄn katagnwsoÂ menoi, hÿmeiÄ v deÁ e ti oÿsiwÂ-
teron tetimwrhmeÂ noi.
118 Logoi
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, espe-
cially ``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 diërent from the Plataeans'. Whereas the Plataeans
based their moral universe on an outdated conception of Hellas,
the Thebans posit a diërent 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 legiti-
mately constituted unity demanding a prior loyalty which the Pla-
taeans violated:
Our diërences 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 popula-
tion. Separating themselves from the rest of the Boeotians they betrayed
the national traditions (parabaiÂ nontev taÁ paÂ 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 suëring 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 his-
tory 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
(A qhnaiÂ wn e pioÂntwn, also 3.63.2, compare 1.18.2) and temporar-
ily dominated after the battle at Oenophyta, and the Thebans
``liberated'' Boeotia (hleuqerwÂsamen thÁ n BoiwtiÂ 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
replaces Persia as the tyrannical invader, Plataea replaces Thebes
as the collaborator and Boeotia replaces Hellas as the uni®ed en-
tity patriotically defended and liberated.
Even today, enough is known regarding the period of the Per-
sian Wars and afterwards to detect distortion in the form of op-
portunistic and somewhat tendentious coloring in the Theban
account of Boeotian history. All the more would Thucydides' con-
temporary 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 politi-
cally coherent unity. Thus while the Thebans in their speech make
a strenuous eört to correct the Plataeans' distorting anachronism
and bring to center stage current realities, their own distortions
are just as serious, if diërent in character: the deliberately blurred
relationship between Boeotia and Hellas, and their claim of un-
broken 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 dis-
tant 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 eëctive, not much information could contradict com-
mon 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.).
120 Logoi
Persian:63 the Plataeans, by joining the Athenians, have forsaken
all of Hellas. This is expressed in a sentence containing a gram-
matical 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 pro-
cess 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
`àll the Hellenes.'' The grammatical inconcinnity is perhaps a
planned ambiguity, but it is not entirely disingenuous: the The-
bans 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 `àtticized''!65 (3.62.2)
With one word, attikiÂ sai, the Thebans turn the Plataeans' de-
parture 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 leÂ gete wÿv ai scroÁn hn prodouÄnai touÁv eu ergeÂ tav´ poluÁ deÂ ge ai scion kaiÁ adikwÂ-
teron touÁv paÂ ntav Ellhnav kataprodouÄ nai, oiv xunwmoÂsate, h AqhnaiÂ ouv moÂ nouv,
touÁ v meÁ n katadouloumeÂ nouv thÁn ÿ EllaÂ da, touÁv deÁ e leuqerouÄntav. The point is re-
inforced further by a series of verbs pre®xed with xun- which fall like hammer blows in
3.64.2±3.
65 hÿmeiÄ v deÁ mhdiÂ sai meÁ n autouÁv ou jamen dioÂti ou d' AqhnaiÂ ouv, thÄÎ meÂ ntoi authÄÎ i deÂ aÎ us-
teron i oÂntwn AqhnaiÂ wn e piÁ touÁv E llhnav moÂnouv au BoiwtwÄn attikiÂ 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.
Thus we see the logic of the Theban argument: Plataean dis-
loyalty 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 diërent in nature from
all other Hellenes, just as the Persians are and, according to Pelo-
ponnesian 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 dis-
torted sense of the world.
Two problems threaten to compromise the Thebans' concep-
tion, 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 Hel-
lenes. ``We had the form of rule most opposed to both laws and
utmost moderation [or self-restraint: swjroneÂ staton], and closest
to a tyranny, the dominating faction of a few men had complete
control of aäirs'' (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 `ènslave'' Boeotia and Hellas.
``We are now joining the others most enthusiastically in the libera-
tion of Hellas'' (3.62.5), they declare. The Plataeans have so vio-
lated 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
122 Logoi
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 origi-
nally 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 `ìllegally'' in a time of truce and on a festival day, we think that
our oënse 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 `ìt 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 becom-
ing 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 ac-
cording 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 im-
68 Accepting Steup's emendation of jiliÂ wv, ou polemiÂ wv to jiliÂ ouv, ou polemiÂ ouv.
69 It is unclear whether kaiÂ is meant to join thÄv gnwÂmhv with twÄn swmaÂ twn, so that both
are read with swjronistaiÁ ontev, or to separate the two participles, in which case twÄn
swmaÂ 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 swmaÂ twn is di½cult to construe.
Rhodes 1994 ad loc. reads twÄn swmaÂtwn with swjronistaiÂ and translates: ``they wanted
to restrain your minds and bodies, they wanted not to give your city to foreigners . . . ,''
but swjronistaiÂ means more than that, and this interpretation does not receive support
from the two other occurrences in Thucydides (6.87.3, 8.48.6).
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 `àlienate,'' 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 (allotriwÂ teron) than factional interest''
(3.82.6). Moreover, the technique of distinguishing the leaders
from the populus, employed to explain Theban medism, is re-
peated here but the image is inverted. Small factions are responsi-
ble 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 accord-
ing to the right Boeotian and Hellenic values, against the popu-
lation 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 diërent in tone and
character, but they use the same strategy of moral self-justi®cation
and condemnation of the opposing side, of opportunistically re-
de®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 argu-
ments of inclusion and exclusion. That not only the Plataeans ±
70 Cf. Classen's perceptive remark on swjronistaiÂ (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.
124 Logoi
whose case was nearly hopeless from the outset ± but the Thebans
should structure their arguments around these issues is remark-
able, 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 dis-
pute 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 in-
vitation 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 oppor-
tunities 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 3.68.1±2 is clearly a pretext: it does not explain the original attack.

74 Buck 1979, 144¨.
75 Brunt 1965.
76 See Demand 1982, 41; Amit 1973, 94±6.
77 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 Boeo-
tian 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 Kalkav-
age 1989; 7.18.2 is irrelevant (contra Hornblower), as I explain in Chapter 6.
spectator (chs. 63±6),78 are excessive for that purpose and suggest
a diërent and more immediate aim.
Thematic omissions or underemphases have surprised readers
before.79 To Theban ears, the Plataean speech sounded danger-
ously persuasive and ``they feared lest the Spartans yield some-
what'' (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 circum-
stances 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 ques-
tions 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 dis-
tance, 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, manipu-
lative 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 center-
piece, HCT ii, 352; cf. 350.
80 CT i, 446, 462±3. The situation is far more complex than mere ``rhetorical incompe-
tence'' on the part of the Thebans, Debnar 1996.
126 Logoi
nor that the Corinthians, the Corcyrans, the Athenians, the Myti-
lenians, the Plataeans, the Thebans or the Spartans were insincere
in their de®nitions of justice and injustice, although these diërent
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 suërs 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 re-
inforcing 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 ex-
istence of natural separations in the Hellenic world, they have
found the necessary rhetoric for justifying the war; yet these for-
mulae 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 diër-
ences 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 pur-
pose of creating and isolating an enemy, but their strategies are so
diërent as to require separate analysis. The three main Pelopon-
nesian 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 diërent inherent natures and diërent
127
128 Logoi
ethnic backgrounds. Our design will be to trace the development
of each of these three themes in turn through the Peloponne-
sian 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 ad-
monish 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 en-
slaved some of us already and are plotting against others, not least our
own allies. . . . Up to this moment you are always depriving of their free-
dom 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: re-
nown]1 as ``the liberator of Hellas'' (e leuqerwÄ n thÁn ÿ EllaÂ da). (1.68.3,
69.1)
Sparta is said to have a reputation for virtue because of its libera-

tion 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 reviv-
ing an old notion for new use. A few passages in Greek literature
before the war refer to Athens' rule as `ènslavement,'' so that the
1 See Classen±Steup on axiÂ wsin. The scholion remarks, toÁ semnoloÂ ghma, toÁ axiÂ 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.
Hellenic states rede®ne Hellas 129
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 Per-
sian 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 `èx-
ceeding the facts'' (oÿ loÂ gov touÄ e rgou e kraÂtei, 1.69.5), and the
Athenians, in the speech which follows, will justi®ably claim, with-
out 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 eört'' in repelling the Per-
sians (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 suëred 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 ``liber-
ate'' 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 dila-
tory action in 479 or Athenian counter-claims for credit. The Cor-
inthians somewhat misstate the facts by granting all Peloponnesians
3 HCT i, 228.
130 Logoi
repute for the Spartan achievement, but such an exaggeration
may be expected in the circumstances.
The theme ``liberation of Hellas'' was the centerpiece of Spar-
tan propaganda4 in the war, and not just a conceit of Thucydi-
dean speeches. Thucydides himself con®rms this. He says that
the Spartans won the general favor (eu noia) of almost all Hellas,
`èspecially because they openly declared themselves to be the lib-
erators of Hellas'' (2.8.4) ± `èspecially'' (allwv te kaiÂ ), 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 ``lib-
eration'' propaganda, Thucydides informs the reader, was success-
ful. It re¯ected not only what one of the belligerents was saying,
but what many, perhaps even most Hellenes were actually think-
ing 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 other-
wise 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 aëcted ``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).
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, Sthene-
laidas mentions the ``liberation of Hellas'' in their respective con-
tributions to the ®rst debate. Further, Archidamus, in his speech
to the assembled Peloponnesian troops just before the ®rst in-
vasion of Attica, avoids the catchwords of freedom and slavery
and attributes the support of Sparta by `àll 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 fool-
ish 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 Pla-
taeans seem to grasp the full import and power of the Spartan lib-
eration 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 re-
peated 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 concep-
tually 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 strug-
gle as the ``liberation of Hellas'' becomes an eört to set Athens
apart from the rest of Hellas, implying a Hellenic unity and ac-
cord 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
132 Logoi
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 oëred 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 leader-
ship 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 `ènslaved'' 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 ac-
tions, 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
`àttack 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 Olym-
pia, in this speci®c context, was not its control by Sparta or its Dorian identity but its
Panhellenic nature; see Chapter 5.
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 mu-
tual fear, and whoever ®rst saw a clear advantage would be the
®rst to break it; thus they were now acting not unjustly but pre-
emptively, 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 mis-
represent 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 isoÂ yhjoi. As Ostwald explains, ``the Mytilenians are trying
to confuse the Spartans by playing the formal status of an autoÂn-
omov 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 Hel-
lenic 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 partici-
pants. 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 partici-
pation in the reduction of Samos (cf. 1.116.1±2) belies the Mytile-
nians' 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 argu-
ments 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):
`ìt 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 ap-
pear to the Spartans to be mere opportunism, so that the Spartans will not reject them as
potentially unreliable allies.''
9 HCT ii, 265.
134 Logoi
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 diërences 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 op-
pression), 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 diërences with Athens.
In this innovative view of the world, the Hellenic commonality ±
the koinwniÂ a, to use their word ± is united ethically and conceptually
in its struggle against the Athenian enslavers. The word koinwniÂ a,
which gained its speci®c political signi®cance only in the fourth
century,12 is a grander and less formalistic word than xummaciÂ a.
It does not formally or legally bind two states to each other but
10 periÁ gaÁ r touÄ dikaiÂ ou kaiÁ a rethÄv prwÄton allwv te kaiÁ xummaciÂ av deoÂ menoi touÁ v loÂgouv
poihsoÂ meqa, ei doÂtev oute jiliÂ an i diwÂtaiv beÂ baion gignomeÂ nhn oute koinwniÂ an poÂlesin e v
oudeÂ n, ei mhÁ met' arethÄv dokouÂshv e v a llhÂ louv giÂ gnointo kaiÁ talla oÿ moioÂtropoi ei en´ e n
gaÁ r twÄÎ dialaÂ ssonti thÄ v gnwÂmhv kaiÁ aiÿ diajoraiÁ twÄn e rgwn kaqiÂ stantai.
11 Rhet. ad Alex. 1424b37, cited by Macleod 1978, recommends deiknuÂ nai touÁ v thÁn summa-
ciÂ an poioumeÂ nouv maÂ lista dikaiÂ ouv o ntav.
12 In Aristotle it describes the relations of citizens within a polis, cf. Pol. 1258a1¨.,
1260b27¨., etc.
rather implies a more emotional and psychological basis, the good-
will (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 dem-
onstrate 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 Pelopon-
nesians' 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 `èqual in gnwÂ mh and goodwill'' (3.9.2); ``diërences in
action arise from discrepancy in minds (gnwÂmhv)'' (10.1); the Athe-
nians' positive gnwÂ mh was feigned and used to `àttack'' the Myti-
lenians' gnwÂmh (11.3); the Mytilenians accepted the Athenians
`àgainst their better judgment'' (paraÁ gnwÂmhn, 12.1). The word
oÿmoioÂtropoi, then, in its coupling with koinwniÂ a, refers to much
more than the oligarchical governments at both Sparta and Myti-
lene,13 but also to ways of life and manners which almost signify
diërent 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 oër 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 lib-
eration 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 jiliÂ a and koinwniÂ a. It may be thought that
oÿ moioÂ 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 koinwniÂ a. Cf. also Pl. Resp. i,
351d: staÂseiv gaÂr pou . . . h ge adikiÂ a kaiÁ miÂ sh kaiÁ maÂ cav e n allhÂloiv pareÂ cei, hÿ deÁ
dikaiosuÂnh oÿmoÂnoian kaiÁ jiliÂ an.
136 Logoi
We thought we would make a double apostasis: a departure from the Hel-
lenes, 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 op-
pressed 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 `èquality'' in both good-willed inten-
tions 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 tem-
porary separation from Sparta [5.38.2, cf. 8.3], but Corinth's apo-
stasis 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 (koinwniÂ a). Thus the para-
dox is not that `Àthens 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 diërent from, the enmity between
14 e nomiÂ zomen a posthÂsesqai diplhÄn apoÂstasin, apoÂ te twÄn ÿ EllhÂnwn mhÁ xuÁn kakwÄv
poieiÄ n autouÁv met' A qhnaiÂ wn a llaÁ xuneleuqerouÄn, a poÂ te A qhnaiÂ wn mhÁ autoiÁ dia-
jqarhÄ nai uÿp' e keiÂ nwn e n uÿsteÂ rwÎ allaÁ propoihÄsai.
15 Cf. KruÈger ad loc. and scholars cited by him; but already Poppo ad loc. denied any word-
play.
16 Cleon will directly rebut this viewpoint, de®ning the Mytilenians' action as an e panaÂ s-
tasiv instead of an a poÂ stasiv, a rebellion rather than a revolution, for `àn apostasis
belongs to those who are oppressed'' (3.39.2), and therefore, he admits, is somewhat jus-
ti®ed (Macleod 1978, 71). Cleon denies that an apostasis can occur between `èquals,'' 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 diërence 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.
Hellenic states, and more on the level of the enmity between Hel-
las and Persia. The Peloponnesian War produced Hellenes who
called themselves the real Hellenes, and rhetorically and concep-
tually excluded other Hellenes from that group.18 The point is not
one of alliances, but of the de®nition of Hellenes. The eëct is to
include everyone under the rubric Hellene who is `ènslaved'' 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
wjeliÂ a, 14.1), the commonality being Hellas.
Thus the Mytilenians oër 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
`ènslavers'' 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 char-
acterize their friendship with the Peloponnesians in the koinwniÂ 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 (paraÂ scoi asjaÂ 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 koinwniÂ a, in which the con¯ict takes place, as well as their
relationship with friends and family who are now enemies (com-
pare 3.82.6).20 The conceptual shift introduced by the Mytilenians
18 Thus it is not correct to say that `ìn xuneleuqerouÄn the compound is used only for rhe-
torical eëct; 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 pres-
ent loyalties, but the Spartans seem untroubled (3.15.2). The Spartans did call o¨ an inva-
sion of Attica when they saw that ``the Lesbians' utterances were not true'' (3.16.2), but these
rÿhqeÂ nta were the claims regarding the present weakness of the Athenians, not the Mytile-
nians' 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.
138 Logoi
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 Mytile-
nians uphold. The Mytilenians' concept of community, koinwniÂ a,
rests on a notion of friendship which deliberately confuses political/
diplomatic and moral/philosophical terminology.
Greek moralists and philosophers maintained that jiliÂ a, friend-
ship, at least the best form of friendship, rests on similarities
rather than diërences, especially between two equally good people
possessing equal measure of virtue.21 This is expressed aphoristi-
cally 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 harmo-
nious equality.''23 This frequent and common idea proliferated `ìn
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 `àn 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 friend-
21 See now Konstan 1996, who points out an important distinction between philos and philia,
and diërences 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 phi-
lia in Thucydides, does not discuss our speech.
22 wÿv ai eiÁ toÁn oÿmoiÄ on agei qeoÁ v e v toÁn oÿ moiÄ on.
23 jiliÂ an te einai e narmoÂnion i soÂthta, DK 58 b1a.
24 jiÂ lon meÂ n pou kalouÄmen omoion oÿmoiÂ wÎ kat' arethÁn kaiÁ i son i swÎ, cf. also Gorg. 507e±
508a.
ship solely in human terms.25 While Aristotle typically disagrees
with Plato in both approach and purpose, their conclusions coin-
cide 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 friend-
ship is based on equality and similarity (isoÂ thv kaiÁ oÿ moioÂ thv,
1159b), that friendship is closely related to justice, and that associ-
ation or cooperation is the essence of friendship (e n koinwniÂ aÎ gaÁr
hÿ jiliÂ a, 1159b).
Thus the Mytilenians try to use to their advantage a widely ac-
cepted 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 moioÂ thv,
isoÂ thv, arethÂ, diÂ kaion, koinwniÂ 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 fol-
low a diërent 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 (jiliÂ a) among individuals nor com-
mon association (koinwniÂ 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'' (jiliÂ a) stands in for alliance, xumma-
ciÂ 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, summaciÂ a kaiÁ
jiliÂ a, was common enough in Greek diplomacy and written
treaties, but in that sphere the word jiliÂ 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 diërent 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 aëctive response,'' as she would have it ± in interstate
relations. This is a diërent phenomenon from the blending of personal and political
friendship in the polis, on which see Mitchell and Rhodes 1996.
27 tiÂ v oun auth h jiliÂ a e giÂ gneto h e leuqeriÂ a pisthÂ, e n hÎ paraÁ gnwÂmhn a llhÂlouv uÿ pede-
coÂ meqa . . . For the correct interpretation of a llhÂ louv uÿpedecoÂmeqa, see HCT ii, 266.
140 Logoi
that it had in the private sphere. Of course, certain pretenses did
have to be made even when the contracting parties felt no aëc-
tion 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 jiliÂ a between Sparta and Persia in 411,28 for instance, was
based on ``common ways of life'' or `èquality'' in the sense which
the Mytilenians give those words. The same is obviously true of
Athens' previous pact of jiliÂ 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 jiliÂ 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 jiliÂ 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 (pistoÂ n) for an alliance (xummaciÂ a)'' (3.11.2), again using the
word `àlliance'' interchangeably with ``friendship.'' This is ob-
viously 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 repre-
sents the Mytilenians as maintaining diërent views in diërent
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 jiliÂ a in the speech indicate a profound instability in the con-
cept 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 instabil-
28 Thuc. 8.37.1; as Andrewes, HCT v, 79±80 points out, jiliÂ a replaces the xummaciÂ 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.
ity had spread far beyond Mytilene. The diërent 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 oër two de®nitions of friend-
ship, adjusted to diërent circumstances (e v taÁ e rga, as in 3.82.4),
which exclude the Athenians from the Hellenic fraternity. Athe-
nian speakers, on diërent occasions, oër their own de®nition
of friendship, diëring from both (contradictory) conceptions
the Mytilenians oër 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 po-
sition to hear everyone who speaks, both publicly and privately,
and thus to appreciate the diërent outlooks and mindsets of the
belligerents. Pericles boasts that Athens sustains its ``friendships''
by always giving and never receiving benefaction:
We are also diërent from most others in regard to virtue (goodness:

a rethÂ), in that we prefer to make friends by granting rather than receiv-
ing benefaction. He who grants a favor remains a ®rmer friend in order
to preserve the feeling of indebtedness through goodwill (di' eu noiÂ av)
towards his recipient; but the one who is indebted will feel a duller en-
thusiasm 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 arethÂ

and goodwill (eunoia), but the emphasis is entirely diërent. That
is, to return to the language of the stasis model, the values he
assigns the words for virtue, goodwill and friendship are demon-
strated by actions (taÁ e rga) wholly unlike the ones the Mytile-
nians expect from the same words. Whereas the Mytilenians
stress the equality between friends in both the ability to demon-
strate and the actual demonstration of arethÂ and eu noia, Peri-
cles rejects true reciprocity and prefers one-sided arethÂ and
eunoia as the ®rmest basis for friendship. In fact, Pericles uses
the word arethÂ in a way diërent from that used in all other
speeches in the History, illustrating the rather private way Athe-
nians had of speaking about themselves and the rest of the world
142 Logoi
(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 `èxchanging the conventional value of words in rela-
tion 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 conven-
tional Greek ideas of friendship than the Mytilenians' is because it
renders impossible any friendship in which Athens is not the dom-
inant 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 `àlone
(moÂnoi) grant bene®ts to others fearlessly without calculating our
31 The other uses of a rethÂ 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 arethÂ 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 rethÂ among the Spartans (5.105.4). Aside from those Athenian utter-
ances, all the other speakers in the History use a rethÂ 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 jiÂ louv eu poiouÄnta, touÁv d' e cq-
rouÁ 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 `òne
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 arethÂ 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.
advantage any more than we rely con®dently on our own free-
dom,'' 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
(caÂ riv) remains a ®rmer friend,'' because the reciprocity implied
by caÂ 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 `à 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 jiÂ louv kakwÂ 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 diërent
expressions of it adjusted to diërent 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
oëred 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 `à grotesque distortion of the nature of empire,'' but that is pre-
cisely 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.
144 Logoi
identity (oÿmoioÂtropoi), but as we have seen they misapply the
de®nition.36
The chaos which the war wrought in the Hellenic value ``friend-
ship'' 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 oër 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 perma-
nently not when one side seeks revenge and, having for all practical pur-
poses 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 op-
ponent 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 part-
ners, 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 advan-
tage (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 self-
contradictory: 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 xummaciÂ an kaiÁ a llhn jiliÂ 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¨.
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 trans-
fers its connotations in the private sphere to the public sphere.
This re-evaluation involves ¯exible standards: jiliÂ a is de®ned by
diërent criteria when applied to the Athenians, who are antago-
nists, 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 jiliÂ a as unequal and strictly utili-
tarian, re¯ecting their con®dence in their imperial power, which
for them is ``freedom.'' Mutatis mutandis, the Spartans, at a tempo-
rary disadvantage, oër a diërent utilitarian view of friendship
which incorporates moral uprightness. On the basis of Thucy-
dides' 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 lib-
eration 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 Thu-
cydides' 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 `ènslavement of the Peloponnese'' (5.27.2). In be-
tween 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.
146 Logoi
the historical reference is clear. Brasidas may thus freely refer to
Athens' empire as a lloÂ julov a rchÂ (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 tiÂ 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 Hel-
lenic territories, for `ìnstead 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 eört 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 diërent rhetorical possibilities and
strategies from those of the mainland.43 Sicily's peculiar position
as an island of loosely associated Hellenic cities suggested compa-
rison 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),
`ànswered'' at 6.9.1, 23.1; 4.92. At 1.141.6 Pericles says that the Peloponnesians are ouc
oÿmoÂ 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 re-
sponse, see Section II below.
sharp edge. He in fact goes further than any mainland speaker
when he attempts to negate even Athens' legitimate claim of sav-
ing 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 enslave-
ment of the Hellenes to themselves rather than the Mede, and the Hel-
lenes 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 re-
sponds to Hermocrates' new interpretation by ignoring it.) Sec-
ond, 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 re-
corded 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 in-
troduce at the ®rst conference at Sparta highlights the diërent
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'
oënses (which previous speakers had done) as to shame and
frighten them by an unfavorable comparison of their slow man-
ner 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.
148 Logoi
megalomaniacal activity. The Spartans are told that they have not
fully appreciated ``how utterly diërent'' the Athenians are (wÿ v paÄn
diajeÂ rontav, 1.70.1), and this is followed by the famous compari-
son 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 negli-
gence; 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 judg-
ment 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 fol-
lowed by a series of points about the Athenians, in which the
comparison with the Spartans is only implied: the Athenians fol-
low 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 suciÂ a apraÂgmwn) is no
less a disaster than toilsome lack of leisure (ascoliÂ a e piÂ ponov).''
In sum, the Athenians' nature (pejukeÂ 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 con-
venient 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).
For the two sides were the most diërent in their way of doing things
(toÁn troÂ 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 (oÿmoioÂ tropoi) to the Athenians and fought best against them.46
Yet to equate the two passages is to forget the diërent contexts of
each statement, and the diërent implications arising from each
context. Thucydides uses the political and military diërences
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 con-
duct.47 Thucydides ®rst calls the Athenians and Syracusans oÿmoioÂ-
tropoi 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 man-
ner 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, dis-
tinguishing them by nature not only from the other Hellenes but in
fact from all of mankind (touÁ v allouv anqrwÂpouv). The Corin-
thians' 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 dif-
ferences. The Corinthians' opening point is that the Athenians are
``constantly innovating (newteropoioiÂ ) and quick (o xeiÄ v) to devise
plans and carry them out.'' `Ìnnovative'' 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 diërently
(3.10.1), but authorial judgment and special pleading in speeches give diërent casts to
the same words.
150 Logoi
the word newteropoioiÂ 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
newteropoiiÂ a, acknowledging their fundamental diërences (a l-
loÂjuloi, 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 (new-
teropoiouÁv einai). Moreover, o xeiÄ v, which is the only word used by
both the Corinthian speaker and Thucydides in his authorial
comment, is diërent in each context. Thucydides means quick-
ness as a virtue in battle, whereas the Corinthians apply it to e pi-
nohÄ 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 diërent view of festivals, as
``relaxations from hardships'' (2.38.1). If it be said that both Peri-
cles and Cleon have quite speci®c rhetorical programs, then the
same must be said for the Corinthians, who (like all speakers) de-
livered 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.''
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 diërences between human beings. ``We must
not think that people diër so much from one another,'' he says
(1.84.4); rather, perceived diërences should be attributed to train-
ing and background. This is a direct attack on the basic assump-
tion 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 dif-
ferences 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 ideo-
logical basis. The historian remains far above the ideological fray.
ethnic arguments
The third main Peloponnesian theme is closely related to the sec-
ond. The Corinthians' judgment that the Athenians and Spartans
are diërent 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 repre-
sented, 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 Corin-
thian speech does not deal with the actual grievances or points of
dispute with which the other allies were preoccupied. The purpose
152 Logoi
is to persuade the allies that the war not only can but should be
won, for reasons more important, more vital, even more immedi-
ate than violations of treaty. The Corinthian speaker repeats the
argument that the Peloponnesians and Athenians have diërent
natures, but now expands it with the idea that natural diërences
have an ethnic base.
The speech as a whole is odd, riddled with contradictions, im-
probable 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 pre-
cisely 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 oënse 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 re-
quired, courage and skill, and while skill can be learned by any-
body, 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 mas-
ter 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.
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 Pelo-
ponnesians, 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
xumjeÂ rei, 123.1).
The point of diëring 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 `ìdentity of interests'' (cf. also taÁ koinaÂ 1.120.1; 122.2; 4.87.4)
is not strictly Peloponnesian, for the Athenian `ènslavement'' 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 Thu-
cydides indicates that the term `Ìonian'' 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 tautaÂ 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 Smar-
czyk 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 `àggregative'' to `òppositional.''
154 Logoi
The Dorian/Ionian opposition derives from ancient traditions,

which were accepted even by enlightened opinion in the ®fth cen-
tury 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 Hel-
lenes 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
diërences 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 suëred 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 polupragmosuÂ nh ± and by the absence, conceded by Alty, of any Athenian expres-
sion 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 Spar-
tan 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 dis-
missed as `èxceptional'' (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 de-
termining ``true'' feelings even if ®fth-century subjects were available for personal inter-
views. 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 alloÂ-
juloi, 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 com-
bined with Sparta's ``central Greek ambitions,'' CT i, 168±9. In addition to the ethnic
references discussed, cf. 5.80.2, 8.100.
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 eëctive be-
cause 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 `ènslaved.'' The term `Ìonian'' 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 an-
tithesis.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 meticu-
lously 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
`àutonomous'' allies of Athens, although probably under com-
pulsion, but the Corcyreans, ``who were not only Dorians but also
manifestly Corinthians,'' willingly joined the expedition against
Corinth and Syracuse, `àlthough 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 eÂteÂ la cause, mais la
consequence de la guerre du PeÂ loponneÁ se,'' JardeÂ , quoted by Will 1956, 67. See, in de-
tail, de Romilly 1990, 13±60.
59 Alty 1982, 8 n. 43.
60 Alty 1982, 10±11.
156 Logoi
®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 manda-
tory: at the battle at Miletus, `Ìonians 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 Mile-
sians 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 Hel-
lenic and Sicilian states ®ghting in Sicily chose sides ``not on the
basis of some claim to justice or even kinship, but either for ad-
vantage 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 mis-
understanding which could arise from three possible sources: (1)
the previous mention of ethnic sentiment; (2) knowledge of actual
diërences 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 `ònly those who had not defected (ajeÂ 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 xuggeneÂ 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 diÂ khn ti maÄllon ou deÁ kataÁ xuggeÂ neian met' a llhÂ lwn staÂntev, all' wÿv eÿ kaÂ s-
toiv thÄv xuntuciÂ av h kataÁ toÁ xumjeÂ ron h anaÂgkhÎ e scen. The phrase met' a llhÂlwn
staÂ ntev, which is normally taken to mean ``choose sides,'' may suggest stasis.
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 Thu-
cydides 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 Dor-
ians, 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 op-
position in his History. When we ®nd the Spartan general Gylippus
encouraging his troops through scorn of the enemy as `Ìonians
and islanders and rabble'' who are facing ``Peloponnesians and
Dorians'' (7.5.4), his remark is to be seen as the rhetorical expan-
sion of a geographical term into an ethnic term in order to taint
the ethnic `Ìonians'' with the traditional weakness of geographical
`Ìonians.'' 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 im-
plications of the epithet `Ìonians'' 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.

158 Logoi
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 `ònly 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 eörts at rhetorical exclusion were as persistent as the rheto-
ric itself was ¯uid.
The theme of Dorian solidarity was given practical eëct when
the Spartans founded Trachinian Heraclea in the year 426, spe-
ci®cally excluding `Ìonians, 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 histori-
cal circumstances which prompted the shift in rhetorical strategy. Hermocrates' phrase
toÁ juÂsei poleÂ mion at Gela (4.60.1) means, as the scholiast understood it, the natural en-
mity between Athens and Sicily, which is the point of the whole speech and is explained
in the following sentence (gaÂ 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 pistoiÂ . 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.
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 Pelo-
ponnesians, 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 `Ìonians 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 con-
ceptual and actual distance between the Athenians and all nega-
tive connotations of the term `Ìonians'' describing the inhabitants
of Ionia. Euphemus' brief remarks were necessitated by Her-
mocrates' 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 `òn the ground of kin-
ship (thÄv oikeioÂthtov projaÂ sei) but really wishing to prevent the
import of grain to the Peloponnese from there and to make a pre-
liminary test of their ability to control aäirs in Sicily'' (3.86.4).
This contrasts with genuine ethnic considerations which had con-
tributed to the formation of Dorian alliances in Sicily (3.86.2).
Thucydides' interpretation of Athenian motives is more or less re-
peated in his introductory remarks to the Sicilian expedition,
when he says that ``the truest reason'' for the expedition was con-
quest whereas the nice-sounding announced reason was ``kinship''
(6.6.1). In a rare example of explicit agreement between the histo-
rian and one of his characters, Hermocrates, who as we have seen
is able to use ethnic arguments to advantage, is portrayed as see-
ing 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.

160 Logoi
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' im-
perial propaganda of the ®fth century emphasized their earlier re-
sponsibility for colonizing Ionia, and whether or not this was true
it was believed and repeated by the Ionians themselves.69 Com-
monly in classical Greek, including Thucydides' History, declara-
tions of suggeÂ neia may reveal no sentiment or really any other
fact than the relationship of colony and mother-city.70 As mother-
city to the entire Ionian Hellenic community Athens could require
certain obligations which kinship, suggeÂ 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 Ion-
ian Hellenes, there was no warrant to extrapolate common char-
acter 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 bibli-
ography. 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 xuggeneÂ 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 `Ìonians,'' 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 xuggeneiÂ 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 xugge-
neÂ 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 . . . PeloponnhsiÂ 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 dis-
cussed by Alty 1982, 11±14.
allows himself to express his personal opinion that most Athenians
in his day were `àshamed of the name'' Ionian (1.143.3, although
he somewhat hedges his claim, jaiÂ nontaiÂ 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 eört 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 Athe-
nian 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 Pelopon-
nesian aim to ``liberate Hellas,'' because that declaration had not
yet been made in the text, and moreover the Athenian ambassa-
dors acknowledge that they are repeating old, familiar arguments,
formed presumably long before the liberation theme was devel-
oped. 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 un-
planned: 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 Thu-
cydidean composition ± but as they say their arguments were
used frequently, and presumably were well rehearsed by skilled
72 If proballomeÂ noiv is translated, ``causing annoyance to you,'' see HCT i, 234 and CT i,
118.
162 Logoi
statesmen and diplomats of the kind to be sent to Sparta on state
business; facts and their interpretation were ready to hand, re-
quiring 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 concen-
trate 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 Athe-
nian 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 Peri-
cles, 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 gen-
eral 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.
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). Con-
versely, when the Spartans seek peace in Athens after their setback
at Pylos and Sphacteria, they speak at length but the Athenian re-
sponses are conveyed in the briefest form (4.21.3, 22.2); Thucy-
dides 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 diërent arguments on that speci®c
occasion. And every time Athens ventured abroad there was an
opportunity to write an Athenian speech, usually in direct rhetori-
cal 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 as-
sumed 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 libera-
tion theme somewhat tiresomely ± but that he judged Athenian
counter-propaganda (if it may be called that), that is, what Athe-
nians 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 Pente-
kontaetia with vigor and energy,77 but this was judged by the his-
torian 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 god-
dess'' (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 de-
duced by comparison of Herodotus and Thucydides, Pearson 1936.
164 Logoi
Some idea of how the Athenians would have answered Spartan pro-
paganda 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 `ènslaved'' 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 koinoÂ n) before their own (taÁ
oikeiÄ a). They say that leadership of the Hellenes fell to Athens de-
servedly and also undesignedly after Sparta voluntarily relin-
quished 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 his-
torical ``debate'' concerns not the relative signi®cance, for exam-
ple, of Salamis and Plataea but the relation between Athens' self-
sacri®ce in the war and its subsequent empire-building.79 Sparta
accepts the fact of initial Athenian heroism but denies its continu-
ing 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 two-
fold punishment since they were brave and good (agaqoiÂ ) against
the Persians but have become bad (kakoiÂ , 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 Corin-
thians do cast doubt on the Athenian achievement in the Persian Wars, but this is not
picked up. See in general Raubitschek 1973.
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 understand-
ing from Sparta and all Hellas based on the events ®fty years pre-
viously. Athens in fact presents itself as ruling more mildly than
necessary, and more fairly than Sparta would rule, but suër-
ing 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 main-
tenance of empire appears only once in the History, in the Pla-
taeans' 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'' (oukeÂ ti kaloÂ n) to abandon
them later: `ìt 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 im-
perial 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 self-
interest, lie at the heart of Euphemus' justi®cation of Athens' empire
seventeen years later, in a wholly diërent setting (6.82±7). A great
deal has been made of the diërences between Euphemus' speech
and the ®rst Athenian speech, but no theory about a ``gradual hard-
ening 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 diërent stages in the development of the claim of the Athe-
nians 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.
166 Logoi
vel sim. is needed to explain these diërences. 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 diërences between the two speeches arise from the dif-
ferences 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 Euphe-
mus does not renounce justi®cation of empire, which is the pur-
pose 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 kaqeloÂ ntev eikoÂtwv arcomen 6.83.2). The Athenian is not
addressing Hellenes whose grandfathers fought against the Per-
sians 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 Hel-
lenes `òver there'' and proër 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 diërent. First, he declares that
after the Persian wars the Athenians were actuated by the persis-
82 See Dover, HCT iv, 353±4.

tent need to resist Spartan domination; they wished to escape
Sparta's ``rule and hegemony'' (a rchÁ kaiÁ hÿ gemoniÂ 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 ac-
quired leadership of the Hellenes, but state their motivations for
parlaying that leadership into an empire ± fear, honor and self-
interest ± 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 con-
genial indeed to recall that Athens has been forever afraid of
Spartan domination. Euphemus' essential claim is self-defense,
stressing the salvation and safety (swthriÂ a, a sjaÂleia) of both
Athens and Camarina.84 Moreover, the anonymous Athenian am-
bassador 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 eëctive 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 swthriÂ 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.
168 Logoi
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, un-
stinting 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 diërence 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 Euphe-
mus had constantly to stress Athens' fear and avoidance of dan-
ger, so that mentioning Themistocles was out of place, medising
Greeks were what was needed. The other two elements in the
formula also take on diërent 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 (anepiÂ 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 pre-
85 Connor 1984, 183.

86 paÄsi deÁ anepiÂ jqonon taÁ xumjeÂ ronta twÄ n megiÂ stwn periÁ kinduÂnwn eu tiÂ qesqai (1.75.5)
and paÄ si deÁ a nepiÂ jqonon thÁn proshÂkousan swthriÂ an e kporiÂ 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 piÂ jqonon proÁ v twÄn pleoÂ nwn a nqrwÂ 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 diërences between
them.
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 jus-
ti®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 `ènslaved'' other Hellenes. Ob-
viously, defending against charges of `ènslavement'' and counter-
ing new claims of ``liberation'' relied on the same facts and mode
of argumentation, requiring only adjustments of emphasis and his-
torical reasoning. That both speeches employ elements of ready-
made 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'' be-
cause 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
eikoÂ 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 rela-
tively fresh. That is, we may believe that the Sicilian Hellenes
were familiar with the Athenian rhetorical commonplaces, which
were nonetheless still eëctive 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.

170 Logoi
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 rhetori-
cal 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, Hermo-
crates, possesses a combination of intelligence (xuÂ 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 charac-
ter 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 inter-
ests of a commonality, toÁ koinoÂn (4.58, 59.1), which scarcely ex-
isted 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 `àll
Sicily'' (paÄ sa SikeliÂ 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 Hermo-
crates' 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 rhetori-
cal 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.
brought internal political stability to the cities, and presumably
(given Alcibiades' misunderstanding, ibid.) allowed capital to accu-
mulate 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 ac-
cepted 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 equa-
tion 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' corre-
sponding 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 diërent 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 `ànswer'' 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.
172 Logoi
a demonstration of how, in Thucydides' view, the Athenians con-
ceived 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 sepa-
rated 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
diërent critical junctures. He ®rst speaks (1.140±4) as the Athe-
nians 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 suëred 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 assem-
bly 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.
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 exhor-
tations to courage in imitation of the fallen. Finally, after the epi-
demic 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 pur-
pose: 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
eëct 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 deÂ onta).
Yet Pericles' three speeches go way beyond this primary, practi-
cal aim. Pericles uses arguments which are surprising and daring if
his sole object had been so narrowly de®ned as to encourage dis-
traught 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 well-
trained 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 dikiÂ a) suëred 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 for-
tunes of one's own state and the enemy, a point brought across by
``minimizing the enemy's resources and magnifying and amplify-
ing 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 indi-
cation 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.
174 Logoi
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 Athe-
nian audience use unconventional rhetoric in entirely conven-
tional 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 Pelo-
ponnesian speakers do with regard to the Athenians in their war-
mongering 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 diërent and more obvi-
ous reasons. The Athenian self-separation, in Pericles' formu-
lation, 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 Athe-
nians. 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 argu-
96 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.
ment is also completely expected: he ®rst advocates war and then
lays out the reasons for expecting to win it.97 The proportion be-
tween 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 mili-
tary resources, current strategy and past military successes, the
abundance and loyalty of the city's allies, the bravery of the citi-
zens and the overall weakness of the enemy.98 But instead of a
standard comparison along these lines, Pericles contrasts the dif-
ferent stages of historical development of Athens and Sparta:
Athens' naval power, resting on vast accumulated capital and cen-
tralized Athenian control, is superior to the Peloponnesian agri-
cultural 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.
176 Logoi
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 central-
ization (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 mil-
itarily 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 strateiÂ 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 demon-
strated that the achievement worthy of greatest praise (a xioÂ logon)
was not any particularly Hellenic event but the fact of Hellas
itself, which had become more than a group of states able to com-
bine for ever greater achievement, but itself was, by the end of the
Persian Wars, a culturally distinct, internally coherent phenome-
non 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 eco-
nomically, militarily and politically, and that because of ethnic
diversity and most importantly lack of pooled resources (e n koinwÄÎ,
99 au tourgoiÂ 1.141.3, compare nemoÂ menoi taÁ eÿ autwÄn, 1.2.2; 10.4 autereÂ tai. Compare also
1.141.3, oute crhÂmataÂ e stin and aiÿ periousiÂ ai touÁv poleÂ mouv . . . aneÂ cousin with 1.2.2
periousiÂ an crhmaÂ twn ouk e contev, and similarly 1.7, 8.3, 11.2.
1.141.3) and common purpose (ti twÄ n koinwÄn, 141.7) cannot sus-
tain a large-scale war (compare koinhÄÎ 1.3.1, 10.4, 17, 18.2).
As an historical actor, Pericles cannot of course import or con-
sciously modify ideas from Thucydides' Archaeology. But the his-
torian 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 ac-
tor'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 accumula-
tion 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, be-
cause although the Peloponnesians are Hellenes they are diërent
enough ± in the same way if not in the same degree that a non-
Hellenic people is diërent from Hellenes ± to ®ght against with-
out 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 Pelo-
ponnesian enemy consists not in an immediate, physical threat to
Athenian freedom ± for Athenian naval power can easily over-
whelm them ± but in a barbaric backwardness making them pro-
foundly 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' vi-
sion, by contrast, uses a supposed historical superiority as a divi-
sive factor, making Hellenes the legitimate object of aggression.
Thus Pericles' unwitting adoption of language from the Archaeol-
ogy 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 prin-
ciples of Pericles' vision as well. The Funeral Oration imitates the
next stage in the historical development, which the Archaeology
178 Logoi
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 real-
ized: he attributes to Athens what Thucydides had attributed to
Hellas in its last stage of historical development, namely the abil-
ity to accomplish noteworthy and lasting things by changing the
course of history outside the small sphere of Hellas. The immedi-
ate 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
diërent 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 rela-
tives, 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 addi-
tion to the commentaries of Gomme and Hornblower (the latter cites extensive bibliog-
raphy, 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 dis-
agreement, 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 conven-
tional elements, which must remain an open question; I incline like others to see con-
siderable distortion of the genre by Thucydides.
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 illumi-
nating. In his analysis of Hellas' pre-history, Thucydides ®rst de-
scribes 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' con-
stitution emulates no other system but rather is a model for others
(2.37.1); the Athenian system of military education is diërent from
all others (diajeÂ 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
(moÂ 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 out-
side 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' oërs a tekmhÂrion as proof of the superiority of Athens' educa-
tion (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.
180 Logoi
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 Un-
like the Parthenon frieze ± that great monument of Athenian self-
representation ± 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 sub-
ordinate 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 cwÂ ran . . . e leuqeÂ ran di' arethÁn par-
eÂ dosan), which are subjects he will develop. But he quickly passes
on to a later generation, the one immediately preceding his, the
``fathers'' (oiÿ pateÂ 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 amass-
ing of great personal power.105 The present generation ± the
Athenian audience ± receives the highest praise of all since it has,
while still `ìn 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 kreiÂ 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.
itself; no ``Homer'' or any common poet is needed or is even capa-
ble 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 diërent 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 ad-
vanced 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 in-
habitants 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 mili-
tary 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 oÿmoiÂ wv (2.42.1).
107 Gomme, HCT ii, 117 assumes Sparta is the target; see Gaiser 1975, 39±45 on the ``Dis-
krepanz zwischen Idealbild und historischer Wirklichkeit'' in the whole speech; Horn-
blower, CT i, 303±4 (q.v. for bibliography) deems the claim in 2.39 ``silly'' and impossible.
182 Logoi
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 progres-
sion of thought after ch. 39, proceeding to an elaborate descrip-
tion 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 (autarkestaÂ 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 in-
dividuals 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 individ-
108 Cf. Pericles' third speech, 2.62.5: thÁn toÂlman apoÁ thÄv oÿ moiÂ av tuÂchv hÿ xuÂnesiv e k touÄ
uÿpeÂ rjronov e curwteÂ ran pareÂ 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 sep-
arate in the speech, when Pericles contrasts his logos with the fallen's erga, but they be-
come 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 kriÂ nomeÂ n ge h e nqu-
mouÂmeqa. The phrase refers to two diërent kinds of deliberative/decision-making pro-
cesses in the Athenian system: some matters require judgment and decision, others
merely comprehension and recording; thus kriÂ nomen when appropriate, e nqumouÂ meqa
when appropriate, and orqwÄv applies to both verbs.
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 jiÂ loi, which would signify a tamer, more
intellectual appreciation and abstract love preserving the integrity
of the individual, but e rastaiÂ , physical lovers who give in to a
passion which was thought to be both sweet and destructive, con-
trolling 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 gkallwÂ pisma), and
therefore expendable. Then he adds, crucially: ``You must under-
stand 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 require-
ments placed on individuals are even more radical than Rusten allows. This same Athe-
nian 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 Gold-
hill 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 poÂ lewv duÂ namin kaq' hÿ meÂ ran e rgwÎ qewmeÂ nouv kaiÁ e rastaÁ v gigno-
meÂ nouv authÄv. The only objection to taking authÄv as referring to poÂliv and not duÂnamiv
is the disturbing implications. e rgwÎ contrasts with loÂ gwÎ earlier in the sentence and is
hard to bring across in translation.
112 See articles on `Èros'' in OCD 3 and RE vi; for recent work on jiliÂ 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 diërent uses of axiÂ a in 1.73.1, 76.2 and 2.39.4.
184 Logoi
Eros for the city's power and submission to it are thus said para-
doxically to be the source of the Athenians' freedom, both as in-
dividuals 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 mean-
ing 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 rever-
sal while they are still alive poses a real danger and for whom it makes
the greatest diërence 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 con-
trary 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 for-
tune who equated preservation of his own life with preservation of
the enjoyment of his fortune. Yet Pericles turns this common be-
lief 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 kriÂ 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.
full powers optimistically ± here is the key phrase ± to preserve
one's larger corporate identity (metaÁ koinhÄ v e lpiÂ 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 surren-
der 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 sub-
ordination of self to the city, is new and fundamentally diërent
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 pragmosuÂ 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 aäirs 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
apraÂ gmwn who claims no interest in the rich bene®ts of empire
(64.4). The devotion which the city requires has converted a posi-
tive 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 lan-
guage. Pericles says that not only can Athens not aörd 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 meteÂ conta ouk a praÂgmona, a ll' a creiÄ on nomiÂ zomen.
120 Corcyra also found out that a pragmosuÂ nh may not be a virtue (1.32.5). Cf. 3.82.5, in sta-
sis 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 con-
ventional Hellenic values and beliefs on the one hand and rational calculation of inter-
ests and acknowledgment of reality on the other.
186 Logoi
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. Thu-
cydides' 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 `ìn com-
mon,'' enabling each advance in cultural development and note-
worthy 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 sub-
jective thing). This division, and the suggestion of stasis, are re-
inforced 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¨.), dem-
onstrating the quick demise of the internal cohesion and universal
adherence to shared laws, morals and ways of life, lauded by Peri-
cles. 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 ac-
tuates Pericles' remarks in his last speech as well. There he tells
the Athenians that they have no choice but to defend their free-
dom; the issue is existential (2.61.1). The greatest threat to their
freedom ± or more precisely, free action ± is the sudden and un-
expected, especially something as devastating as the epidemic,
which `ènslaves the spirit,'' douloiÄ jroÂnhma (2.61.3).122 Freedom
in the great city means not being defeated by adversity: ``You in-
habit 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.
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 (douleiÂ a
ant' e leuqeriÂ 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 partici-
pation within the city that the non-participation and inaction of
some are ruinous.
Pericles' last speech rounds o¨ the parallels with the Archaeol-
ogy, recalling the last stage in Hellas' historical development, the
realization of the capability of great achievement. Like Thucy-
dides in the Archaeology, Pericles shows a fondness for super-
latives 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 num-
ber 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 Hel-
lenes in history, that the city has prevailed in the greatest wars and
has become the richest and greatest city. The important implica-
tion is that Athens with its unprecedented power ± military and
material, as in the Archaeology ± can or actually is doing some-
thing ``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 peo-
ple now in existence'' can prevent their free sailing wherever they
want (2.62.2); control of the sea also means control of a great por-
tion of land (2.39.3, 41.4). Pericles shortly thereafter asserts that
Athens' great reputation extends ``to all mankind'' (e n apasin
anqrwÂ 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.

188 Logoi
``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 disso-
nance 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 Archida-
mus, suggests soliciting Persian aid against Hellenic enemies, stan-
dard 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 poleÂ mion, the non-
Hellenic and Hellenic enemy, as existential trials on an equal
footing.
Thus Pericles' last speech comes close to negating the very con-
cept and fact of Hellas, since he portrays Athens as having achieved
not the next stage in Hellenic development but in historical devel-
opment 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 nec-
essary for ®ghting the Hellenic war on the scale they had under-
taken. The parallels to the Archaeology in all three speeches
enable the reader to see the complexity involved in rede®ning
a koinwniÂ a to justify internal war. When Pericles declares that
Athens makes the city koinhÂ 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 koinwniÂ 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 au-
touÁv 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.
distinguishing those who follow and imitate Athens from those
who are diërent from and oppose it (cf. also 2.37.1, 2; 42.3, 43.6).
Thus Pericles' three speeches illustrate two of the basic princi-
ples of stasis rhetoric: a transvaluation of words and an elaborate
re-ordering of the koinwniÂ a and Athens' relation to it. His con-
ception 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: `òur 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 nec-
essarily 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 his-
tory. Thucydides both points to this and oërs 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,

koinwniÂ 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 Spar-
tans 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 Athe-
nians 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).
190
The failure of communication 191
their city for the common cause of Hellas, contributed the most
ships and the best commander, and fought with courage and vir-
tue; without their heroic eört 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 dan-
gerous (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
`àllies'' (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'' (axiÂ 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 main-
tained 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.
192 Logoi
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 suc-
ceeded in magnifying the Spartans' fear of Athens' huge and ever-
increasing 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 actu-
ally incline to peace out of respect for Athens and fear of the haz-
ards 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 re-
quested 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 Athe-
nians' 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 willing-
ness to go to war), unless we are to understand that their justi-
®cation and verbal display of their empire was meant to have that
eëct, 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 koinwniÂ 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-
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 llaÂ 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 rein-
force 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' diërent character
reminds the reader of the Corinthians' similar point about the
Spartans' peculiar habits (1.70, see Chapter 3). The Athenians re-
mind the Spartans of their diërences in order to deter them from
war, whereas the Corinthians rebuke them for their diërences 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¯u-
enced by `òthers' 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 de-
sired 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 diërence from the rest of Hellas, which
has diërent customs. The Athenians' words focus on Sparta's in-
terests, burdens and most importantly its diërent 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 noÂ 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).
194 Logoi
By contrast, the Corinthians' rebuke of the Spartans' pecu-
liarities is much more pointed and detailed, and their language is
subtly but signi®cantly diërent. 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 be-
tween Sparta and Hellas and the diërences separating Athens
from Hellas: ``you alone of the Hellenes are passive'' (hÿ sucaÂ zete
moÂnoi ÿ EllhÂnwn, 69.4, cf. 68.1); ``the Athenians [i.e., not the rest of
the Hellenes] are utterly diërent from you'' (diajeÂ 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 at-
tempt 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, Thucy-
dides' own comment on the Athenians' motives rules out consider-
ing 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 suc-
cessful, 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 Spar-
6 Raubitschek 1973, 48.

tans actually heard and felt. The ephor, it is true, somewhat mis-
represents 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 duÂ namiv of their own
city, failed utterly; even more so, the Athenians' own announced
eört to describe their empire as just and their city as a xiÂ 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 timhÂ 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 timhÂ 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 them-
selves and others to both themselves and others, which made per-
fect 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 dia-
logue form is stunning on ®rst encounter; it is at least one Thucydi-
dean 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
196 Logoi
to mislead (epagwgaÁ kaiÁ a neÂ 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 be-
tween 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 men-
tion 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 ex-
ercise 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 auto-
7 Perhaps the Melian leaders feared real popular sympathy or preference to join the Athe-
nian 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.
matically make the words spoken in council chambers more honest
or true, or less e pagwgaÁ kaiÁ a neÂ legkta. The Dialogue is not a
confessional for either side, but still a rhetorical contest, and the
setting and circumstances are not so diërent from those of the
Assembly as to assure mutual comprehension. The Athenians in-
sist on speaking with regard to ``the present situation and what
your eyes see'' (e k twÄn paroÂ 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 fre-
quent point of comparison). The departures from previous Athe-
nian 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 circum-
stances in¯uence the way they see the world and themselves. Just
so, when the Melians expatiate on the power of shame or oër
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 in-
volvement extends only to illustrating, by quotation or invention,
how a small Greek island during a long, destructive war would re-
spond to the demands of one of the imperial powers responsible
for the war, and how that response relates to the rhetorical pat-
terns which developed during the war as well as to established
Hellenic historical and moral traditions.
Second and more important, dialectic does not necessarily im-
prove 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 expe-
riment 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 dia-
logue form, which (as is often pointed out) recalls both tragic and
198 Logoi
philosophical dialogue, in order to expose a complex irony. In
tragedy, of course, characters are allowed to miscommunicate, yet
philosophical dialogue is diërent, more purposeful ± and a form
Thucydides would have known. The precise development of philo-
sophical 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, particu-
larly 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 diërence 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 fre-
quently 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 communi-
cated, even if on a basic level, all the way through. In the Melian
Dialogue, on the other hand, the aporia occurs because the inter-
locutors, 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 argu-
ments in Socratic dialogues, in which weak positions are exposed
as illogical or inconsistent, the Athenians prevail at Melos not be-
cause 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 ap-
plying 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.

almost grotesque example of the principle enunciated in the stasis
model, that of logos becoming disjoined from ergon.10 The Athe-
nians in particular show an impenetrability to any answer or as-
sertion 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. aneÂ 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 oër 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 be-
cause 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
eört 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 Lacedae-
monians, 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 suëring the terrible con-
sequences, and for us to pro®t by not destroying you. (95) For (gaÂ 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 (gaÂ r) they think that neither side is bereft
of a claim to justice, but that those who hold out against us do so be-
cause 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 aörd 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 (gaÂ 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 `òrderly and stable natures'';
those who come upon it by chance and are not suitable should not try it.
200 Logoi
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 (gaÂ 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 read-
ers who know the Dialogue and cannot suppress the Melian parts
in their minds. But arti®ce may sometimes be a useful tool. Re-
constructing 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 eëct, at least in this ®rst half of the Dialogue, is of an Athe-
nian speech, aneÂ 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 in-
sightful 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 diër-
ent 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 impor-
tant, the content or emphases within the Athenians' ``speech'' are
somewhat diërent when their successive remarks are seen as self-
referential 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
`èqual 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 dif-
ferent when it is read as a direct response to the Melians' chal-
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 con-
trast, do not have the same property and are dependent on the
Athenian contributions. The series of Athenian gaÂ r's is especially
noteworthy, and not at all uncharacteristic of the way both Thu-
cydides 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 Athe-
nians' 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 diërent 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 oudeteÂ 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.
202 Logoi
and Melians themselves. This is not so forced as it may seem, for
reading oudeteÂ 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 diërent 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 demon-
strated 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
diërent 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 `ìnappro-
priately expressed'' in their remarks (5.85). The Melians follow the
Athenians as closely as they can ± their comments are unintelligi-
ble if removed from the dialectic context ± and they ®nd much to
object to in the Athenian statements, but their attempts to change
the Athenians' rhetorical program completely fail. The Melians
have a diërent notion of mutual advantage, which they keep try-
ing 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 diërent and incompatible uses of certain key words, are
left unresolved. No position is proven right or wrong. The Athe-
nians 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 diërences in prin-
ciple 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 lpiÂ v), the Athenians answer
directly (ch. 103). There is some diërence in the way each side
uses the word e lpiÂ v, for the Melians mean a not entirely un-
grounded 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 diërence
between the two comes not in the de®nition of e lpiÂ 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'
swthriÂ a, i.e. to decide not whether the Athenians will subdue the Melians, but how and
on what terms. See Bosworth 1993.
204 Logoi
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 re-
gard themselves as equally entitled to it (proÁv meÁ n toÁ qeiÄ on outwv
e k touÄ eikoÂ tov ou jobouÂmeqa e lasswÂ sesqai) because of their
own, diërent 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 consid-
erations 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 deÂ a kalaÁ nomiÂ zousi, taÁ deÁ
xumjeÂ ronta diÂ 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 re-
buëd 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 under-
stands 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 ap-
parently is unable to grasp not only the inapplicability of common
values to its current situation, but even the changed, harsher real-
ities 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 super-

latives. 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 progegenhmeÂ 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 re-
viewing all Hellenic history to his day ± the `Àrchaeology.'' At the
end of that section, Thucydides repeats his assertion that the war
was ``greater'' (meiÂ 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 suërings befell Hel-
las 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.
207
208 Erga
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 remem-
bered from previous times; also great droughts in some places and, aris-
ing 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 suërings 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 kiÂ nhsiv is literally a ``movement,'' i.e. a disturbance which is
more than a war per se, a complex event which aëcts 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), lin-
guistically tying the calamity of stasis in its generic form to the
kinesis of the greater con¯ict.5 The kinesis which was the Pelopon-
nesian War, as Thucydides presents it, aëcted all aspects of hu-
man 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 poleÂ mou) was a vastly destructive series of paqhÂ 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 suëring at
6.9.8.1±2, referring to a period far longer than Thucydides' twenty-seven-year war. Thu-
cydides, 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
`èclipses are not disasters,'' but that does not mean that their function here is only as
`àccompaniments of disaster'' in ``popular opinion,'' since the mind, especially when the
body is oppressed by physical pains and deprivations, suërs greatly when further op-
pressed 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 aëcted 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.
The ``greatest kinesis'' 209
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 suëring 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 aëcted all aspects
of human existence in the Hellenic world and beyond (the exact
geographical extent is never ± nor could be ± de®ned). Hellas'
unprecedented suëring 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 inconsis-
tency, 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: `Àll these
suërings 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 suëring ± cannot
be missed by any serious reader of the History. The suëring
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 pos-
sible 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 re-
corded 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 suëring.
Havelock 1972b, 63 deemed this passage `àbsurd'' 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 suërings which would not necessarily have been per-
ceived 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 kiÂ nhsiv refers to
the period before the war broke out.
210 Erga
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 sta-
sis, 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 aëct military and politi-
cal strategy or the con¯ict per se between Athens and Sparta. The
strategic signi®cance even of the Mytilenian revolt and the de-
struction 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 diërent part
of the changed mindset which allowed the perpetration of horri-
ble acts. The executions at Plataea and Melos and the contem-
plated 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'' [wmoÂ 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 diërent kinds: Mytilene a rebellious ally, Plataea a defeated enemy, Melos a neu-
tral entity forced to take sides.
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 charac-
terizing the war are typical of the breakdown of norms in stasis.
That is, the virulent strain of violence characterizing stasis is cen-
tral 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 pre-
sented 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 inci-
dent 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 vio-
lence, 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 oënse). 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 military-
aged 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 treat-
ment 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 `àn act of justice.''
212 Erga
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 evi-
dence ± 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 pris-
oners, 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 liter-
ature.12 These nomoi generally were based on, and conversely are
evidence for, a feeling of diërence separating Hellene from ``bar-
barian'' in matters of culture, morality and religion. One recoiled
at their violation.13 This morality underlies the expressions of hor-
ror 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 taxo-
nomic adjustments. ``From the beginning of the war,'' the Spar-
tans 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 `ènemies.'' 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 method-
ological 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 `Ùne reÁ gle morale, sans doute fort ancienne, en vertu de laquelle l'exeÂcution de sang-
froid d'un homme vaincu et deÂsarmeÂ 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.
particular instance of this is recorded for the ®fth year of the war:
the Spartan general Alcidas, on his homeward journey after a dil-
atory 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 rec-
ord 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 Spar-
tan 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 nego-
tiations 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 Pla-
taeans' 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: `às the pressures of war mount, the misuses
and abuses of religion to gain political and military ends increase''; see next section
below.
214 Erga
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 en-
slavement 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 `ìnveterate 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 `ùnfair and heartless,'' represent-
ing 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.'' Commenta-
tors 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 author-
ial 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 iden-
tify as `à disaster no less severe than any to befall an entire city,
and the most unexpected and horrible'' (7.29.5), and `à 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 spondaiÂ 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.
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 merce-
naries who arrived in Athens too late to join a ¯eet to Sicily were
sent back under the Athenian Dieitrephes, with instructions to
launch oënsive raids at every opportunity on the return trip.
They attacked the unsuspecting Mycalessus, plundered and indis-
criminately killed old and young, women and children, even pack-
animals, ``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 ele-
ments 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 `Èvery form of destruction'' (i deÂ a paÄsa oleÂ qrou, 7.29.5)
took place at Mycalessus, just as `èvery form of death'' (paÄsa i deÂ a
qanaÂtou, 3.81.5) was witnessed at Corcyra and `èvery form of
wickedness'' (paÄ sa ideÂ a kakotropiÂ av, 3.83.1) characterizes stasis
in general. Suddenly the distant Mycalessians were `ènemies'':
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 impor-
tance 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 bar-
barities not repeated at the other scenes of murder and punish-
ment: the thorough and indiscriminate slaughter of women and
children, and the particularly pathetic fate of the innocent school-
children. 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 Myca-
lessus 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.
216 Erga
the decision to turn the Thracian homeward journey into an oën-
sive 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 cor-
ruption 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 de-
bate, Thucydides says the Athenians regretted their original deci-
sion 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 (wmojaÂ 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 be-
ginning 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 wmoÂ 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 Myca-
lessus reveals the particular concentration and originality of his
conception. This originality cannot be fully appreciated in the ab-
sence of another independent ancient account, but it is clear that
what we read in Thucydides' History is an intensely personal inter-
pretation 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 can-
nibalism in ancient literature.
22 The sailors in the ®rst ship, who were going to carry out the ®rst decree, thought the de-
cision to be alloÂkoton, a word which is often overtranslated, and means something
close to `ùnwelcome,'' as LSJ advises: although the majority of the sailors presumably
had favored the harsh punishment, it was nonetheless unpleasant work to perform.
include and exclude.23 This in no way diminishes Thucydides'
vaunted akribeia. Any serious history perforce oërs a reaction to
and interpretation of the events it describes, not a full, indiscrimi-
nate 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 vio-
lence not in the heat of battle but in cold calculation or gratu-
itously. Thucydides searched for meaning in the events he nar-
rated, 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 Thra-
cian 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 `èvery form of destruction'' (i deÂ a paÄsa o leÂ qrou) includes
important buildings as well as human lives.24 It is true that temples
are often used as topographical markers in ancient historiogra-
phy, but the detail here does not seem innocent or neutral. Thu-
cydides' 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 un-
Hellenic 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 appear-
ance 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 re-
ligion was abused or exploited in some way, or served as the pre-
text 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 diërent perspectives
Crane 1996 and Rood 1998.
24 Compare 7.27.3: crhmaÂ twn t' oleÂ qrwÎ kaiÁ anqrwÂ pwn jqoraÄÎ .
25 I do not mean to suggest anything about Thucydides' personal piety or attitude to con-
ventional 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 histori-
cal presentation and analysis. See below, pp. 235±6 and Jordan 1986, esp. 147.
218 Erga
Just as in stasis, so in the war ``religious scruple (eu seÂ beia) was
abandoned'' and religion was exploited as a cover for `ìnvidious
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 Thucy-
dides' History, religious places and practices count among the cas-
ualties 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: `Àt 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 sec-
tion 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 `àtmosphere'' of the event in which the two
great powers, heading to war, both participated. We may just as well ask why Thucy-
dides 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.
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 illustrat-
ing the hair's breadth by which violence and sacrilege were
avoided (5.49±50).29 Remonstrations by the Eleans, who invoked
`Òlympic 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 paÂ ntev) and expected something violent and
unprecedented (ti neÂ on) to happen. But the Spartans decided to
remain peaceful and conduct their sacri®ces at home. The inci-
dent 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 Olym-
pics, 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 Isth-
mian 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 con-
clusion (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.''
220 Erga
The Athenians exploited the truce30 of another Panhellenic fes-
tival, 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 Athe-
nians 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 conse-
quences: 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 sur-
round the bare statement of Athens' singular cruelty. Except for
the new horse-race, Thucydides says nothing about how the festi-
val looked in his own time; its impressiveness and grandeur are
attested elsewhere, but in Thucydides' account must be extrapo-
lated 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 diërent 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 `ìrrelevant'' (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 `ìt 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 `à paradigm of suëring.''
33 An unfortunately undated celebration of the Delian games by Nicias is described in Plut.
Nic. 3.3±8; cf. Heubeck 1966.
purpose of the project? There is hardly a trace of evidence, but
if we suppose, with due caution, that the Athenians tried to estab-
lish 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 `ànd 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 sub-
jects 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 Pana-
thenaea; it is doubtful that the Athenians would have wanted to
replace or duplicate either of these. Thucydides does say that the
Athenians acted `àccording to some oracle,'' but this wording in-
dicates 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
suëred 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 aäir; rather, they were set on an interna-
tional 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
suërings resulted from the occupation of the Pelargikon but that the occupation re-
sulted 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 Thucy-
dides' 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.
222 Erga
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 debi-
litated 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 Pelo-
ponnesian 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 estab-
lished 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 Athe-
nian 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 in-
38 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 invi-
tation to oër ®rst fruits at Eleusis (l. 25f.). What I am suggesting is diërent from `àn
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 dis-
cussed in Chapter 7.
humanity represented in the awful price the Delians were forced
to pay to accommodate the Athenian program. From a diërent
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 ques-
tion). Some have supposed it was a reaction to the Athenian set-
backs 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 re-
ports 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 opportu-
nity to attack the rebellious population of Mytilene, who would
be caught unprepared (3.3.3); as eventual punishment for the re-
bellion, 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.

224 Erga
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 per-
tain 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 Thucy-
dides 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 de-
structive 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 Syr-
acusan 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 alco-
hol.'' 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 eromhniÂ 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 eromhniÂ a may be an `àdscript'' (see Gomme ad loc.). Thucy-
dides' 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.
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 dese-
cration of Apollo's temple at Delion, for instance, and the subse-
quent 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 hop-
lite 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 es-
tablish 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 `ìs one of `the only two encoun-
ters 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).
226 Erga
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 oënses 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 en-
circled the temple and sanctuary with a ditch, they cut down the
vines around the temple ± a further oënse44 ± 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
teiciÂ santev neÂ montai, 4.92.7), and the Boeotian herald after the
battle condemns them as contrary to conventional Hellenic prac-
tice and thought (4.97.2±3).45 It will be remembered that similar
oënses 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 oënded (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 `àll
the things people do in profane space'' (e n bebhÂlwÎ), using the `ùntouchable'' 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.
at Athens (cf. 8.53.2), and should be recognized both in their sub-
stance 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 occu-
pied 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 de-
fensive wall (6.75.1), the Syracusans cut down sacred olive trees
there as part of their defensive works (6.99.3), then the Athe-
nians 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 ± oënders against temples, occupy and de®le them
not only wantonly but under duress. Forced from their local tem-
ples 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 eëct, 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 (Tissa-
phernes) 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.
228 Erga
the same eëct 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 provo-
cative and ambiguous way. Concluding at Torone that his victory
had been due to `òther than human means,'' Brasidas ostenta-
tiously 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 re-
paid. 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 eört (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.
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 `à mark of extreme social decay, the
behaviour of a tyrant or barbarian.''54 This was a deep-rooted feel-
ing 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 oërings at Delphi to ®nance their mercenaries ±
precisely what Thucydides' Corinthians propose to do. The one-
year 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 prac-
tices 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 excep-
tions 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 sacri-
lege 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 eört were `èxceptional'' (and see their no. 72).
56 Parker 1983, 173, where he also oërs a hypothetical reconstruction of the Athenian rea-
soning. Parker thinks that a ``crucial diërence'' 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 Corin-
thians in Thucydides' History do not propose to distinguish between Peloponnesian and
Delian League oërings at Olympia and Delphi. See, in addition, the other reference in
Thucydides to dedications in temples, far from neutral: the Athenians misassess the Ege-
stans' 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.
230 Erga
of cultivating sacred ground, thus justifying their exclusion from
all markets of the empire (1.139.2). Two of the war's aitiai involv-
ing charges and counter-charges of religious violation and pollu-
tion 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 extrava-
gant 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 iden-
ti®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 tam-
pering with the Delphic oracle (5.16.2±3). Other disingenuous re-
ligious 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 delin-
quency 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 Horn-

blower 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 rebuëd (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 sec-
ond; 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 aëcting decisions.
The Hellenes found religious arguments useful in both oën-
sive 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 suërs harm.
One would be hard put to ®nd a Greek historical text with in-
stances 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 par-
ticularly 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 men-
tioned 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 accom-
plished 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 rit-
uals 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. Further-
more, 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 tem-
ples 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.
232 Erga
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 com-
pelled to sit still as their land was ravaged both within and without the
isthmus, where both Leukas and the temple of Apollo stand. The Acar-
nanians 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 aëcted, but it would be be-
sieged 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 visi-
tors 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 re-
ceives 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 viola-
tion of signed obligations (5.18.7).63 The temple of Apollo at Ac-
tium 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.
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 suërings 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 in-
stances 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 men-
tions, but the pattern is indicative of what he saw and chose to
record. Two photographers will shoot the same scene diër-
ently, just as two observers will see diërent 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 scrupu-
lously for their temples and revere them as shared, central ele-
ments 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 meÂ 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.

234 Erga
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-oërings in the temples were a regular occur-
rence (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
oënder 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 Thucy-
dides, 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 Per-
sians plundering Delphi.
67 ``Temples, images, votive oërings, 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.
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 dese-
cration 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 activ-
ity continued throughout the Peloponnesian War,69 and doubtless
Thucydides could have recorded examples of unchanged, appar-
ently 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 per-
sonal 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 Hel-
lenes in his text are more often shown engaged in religious activity
and attributing their successes and failures to the gods' interven-
tion, this is less a function of diërence in the two historians' tem-
peraments and piety than in their subjects and purposes as artists
and writers. Herodotus investigated a great, unifying war of liber-
ation. Thucydides accepted this central ®xture in the Hellenic his-
torical 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.
236 Erga
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 de-
tailed descriptions of their private motives become more promi-
nent 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 his-
torical 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 Peri-
cles' 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 reconstruc-
tion of the order in which Thucydides wrote the narrative and
back-wrote certain passages, based on the even more di½cult re-
construction of the author's intellectual development (which is
hard to analyze even when the subject is available for interro-
gation). 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.
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 promi-
nent 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 individ-
uals 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 in-
dividual's motives, and these explanations almost always stress the
desire for personal gain and advantage to the detriment of the in-
dividual's city. As Brunt remarked, `Ìt is characteristic of Thucy-
dides 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 Thu-
cydides focuses more closely on the actions of individuals and
omnisciently determines their motives simply because detrimen-
tally sel®sh and powerful individuals were a most important devel-
opment 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 con-
trolled Athenian policy and strategy until his death, and in Thucy-
dides' 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) diërent standards of accuracy from Thucydides',
is not able to a½rm ``rightness'' of such judgments; Brunt 1965, 277 n. 78. See further
Wasserman 1954, 47.
238 Erga
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' evalua-
tion sets him o¨ not only from his Athenian compatriots but from
every other Hellenic individual on whose character and motives
Thucydides oërs 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 aäirs 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 re-
garding 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 man-
aged aäirs badly both for themselves and for the allies: matters which,
if successful, would rather enhance the standing and advantage of indi-
vidual 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 (metriÂ wv) which
keeps the city safe from both internal and external dangers, a com-
bined 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.
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 per-
tains to Pericles' successors in Athens, but in fact, aside from Her-
mocrates 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 reli-
gious 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 mea-
sure up. Furthermore, the model of civic virtue contains just those
qualities which in the stasis model are replaced by distorted, harm-
ful forms or disappear: moderation, civic devotion, political talent
and `ìntelligence'' 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, survi-
val 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 in-
dicate 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 diërently: ``The death of Pericles and the Peloponnesian
war mark the moment when the men of thought and the men of action began to take
diërent paths.''
76 CT i, 342±3.
77 Note the parallel remarks on jilotimiÂ a at 2.65.7 and 3.82.8.
78 As Classen±Steup note, and see CT i, 342.
240 Erga
targets of Thucydides' criticism in 2.65 is Cleon, whom the histo-
rian detested and who is made to represent just those negative vir-
tues 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 piqanwÂ 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 com-
plicated 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 dan-
ger in order to preserve his own reputation and ``good fortune''
(eutuciÂ 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 Thucy-
dides 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 hÿgemoniÂ an in 5.16.1; see n. 126 below.
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 ques-
tion of the extent to which Nicias was harming Athens by with-
drawing 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 repu-
tation and in¯uence. Cleon is singled out by Thucydides as harm-
ing 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 ob-
jectives 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
eëct. 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 `àgainst 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.

242 Erga
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 `ìnept, 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 super-
stition (50.4), and he notes that the general remained fundamen-
tally 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 ad-
ditional 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 inter-
pretation 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 llhÂ nwn e v touÄto dustuciÂ av a ji-
keÂ sqai diaÁ thÁn paÄ san e v a rethÁn nenomismeÂ nhn e pithÂ deusin. (7.86.5)
Of all the Hellenes of my time, he least deserved to arrive at such mis-
fortune 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 pur-
poses are, ®rst, whether the words paÄsan and nenomismeÂ nhn mod-
84 nomiÂ zwn oÿmoiÂ wv agaqoÁn poliÂ thn einai ov a n kaiÁ touÄ swÂmatoÂv ti kaiÁ thÄ v ou siÂ av pro-
nohÄtai, 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 staÂ sesin ou k an pote geÂ noito a neu xumpaÂshv a rethÄv.
ify arethÂn or epithÂdeusin (all combinations have been argued),
and whether diaÁ . . . e pithÂdeusin explains why Nicias was least
worthy to suër the death he did or how he came to such a degrad-
ing and unfortunate end.87 To my mind, nenomismeÂ nhn makes little
sense as a modi®cation of e pithÂ deusin, which is however defended
by the standard English commentary on Thucydides as meaning
``lit., `through his practice all observed into goodness', i.e. `be-
cause he had ordered his whole life by high moral standards',''
where the smooth rendition of the bizarre literal rendering wan-
ders far from the Greek.88 As the same commentary concedes,
``nenomismeÂ 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, arethÂ , 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
nenomismeÂ nhn with arethÂ n is in any case not ungrammatical, only
uncomfortable for some readers. Once this is settled, the interpre-
tation 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 nenomismeÂ nhn with a rethÂn is old, see the scholiast on this passage
and literature cited in HCT. Adkins 1975 at least establishes that arethÂ 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 `àlmost certainly . . . an early haplography.''
88 HCT iv, 463. The BudeÂ edition is good: ``par son application au bien dans une entieÁ re
conformiteÂ avec les reÁ gles.'' Cf. Pl. Phaedo 82a (cited by Marchant ad loc.).
244 Erga
and motives in the peace narrative to his death in Sicily, Thucy-
dides 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 charac-
ter, 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 diaÂ-
clause may very well be phrased, as Connor suggested, to encour-
age the reader ``to contemplate both aspects.''90 Nicias was least
worthy to suër 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, re-
inforces the implications of the phrase `àrete as it was convention-
ally understood and practiced.'' For Nicias' pursuit of arete, such
as it was, led to his downfall and proved an unintentionally self-
destructive habit. This is strongly reminiscent not only of the con-
ditions 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 `èspecially those laying some
claim to virtue'' (maÂ lista oiÿ a rethÄv ti metapoiouÂmenoi) ± i.e.,
those attempting to behave according to moral standards predat-
ing 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 `à morbid pursuit of self-preservation.''
90 Connor 1984, 205 n. 53.
91 H. A. Murray 1961, 35±6; Bender 1938, 51.
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 Hun-
dred 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
ineëctive at the time. Two examples.
Thucydides describes Antiphon, the ®rm opponent of democ-
racy, as `ìnferior 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 be-
cause ``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 speak-
ing, 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 sus-
pected, misunderstood as mere ``cleverness,'' in much the same way
that intelligence is suspected and feared in stasis (3.83.3±4). There-
fore Antiphon could conceive a plan but not carry it out. In dif-
ferent times, Thucydides says, Antiphon would have been a great
public asset because on a private basis he was more able than any-
one 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 eëctively 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 kaiÂ . Cf. HCT v, 171±2.
93 e doxen . . . ouk a xuÂ netov ei nai. Ostwald 1986, 349 notes the disastrous results of Phry-
nichus' intelligence. There have been attempts to defend Phrynichus ± see Andrewes,
HCT v, 119. See also Westlake 1968, 242±7; Pouncey 1980, 130±7.
246 Erga
authorially con®rming the impression of Phrynichus' peers. In-
stead 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 be-
ginning 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 summar-
ized 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 dif-
ferent story, and he proves to be a man of rather ¯exible and in-
constant civic loyalty and a rather poor judge of circumstance and
of others, and his xuÂ 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 un-
expected acknowledgment of consequent harm to his own state.
Astonishingly, Phrynichus, the man who enjoyed a good reputa-
tion among his contemporaries, frankly admits operating accord-
ing 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 im-
mediate 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 diërent, though it hardly makes a more favourable impression on the reader.'' A
Thucydides is at pains to make clear that Astyochus, for his
part, sought personal gain (e p' i diÂ oiv keÂ rdesi, 8.50.3) and acted
accordingly, even when he was less than certain about the relia-
bility 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, oëring him the chance to destroy ``the entire
army of the Athenians.'' Phrynichus chastised Astyochus for vio-
lating 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 (anepiÂ 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 posi-
tion, and he ®nally realized that the reason was his own mis-
judgment 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 eëct. 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: euprepeiÂ aÎ deÁ loÂ gou oiv xumbaiÂ h e pijqoÂ nwv ti diapraÂ xasqai. Phrynichus'
uses of language here can qualify as eu prepeiÂ a deÁ loÂgou. Note that Archidamus 1.82.1
tries to justify calling in the Persians as anepiÂ 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.
248 Erga
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 com-
mence 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, Phry-
nichus 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 (Thucy-
dides 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 oër an ex-
ception to the rule I have suggested, whereby the quality of lead-
ership, 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 oërs 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 por-
trayed sympathetically, died shortly after Pericles.
contrast the two men.98 There does indeed seem to be in 4.81 and
subsequent portrayal of Brasidas what Hornblower calls `àn irre-
ducible 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 ever-
deteriorating 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 every-
thing 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 (bouloÂme-
non) 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 read-
ings by Connor and Rood than would be convenient to acknowledge at every point.
100 CT ii, 268±9.
250 Erga
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 jeal-
ousy of him in Sparta (4.108.7, 132.3), but he was sent to Thrace,
despite inherent Spartan suspicion of successful individuals, be-
cause 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 advan-
tage 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 ac-
cruing 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 vir-
tue 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 care-
fully orchestrated perception of him rather than his true nature:
he ``showed himself to be'' or ``gave the impression of being'' just
and moderate `àt 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 peo-
ple at that time to believe the positive reports ± but if people
actually `èxperienced at ®rst hand'' Brasidas' virtues, then there
101 See Raa¯aub 1985, 252 and n.172.

102 The implications of toÁ parautiÂ ka 4.81.2 should be fully appreciated; while it obviously
contrasts with e v toÁn croÂnwÎ usteron, it also concentrates Brasidas' eört in a speci®c
time and for a speci®c purpose. The phrase pareÂ cein eÿ autoÂ n does not mean that he re-
vealed 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¨.
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 assess-
ment 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 mes-
sages 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, abil-
ity 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.
252 Erga
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 ``modera-
tion.'' The capture of Torone, where there was an Athenian gar-
rison, 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
eörts (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 qual-
ities 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
required ± and this did cost many lives in some places ± he pro-
ceeded to consolidate his gain by diplomacy and political ®nesse
rather than by continued brute force. This method was eëctive.
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 agree-
ment 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 nomiÂ 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 exploi-
tation of a stasis, and to a signi®cant degree, despite his ``modera-
tion,'' 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 na-
ture 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 Amphip-
olis the allies' fear of Athens (5.11.1).
105 CT ii, 56±8; cf. Rood 1998, 74±7.
254 Erga
Spartan to show any promise of military vigor and sustained com-
mitment 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 contem-
poraries 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 situ-
ation, ®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 Thucy-
dides' 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 `ìntelligence'': Theseus, Themis-
tocles and Pericles, for instance, also found the right words to
manipulate others. But unlike those three, Brasidas' `ìntelligence''
had no moral dimension evident in personal conduct, civic de-
votion 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 com-
promised and hurt the very people he purported to help, and his
`ìntelligence,'' although perceived by his generation as very great,
does not measure up to Thucydides' ideal. Like the others, Brasi-
das 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. Thu-
cydides 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.
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 lin-
guistic echoes in the words of the two statesmen. Alcibiades had
the ability to conceive policy, express it eëctively 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 coin-
cide), 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
eëctiveness. 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' suspi-
cion 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, Thucy-
dides 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 dis-
tinguished 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 jiloni-
kwÄ n). The stasis model serves as the proper framework for under-
standing Alcibiades' actions in this matter: ``the hunger for power
108 The following discussion is perforce selective, focusing primarily on Thucydides' au-
thorial comments and on speeches. For fuller treatment see Hatzfeld 1951, not super-
seded by Ellis 1989; Forde 1989 for an entirely diërent 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.
256 Erga
inspired by greed and personal ambition'' in stasis arises from the
same species of factional contentiousness, jilonikiÂ 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 diërences, he betrayed the Spartans' trust and
tricked them into sabotaging their own mission: he ``persuaded the
Spartans, giving them his pledge'' (touÁv LakedaimoniÂ ouv peiÂ qei
piÂ stin autoiÄ v douÂ v, 5.45). Andrewes is correct that mentioning
piÂ stiv adds ``little . . . to what is already conveyed in peiÂ qei,''110 but
the purpose, rather than `èxtra solemnity,'' is to emphasize the
violation of a pledge. Alcibiades' ruthless behavior contrasts with
the more sincere and naive ± and completely ineëctive ± handling
of Sparta by Nicias, the account of which immediately follows as
a pointed contrast in the text (5.46). Alcibiades treacherously ex-
ploited 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 enthu-
siastically supported the expedition to Sicily because he was polit-
ically at odds with Nicias (diaÂ 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 gen-
eralship: 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 ambi-
tions, 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 (paranomiÂ a) and extravagant lifestyle made the
109 LSJ s.v. jilonikeÂ w, citing Thuc. 5.43.3 as the ®rst example. If the Spartans really had
nothing to oër ± 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 qhnaiÂ wn poÂ lin (6.15.3). The defeat which ended the war is
meant, see HCT iv, 242±5.
Athenians afraid (jobhqeÂ ntev) and hostile to him (poleÂ mioi), so
that they put the management of their aäirs 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 remem-
bered, 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' assess-
ment 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 in-
terests, 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 (kraÂ-
tista diaqeÂ nti taÁ touÄ poleÂ 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 ex-
pedition 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 en-
tirely ineëctive in persuading others to follow his prudent policy.
Alcibiades could persuade others to support his adventurism, but
then by his own faults he destroyed eëctive completion of the
project. The ®asco Alcibiades wrought was a failure he shared
with Nicias and the Athenian people.
Alcibiades' betrayal underlies another controversial Thucy-
didean 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¨.

258 Erga
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 eörts 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 orches-
trated 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 conse-
quence 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 cir-
cumstances'' (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 xwÂ 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 stasiaÂ 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. Per-
haps 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.
conquest, Alcibiades accurately sketches out the bene®ts anti-
cipated 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 (re-
peating 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, Alci-
biades 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 open-
ing words, Alcibiades begs for a fair hearing as he speaks about
``matters of common concern'' (taÁ koinaÂ , 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 re-
taining 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 cqroiÂ ) and brought dis-
honor (atimiÂ a) on him (89.2). To his mind, the unrecognized truth
of his past injury of Sparta is that it was just (dikaiÂ wv, 89.3).
Alcibiades then explains away his own and his family's associa-
tion with democracy by marshalling arguments not entirely con-
sistent with each other ± inconsistent, that is, from the perspective
of the reader uninvolved in the events, but apparently not trouble-
some to either Alcibiades or his Spartan audience. First he claims
that their opposition to tyrants ± a position well appreciated at
260 Erga
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 con-
ditions in order to retain leadership and try to suppress the more
extreme democratic elements. But then he claims that his family
were the leaders `òf 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 `àcknowledged 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 aörds its citizens. There Pericles
(himself an Alcmaeonid), in contrast to Alcibiades here, not only
extols democracy as unconditionally the best system, but recom-
mends 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 suër from the war and
his fellow-citizens accuse him, he remonstrates with them by a re-
doubled 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 paÂ ntav amuÂnein au thÄÎ); and he calls himself a true
patriot, jiloÂ 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 con-
torts it in a breathtaking way. He professes love of his state, toÁ
filoÂ poli,
117 As Dover points out, ``the de®nition is the converse of the prevailing Athenian assump-
tion . . . 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 signif-
icance 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 norma-
tively by Pericles and in a distorted manner by Alcibiades.
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 some-
thing 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 devo-
tion 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 cir-
cumstances: 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' be-
trayal 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 advo-
cates 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.
262 Erga
superiority they would prevail (2.60). This observation comes in
the same speech in which Pericles defends his patriotism. Alci-
biades makes the same observation to Tissaphernes in order to
advise harm not just to Athens but to all of Hellas: if both Hel-
lenic 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 inten-
tionally false reasoning, for he says that the Spartans would not
readily subordinate the same Hellenes they purport to be liberat-
ing. The Spartans had already made overtures to the Persians and
indicated their readiness to sell out their Hellenic opponents, re-
vealing 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' obser-
vation 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 nei-
ther Alcibiades nor the Spartans heard the contradiction. Alci-
biades 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.
Every leader from the mainland after Pericles falls short. Nicias
possessed a measure of virtue and even a modicum of civic con-
cern, but his personal ambition con¯icted with his city's interests,
his military talent was uneven and above all he was unable to con-
trol 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 peo-
ple whom he had convinced he would help and even con¯icted with
his city's policy and interests. Phrynichus' `ìntelligence'' 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 re-
placement 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 valid-
ity, 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 continu-
ing state of warfare between Athens and Sparta:
121 `Àlkibiades is like Pericles without his honesty, prudence, and patriotism; Nikias is like
Pericles without his coercive powers,'' Rood 1998, 158.
264 Erga
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, `ànd they regretted that they had not
come to an agreement after the incident at Pylos, when a good
opportunity oëred'' (5.14.1±2). As for the Lacedaemonians, the
war was drawing on contrary to their original projection (paraÁ
gnwÂ mhn) of an early victory, they were devastated by the unprece-
dented 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 in-
stance, if Athens had another Pylos-scale success), war would re-
sume. 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.
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 word-
choice: ``when each side had made these calculations (logizo-
meÂ noiv), they decided that an agreement had to be made'' (5.15.1).
When Thucydides uses logiÂ 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 autokraÂ 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 re-
venge on an opponent caught o¨-guard ``was calculating'' (e logiÂ -
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 `àll 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 logiÂ 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 klogiÂ 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.
266 Erga
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 pur-
sued political power in their respective cities.'' This remark has
seemed out of the spirit of peace-seeking, so that the word for
political power (hÿgemoniÂ a) has been emended by some to a pro-
noun referring to the ``peace.'' But this is to misunderstand the sit-
uation in each city, and in Hellas as a whole, as Thucydides saw it.
For Thucydides not only asserts generally that the leading states-
men 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 gemo-
niÂ 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 ambi-
tion'' (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 oërs 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 vulner-
able, for
126 Cf. HCT iii, 661: `ìf thÁn hÿgemoniÂ 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 occa-
sion, be so disastrous (iii. 82.8, init.).'' See also CT ii, 462±3; Heitsch 1996.
our enemies ®rst made the pact under compulsion, because of their set-
backs, 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 curoiÂ ,
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 His-
tory 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 underly-
ing 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 pre-
sented in Plato Menexenus 242c±243d, in which the entire con¯ict
is pictured as four wars.127 Separate wars have diërent 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 poleÂ moun,
refers to the entire twenty-seven-year war.
268 Erga
and should not destroy the Hellenic community (toÁ koinoÂ 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 `ùnstable'' (ou bebaiÂou), and
they merely transferred their hostilities to other theaters. The imme-
diate sequel to the Peace of Nicias, and in a diërent way the entire
History, shows that Sparta's fear of Athens' empire had not at all
been aëcted 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 begin-
ning 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. Brasi-
das 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 ``com-
pelled'' 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 sus-
picion grew over time as violations of the treaty accumulated
(proiÈ oÂntov touÄ croÂnou u poptoi e geÂ nonto, 5.25.2), but this suspi-
cion was present from the ®rst:
During the entire summer the Athenians and Peloponnesians maintained
communication (e pimeixiÂ ai), but the Athenians and Spartans began sus-
pecting 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 pemeiÂ 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 [ 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 seri-
ous over time.
Each side was psychologically already ®ghting the war. Suspicion
guided their actions (uÿpwÂpteuon deÁ a llhÂ 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 Thucy-
dides uses in the peace narrative is `òpen warfare'' (e v poÂlemon
janeroÁ n kateÂ sthsan, 5.25.3), which is the opposite of a mere ces-
sation of ®ghting (hÿsuciÂ a, 5.35.8), not peace (eirhÂ nh). The expres-
sion poÂlemov janeroÂv, `òpen warfare,'' is in itself unusual and
would attract notice.130 Thucydides uses it in two key passages, in-
dicating that the distinction between a state of war and actual
®ghting was ®rmly ®xed in his conception of the con¯ict. The del-
egates at the second conference at Sparta voted to ®ght a war
(e yhjiÂ santo polemeiÄ n), but they spent nearly a year in prepara-
tion until they invaded Attica `ànd took up the war openly'' (toÁn
poÂ lemon arasqai fanerwÄv, 1.125.2). Similarly, at 2.2.3, the The-
bans are said to have chosen their timing for attacking Plataea
because there was still formal peace `ànd open warfare had not
yet broken out'' (kaiÁ touÄ poleÂ mou mhÂpw janerouÄ kaqestwÄ tov).131
Motives and considerations for any action ± logoi ± are part of
the pracqeÂ nta of history. Yet Thucydides' record of the Peace,
his inclusions and exclusions, are intended to isolate the most im-
portant 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 domi-
nated 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 under-
standing history. We get a sense of what is left out ± of what a
diërent historian might have drawn special attention to ± in
the dismissive four words, pollaÁv dikaiwÂ seiv proenegkoÂntwn
allhÂloiv, ``they brought many claims against each other'' (5.17.2).
What these were is not considered important enough for fur-
ther 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 deÂ dokto e k touÄ
janerouÄ toiÄ si PeÂ rshÎsi polemiÂ ouv ei nai.
131 Cf. 5.84.2, 6.91.5.
270 Erga
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 re-
sumption 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 sec-
tion 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 alli-
ance, to illustrate one of Thucydides' reasons for thinking the
Peace `ùnstable.'' Corinth tempted Argos with a suggestion that
Argos oër alliance to `àny Hellenic city,'' expecting many Pelo-
ponnesian 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 Pelopon-
nesian 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 pre-
empt 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 break-
ing 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.

such a measure, are explained (31). And as the last item reported
in the year of the Peace of Nicias, Thucydides gives a lengthy ac-
count 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 diër-
ently. Thucydides says, for example, that the Corinthians hid their
real reasons behind their expostulations in Sparta and oëred
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 con-
tinued 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 dikaiÂ wv kaiÁ a doÂlwv, the lack of any
formal mechanism to enforce it or of sanctions against viola-
tions.133 A certain dramatic eëct 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 diërences 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 under-
mine 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 oc-
curs,'' 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.
272 Erga
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 aëcted 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 be-
came 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 aëcted 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!
impossibility of remaining neutral in the war and the utter mean-
inglessness 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 diërent 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 `èvery form of

evil-doing arose in the Hellenic world because of the staseis'' (diaÁ
taÁ v staÂ seiv, 3.83.1), he indicates that the `èvil-doing,'' if it origi-
nated in the staseis and was typical of them, was nevertheless not
limited to them: diaÁ taÁ v staÂ 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 ram-
pant, 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 ± aëcted 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 Athe-
nian 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 llhnikoÂ n, 1.1.1±2; also wn 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 eëct, 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 him-
self (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 charac-
terized by a profound sense of loss.
In this chapter we examine Thucydides' presentation of indi-
vidual 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 atten-
tion 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 expedi-
tion. 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 im-
mediate and the most ``talked-about'' causes of the war. Accord-
ingly they ®gure prominently in the Peloponnesian speeches in
Book 1, but they were not the only grievances or sources of for-
mal complaint. Thucydides notoriously underplays the Megarian
decree as a factor in the war's outbreak, in sharp contrast to the
274
The Peloponnesian War and stasis 275
common belief and rhetoric of the time; in fact it was the Spar-
tans' chief complaint (maÂ lista paÂ 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 approxi-
mately 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, under-
played 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 oënses at Corcyra
and Potidaea are the complaints featured in Corinth's ®rst war-
mongering 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' his-
tory, Thucydides says that the city had been plagued by stasis for
many years `ùntil ®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 Epi-
damnus involved claims and counter-claims of kinship and alien-
ation (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
suëred 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.
276 Erga
The ®rst aitia, in which Corcyra was a key player, and the Cor-
cyrean 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 ac-
companying the Mytilenean revolt (3.2.3),3 the event which occu-
pies 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 mili-
tary 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 `à 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 strate-
gic importance of Corcyra for Athens' great ambitions in Sicily
( pointed out already by the Corcyreans, 1.36.2). A diërent out-
come of the stasis there would not have appreciably aëcted the
2 The interpretation oëred 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.
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 Epi-
damnus 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 o½-
cially 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 Aris-
tophanes' 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 be-
tween the signatories, including allies of each, if one party oëred
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 `àn inde®nite number used to express
plenty.'' Atthidographers paid special attention to the ®rst Spartan invasion, out of ob-
vious 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.
278 Erga
next to Thucydides' detailed account and explanation of the out-
break 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 diërent assertions oëred 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:
a rcetai deÁ oÿ poÂ lemov e nqeÂ nde hdh A qhnaiÂ wn kaiÁ PeloponnhsiÂ wn kaiÁ
twÄ n eÿ kateÂ roiv xummaÂ cwn, e n wÎ oute e pemeiÂ gnunto e ti a khrukteiÁ par'
a llhÂ louv katastaÂ ntev te xunecwÄv e poleÂ 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 nqeÂ 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 nqeÂ nde refer backwards or forwards? Again, both
have been asserted.9
3 Does e n wÎ in the second part of the sentence refer back to
poÂlemov, to e nqeÂ 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 em-
bassy 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 `Àt this point in my narrative begins the account of the actual warfare . . .'' C. F. Smith
in the Loeb edition; `ès nimmt aber hier in meiner Dartsellung der Krieg seinen
Anfang,'' Classen±Steup. Contra: `Ànd now the war . . . actually began,'' Jowett; ``the war
properly so called begins at this point,'' Gomme, HCT ii, 1; `Ìci commence, deÁs lors, la
guerre. . . ,'' J. de Romilly in the BudeÂ edition.
9 Gomme, HCT ii, 1: `è nqeÂ nde points forward to ch. 2''; Rusten 1989, 95±6: e nqeÂ nde ``can
only refer backward,'' following Rawlings and Smart; see Steup in the `Ànhang'' 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.
In order to solve these problems, one must disregard the bias of
the book divisions and recognize that the ®rst sentence of Book 2
(deÂ ) completes a thought begun in the last sentences of Book
1.11 These sentences must ®rst occupy our attention, for despite
Thucydides' eört 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 pecwÂ rhsan e p' oi kou kaiÁ oukeÂ ti usteron e pres-
beuÂonto´ (146) ai tiÂ ai deÁ autai kaiÁ diajoraiÁ e geÂ nonto amjoteÂ roiv proÁ
touÄ poleÂ mou, a rxaÂ menai euquÁv a poÁ twÄ n e n E pidaÂ mnwÎ kaiÁ KerkuÂ raÎ ´
e pemeiÂ gnunto deÁ omwv e n au taiÄ v kaiÁ par' a llhÂloiv e joiÂ twn a khruÂ ktwv
meÂ 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 diplo-
matic 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 [ 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 in-
formal communication until the war formally started, as reported
in 2.1. This reading, however, cannot be the plain sense, for Thu-
cydides 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.

280 Erga
means of communication during war.12 In like manner, the Corin-
thians earlier had sent messengers to the Athenians aneu khru-
keiÂ 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 tauto-
logical 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 op-
positive 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 communi-
cated ``without heralds,'' as if they were not yet at war. For (gaÂ r),
he says in the last sentence of Book 1, the treaty had been broken
by these incidents and was the `òccasion 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 nqeÂ nde and e n wÎ should now be clear. e nqeÂ nde refers both back-
wards and forwards, which is only natural: ``from this point [i.e.,
the last diplomatic exchange14] onwards,'' in which later period
(e n wÎ) 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 tauÂ thv thÄv ai tiÂ av, is not so far o¨ as Gomme thought.
It follows from this that 2.1 is the second half of a meÂ n . . . deÂ
opposition begun in 1.145 ®n. with oiÿ meÁ n apecwÂ rhsan e p' oi kou,
``the Spartan ambassadors returned home.'' The meÂ n . . . deÂ marks
the dividing line between communication with and without a herald.
This may seem a long time to wait between meÂ n and deÂ , and there
may seem to be too much intervening material (including two
deÂ -clauses), but, ®rst, there are similar instances of Thucydides'
separating meÂ n and deÂ with a great deal of material, even sub-
sidiary deÂ -clauses.15 Second and more important, neither of the
intervening deÂ -clauses in 1.146 provides a logical and sensible con-
trast to oiÿ meÁ n apecwÂ rhsan: the phrase ai tiÂ ai deÁ autai is an ob-
viously unsuitable partner, and e pemeiÂ 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 meÂ 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 ex-
changes, 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 lin-
guistic 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 appre-
ciated. At 1.23.4, Thucydides writes: ``The Athenians and Pelo-
ponnesians 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 viola-
tions, and it is noteworthy that here and immediately follow-
ing (dioÂ 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.
282 Erga
both sides.16 Thucydides then proposes (1.23.5) to set forth ``the
causes for complaint and the disputes'' (aiÿ ai tiÂ ai kaiÁ aiÿ diajoraiÂ ),
the same expression he uses in 1.146, referring in both places to
the con¯icts at Corcyra and Potidaea, which are to be distin-
guished, he says (1.23.6), from the ``truest reason,'' the a lhqes-
taÂth proÂjasiv, i.e. Sparta's fear of Athens' phenomenal growth
in power. The word proÂjasiv is also repeated in 1.146, but with-
out any modi®er, so that it means there the reason or `òccasion''
for a war, that is, what led to the war which had been brewing and
eëctively existed. Similarly, in 1.126.1 the Spartans are said to
have sent embassies to Athens in order to create the megiÂ sth proÂ-
jasiv for going to war, that is, the ®rmest basis, the most compel-
ling 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 aitiÂ ai kaiÁ diajoraiÂ . Despite the diplo-
matic 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 eörts 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 Corin-
thians' 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 recog-
nized 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 `ùnstable,'' they harmed
each other in the highest degree, until ®nally they were com-
pelled to break their peace agreement `ànd return to open war-
16 Cf. Classen±Steup ad loc.

fare'' (auqiv ev poÂ lemon janeroÁn kateÂ sthsan, 5.25.2±3; see Chap-
ter 5). This distinction between a state of war and war charac-
terized by open ®ghting (poÂlemov janeroÂ 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 inter-
vening so-called ``peace'' was characterized by violations of the
treaty, rendering it nothing more than a ``suspicious truce'' (up-
optov a nokwchÂ , compare 1.146: anupoÂ ptwv deÁ ou ) destined to give
way to open warfare again. The formal violation of the treaty
(5.26.6) and diërence 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 (gaÂ r) the Thirty Years Treaty
after the recapture of Euboea stayed in eëct 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 be-
gins,'' by relating the ®rst incident of the war, the Theban in®ltra-
tion 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 `ìmplies''
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
`Ànhang'' in Classen±Steup ii, 286±7.
284 Erga
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 `ànd 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 poÂ-
lemov) 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 be-
tween 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 re-
turn 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 liÂ 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.
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 opin-
ion, 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 inter-
ference, 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' con-
tinuing 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 for-
mally allies, and once the war broke out Sparta did not oër the
Thebans help until two years after the trouble began, when Athens
had abandoned the ®eld; the Spartans calculated, says Thucy-
dides, that relieving the Thebans at Plataea would be more ad-
vantageous 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 sig-
natories, 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 im-
plied in the whole of 5.37); editors have attempted to emend the oënding passages (see
Classen±Steup and HCT ad loc.), but the fact should be accepted.
286 Erga
and Potidaea], Athens and Sparta started preparing for the war''
which was sure to come (wÿ v polemhÂ 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 confer-
ence 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 Pla-
taea 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 aäir from the Athe-
nian 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 oënce
(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 sup-
posed 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 `èarlier one''
which required arbitration of disputes. It may be objected that the
`èarlier'' 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 aäir at Plataea was a glaring violation of the thirty years' truce'' ( Jowett),
vel sim.; the kaiÂ 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.
be silly in light of the fact that the ``later'' spondai included an
arbitration clause as well (5.18.4). More seriously, not only Thucy-
dides 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 oër or the lack of an oër of arbitration by either
side or the Athenians, or even a provision for it (and none is men-
tioned 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
oër Sparta to arbitrate their diërences 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 spondaiÂ ± 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 re-
inforced by 2.5.4, where Thucydides explains that the Plataeans
outside the walls had not ¯ed or made provisions for their prop-
erty because the trouble had come ``during a time of peace'' (e n
eirhÂ 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 PlaÂ taian h lqon QhbaiÄ oi e n spondaiÄ v kaiÂ is not an interpolation.

288 Erga
understood that Plataea would likely bring them into direct con-
¯ict in Boeotia. That it did not in the end is a diërent matter.
How to explain, then, the ambiguities in the text causing the dis-
tinct 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 eëct on the course of the war,''
and what strategic importance it did have is neglected by Thucy-
dides.30 There were many sieges in the war, and this was not one
which brought Athens and Sparta into direct confrontation. Thu-
cydides' elevation of the Plataean incident to exaggerated impor-
tance was controversial in his day, like many of his other claims
(such as that the Peloponnesian War was a single, twenty-seven-
year 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 diërent 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 `òb-
sessive'' 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.
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 aäir (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 Myti-
lene'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 tiÂ 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 ex-
ceptional 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 bru-
tality; 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 Pla-
taea, 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.

290 Erga
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 re-
ports an incident of stasis unknown to Thucydides.33 If it can some
day be proved that Thucydides' list is not complete, it will none-
theless 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 con-
frontations between them or their allies, took place on civil battle-
grounds. These internal con¯icts became more numerous and
more severe as the war continued and impinged more on the
aäirs 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 acknowl-
edged 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 instabil-
ity 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 prodosiÂ 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.
After Spartolus, Thucydides records more than thirty other sta-
seis to the end of our Book 7, that is, before the explosion of stasis
following Athens' crushing defeat in Sicily (Book 8).36 The Athe-
nian 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 ex-
plained by supposing that the great powers' stumbling and expos-
ing their own weakness before the Peace is what encouraged the
factions in the smaller cities to make their move, and that the un-
certainty of the Peace, or even hope of undermining it, contrib-
uted to stasis after 421. It is of course true that Thucydides did not
invent the many staseis he reports, nor did he misorder them chro-
nologically; 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 narra-
tion of the Peace of Nicias highlight the main feature of that nar-
rative, namely that the treaty has all the characteristics of the
temporary, treacherous and ultimately ineëctive 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.
292 Erga
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
(newÂ teroÂ 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 antici-
pate 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'' (prodosiÂ 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 pro-
ceeds directly to staseis with much greater consequences, in Boeo-
tia 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 lead-
37 Compare Aristoph. Pax 246±9, 481±3, 500±2; Legon 1968; Wick 1979 argues that Thu-
cydides downplayed the Megarian stasis in order to de¯ect attention from the Megarian
decree.
ing powers could not repair. The immediate sequel to the Peace
picks up and reinforces precisely these themes.
Athenian generals arrived in Boeotia `ìmmediately 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 piboulhÂ ) 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 aäirs in all
Boeotia ``to their advantage'' (e v toÁ e pithÂ deion). Thucydides thus
explains both the Athenian perspective and that of the local fac-
tions. 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 with-
drew after fortifying Delion. The general inclination in Boeotia
38 HCT iii, 539, quoting Wade-Gery.

294 Erga
was to let matters be, but the Theban Boeotarch Pagondas swayed
opinion in the other direction (4.91). The speech Thucydides com-
posed 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 Thucy-
dides' 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 BoiwtoiÂ ) and in the ®rst two sen-
tences invokes the name of Boeotia as if it were a patriotic charm.
Further on he asserts that it is paÂ trion, a national characteristic
of Boeotians, to resist a ``foreign'' invader, using a word (alloÂju-
lon) intended to distinguish the Boeotians racially from the Athe-
nians,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 re-
calls, ``while we were divided by stasis'' (hÿmwÄn stasiazoÂ ntwn); but
the Boeotians expelled them by (he implies) uniting and winning a
victory at Coronea, ``by which we brought to Boeotia great free-
dom 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 (con-
trary 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 ``sev-
eral speeches, obviously all very much alike, but at any rate all converted into one by
Thucydides.''
40 Pagondas could be referring to the diërences between Ionian and Dorian (or even Aeo-
lian), 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.
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 diërent 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. Boeo-
tian 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 de-
mise, 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 `òligarchic'' ± in each city was em-
boldened to hoist itself into power. Brasidas proved masterful in ex-
ploiting 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 dis-
cussion 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 Hel-
lenic custom, 4.78.2, thus answering Gomme's puzzled question ad loc.
296 Erga
the narrative illustrate how Brasidas brought about revolt (apo-
stasis) 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 enthu-
siasm 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 com-
pletely to counter the eörts 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 stasiÂ a-
zon) 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 Acan-
thian 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 diërent.
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 diërent 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 diërent.
In both episodes, Thucydides' focus is not on the diërence between democratic vs.
exclusive political processes, but on the con¯ict between imperial power, justice and
self-interest.
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 dur-
ing the negotiations of surrender, or whether it arises from narra-
tive 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 eëctive. 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
(piÂ steiv, 86.2, 87.1) and his a½rmation of the Spartans' oaths
(86.1) to let them remain autonomoi.47 Such a rethÂ (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. Con-
nor 1984, 138 points out that Brasidas' promises regarding Athenian and Spartan in-
tentions 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 pas-
sage 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 biÂ aÎ e mjaneiÄ ´ toÁ meÁ n gaÁ r i scuÂov dikaiwÂsei, hn hÿ tuÂch e dwken,
e peÂ rcetai, toÁ deÁ gnwÂmhv a diÂ kou e piboulhÄÎ .
298 Erga
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 misrep-
resentation (as if the reader could miss the point): it was all a
sham; Brasidas' words, ®ne as they were, were false and alluring
(e pagwgaÂ , 4.88.1).
Amphipolis suëred a fate similar to Acanthus' (4.102±8). The
situation there was less stable because of its heterogeneous popu-
lation 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. Neverthe-
less, Thucydides describes the course of events as stasis, and Aris-
totle 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, Am-
phipolis 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 Amphi-
politans 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 suspi-
cions and hatreds (cf. 3.82.5), and in an eört 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
`òpponents 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 eëctive strategy. His ``moderate oër'' (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 oër 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.
favored Athenian patronage, transferred loyalty (or at least obedi-
ence) to Sparta in order to preserve life and property, as at Acan-
thus; 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 oër 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 (Thucy-
dides' personal failure) was the sole reason why Brasidas could act
in such a manner. The Athenians and their sympathizers in Am-
phipolis 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 surren-
dered 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 newteriÂ 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 recapit-
ulation of the speech which Brasidas ®rst delivered at Acanthus
50 Cf. Connor 1984, 135 n. 68.

300 Erga
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 re-
peated 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 sub-
stantial enough numbers to defend the friendly faction, which had
general popular support as well (4.129.1¨.; note 130.1: a stasias-
moÂv 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 prevail-
ing 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 ad-
dition 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).
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 under-
stand 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. Thucy-
dides 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 enter-
tain the argument that the Athenians would be able to survive the com-
ing 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 with-
out 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.
302 Erga
installation, with Peloponnesian help, of a faction hostile to Athens.
The frame of mind prevailing in the cities is similar to that charac-
terizing people gripped by stasis: their passion (orgwÄ ntev) distorts
reasonable and balanced judgment, good gnwÂ mh. In addition,
they (literally) ``did not leave them [ the Athenians] any basis
for saying or thinking (mhd' uÿpoleiÂ 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 im-
portance, 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 un-
precedented 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 demon-
strated 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 ac-
count, 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 cir-
cumstance, 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 Thucy-
dides 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 re-
mained 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.
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 dai-
moÂ nhsaÂn te a ma kaiÁ e swjroÂ nhsan, 8.24.4). They based their re-
volt on superb calculation: they had many good allies and the
Athenians had undeniably suëred 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
xuneÂ gnwsan), which was sound, but because circumstances over-
whelmed logos (they were paraÂ loga), all rational understand-
ing, calculation and control; an intelligence such as Themistocles',
which could foresee circumstances and form policy based on pene-
trating 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. More-
over, it should be remembered that despite Chios' prudence, its
swjrosuÂ nh, the oligarchs would not have even contemplated sta-
sis 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 (eudaimoniÂ a) is also wiped out.57 The oli-
garchs had originally planned a bloodless and orderly transition,
dealing with the opposition in as moderate a way as possible (met-
riwÂ 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 sus-
picion (uÿpoÂptwv diakeiÂ menoi allhÂloiv hÿsuÂ cazon, 38.3); soon this
``well-stocked'' place was suëring 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 diakeÂ menoi (8.38.3) with hudaimoÂ nhsan (24.4).
304 Erga
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 con-
vulsions 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 `àllies,'' and these smaller con¯icts
both represented the partial breakup of Athens' empire ± one ele-
ment 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 Ath-
ens' 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' eörts by language and choice of detail to emphasize certain
features of the stasis. Modern accounts, while bene®ting from other sources, tend to ratio-
nalize 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 com-
parison 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 oërs 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 dis-
missed 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 diër-
ences 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
`àdvisors'' (xuÂ mbouloi) sent to Astyochus (8.39.2), and this Spartan practice of imposing
`àdvisors'' 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 ex-
plained by party struggles at Sparta.'' Cf. also Cartledge 1979, 245±6, 252.
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' criti-
cal 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 kinhÂ 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 aäirs of
the city and direct the war against Sparta (48.1, 63.4). Their pre-
liminary actions coincided with Alcibiades' scheme for his own re-
call 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 over-
throw the democracy as one of Tissaphernes' conditions for ®nan-
cial 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 con-
spirators represented solicitation of Tissaphernes and reconciliation
with Alcibiades as the only way to prevail against the Pelopon-
nesians. 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 begin-
nings 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 His-
tory; see pp. 4±15 for a sketch of Athens' developing stasis. An interesting study on inter-
nal 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 Wasser-
man 1954; J. Finley 1942, 186±7.
306 Erga
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 ob-
jections to the conspiracy. The general Phrynichus, correctly dis-
cerning Alcibiades' real motives, warned against starting a stasis
(mhÁ stasiaÂ swsin) and argued, again correctly, that the Persian
king did not trust Athens and had a better ally in the Pelopon-
nesians, and that new oligarchical governments could neither re-
store 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. Thucy-
dides 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 re-
marks frightened him into treacherous dealings with the Spartan
admiral that were anything but astute (50±1, cf. Chapter 5). Phry-
nichus' 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. Un-
liked by the democrats, a perhaps genuine oligarch but also con-
vinced (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, treacher-
ously plotting and himself the target of plots.
In Athens, the overthrow of the democracy began with a for-
mality and a euphemism. The oligarch Peisander formally pro-
posed that the Assembly recall Alcibiades and ``have a democratic
government in a diërent manner'' (mhÁ toÁ n au toÁn troÂpon dhmok-
ratoumeÂ noiv) in order to attract the King's support (8.53.1). The
public understood the meaning of `à diërent manner'' and did
not take well to the idea of oligarchy; there was vociferous oppo-
sition 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 xunwmosiÂ 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 or-
ganizations had existed previously in Athens as societies of aris-
tocrats 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 them-
selves 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 origi-
nal intention. These fraternities were soon to act as factions in sta-
sis, 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 govern-
ment, they tried to stage a simultaneous oligarchical overthrow in
Samos itself, although the Samians had recently installed a de-
mocracy;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 pleÂ oni in Samos, 8.48.3; interestingly, the plot
there is called a xunwmosiÂ a, 48.2. The associations' extreme political tendencies are
con®rmed at 8.92.4, if the OCT reading eÿ taiÂ rouv is correct.
64 See HCT v, 44¨. on chronological problems.
308 Erga
with Tissaphernes broke down (8.56), in no small measure because
of Alcibiades' sabotage, the oligarchs decided to drop the project
of Alcibiades' recall, eëctively 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 domi-
nate had been murder. The most prominent victim was the demo-
cratic 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: `òthers who were considered ìnconvenient' were made
away with secretly in the same manner'' (65.2). The murders re-
moved 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 after-
wards 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 eëct 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' wn cwriÂ wn kaiÁ oÿpliÂ tav e con-
tev sjiÂ sin au toiÄ v xummaÂ couv, can mean either mercenaries or, more likely (note xum-
maÂ 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 proeiÂ rgasto as
inappropriate for loÂgov in 8.65.3, and the suggestion proeiÂ rhto has much to recom-
mend it.
account if suspected. The people rather stayed quiet and inactive, hav-
ing suëred such a shock that they now considered merely escaping vio-
lence, even when they kept silent, a gain. Imagining that the plot was
much more extensive than it was in fact, their power of judgment deteri-
orated, 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 par-
ticipated in the plot. It was these individuals who created the greatest
mistrust (toÁ a piston meÂ giston) among the population at large and most
enhanced the oligarchs' sense of security, by con®rming the democrats'
mutual distrust (a pistiÂ a) of each other. (8.66.2±5)
The echoes of phrases and ideas of the stasis model are unmis-
takable, 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 oppo-
nents, 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 (piÂ steiv) are con®rmed by
crime, breach of trust (piÂ stiv) sweetens revenge, and battle lines
are drawn on the basis of mutual distrust (apiÂ 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 fur-
ther 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 sta-
sis it is replaced by fear and endless suspicion, and actual violence
or the threat of violence, so that in Athens we see people eëc-
tively 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' antileÂ gwn au twÄÎ upoptov, 3.82.5, compare also 8.66.5, allhÂloiv a pantev uÿp-
oÂ ptwv proshÄÎsan oiÿ touÄ dhÂmou.
69 wjeÂ lhsan, 8.66.5 / ou gaÁr metaÁ twÄn keimeÂ nwn noÂmwn wjeliÂ av aiÿ toiauÄtai xuÂnodoi,
3.82.6.
310 Erga
Samos logos had become ineëctive 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 revolution-
aries' ranks and ``what should be said'' (taÁ rÿhqhsoÂmena) was care-
fully 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, keÂ rdov, now
signi®ed merely avoiding violence.70 Moreover, fair and attractive
proposals by the revolutionaries were merely a specious cover (eu-
prepeÂ 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 con-
centrated chapter 8.66 are based on the details related in the nar-
rative 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 establish-
ment of a narrow oligarchy by means of violence, threats and de-
ception, 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 no-
miÂ sqh, 3.82.4. Other verbal echoes, although in diërent immediate contexts: ka-
taÂ plhxin, 8.66.2 / e kpeplhgmeÂ nov, 3.82.5; e pibouleuÂsanta, 8.66.4 / e pibouleuÂsasqai,
3.82.4, 5, proepibouloÂ menoi, 83.3; asjaÂleia at 8.66.5 and 3.82.4, 7; hn deÁ touÄto eu pre-
peÁ v proÁ v touÁv pleiÂ ouv at 8.66.1 echoes the uses of the word euprepeÂ 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 politi-
cal description,'' but then he adds, ``there is however no decisive indication of the char-
acter 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.
overthrowing a society's institutions under the guise of legality
and historical legitimacy. He relates that the oligarchs ®rst con-
vened the Assembly and moved that ten fully empowered syngra-
pheis be appointed to draw up proposals on how best to run the
state (8.67.1). In a second assembly held at Colonus, these syngra-
pheis 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 ineëctive 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, Thu-
cydides 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 mhdemiÂ an e ti e k touÄ au touÄ koÂ smou mhÂ te misqorjoreiÄ n (8.67.3), im-
mediately 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 allaÂ to a ma in 8.69.1, since
a llaÂ conveys the shocking abnormality of an Assembly, in which vociferous opposi-
tion would have been normal, essentially disempowering itself without any debate or
resistance.
312 Erga
The ``democratic system,'' or more literally ``system by which the
demos managed aäirs,'' 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 pi-
thÂdeioi) 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 an-
nounced program of soliciting Persian aid by changing the consti-
tution. 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 ex-
tended oligarchy had not yet been convened (8.72; message de-
livered 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 ``neu-
trals'' 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,
`òne may doubt if many Athenians were genuinely indiërent between democracy and
oligarchy.''
troops required considerable eört. Samos was after all where the
oligarchs had originally formed their plot, and after the establish-
ment 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 cri-
sis 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 As-
sembly 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 responsi-
ble for the arguments made: ``they stood up and encouraged one
another with various arguments'', that is, the policy arose from a
collective eört, not a proposal by one dominant speaker. Per-
spective was ®rst established: the city itself had rebelled from the
¯eet (hÿ poÂliv au twÄn ajeÂ 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 fur-
ther reasoned that they in fact had the power to enforce their will
on Athens, control the allies `às 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 fur-
ther 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 oënse by subverting their ancestral
laws and customs (paÂ 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 jiloni-
kiÂ an te kaqeÂ stasan . . . dhmokrateiÄ sqai . . . o ligarceiÄ sqai (8.76.1) with e v toÁ jilonikeiÄ n
kaqistameÂ nwn toÁ proÂ qumon . . . i sonomiÂ av . . . a ristokratiÂ av . . . eÿ toiÄ moi h san thÁn
autiÂ ka jilonikiÂ an e kpimplaÂnai (3.82.8). Cf. also the use of jilonikiÂ a at 5.43.2 (Alci-
biades); 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: moiriÂ aÎ jilonikwÄ n);
more neutral uses at 5.22.4, 111.4; 7.70.7, 71.3.
314 Erga
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 aörd protection if they should fail in
all other matters. Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus capped the pro-
ceedings 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 oppo-
nents 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 self-
representation 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). Sec-
ond, the army's declaration of itself as the true Athens not only
neglects the silenced majority in Attica, but more importantly in-
vites a problematic comparison to a similar rhetorical ploy of self-
representation, 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 gen-
erals 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 per-
suaded or compelled by the Assembly of reconciliation, and furthermore how the jilo-
nikiÂ 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.
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 re-
inforced 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 attack-
ing Athens itself, ``sailing against their own people (e piÁ sjaÁv autouÂv),
in which case the enemy [poleÂ mioi the Spartans] would most cer-
tainly have immediately taken posession of Ionia and the Helles-
pont'' (8.86.4). Only Alcibiades' rhetorical power prevented the
volatile Assembly in Samos from harming Athens. Thucydides' re-
mark sets his perspective apart from that of his historical subjects
and indicates that the Athenian sailors did not, unlike the his-
torian, 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 gen-
uine Athens but the Four Hundred did the same, defending their
actions as bene®cial and required by the city. They even repre-
sented themselves, like the ¯eet, as adhering to the city's patrioi
nomoi (cf. Ath.Pol. 29.3, 31.1). There is nothing in Thucydides' ac-
count 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 sjaleÂ 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.
316 Erga
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 oligar-
chy (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 eört to correct historical revision which typically fol-
lows a political crisis or change of regime. The restored democ-
racy would have had an interest in destroying documents and
manipulating the memory of the oligarchies.78 Thucydides is try-
ing 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 stimu-
lated some of the factional rank and ®le to express their dissatis-
faction 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 oppor-
tunity for self-aggrandizement in confrontation with their col-
leagues. The trust which had held the faction together began to
crumble: the original leaders of the conspiracy found that individ-
uals who had before been trustworthy were now suspect (8.90.2).
Thucydides' narrative of the breakup, coinciding with a real mili-
tary 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 pres-
sures, 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.
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 diër-
ent con®guration of power. Ideology or concern for the city were
secondary, or oëred as pretexts. The issues of reconciliation with
Alcibiades, of peace overtures to Sparta, of the fortress at Eetio-
neia 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 oligar-
chy 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 `òthers'' exploited this dis-
content in pursuit of personal advantage over their colleagues
(kat' i diÂ av jilotimiÂ 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 over-
tures 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 con-
viction of their claim in this ®rst item ± the causes of their appre-
hension ± 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 govern-
ment (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 per-
sonal dominance within the faction (89.3).80
Thus the ruling faction broke up into smaller factions. The
79 As Andrewes explains, HCT ad loc.: `ìncluding many who had joined because they
wanted more eëctive 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 diÂ av jilotimiÂ av in 8.89.3 also recalls 2.65.7, where the phrase is exactly repeated in ex-
planation of the reasons for Athens' downfall (also kataÁ taÁ v i diÂ av diajoraÂ v 2.65.11, 12).
See also 2.44.4, Pericles de®nes toÁ jiloÂ timon. Literature cited in CT i, 344.
318 Erga
diehard oligarchs took measures to protect themselves, thereby
posing a threat to Athens' welfare: they redoubled their eörts to
reach accommodation with Sparta and to build a fortress at Eetio-
neia; 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 Athe-
nian 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 `àutonomous''
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 imme-
diate 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 `ìn 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 dissatis-
faction. They made such speeches as are typical in stasis, exacer-
bating factional hatreds and suspicions (stasiwtikoiÁ loÂgoi kaiÁ
uÿpoyioiÂ ). 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 Thucy-
dides 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).
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 en-
courage the work, the name of the Five Thousand was again in-
voked, 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 col-
leagues at this point had the advantage, for while they did not con-
trol 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 Thou-
sand, 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 disaëcted members of the Four Hun-
dred, the disaëcted hoplites and perhaps some of the exasperated
population as well, to hold an assembly on the Pnyx, whose sig-
ni®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 yhjiÂ santo, underlining legitimacy) to trans-
fer the aäirs 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.
320 Erga
®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'' (nomoqeÂ tai)
and votes (eyhjiÂ 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 Athe-
nians clearly enjoyed good government, for it was a moderate combina-
tion 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 ele-
ments 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 `ènjoyed good government'' (eu
politeuÂ santev) at a time when they could not aörd otherwise.84
The democracy had managed its aäirs 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 piÂ ge e mouÄ A qhnaiÄ oi jaiÂ nontai eu politeuÂ-
santev´ metriÂ a gaÁr h te e v touÁv oliÂ gouv kaiÁ touÁv pollouÁ v xuÂ gkrasiv e geÂ neto kaiÁ e k
ponhÂ rwn twÄn pragmaÂ twn genomeÂ nwn touÄto prwÄton a nhÂnegke thÁn poÂ lin. My transla-
tion 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).
`às 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 `òligarchy 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 cir-
cumstances. 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 de-
cisions, 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' His-
tory (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
aäirs. 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.
322 Erga
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 epi-
sode 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 aäirs
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 `À prosecution, not a persecution,'' Ostwald 1986, 401.
89 touÂ twÎ meÁ n twÄÎ troÂpwÎ Oi noÂhn te lhjqeiÄ san BoiwtoiÁ kaiÁ hÿ e n taiÄ v A qhÂnaiv oligarciÂ a
kaiÁ staÂ siv e pauÂsato.
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 diërent senses.91
The words may equally be an interpolation by a reader or copyist
seeking closure, however unsatisfactory and illogical, in an incom-
plete 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 Hun-

dred and their replacement by the Five Thousand, while sparse
and (apparently) unpolished, contains no serious internal contra-
diction, 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 ac-
count of constitutional change in Aristotle's Constitution of Athens93
in certain crucial details and in other less important ones. Recon-
ciling 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 diërences be-
tween the two ancient accounts stem ultimately from their diër-
ent 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 mate-
rial from its immediate historical context of internal war, especially
when it oëred instructive parallels with past constitutions, and to
write a fairly uninterrupted, coherent account of constitutional
development and change, starting with what is almost a constitu-
tional convention in Athens in 411 in response to external pressures
90 HCT v, 341.
91 The oligarchs themselves seem to use o ligarciÂ a to describe the Five Thousand at 8.72.1.
92 Flach 1977, 11.
93 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.
324 Erga
but nonetheless proceeding in an open and consensual manner,
with modi®cations adopted as events dictated. Thucydides by con-
trast 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 con-
ventional ethical standards, rules of political procedure, civic con-
cern, or any conventional loyalty or code of behavior.
The diërences between the accounts of Thucydides and Aris-
totle have been minutely examined and debated since the discov-
ery 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 re-
peated 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 hun-
dred 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 `ònly nominally'' (loÂgwÎ moÂnon, 32.3).96
After four months the Athenians `àbolished 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.
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 popu-
lar 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 conspir-
acy 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 ques-
tionable ± Thucydides omitted this detail along with the partic-
ulars 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 pur-
pose is to expose them.
Details exclusive to the History bring out the oligarchy's co-
ercion 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 `à masterpiece of deception.''
326 Erga
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 autokraÂ torev, fully and exceptionally empowered, all con-
tribute 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 matter-
of-fact statement that the Athenians had no choice (hnagkaÂsqh-
san) 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 dis-
solving the democracy, including a formal speech by Melobius
(absent from Thucydides), lend an air of inevitability and order-
liness. Aristotle's citation of Solonic and Cleisthenic precedent,
which was obviously mooted by the oligarchs themselves and me-
ticulously omitted by Thucydides, suggests legitimacy and conti-
nuity; 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 dif-
fered from other prevailing ones, and how he conveyed it through
choice of detail and narrative emphasis.
Unfortunately the History breaks o¨ before reaching the restora-

tion of the democracy. Thucydides would probably have shaped,
re®ned and ®lled out the rough-hewn material of ``Book 8,''101 fur-
ther 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 demon-
strate 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.
the Athenian stasis as beginning and ending with a particular oli-
garchical government in 411, interpreted the internal condition
of Athens after Pericles' death as one of prolonged and ever-
deepening 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 in-
creased 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 grad-
ual; factional squabbles fueled by a destructive form of jilotimiÂ 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, un-
like 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 (diÂ kaion), friendship (jiliÂ a) and virtue (arethÂ) ± became
unstable and were associated with actions (erga) which contravened
the conventional force of the words. That is, words became trans-
valued in the way described in the stasis model. Conventional uses
102 See Rusten 1989, 212±13; LeÂvy 1976, 37±9.

328 Erga
of moral terminology remained the sole province of parties speak-
ing from positions of weakness or disadvantage, and these parties
always lost the contest of words and in most cases suëred vio-
lence as well. At the same time, the Hellenes ®ghting the war en-
gaged in radical rede®nition of the entity Hellas, to which they all
claimed proprietary rights in a way which excluded their oppo-
nents. 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 dif-
ferent ways. In Athens' case, Pericles advanced an even more radi-
cal concept, dividing superior Athens from the rest of the world,
although other Athenians, speaking abroad, mooted a diërent
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 exam-
ples 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 wide-
spread suëring 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 moti-
vated primarily by sel®sh concerns destructive to their own states
rose to positions of leadership and prominence. Moderation, as
well as true `ìntelligence'' 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 reconcilia-
tion between the two states. Negotiated peace as well as neutrality
by single states became impossible as the con¯ict eventually en-
gulfed all Hellas.
All these features of the larger war ®t the criteria for logoi and
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 re-
quired 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.
333
334 Thucydides and Hellas
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 demonstra-
tion 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 treat-
ment not just of contemporary testimony but also of the oral his-
torical traditions circulating in the second half of the ®fth century,
the diërence being that the witnesses to the distant events were
unavailable for cross-examination, and in the course of transmis-
sion 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 in-
vasions were, just as he does not need to identify Minos, Aga-
memnon, and so on. Thus the Archaeology is an interpretation of
known events. Thucydides in fact reinterprets myths and oral his-
tory, records personal observations of phenomena in his contem-
porary Hellas and applies rational processes ± extrapolation,
deduction ± to that same material. He is ever aware that he is
oëring 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): `Ìt 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 early; what can be called a dogma of prog-
ress.'' See also M. Finley 1975, 18±19; Crane 1996, 32¨., 66¨.
Archaeology, Pentekontaetia and Persians 335
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 kaloumeÂ 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 capi-
tal, 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 gov-
ernment 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 diërent peoples, and above all the Pelasgian,
gave their own names to diërent 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 adopt-
ing 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 ex-
amples 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!
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 Diüsion 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 Heca-
taeus' comparison of generation records in Egypt with his own,
which forced acknowledgment of the relative youth of the Hel-
lenes (Hdt. 2.143±6).7 In any case this does not seem the main
source for Thucydides' conception of Hellas' pre-history, and re-
searchers 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 `ìn 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 ex-
trapolated 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 `ìt 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 Archaeol-
6 For the diërences 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.
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 abstrac-
tion toÁ palaioÁ n ÿ EllhnikoÂn, 1.6.6) may have resembled present-
day ``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. Thu-
cydides attributes a strong Hellenic identity to those who sailed
against Troy (1.10.5), even though this involves him in a contra-
diction 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 paÂ shv
thÄ v ÈllaÂ dov koinhÄÎ pempoÂmenoi 10.5). The Trojan War did not
make Hellas per se (as, e.g., we think of the awareness of ``Greek-
ness'' 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, `èven 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 relia-
bility of the Homeric poems as historical evidence: 1.9.4, 10.3.
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 `ìn 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 non-
particularistic 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 commer-
cial 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 remov-
ing 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 Thucy-
dides' 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 llhnikoÂ n was involved in the Lelantine War.
It is odd and telling that, in his eört to show that the Pelo-
ponnesian 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 accom-
plishments. 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 con-
cerned, there was an ever-growing mass of knowledge about ori-
ental 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 ex-
planation, 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 habita-
tion, 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 lan-
guages 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 atten-
tion paid to precedents and ®rst-time events: the Athenians were the
®rst to abandon the regular carrying of arms and adopt a more cul-
tured lifestyle, the Spartans the ®rst to dress in modern fashion as
well as to strip naked for athletic competition. Generally speaking,
`òne could demonstrate that early Hellenic customs are rather sim-
ilar to those of the barbaroi today'' (1.6.6). The Archaeology thus
demonstrates that Hellas itself, while it followed historical patterns
and rules of development, not only became able, through progres-
sively stronger unions, to achieve ever more noteworthy accom-
plishments, 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
(douleiÂ a) to the stronger, while the more powerful, with their ample
resources, made the lesser cities their subjects (uÿphkoÂ 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 (`ìn their
desire for gain,'' e jieÂ 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 respon-
sibility for them. This process ®rst appears with the creation of
Hellas itself, when Hellen and sons, ``becoming strong'' (iscu-
saÂntwn) ruled over other peoples for mutual bene®t, all even-
tually using the same name, Hellene (1.3). The identities of the
weaker parties perforce disappear in such an action, as Thucy-
dides 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 au-
thority and sail against Troy. Thucydides' position is unorthodox
in that it dismisses the story of the oath by Helen's suitors to Tyn-
dareus 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¯u-
enced 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.
of Homer). The real reason for Agamemnon's leadership, Thucy-
dides suggests, is that he (like the founder of the Hellenes) was the
most powerful individual (dunaÂ 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 `àcquired such
power that, although a foreigner, he gave his name to the region''
(9.2) ± just like Hellen. By virtue of this inherited power Aga-
memnon was able to bring a Hellenic force together and lead the
``common'' Hellenic eört (koinhÄÎ) against Troy.
To be sure, Agamemnon ruled ``through fear'' (joÂbwÎ ), and
while Hellen and Pelops seem to have enjoyed the voluntary co-
operation 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 xuneisthÂ kesan proÁv taÁ v megiÂ 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
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 pri-
vate 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 xioÂ logon) was accomplished by
them . . . Thus Hellas everywhere was for a long time kept from accom-
plishing in common (koinhÄÎ . . . katergaÂ zesqai) anything distinguished
(janeroÂn), and the individual states remained rather unenterprising
(a tolmoteÂ 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'' (megaÂ lh genomeÂ 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 com-
posed 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 diërent 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 diërence 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 Amphi-
lochians), etc. Note that these are examples of Hellenic unions of some sort forming and
then falling apart because of internal diërences.
or misunderstanding. The formulation and illustration of a histori-
cal principle is far diërent from advocacy of any political entity
or moral position. Historical description and analysis, oëring 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 criti-
cizing 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®ni-
tive 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 achieve-
ment he ®nds worthy of telling in Hellenic history happened because
of such an arrangement of power. It will be remembered that Aris-
totle (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
oëred 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 note-
worthy 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 ques-
tion 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 charac-
14 Contrast (on diërent 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.
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 anqrwpeiÂ ou troÂpou) by receiving power (archÂ)
when it was oëred and maintaining it under compulsion of
``honor, fear and interest'' (1.76.2). Athens established no prece-
dent, he argues, and `ìt 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 argu-
ment 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 posi-
tion.16 The context is entirely diërent: instead of justifying the
past the Athenians are seeking to legitimize an imminent act of
brutality. The axiom serves diërent rhetorical purposes in the
diërent settings and must be distinguished both from each other
and from what the historian is willing to assert on his own author-
ity. 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 ex-
plain 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.
Although by a common eört they repelled the barbarian, not long
afterwards the Hellenes . . . separated into two camps, some following the
Athenians and the others following the Lacedaemonians . . . The defen-
sive 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-sen-
tence20 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 lan-
guages 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 dis-
putes 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 Pelo-
ponnesian and Athenian speakers in Book 1 acknowledge Athens'
18 Classen±Steup may be right about reading deÂ after e peita, as ®ve out of the seven best
mss. do.
19 thÁn meÁ n gaÁ r alhqestaÂ thn proÂjasin, ajanestaÂthn deÁ loÂ gwÎ, touÁv A qhnaiÂ ouv hÿgouÄmai
megaÂ louv gignomeÂ nouv kaiÁ joÂbon pareÂ contav toiÄ v LakedaimoniÂ 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.
power, and the Spartan speakers (both Archidamus and Sthene-
laidas) 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 Pelo-
ponnesian 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 diplo-
matic exchanges and deliberative bodies, which are in turn un-
suitable 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 percep-
tion 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 `òpenly'' (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. Thucy-
dides 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 emo-
tions. 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-
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 Lacedaemo-
nians watched this but made only intermittent eörts 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 de-
cided that they must devote themselves entirely to attacking and if possi-
ble 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 sin-
gle emerging process, a series of developments involving Athens'
actions and Sparta's reactions but aëcting all Hellas, creating
the conditions for war among the Hellenic states. We should note
that Thucydides is neither openly judgmental of Athens' empire-
building 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, nei-
ther of which entered the war in hope of territorial gains, and
each of which judged its own cause to be self-defense; the Pente-
kontaetia 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 ex-
cursus; see now Sertcan 1997; further bibliography in CT i, 133±4 and 134±96 passim. My
focus diërs from that of most scholarship on the Pentekontaetia, which is concerned
with establishing facts, or alternatively determining the degree (if any) to which the sec-
tion is un®nished. Here I am interested more in Thucydides' selection and arrangement
of material as we have it.
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 diërent directions,
motives and activities of the two states ± Thucydides gives an un-
usually 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 diërent ways. The
Spartans ``thought it better'' that no state have walls, but they
were moved also by their allies who ``feared'' (joboumeÂ 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 de-
ception on the Athenian side, under the direction of Themistocles
(90.3±91.3), allowing the walls to be built without Spartan ob-
struction. 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 Athe-
nians (prosjileiÄ v ontev, 92), and they especially admired Themis-
tocles (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 oërs 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.
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 demonstra-
tion 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 com-
ment 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 in-
dignant 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 ver-
sus 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 recog-
nized 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 re-
veals 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.
attacks from ouside Hellas (93.6±7); it certainly does not refer to es-
tablishing a Hellenic empire. Likewise, the building of the forti®ca-
tions is even called an imperial act in a much-discussed phrase (thÁn
archÁn euquÁv xugkateskeuÂazen at 93.4) which means only that The-
mistocles 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 cen-
tralization (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 diërent 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 aäirs 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 `ìn this way, because of hatred of Pausanias,
took control of the hegemonia, with the consent of the allies'' (96.1).
`Ìn this way'' refers to the willingness (for diërent 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 archÂ 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 Thu-
cydides was interested in the exact amount. See Kallet-Marx (1993), 43±58, 167±8; ATL
iii, 234¨. and CT i, 145±6.
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 devia-
tion 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 combi-
nations described in the Archaeology, even those based on com-
pulsion, 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 Thucy-
dides 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 aäirs 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 his-
tory, 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 rela-
tionships 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.
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 real-
ized 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 tiÂ 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 be-
came `ùnprepared and militarily inexperienced'' (aparaÂ 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 xunestraÂ teuon
apoÁ touÄ i sou, 99.2), and this in turn belied the pretense of mu-
tual interest which, while still genuine and not a pretense, had
allowed the Hellenes to defeat the Persians `ìn 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 ``sub-
dued,'' not `ènslaved.''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 poÂ 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.''
real slaves out of the inhabitants of both Eion and Scyros (hndra-
poÂ 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 diërent
use of it. The word douleiÂ 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 Pelo-
ponnesian 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 douleiÂ 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 asso-
ciate with Athens' attempted `ènslavement'' of the city, in a
speech before the ®nal battle at Syracuse (7.68.2, cf. 7.57.7).38
The douleiÂ 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 `àgainst 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, establish-
ing a new historical pattern. Moreover, neither the `ènslavement''
of Naxos nor the ``responsibility'' of the allies for their own sub-
jection evokes authorial moral censure. Thucydides matter-of-factly
describes a process.
35 Discussion of douleiÂ 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' `ènslavement'' of Helots; ATL iii, 155 calls this the `ònly''
case in which the two are mixed, ``possibly not unintentional.'' Compare the striking re-
mark Thucydides gives Pericles, that subject states (uÿ phÂ 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 pakouÂ 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 `èstablished practice'' in the ab-
sence of any other source, see ATL iii, 156±7 and the diërent view of CT i, 151. Gomme
appropriately quotes the scholiast: paraÁ toÁ noÂmimon kaiÁ preÂ pon´ e leuÂ qeroi gaÁr oiÿ
Ellhnev toÂte.
Once again Thucydides oërs 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 men-
tioned 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 impres-
sion 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 Athe-
nians in the Peloponnese. As Thucydides presents it, the Messe-
nian revolt made the Spartans so desperate as to require help from
Athens, above all but not exclusively Athenian skill in siege oper-
40 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 Her-
odotus' 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 colo-
nize 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 `àllies'' (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 circum-
stances, that is, the partial breakup of the Athenian imperial organization and wide-
spread faction in its dependencies.
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 (deiÂ santev) the Athenians' aggression and in fact
considered them an `àlien'' 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 re-
nouncing their alliance (xummaciÂ 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 eëct.
It should be stressed that this whole episode only made a latent
condition apparent: ``the rupture came out into the open,'' Thu-
cydides says (diajoraÁ janeraÁ e geÂ 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 ®ght-
ing.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 `èxtreme hatred'' of Athens (103.4); and this was fol-
lowed by widespread ®ghting among the two blocs of Hellenes,
which was only temporarily halted by a ®ve-year and then a thirty-
year 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 meÂ ga) suëred 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 poÂ 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.
Only after the Thasian revolt and the incident at Ithome does
Thucydides begin routinely to refer to `Àthens and its allies'' and
``Sparta and its allies,''46 representing the split in Hellas an-
nounced 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 Hel-
las, 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 egre-
gious in a diërent 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 manipu-
lation of the allies.
47 In concentrating on the build-up of Athens' empire and Sparta's consequent fear, Thu-
cydides 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 Hel-
lenic 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 ac-
count of Harmodius and Aristogeiton); I shall demonstrate that the Pentekontaetia simi-
larly has a speci®c point connected with the purpose of the History. The `ìrrelevance'' 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 con-
ceived his theory of the alhqestaÂ 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 Pente-
kontaetia 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.
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 `àlli-
ances'' and imperialistic gestures known from inscriptional evi-
dence51 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 re-
gardless 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 fortu-
itous way in which some of the omissions can be supplied, the gaps
in our knowledge may be even more drastic than usually sup-
posed; some important events may have disappeared completely
from the record. A history of the same ®fty-year period would
look quite diërent if written, for instance, by a hypothetical Cor-
inthian 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 diërently
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 `èxternal policy'' (HCT
i, 365±70), his items 5, 10 and 14 (I do not, however, ®nd the omission of the foundation
of Thurii `ìnexplicable'' 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 in-
terpreted it; item 3 is speculative and 15 and 16 chronologically uncertain, so that Thu-
cydides 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.
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 Am-
phictiony 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 Pente-
kontaetia as discursive, uneven, unfocused and poorly organized,
it can also be read as an investigation into the origins of the ``tru-
est reason'' of the war, and a sustained account of the deepening
con¯ict in Hellas, with the stages clearly marked and partially an-
alyzed. The Pentekontaetia as presented by Thucydides is a kind
of anti-Archaeology, in that Hellas, whose creation and achieve-
ments 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 pre-
cedents ± 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 pin-
nacles of achievement and extremes of suëring 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.
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 `ìn 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 Hel-
lenes 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 `àfter the
second,'' which is somewhat going out of the way to record a pre-
cedent (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 pre-
cedents 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 suëring: 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 destruc-
tion 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 obel-
ized 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 illu-
minating (but later) ideas about the origins of civilization, principles which are con-
troverted in stasis.
57 2.77.4±5, if the description of natural ®res is an interpolation (Calder 1984), the super-
lative 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 meÂ giston involves the number of soldiers lost over a period of days, whereas the
xumjoraÁ adoÂkhtoÂv te kaiÁ deinhÂ at Mycalessus signi®es a disaster measured in other than
numerical terms.
in turn, are to be distinguished from ``the greatest catastrophe
(meÂ 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 Hel-
lenic pinnacles (and nadirs) brought unprecedented suëring and
destruction to Hellas. In this light, it is to be noted that while most
of the precedents aëcted 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 suëring in the quarries, like
59 Deleting SikelikwÄÎ , with Dobree, Hude et al., see Dover HCT iv ad loc.
60 xuneÂ bh te e rgon touÄ to ÿ EllhnikoÁn twÄn kataÁ toÁ n poÂ lemon toÂnde meÂ giston geneÂ sqai,
dokeiÄ n d' e moige kaiÁ wn a kohÄÎ ÿ E llhnikwÄ n i smen, kaiÁ toiÄ v te krathÂ sasi lamproÂ taton
kaiÁ toiÄ v diajqareiÄ si dustuceÂ staton. This important sentence has fallen victim to edi-
torial zeal. A majority follows KruÈger in bracketing ÿ EllhnikoÂn, which appears in all
manuscripts, on stylistic grounds: wn a kohÄÎ ÿ EllhnikwÄ n i smen is not far away in the sen-
tence. Yet there is nothing objectionable about stressing the Hellenic implications of the
Athenian defeat, and as Connor 1984, 206 n. 54 points out, `ìt is hard to see why the
alleged mistake would be made. . . . our eörts 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.
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 narra-
tive 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 Hel-
lenic perspective and of longer duration than any war Thucy-
dides' generation knew, the deeper signi®cance is not what was
achieved by Hellas but what happened to it. Whole cities suëred
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 worked-
out 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 em-
pire and fear and the consequent deep rift in Hellas, as opposed to
the origin and development of these factors, which were satisfac-
torily traced, may be something Thucydides did not entirely un-
derstand himself ± or did not have time to write. Like his account
of the epidemic in Athens, which he was at a loss to explain, Thu-
cydides 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 pro-
grammatic requirement to describe how the diërent Hellenic
states lined up behind Athens or Sparta. There is, after all, much
less evidence than usually assumed for Thucydides' personal opin-
ion about the Athenian empire. This absence, which marks not
only the Pentekontaetia but the entire History, is not always ad-
mitted. There are of course many opinions about the empire ex-
pressed 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 with-
out 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 charac-
terized by almost every possible suggestion regarding which pas-
sages 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 preoc-
cupations. 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 cir-
cumstances 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 `àlly.'' Yet we hear about
resentment and grievances in clicheÂ 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 con-
vinced Thucydides was an `ìmperialist''; for a recent bibliography, mostly on technical
historical issues, CAH v2, 535±9.
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 Thucy-
dides' 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 every-
thing not Hellenic. Rhetoric which set the cultured, freedom-
loving Hellene against the barbaric, Persian slave of tyranny, be-
came 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 liber-
ation 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 famil-
iar 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 care-
fully, 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 `òriental 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.
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 advan-
tages 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 he-
gemony by introducing the barbaros. This suggests substantially dif-
ferent 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 eörts 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 anepiÂ jqonon deÂ , osoi wsper kaiÁ hÿmeiÄ v uÿ p' A qhnaiÂ wn e pibouleuoÂ meqa, mhÁ Ellhnav
moÂnon, allaÁ kaiÁ barbaÂ 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 `ìn addition to other Hellenes,''
i.e., the Corinthians. Cf. also Lewis 1989, 230.
67 paÄsi deÁ anepiÂ jqonon taÁ xumjeÂ ronta twÄn megiÂ stwn peÂ ri kinduÂ nwn eu tiÂ qesqai. Quite
unlike the `ànswers'' 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.
been diërent. 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 Athe-
nians sent embassies to the King, and commented, ``The Lacedae-
monians 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 bar-
baroi 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. Thucy-
dides 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 lim-
ited 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
oër, prevailed at Pylos and scored further successes; their defeat
68 oiÿ A qhnaiÄ oi pareskeuaÂzonto wÿv polemhÂsontev, pareskeuaÂzonto deÁ kaiÁ LakedaimoÂ nioi
kaiÁ oiÿ xuÂmmacoi, presbeiÂ av te meÂ llontev peÂ mpein paraÁ basileÂ a kaiÁ a llose proÁv touÁv
barbaÂ rouv, ei poqeÂ n tina wjeliÂ an hlpizon eÿ kaÂ teroi proslhÂyesqai.
69 Wade-Gery 1940; Gomme and Hornblower commentaries ad loc.
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 re-
silience 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 sig-
naled 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' ac-
count 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 Ando-
cides) 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 ambas-
sador 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, ready-
made, and the charge of Medism was one of the oldest and now had least meaning''
(HCT iii, 499).
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 continua-
tion 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 solici-
tation. That meant that Amorges had to be dropped ± an easy
thing to do since his action had little hope of success and the ben-
e®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 with-
draw 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 un-
known, 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 oc-
curred 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.
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 oëred the explanation of incomplete
composition and revision: Thucydides' late realization of the im-
portance 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 Hel-
lenic 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 involve-
ment 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 (diabaloÂ ntov, dieÂ 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 Alci-
biades 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 exis-
tence 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.
Hellenic aäirs 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 interpre-
tation, the material support Persia oëred 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: `Ìt is frequently
overlooked that, for Thucydides, looking back at the end of the
war, the contributions made to the war against Athens by Tissa-
phernes 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 dip-
lomatic 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.
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 ac-
count, 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 `ìt 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 oënd 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 jus-
tifying 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 Hel-
lenic war and Athens' stasis matter-of-factly, with few program-
matic 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 oërs 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 exception-
ally idle.
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 bring-
ing the Hellenes ``Persian rule instead of freedom,'' suggests that a
``diërent and better'' treaty be negotiated, not that Persian aid
should be dispensed with altogether; and the second treaty incor-
porated 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 `ìn 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 Per-
sian 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' Archae-
ology 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 writ-
ing, 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).
neuter term toÁ ÿ E llhnikoÂ n (1.1.1, 6.6, 15.3; 3.82.1; cf. 4.20.4) rep-
resents 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,'' mea-
sured 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 expres-
sion of Thucydides' idea. The History contains no statement like
Herodotus' famous de®nition of Hellas, set in a patriotic Athenian
speech, as `òur 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 coher-
ent unity which must be preserved and defended. In the ®rst de-
bate in the History, the Corinthians proclaim, `Òur claims based
on justice are consistent with Hellenic practice and understand-
ing'' (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 `ènslaving 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 diër strongly with de Romilly 1963, 100±1, but see de Romilly 1968,
216¨. for Greek ideas of Greek unity; Walbank 1951 is also helpful.
speeches indicate a sense of common, shared identity with physi-
cal 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 jeop-
ardy. This cannot be pressed too far, however, for as we have seen
practically every mention of Hellas in the speeches is divisive, ex-
clusive 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. Natu-
rally 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 Per-
sians 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 ``Pan-
hellenism'' was much more limited.86 Yet while Hellenic unity
was easy to talk about, no one oëred a better or more extensive
84 See esp. Hdt. 7.145, the Hellenes decided they should unite: e n te geÂ noito toÁ ÿ EllhnikoÂn.
Herodotus either demonstrates or intimates Hellenic unity passim, e.g. 5.49.2; 7.101±4
(Spartan a rethÂ 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 PaneÂ llhnev may dis-
tinguish 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, dis-
tinguishing 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
de®nition of Hellas than Herodotus'. It will be useful to remember
this in our attempt to understand Thucydides. Fifth-century liter-
ature 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 Hel-
lenes'' (oÿ PanellhÂnwn noÂ 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 Her-
odotus' 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 under-
standing 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 ±
[ pp. 243±4] suggests a link between the disappearance of epinician poetry and the divi-
siveness 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 `òppositional'' 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.
87 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).
88 DK 82b7±8; cf. Ar. Rhet. 1414b 30.
89 Supp. 526, 671, also 311; paneÂ 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.
90 Luccioni 1961, 3.
i.e. the Athenian ± spoke occasionally of realizing Panhellenistic
ideals in political form, and Pericles initiated the three ``Pan-
hellenic'' experiments of a conference of all Hellenes, the expan-
sion 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 em-
pire, 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 Thu-
cydides' 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 Pelopon-
nesian 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 re-
drew their koinwniÂ a and rede®ned each other. The overall result
of these linguistic disturbances was that successful communi-
cation disappeared. Thucydides' own view may lie between the
contradictions in the competing de®nitions of and claims on Hel-
las, 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 diër from Walbank as
much as he thinks).
transvaluations of words, the Hellenes' actions ceased to be gov-
erned by shared ethical concepts, which may be implied in Her-
odotus' 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 con-
ventions or, again, Herodotus' ``habits and character.'' Macleod's
observation that stasis in Thucydides' view `ìs 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 diërence between them and the barbaroi
being that the Hellenes appealed to principle while they killed.
`Èvery form of wickedness arose in the Hellenic world . . . and
that simple goodness which is a major part of nobility was deri-
sively 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 diërence. In light of the main themes of
the Archaeology and the main focus of the war narrative, Thucy-
dides' 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.
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 Pan-
hellenist 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 authorita-
tive, 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 his-
tory, both because of the strengths of the warring alliances and
the length of the con¯ict, and because of the extent of human suf-
fering 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 po-
litical 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 at Triopion 232

Acanthus 230, 252, 296±8, see also stasis Pythaeus 230
Acarnania 232, 357 n. 50, see also stasis Temenites at Syracuse 227
Achaea see stasis Archaeology (Thuc. 1.1±23) 11, 170, 176±8,
Acte 252 179, 187±8, 207±8, 333±44, 358, 360,
Aegina 164 n. 79, 172, 214, 275 372, 376
Aeolia, Aeolians 155, 294 Archidamus 27, 53 n. 100, 111, 124 n. 77,
Aetolia 221, 227 n. 47, 273 n. 138 172 n. 92, 194, 248 n. 97, 287,
Agamemnon 298, 334, 336, 340±1, 343 304 n. 60, see also speeches
Agis 312 arete 86, 88, 141±2, 242±4, 245, 250, 253±4,
Agrigentum see stasis 297
Alcibiades 146, 171, 188, 218, 226, 227, 242, Argilos 298
246±8, 249, 254±63, 271±2, 305±8, 314, Argos 72, 155, 157, 213, 223±4, 230, 255±6,
315, 316, 317, 322, 326, 368 n. 73, 370, 264, 270, 272, 355, see also stasis
371, see also speeches Aristarchus 322
Alcidas 145 n. 40, 213, 214, 263 Aristocrates 317
Ambraciots 156 n. 61, 359 Aristogeiton see Harmodius
American Civil War 33±4, 35 Aristotle
Amorges 367±8 on Athenian constitutions 323±7
Amphilochia 232, 342 n. 13 on friendship 138±9
Amphipolis 223, 228, 252, 253 n. 104, 264, on stasis 31±2, 68
265, 291, 298±9, 357 n. 30, see also stasis on war speeches 173
Anactorium see stasis Artaphernes 365
Anaia 292 Artaxerxes 366
Anaximander 22 Artemis at Rhegion 227
Andocides 366 Assinaros River 360
andragathia 97±8 Astyochus 246±7, 304 n. 60
Androcles 308 Athena
Andros 290 n. 33 at Amphipolis 228
Antandrus see stasis at Torone 228
Antiphon 53, 54, 240, 245, 250 n. 92, 263, of the Brazen House 230
265 Polias at Athens 228
Antissa see stasis Polias at Sparta 228 n. 53
Aphrodite at Eryx 229 n. 56 Athenian Empire 164±9, 343, 348±63, 368,
Apollo see also Delian League
at Actium 232 Athens
at Delion 217, 225±6, 293 alliance with Plataea 108, 114±15, 119±
at Delos 221, 223 20
at Delphi 221, 223, 228±9, 230, 233 character of Athenians 147±51
at Leucas 232 epidemic 11, 16, 17, 28±30, 221, 227±8,
at Naupactus 232 244, 305 n. 61, 361
397
398 General index
Athens (cont.) Delion 293, 365±6
stasis in 37, 208 n. 5, 218 n. 26, 226±7, Delphi 357±8, see also Apollo
245±8, 258, 304±27, 373 n. 84 Demeter
synoecism 342 at Plataea 234
violation of Herms 226±7, 305 at Eleusis 234
violence 213±16 Demosthenes 156, 224, 227, 232
see also speeches, stasis, Athenian Empire, Dieitrephes 215, 216
Delian League Diodotus 91±100, see also speeches
Dioscuri 7 n. 2, 231±2
Boeotia 104, 117±19, 225, 251, 270, 272, Dorians 154±61, 221, 294 n. 40
285, 287±8, 293±5 douleia 128±38, 145±7, 352±3
see also Plataea, Thebes, speeches
(Plataean Debate) Eetioneia 317, 318
Bottiaea 140 n. 29 Egesta 229 n. 56
Brasidas 53 n. 100, 131, 142 n. 31, 214 n. 18, Egypt 336
228, 230, 231, 237, 240, 241, 248±54, Eion 351 n. 31, 353, see also stasis
263, 266, 295±300, see also speeches Elis 132 n. 7, 219, 230, 270, 272
Byzantium see stasis English Civil War 35±6
Ennea Hodoi 354 n. 42
Camarina see speeches (Hermocrates, Ephesia 221 n. 35
Euphemus) Epidamnus 86, 274, 277, 342 n. 13, see also
Caria 367 stasis
Carthage 256 Epidaurus 224, 230, 264
Carystus 351 n. 31, 353 ergon see logos
Cephallenians 155 Erythrai see stasis
Chaeroneia 293 Euboea 148, 281, 283, 302, 319±20, see also
Chaireas 316 stasis
Chalcidians 101, 158, 223, 249, 290, 296, Euphemus see speeches
298 Eurymedon 8
Chalcis 160 n. 170 Eurytanians 216
Chios 132, 133, see also stasis
Chrysis 231 n. 60 Fifty Years Peace 297 n. 47
Cimon 355 n. 43 Friendship 138±45, 201
Clazomenae see stasis
Cleisthenes 59 n. 109, 326 gnome 24, 26, 51±2, 89, 90, 135, 303, 309
Cleon 91±100, 145, 188, 237, 240, 241, 257, Gorgias 40 n. 75, 374
266, 300, 366 n. 71, see also speeches Gylippus 157, 258 n. 115
Cnidos see stasis Gymnopaidiai 224
Colonus 311, 326
Colophon 368 Hairai see stasis
Corcyra 211, 274±7, 285, 359, see also stasis, Harmodius and Aristogeiton 25 n. 34, 339,
speeches 356 n. 49
Corinth 6, 136, 230, 270, 272, 280, 338, Hellanicus 356 n. 49
355, 359, see also speeches Hellen 335±6, 339, 340, 341
Coronea 117, 118, 119, 121, 285, 294 Helots 106, 115, 264
Covenant of Plataea 111 n. 52 Hera
Crete 273 n. 138 at Plataea 232
Cyrus 369 at Corcyra 7, 8, 230 n. 58
Cythera 264, 292 Heraclea in Trachis 158, 233
Cyzicus see stasis Heracles 158 n. 66, 224 n. 41
Hermes, temple of 217
Darius 366 Hermocrates 53, 239, 244, 248, 258 n. 114,
Deceleia 259 292, see also speeches
Delos and Delian games 220±3 Herms 226, 305
Delian League 132±3, 343 n. 15, see also Herodotus 233±5, 339, 356 n. 46, 373,
Athenian Empire 377
General index 399
hetairia 61 Melian Dialogue 11, 91, 98, 100±1, 109,
Hippias 213 142 n. 31, 162, 166, 167 n. 84, 169, 195±
Hippocratic corpus see Medicine, ancient 204, 214, 265 n. 123, 272±3, 328, 344,
Homer 337 362
human nature 27±8, 37 Melobius 326
Hysiai 213, 214 Melos 99, 160 n. 70, 210, 212 n. 14, 252,
296 n. 45, see also Melian Dialogue,
Imbrians 157 stasis
intelligence 50±7, 244±8, 253±4 Mende 252, 253, see also stasis
Ionia, Ionians 102 n. 32, 145, 154±61, 221, Messene see stasis
222, 294 n. 40, 350, see also stasis Metapontium 156
Isthmian games 219, 222 Miletus 156, 157, see also stasis
Ithome 150, 356 Minos 334
Molycreium 357 n. 50
Justice (in speeches) 82±103 Mycalessus 210, 214±16, 273, 359, 376
in Corcyra±Corinth debate at Athens Myonessos 213
82±9 Mytilene 210, 213, 222, 223, 230 n. 58, see
in Melian Dialogue 91, 100±1, 196, also speeches, stasis
200±1
in Mytilenian debate 91±100 Naxos 352±4
in other Athenian speeches 90, 101±3 Neapolis 156 n. 61
in Plataean debate 106±9, 114±18 Nemean games 219, 222
in Sparta's speech at Athens 91 Nicias 220 n. 33, 237, 240±4, 256, 257, 263,
Karneia 223±4 266, 305
kinesis 208±9, 210 see also Peace of Nicias, speeches
koinonia 59, 81, 134±5, 137, 138, 188±9, Nicostratus 7
192±3, 375 nomos 34, 59±60, 106, 111±13, 117, 121±2,
211±12, 353, 374
Lampsacus see stasis Notion see stasis
Language in stasis 39±50, 58±9, 81±2,
88±9, 112±13, 145, 185±6, 190 Olympia 132 n. 7, 228
Laodicium 232 Oenoe 322
Lauerion 259 Oenophyta 118, 285
Lebedus see stasis Olympic games 218±19, 222, 224
Lelantine War 338±9, 341±2 Olympieion at Syracuse 227
Lemnians 157 Orchomenus 293
Leontini 159, 160 n. 70, see also stasis Oropus see stasis
Lesbos 132, 133, 137 n. 20, see also Mytilene,
stasis Paches 213, 230 n. 58
Leucas 156 n. 61, 232 Pagondas 226, 294±5
Lichas 146, 304 n. 60, 371 Palairos 290 n. 34
logismos/logizesthai 57, 265±6 Panactum see stasis
logos/ergon 45±57, 198±9, 204, 245, 271, 302, Panathenaea 221, 231 n. 60, 375
303, 306, 309±10, 313 Panhellenism 69±70, 218±24, 371±7, see also
Lycon 367 Herodotus
Lysander 251 n. 103 Panionia 221
Parrhasia see stasis
Macedonia 365, 377 Parmenides 14 n. 10
Mantinea 13, 72, 225 n. 43, 264, 270, Paros 290, see also stasis
290 n. 33, 359 Parthenon 180
Marathon 163 n. 77, 164, 180, 338 Peace of Callias 357 n. 30, 368, 375 n. 91
Medicine, ancient 14±17, 18, 21, 27, 30 Peace of Nicias 210, 230, 255, 263±73, 282,
Megara 229±30, 253, 270, 272, 285, 355, 283, 286±7, 291±3, 300, 328
356, see also stasis Peisander 306±8, 310, 367±8
Megarian Decree 274±5 Peithias 7, 145 n. 40
Melesippus 284 Peisistratus 52, 220
400 General index
Pelargikon 221 n. 36 Sicily 146±7, 169±71, 257±8, 273, 292, see
Pelops 341 also speeches
Pentekontaetia (Thuc. 1.89±118) 77, Sicyon see stasis
231 n. 60, 344±63 Siphae 293
Pericles 51 n. 96, 53, 90 n. 11, 94 n. 19, 189, Sollion 290 n. 34
228, 242 n. 84, 280 n. 12, 321, 328, 375 Sparta
as model of civic virtue 237±40, 244, as ``liberator of Hellas'' 128±32, 145±7
248±9, 254±63 character of Spartans 147±51, 192±4, 204
see also speeches fear of Athens 345±63
Persians 140, 188, 234, 304, 306, 363±71 strategy in Peloponnesian War 124
Persian Wars 106, 107, 121, 135, 164, 190±1, violence 212±13
208±9, 338, 351, 363 see also speeches
Pharnabazos 369, 371 Spartolus see stasis
Phocis 229, 293, 358 speeches
Phormio 357 n. 50 Alcibiades at Sparta 102 n. 33, 162, 258,
Phrynichus 46, 53 n. 100, 146 n. 42, 245±8, 273 n. 139
263, 306, 307, 316 n. 78, 318, 367, Alcibiades in Sicilian debate 101, 256±7,
368 n. 73 261±2, 265 n. 123
Pissouthnes 366±7 Archidamus at Sparta 89 n. 9, 131, 151,
Plataea 9 n. 4, 13, 213, 224, 234, 285±9, see 188, 191, 247 n. 96, 346, 364
also speeches, stasis Athenians at Sparta 90, 161±2, 164±9,
Plato 190±5, 344, 364
on dialectic 198 Brasidas in Thrace 145±6, 157, 163, 252,
on friendship 138±9 296, 297±8, 299±300
on language 43±4 Cleon and Diodotus at Athens 35, 91±
on stasis 31, 68±70 100, 136 n. 16, 150, 165 n. 31, 214, 289,
Pleistoanax 230, 241, 266 290, 305
Polycrates 220, 341, 343 Corcyra and Corinth at Athens 82±9
Poseidon Corinthians' two speeches at Sparta
at Mende 232 112 n. 35, 128±30, 147±53, 155, 193±4,
at Tainaros 230 228±9, 275, 372
Potidaea 160 n. 70, 172, 216, 268, 274, 275, Euphemus at Camarina 102, 143, 145,
277, 279, 286, 287, 300, see also stasis 147, 158±9, 162, 164, 165±9
Prodicus 43 n. 80 Hermocrates at Camarina 46, 102 n. 32,
prophasis 282, 345±6 142, 146±7, 157±8, 162, 171
Protesilaus, temple of 232±3 Hermocrates at Gela 158, 159, 170±1
Pylos and Sphacteria 91, 144, 163, 264, 365 Hermocrates at Syracuse 171
Pythian games 220, 221±2 Mytileneans at Olympia 51 n. 97, 131±
44, 149 n. 77, 218±19, 362 n. 62
Religion 65±7, 109, 217±36 Nicias in Sicilian debate 77 n. 96, 101,
Rhegion 160 n. 70, see also stasis 102 n. 33, 142 n. 31, 241±2, 257, 266±7
Rheneia 220 Pericles' ®rst at Athens 172±8
Rhodes see stasis Pericles' Funeral Oration 64, 98, 141±3,
150, 162, 172±4, 177±86, 260±3
Sallust 36 n. 65 Pericles' third at Athens 97, 172±4, 183,
Salamis 164, 180 185, 186±9, 260±3
Samos 37, 133, 145 n. 40, 213, 247, 248, Plataean Debate 103±26, 131, 165, 190,
292, 305±8, 312±15, 317, 318, 319, 320, 214, 230
322, 357, 368 n. 73 Spartans at Athens 91, 144±5, 190
Scione 212 n. 14, 214, 223, 252, 253, Sthenelaidas at Sparta 91 n. 12, 131, 164,
290 n. 34, 300 n. 51, see also stasis 191, 194±5, 346
Scyros 351 n. 31, 353 see also Melian Dialogue, Thucydides
Scythians 53 n. 99 Sphacteria see Pylos
Selinous 231 n. 60 stasis
Siceliots 156 n. 61 in Abydus 301 n. 53
General index 401
in Acanthus 252, 291 n. 36, 296±8 in Torone 231±2, 291 n. 36, 299±300
in Acarnania 291 n. 36 modern theory of 32¨., 38
in Achaea 273 n. 138, 291 n. 36 see also Thucydides, model of stasis
in Agrigentum 291 n. 36 Sthenelaidas 304 n. 60, see also speeches
in Amphipolis 298±9 Sybota Islands 6
in Anactorium 291 n. 36 Syracuse 149, 360, see also Sicily, speeches,
in Antandrus 291 n. 36, 292 stasis, Olympieion, Apollo
in Antissa 291 n. 36
in Argos 300±1 Tanagra 285
in Athens see Athens Tegea see stasis
in Byzantium 301 n. 53 Thasos 133, 354, 356, 357, see also stasis
in Chios 137 n. 20, 219, 233, 301 n. 53, Thebes 284±8, see also speeches (Plataean
302±3 debate), stasis (in Plataea)
in Clazomenae 301 n. 53 Themistocles 52, 53, 234, 241, 254, 298,
in Cnidos 301 n. 53 303, 348, 349±50
in Corcyra 6±11, 34±5, 37, 46, 66, 72, Thera 273 n. 138
145 n. 40, 153 n. 54, 155, 218 n. 26, Theramenes 53, 317±19
232 n. 61, 275±7, 289, 291 n. 36 Thespiai 106, 293, see also stasis
in Cyzicus 301 n. 53 Theseus 52, 53, 227, 241, 254, 298, 342
in Eion 291 n. 36 Thirty Years Peace 85, 87, 151, 268, 277,
in Epidamnus 9 n. 4, 153 n. 34, 275 279, 281, 285±7
in Erythrai 301 n. 53 Thrace 215±16, 295±300, 365, 376, see also
in Euboea 301 n. 53 Brasidas, speeches (Brasidas), stasis
in Hairai 301 n. 53 (individual cities)
in Ionia 301 n. 53 Thrasybulus 313, 314
in Jerusalem 33, 35 Thrasyllus 230 n. 58, 313, 314
in Lampsacus 301 n. 53 Thucydides
in Lebedus 301 n. 53 compositional layers in History 78, 236±7
in Leontini 12, 291 n. 36 concept of Hellas 371±7
in Lesbos 291 n. 36, 292, 301 n. 53 general in Thrace 298, 299
in Megara 288, 291±2 historical method 13±22, 37±8, 73±6,
in Melos 291 n. 36 216, 269±70, 293, 323±6, 347, 356±63
in Mende 232, 291 n. 36, 300 method of writing speeches 73±6, 162±3,
in Messene 12, 291 n. 36 171±2
in Miletus 301 n. 53 model of stasis 12±72, 137, 209±10, 211,
in Mytilene 9 n. 4, 32, 276, 342 n. 13 215, 239, 246, 255±6, 307, 308±10,
in Notion 9 n. 4, 12, 27, 213, 276, 313 n. 75, 317 n. 80, 318, 327±9, 376
291 n. 36 and passim
in Oropus 301 n. 53 see also language in stasis
in Panactum 291 n. 36 Thurii 375, see also stasis
in Paros 290 n. 33 time 64, 195
in Parrhasia 291 n. 36 Tissaphernes 262, 305±8, 367, 368 n. 73,
in Plataea 103±4, 116±17, 122±3, 125, 370, 371
210, 211, 225 n. 43, 288±9 Tolmides 357
in Potidaea 291 n. 36 Torone 214 n. 18, 252, 253, see also stasis
in Rhegion 12, 291 n. 36 Trojan War 209, 337, 340±1
in Rhodes 301 n. 53
in Rome 36±7 war
in Samos 275, 301 n. 53, 302, 309±10 as ``teacher of violence'' 26±7
in Scione 291 n. 36 relation to stasis 29±30, 67±72
in Sicyon 291 n. 36
in Spartolus 276, 290 Zacynthians 155
in Tegea 291 n. 36 Zeus
in Thasos 301 n. 53, 308 n. 65, 321 n. 85 at Chios 233
in Thespiae 291 n. 36 at Nemea 227
in Thurii 156 n. 61, 291 n. 36 at Olympia 230
Index locorum
Aeschylus (1275b 34±1276b 15) 34 n.61; (1301a) 22

Eum. (525f.) 72 n.138; (976±8) 31; (980¨.) 25 n.29; (1301b 29) 31; (1302a 17±1307b 26)
n.34 32; (1303a 25) 31; (1303b) 298 n.49;
Pers. (349) 315 n.77; (402¨.) 374 (1304a 4¨.) 32 n.54; (1304b 4±5) 245;
Prom. Vinc. (442±68) 335 n.4; (478±506) 335 (1306a) 298 n.49; (1325a 6) 68 n.131;
n.4 (1328a) 377 n.95; (1333b 38) 68 n.131
Sept. (16) 69 n.134 Rhet. (1367a¨.) 42 n.79; (1359b) 173 n.94;
Suppl. (404) 109 n.47 (1369b 12) 25 n.34; (1381a±1382a 139
Alcaeus n.25; (1396a) 173 n.94; (1414b 30) 374
fr. (112,10) 315 n.77; (130, 26) 31 n.51 n.88
Alcmaeon of Croton [Aristotle]
DK 24, (b4) 21; (b28) 19 n.26 Ath. Pol. 323±6; (8.5) 61 n.114; (29±34.1) 324;
Andocides (29.3, 31.1) 315; (30) 319 n.82; (32.1) 324
(3.8) 275 n.1; (3.29) 140, 366 n.71 n.96; (32.3) 324; (34.1) 321; (54.7) 222
Androtion n.39; (56.3) 222 n.39; (62.2) 221 n.37
FGrH 324 (f 39) 277 n.5 Rhet. ad Alex. (1425a) 173 n.94; (1424b37) 134
Appian n.11
BC, (2.50.205) 315 n.77 Aristoxenus
Archilochus (45.1.2) 373 n.86
fr. (38) 68 n.130; (102.1) 373 n.86
Aristophanes Bacchylides
Ach. (266, 890) 277; (515±39) 275 n.1; (646± fr. (24) 31 n.51
51) 266 n.71
Hipp. (478) 366 n.71; (773) 277 Cassius Dio
Lys. (572±86) 374 n.87; (1128±34) 374 n.87 (46.34.5) 36
Nub. (419) 50 n.92 Cratinus
Pax (246±9) 292 n.37; (302f.) 374 n.87; (1.3) 373 n.86
(481±3) 292 n.37; (500±2) 292 n.37; Critias
(606±9) 275 n.1; (1082) 145; (1098) DK 88 (b25) 335 n.4
374 n.87 Ctesias
Thesm. (356±67) 370; (1136±47) 228 n.53 FGrH 688 (f15) 367 n.72
Aristotle
Eth. Eud. (1234b¨.) 139 n.25; (1241b12) 139 Democritus
n.25 DK 68 (b249) 31 n.52, 72 n.138; (b250) 71,
Eth. Nic. (1158b1) 139 n.25; (1159b) 139; 373 n.84; (b252) 62
(1161b8) 139 n.25; (1167b17¨.) 142 n.32 Ep. Phil., (2) 27 n.41
Met. (983b 20¨.) 14 n.9 Diodorus Siculus
Pol. (v) 31; (1252a 31) 343; (1253a) 34 n.61; (11.80) 285 n.22; (12.7) 285; (12.37.2) 283
(1255b 37) 68 n.131; (1256b 23) 68 n.131; n.18; (12.39.4±5) 275 n.1; (12.41.2¨.) 283
(1258a1¨.) 134 n.11; (1260b27¨.) 134 n.18; (12.42.3) 283 n.18; (12.42.5) 221
n.11; (1266b 14) 150; (1270a25) 68 n.131; n.34; (12.59.4) 158 n.66
402
Index locorum 403
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (7.157±62) 373 n.84; (8.3) 170 n.89;
8 n.3 (8.3.1) 31 n.52; (8.10.2) 160 n.71; (8.27)
De Thuc. (29) 39 n.71, 41 n.77, 42; (32.2) 55; 373 n.84; (8.30) 170 n.89, 373 n.84;
(37±8) 196 n.8 (8.32.2) 234 n.65; (8.33) 234 n.65;
Letter to Gn. Pompey (3.2) 377 n.94 (8.35±9) 234 n.66; (8.40) 349 n.24;
(8.41) 234 n.66; (8.44) 160 n.69; (8.55,
Ephorus 135) 234; (8.57) 170 n.89; (8.73) 154
FGrH 70 (f196) 275 n.1 n.55; (8.129) 234 n.65; (8.140±4) 195
Euripides n.1; (8.142±4) 170 n.89; (8.143±4) 315;
Alc. (339) 46 (8.144.2) 71, 374; (9.6±9) 349 n.24; (9.7)
Antiope (fr.32) 49 n.90 373 n.84; (9.8±10) 373 n.84; (9.13.2) 234
Bacch. (266¨.) 49 n.90 n.65; (9.42±3) 234 n.66; (9.65) 234;
Elec. (945±6) 49 n.90; (1351) 109 n.47 (9.101) 234; (9.120) 234; (9.122) 211 n.10
Hec. (800±5) 60 n.110; (1235) 109 n.47 Hesiod
Helen (441±2) 48; (1638) 109 n.47 WD (351) 142 n.32; (528) 373 n.86
Heracl. (965, 1010) 212 Hippocratic Corpus
HF (1403±5) 142 n.32 Aer. 27
Hipp. (297±9) 48; (503±6) 48 n.88; (706±7) Aphor. (1.20) 150 n.48
48 n.88; (1081) 109 n.47 Epid. (1, 3) 16
Ion (1045±7) 142 n.32; (1575±88) 154 n.56, Humor. (6) 150 n.48
160 n.69 Morb. Pop. (2.1.4) 150 n.48
Iph. Aul. (414) 374 n.89; (983¨.) 144 n.39; Morb. Sacr. 14 n.9
(1206) 49 n.90; (1272±5) 374 n.89 Nat. Hom. (4) 22 n.29
Or. (500±1) 109 n.47; (665±9) 142 n.32; VM 19 n.26 (2) 18 n.25; (3) 335 n.4; (9) 14
(901±2) 49 n.90 n.9, 18; (12) 14 n.9, 18; (14, 19) 22 n.29
Phoen. (494±503) 46±7; (531±5) 64 n.119 Homer
Suppl. (312±13) 60; (201±13) 335 n.4; (245) 72 Il. (2.530) 373 n.86; (16.811) 27 n.41; (18.109)
n.138; (247, 299±300) 49 n.90; (311, 68 n.130; (18.497¨.) 62 n.115
526, 671) 374 n.88 Od. (17.218) 138
Tro. (413, 721) 374 n.89; (967±8) 49 n.90
Ion
Gorgias (26.3) 373 n.86
DK 82 (a1) 370 n.77; (b7±8) 370 n.77, 374 Isocrates
n.88 (3.13) 109 n.47; (4.100) 212 n.14; (9.26, 38)
109 n.47; (12.63) 212 n.14; (14.2) 109
Hellanicus n.47; (15.76, 284, 321) 109 n.47; (16.11)
FGrH (323a) 356 n.49 27 n.41
Heraclitus In Soph. (2) 51 n.95
(fr. 80) 68 Paneg. (45) 142±3 n.32; (377 n.95
Herodotus Istros
(1.1.2) 336; (1.56±9) 334 n.3; (1.58) 336; FGrH 334 (f30) 277 n.5
(1.59.3) 31 n.51; (1.60.3) 336; (1.143.3)
161; (1.164) 160 n.71; (1.170.2±3) 160 Josephus
n.71; (2.51.2) 336; (2.143±6) 336; (3.72.2) BJ (5.376±419) 33 n.58; (5.429±30) 30 n.48
50 n.92; (3.82.3) 31 n.51; (3.134.6) 46 Julius Caesar
n.83; (4.142) 160 n.71; (5.28) 30 n.49; BC (1.22.5) 36 n.66; (1.67.3) 36 n.66; (2.29.3)
(5.49.2) 373 n.84; (5.96) 269 n.130; 36 n.66; (3.1.3) 36 n.66; (3.1.4) 36 n.66
(6.9.8.1±2) 208 n.3; (6.12.3) 160 n.71; Ep. ad Cic. (fr. 24) 36 n.66
(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) Lucan
234 n.65; (7.94) 160 n.69; (7.101±4) 373 (1.1) 36 n.65
n.84; (7.132.1) 106 n.40; (7.134) 234 Lucian
n.65; (7.137) 95 n.21, 364; (7.138±9) 170 Salt. (16) 222 n.39
n.89; (7.139) 196; (7.145) 373 n.84; Lysias
(7.145.2) 170 n.89; (7.157) 170 n.89; (9.20) 142 n.32; (10.7) 41 n.77; (13.15) 46 n.83
404 Index locorum
Marcellinus Solon
Thuc. (36) 43 n.80 fr. (4) 31 nn. 51, 52; (4a) 160 n.69; (19±20) 31
n.51
Pausanias Sophocles
(2.9.2) 285; (2.9.3) 285; (2.20.2) 301 n.52; Ant. 48±9; (184¨.) 183 n.110; (332±71) 335
(2.71.1) 285; (4.4.1) 222 n.39; (5.23.4) n.4; (723) 49 n.90; (1045±7) 49 n.90
285 El. (252±3) 48
Philochorus OC (1000±2) 49 n.90; (1234) 31 n.51
FGrH 328 (f 121) 275 n.1; (f 123) 277 n.5; OT (56) 315 n.77
(f 125) 277 n.5 Phil. (925±6) 102 n.32
Pindar Strabo
fr. (109) 31 n.51 (10.485) 222 n.39
Isth. (2.38) 373 n.86; (3.47) 373 n.86
Paean (9, 15) 31 n.51 Tacitus
Pyth. (2.83) 142 n.32 Ann. (4.32) 274
Plato Theognis
Crat. (383a±b, 384d) 43; (391c) 43 n.80; (50±2) 31 n.51; (77±8) 65 n.123; (780±2) 31
(394) 41 n.76; (418a) 41 n.76 n.51; (781) 31 n.52, 373 n.85; (1081±2) 31
Crit. (49c±50a) 102 n.33 n.51
Ep. (vii, 336e) 72 n.136 Thrasymachus
Euthphr. (11e±12e) 109 n.47 DK 85, (b1) 25 n.35, 373 n.84
Gorg. 27 n.42; (507e) 135 n.13; (507e±508a) Thucydides, History
138 n.24 Book 1 (1.1) 207, 333 n.2, 372; (1.1±2) 273
Laws (628b) 72 n.136; (628b±d) 70; (628d) 30 n.139; (1.2) 130 n.5, 179 n.101, 207, 209
n.49; (629d) 70; (630b) 242 n.86; (740a) n.7, 339, 359 n.55; (1.2±2.2) 201 n.11;
69 n.134; (744d) 30 n.49; (804d) 27 (1.3) 333 n.2; (1.7) 176 n.99; (2.1) 335;
n.41; (837b) 138; (869d) 61 (2.2) 176 n.99; (2.4) 146 n.41, 335; (2.6)
Lysis (214b) 138 160 n.69, 179 n.101, 335 n.4; (3) 340;
Menex. (237e) 69; (242b±d) 72 n.136; (242c± (3.1) 176±7, 335; (3.2) 334, 335, 337;
243d) 267±8; (243b) 370 n.77; (243e) 30 (3.3) 176, 179 n.101, 335; (3.4) 335, 336,
n.49 337; (3.7) 176; (4.1) 273 n.139, 334; (5.1)
Meno (71e3) 142 n.32 337, 340; (6.1) 337; (6.2) 179 n.101, 337;
Phaedr. 138; (82a) 243 n.88; (228d) 41 (6.3) 160 n.69; (6.5) 218 n.28, 231 n.60;
n.76 (6.6) 337, 339, 372; (8) 353 n.37; (8.3)
Pol. (262c±e) 70 176 n.99, 353; (8.3±4) 340; (8.4) 336;
Prot. (331a±e) 109 n.47 (8.4¨.) 333; (9.1) 341; (9.1±2) 176; (9.2)
Resp. (vii ) 31; (331e±332a) 142 n.32; (351d) 341, 350; (9.4) 337 n.8, 341; (10.1) 179
135 n.13; (414d±e) 69; (470b) 68±70; n.101; (10.2) 231 n.60, 350; (10.3) 337,
(470b±d) 377 n.95; (470c±471b) 69; 337 n.8; (10.4) 176 n.99, 177; (10.5) 337;
(470d) 30, n.49, 31,70; (539b±d) 198; (10.17) 177; (11) 176; (11.2) 176 n.99;
(539d) 199 n.10; (545d) 31 n.51; (12.1) 337; (12.2) 26 n.39; (12.3±4) 154;
(560d±e) 31 n.52 (12.4) 160 n.69, 338; (13) 176; (13.1) 338;
Symp. (221c) 254 n.106 (13.6) 231 n.60, 341; (14.2) 333 n.2, 338;
Tim. (40b) 69 n.134 (15.1) 338, 350; (15.1±2) 176, 341; (15.2)
Plutarch 333 n.2, 338, 343, 350; (15.3) 338 n.9,
Apopth. Lak. (230c±d) 220 n.32 372; (16) 353; (17) 333 n.2, 338, 342,
Arist. (10) 349 n.24; (21.103) 111 n.52 350; (18±19) 333 n.1, 356 n.47, 358
Cim. (16.4±17.2) 355 n.43 n.53; (18) 353; (18.1±2) 129; (18.1.) 338;
Her. Mal. (864d±867b) 107 (18.2) 118, 177, 349, 350, 351, 352, 356;
Nic. (3.3±8) 220 n.33; (6.7) 214 n.17 (18.2±3) 345; (20.1) 179 n.101; (20.2) 231
Per. (29.4±31.1) 275 n.1 n.60; (21.1) 179 n.101; (21.2) 207; (22)
Sol. (20.1) 61 n.114 73±4, 334; (22.1) 51 n.96; (22.1±2) 281
Pythagoras n.15; (22.2) 13, 19; (22.2±3) 18, 21; (22.4)
DK 58 (b1a) 138 n.23 18, 28 n.45, 63 n.117, 211 n.9; (23) 209,
Index locorum 405
281±2, 359 n.57; (23.1) 333 n.2; (23.1±3) (95.7) 348, 350, 355; (96) 350; (96.1)
207±8; (23.2) 290 n.34; (23.3) 361; (23.4) 350; (96.2) 231 n.60; (97) 349; (97.1) 351;
281; (23.4±6) 281; (23.5) 282; (23.6) 145, (97.2) 354, 356 n.49; (98.1) 353; (98.2)
268, 282, 345, 346; (24) 275, 342 n.13; 353; (98.4) 352; (99) 352; (99.2) 352;
(24±30) 153 n.54; (24.7) 218 n.26, 230 (101.1±2) 354; (102) 355; (102.3) 146 n.41,
n.58, 232 n.61; (25.4) 230; 150, 154 n.57, 355; (103.1) 356 n.49;
(26.3±5) 275; (28±29.1) 87; (29.1, 4) 280; (103.2) 231 n.60; (103.4) 355; (105±8)
(29.3) 232, 280; (30.1) 211; (31.3) 162; 355; (105.2) 356 n.46; (105.3) 356 n.46;
(32±43) 82±9; (32.1) 82±3; (32.1±33.2) (107.2) 154 n.57, 356 n.46, 358 n.52;
143 n.34; (32.5) 185 n.120; (33.2) 88, 142 (107.4) 355 n.43; (107.5) 356 n.46;
n.31; (34.1±2) 84; (35.4) 83; (36.1) 84±5; (108.1) 356 n.46; (109.1) 15 n.16, 356
(36.2) 276; (37±9) 86; (37.1) 86 n.4; n.46; (110.4) 356 n.46; (111±115.1) 355;
(37.2) 86, 88, 142 n.31; (37.3) 250 n.102; (111.1) 356 n.46; (112.1) 355 n.45; (112.2)
(37.4) 86; (37.5) 86, 88, 142 n.31; (38.2) 356 n.46; (112.5) 230 n.57, 231 n.60,
86; (38.4) 86 n.4; (38.5) 86; (39.1) 86; 358; (113) 294 n.41; (113.1) 356 n.46;
(39.3) 86 n.4; (40.1) 86, 87, 97 n.24; (114.1) 355; (115.1) 285, 355 n.45, 356
(40.4) 59 n.109, 87; (40.5) 97 n.24, 164 n.46; (115.2±17) 275; (115.4) 368; (116.1±
n.79, 357 n.50; (41.1) 87, 372; (41.2) 357 2) 133; (118) 347, 356 n.49; (118.1) 233;
n.50; (41.3) 313 n.75; (42) 282; (42.1±2) (118.2) 150 n.49, 347; (118.3) 221, 229;
87; (42.2) 164 n.79; (42.4) 88; (43.2) 87 (119) 151, 152; (120±4) 151; (120.1) 153;
n.7; (43.4) 97 n.24; (44) 90; (44.1) 162; (120.2) 97 n.24; (121) 152; (121.3) 221,
(45.1) 51, 90; 228; (121.4) 152±3; (121.5) 129; (122.2)
(50.2) 359; (53.1) 280; (55.1) 6 n.1, 276; 153; (122.3) 26 n.37, 129; (122.4) 53
(67.2) 164 n.79, 275; (67.4) 275 n.1; n.100; (123.1) 153, 221, 229; (123.2) 89
(68.1) 194; (68.3) 128; (69.1) 128, 142 n.10; (124.1) 129, 153, 155; (124.3) 129;
n.31, 164 n.79; (69.4) 194; (69.5) 46 (125.1) 152, 286; (125.2) 269, 284, 287;
n.85, 129, 164 n.79; (69.6) 194; (70) 193; (126±7) 230; (126±34) 163 n.77; (126.1) 172,
(70.1) 148, 194, 265 n.123; (70.2±9) 148; 275, 282; (126.5) 218 n.28; (128±35) 230;
(70.3) 51 n.97, 112 n.55; (70.6) 61 n.113, (132.2±3) 230 n.57; (138.2) 273 n.139,
183 n.110; (71) 150; (71.3) 89; (71.4) 160 353; (138.2±3) 52; (138.3) 52; (139.1) 275;
n.70, 194; (71.5) 89 n.10; (72.1) 168, 192, (139.2) 230; (139.3) 163, 163 n.76, 172;
354; (73) 168; (73±5) 196; (73±8) 161, (139.4) 53, 172, 241; (140±4) 172, 279;
190±5; (73.1) 183 n.113, 196; (73.2) 129, (140.1) 51 n.96, 53 n.100; (140.2) 287;
161; (73.5) 183 n.113; (74.1) 53 n.100, (140.2±141.1) 175; (140.3±4) 275; (141.2±
168; (74.2) 349 n.24; (75.1) 52, 53 n.100, 143) 175; (141.3) 176±7; (141.6) 146 n.41,
168; (75.3) 167, 195; (75.3±76.2) 165; 175; (141.7) 177; (142.6±9) 152 n.52;
(75.4) 167 n.83; (75.5) 168 n.86, 247 (143.1) 229 n.54; (143.3±5) 175; (143.5)
n.96, 364; 175; (144.2) 287; (144.3) 26 n.37, 172;
(76±7) 196; (76.2) 27 n.42, 90, 183 n.113, (144.4) 162 n.74, 174 n.96; (145) 173,
195, 265 n.123, 344; (76.3) 183 n.113; 279, 287; (145±2.1) 281, 283; (146) 268,
(76.4±77.4) 165; (77.3) 183 n.113; (77.5) 281, 282±3; (238.3) 241;
193; (77.6) 193; (78) 196; (78.1) 193; Book 2 (1) 103, 278±81, 283, 287; (2±5) 111;
(78.4) 192, 287; (79.2) 53 n.99, 89 n.9, (2±6) 224 n.41; (2.1) 231 n.60, 278 n.7;
248 n.97; (80.2) 265 n.123; (82.1) 247 (2.2) 103; (2.2±4) 123; (2.3) 122, 269,
n.96, 364, 368; (84) 151; (84.3) 53 n.100, 284, 287; (3.2) 165 n.80; (4) 201 n.11; (5)
56 n.103; (84.4) 151; (85.2) 89 n.9, 287; 111 n.53; (5.4) 287; (5.5) 287; (5.5±6) 111;
(86.1) 89 n.9, 164; (86.2, 4, 5) 89 n.9; (5.7) 124, 211; (6) 154, 201 n.11; (7±9)
(87.2) 286; (87.2, 4) 89 n.9; (88) 347, 286 n.25; (7.1) 286±7, 364±5, 366, 368;
356 n.49; (89±118.2) 345; (89.2) 348, (8.4) 46, 130; (8.4±5) 296 n.44; (8.5)
356 n.46; (89.3±93) 348; (90.1) 348; 130; (9.2) 273 n.138; (9.4) 273 n.138;
(90.2) 348; (90.3±91.3) 348; (91.1) 348; (9.4±5) 221 n.34; (11.2) 131; (11.7) 265
(92) 348, 350, 355; (93) 348; (93.3) 349; n.123; (12.2) 280 n.12; (12.3) 284; (13)
(93.4) 350; (93.6±7) 350; (95±97.1) 356 172 n.92, 354 n.40; (15) 350; (15±16)
n.46; (95.1) 160 n.69, 350; (95.2) 350; 342; (15.2) 52, 241, 342; (15.2±5) 231
406 Index locorum
Thucydides, History (cont.) 284; (71.2) 131, 230; (71.3) 124 n.77, 142
n.60; (16.2±17.1) 227; (17.1±2) 221 n.36; n.31; (72.1) 111, 124 n.77, 131; (72.3) 124
(20.4) 27, 305 n.61; (21) 283; (21.2±3) n.77; (74.3) 124 n.77;
173; (21.3) 305 n.61; (21) 305 n.61; (22.1) (77.4±5) 359 n.57; (78.2) 124; (79) 276;
172 n.92, 173; (22.11) 173; (79.2) 290; (85.1) 304 n.60; (85.2) 152
(29) 365; (30.1) 290 n.34; (34.1) 359; (34.6) n.52; (85.5) 273 n.138; (87.9) 97 n.24,
52, 53; (35±46) 172; (36) 180; (36.1) 142 142 n.31; (89.2) 97 n.24; (89.6) 265
n.31; (36.3) 182; (36.4) 162, 174, 178±9; n.123; (91.1) 232; (94.1) 360 n.61; (97.4)
(37.1) 142 n.31, 179, 179 n.101, 189, 261; 59 n.109; (97.6) 53 n.99; (102.1) 291
(37.2) 189; (38.1) 150; (39) 181±2; (39.1) n.36
179, 181, 188±9; (39.2) 60 n.111, 179 Book 3 (1±50) 276; (1¨.) 32 n.54; (2.1) 291
n.101; (39.3) 187; (39.4) 181, 183 n.113; n.36, 357 n.50; (2.3) 276, 342 n.13; (3.1)
(40) 182; (40.1) 182 n.109; (40.2) 179, 342 n.13; (3.3) 223; (8) 218; (8.3) 136; (9)
185; (40.2±3) 182 n.109; (40.3) 82, 179, 87 n.6; (9±14) 132; (9.1) 59 n.109; (9.2)
185 n.121, 265 n.123; (40.4) 179; (40.4± 135, 140; (9.3) 136 n.16; (10.1) 92 n.13,
5) 141; (40.5) 142, 143 n.33, 265 n.123; 134, 135, 138, 149 n.47; (10.2±11) 133;
(41) 179 n.101, 182; (41.1) 182; (41.1±3) (10.3) 132, 135; (10.5) 137 n.20; (10.5±6)
179; (41.2) 182; (41.4) 181, 187; (42±3) 133; (11) 351; (11.2) 140; (11.3) 135; (12±
182; (42.1) 174, 179 n.101, 181 n.106; 13.1) 133; (12.1) 51 n.97, 135, 137, 138,
(42.2) 142 n.31, 178±9, 182; (42.3) 98, 185 n.121; (13.1) 132, 136, 357 n.50;
182, 189; (42.4) 183 n.110; (43.1) 142 (13.3±4) 93; (13.3±7) 134; (13.5) 60 n.111;
n.31, 183; (43.1, 3) 97 n.24; (43.4) 184; (13.7) 135; (14) 134; (14.1) 137, 219; (15.2)
(43.5±6) 184; (43.6) 189; (44.1) 178; 137 n.20; (16.2) 137 n.20; (17.1) 359
(44.4) 64, 317 n.80; (45) 178; (45.1, 2) n.56; (18.1) 291 n.36; (19.1) 359 n.56;
142 n.31; (46.1) 142 n.31; (47.3) 16, 359 (20.1) 49 n.91, 124;
n.57; (47.3±54) 16; (47.4) 15 n.16, 359 (26.3) 359; (28.2) 230 n.58; (31.1) 368;
n.57; (47¨.) 186; (48.1±51.3) 17; (48.3) 15 (32.1) 213; (32.2) 145 n.40; (34) 12, 213,
n.14, 15 n.16, 17, 18; (49.3) 16; (49.6) 15 276, 291 n.36, 368; (34.1) 27; (34.2) 368;
n.14, 29; (50) 359 n.57; (50.1) 15 n.16, (36.2) 93 n.17; (36.4) 95 n.20, 216; (36.6)
28 n.45, 29; 94 n.19, 240; (37±48) 92, 289; (37.1) 51
(51.1) 15 n.16, 16, 17 n.20; (51.4) 29; (51.4± n.96; (37.2) 97; (37.4) 53 n.100; (37.5) 53
53) 17; (51.5) 30, 244; (51.5±6) 29 n.47; n.100; (38.1) 25 n.34, 51 n.96, 92 n.13,
(52.2) 359 n.56; (52.3) 29, 227, 236; 96; (38.4±7) 150; (39.1) 92 n.13, 95;
(52.3±4) 29; (52.4) 29 n.47; (53) 29, 30; (39.1±2) 93; (39.2) 35 n.63, 136 n.16;
(53.1) 359 n.57; (53.3) 29 n.47; (54.3) 28 (39.3) 92 n.15, 95; (39.4) 92 n.13; (39.4±
n.45; (54.4) 61 n.113, 221, 233; (57.1) 5, 7±8) 92; (39.5) 27 n.42; (39.6) 92
359; (59.3) 173; (59.5) 53; (60) 260, 261; n.13, 275 n.3, 276 n.3; (39.6±7) 93;
(60±4) 173; (60.2±3) 182 n.109; (60.4) (39.8) 93; (40.1) 93; (40.2) 94 n.18;
242 n.84; (61.1) 186; (61.2) 51 n.96, 186 (40.4) 96±8; (40.5) 92 n.13, 95; (40.6)
n.122; (61.3) 186; (61.4) 97 n.24, 186; 94 n.18; (40.7) 95, 97 n.24; (42.2) 53
(62.1) 174; (62.2) 187; (62.3) 143, 183; n.100; (42.4) 53 n.100; (42.6) 51 n.97;
(62.4±5) 185 n.121; (62.5) 53 n.100, 182 (44.1) 92, 98; (44.2) 92 n.13; (44.3) 92,
n.108, 185 n.121; (63) 186±7; (63.1) 143; 94 n.18; (44.4) 99; (45±6) 92; (45.2) 94;
(63.2) 90, 97, 143, 185; (63.3) 185, 353 (45.3) 27 n.42; (46.2) 93; (46.4) 99;
n.36; (64.3) 143, 187, 188; (64.4) 185; (46.5±6) 93; (46.6) 93; (47) 93; (47.2)
(64.5) 247 n.96; (65) 53, 239±40, 248, 165 n.80, 290; (47.2±3) 276 n.3; (47.3)
305, 323; (65.1) 173; (65.5±8) 238±40; 92 n.13; (47.4, 5) 92 n.13; (47.5) 99;
(65.7) 183 n.110, 239±40, 261, 317 n.80, (48.1) 92 n.13, 94 n.18; (48.2) 98; (49.1)
327; (65.8) 97 n.24; (65.9) 94 n.19, 320, 94; (50.2) 223;
321; (65.11) 258, 317 n.80, 327; (65.12) (52.1) 284 n.21; (52.2) 105, 124 n.77; (52.3)
289, 317 n.80, 327, 369; (67) 188, 364; 105; (53±9) 131; (53±67) 103±25, 289;
(67.1) 368; (67.4) 95 n.21, 212, 213; (68) (53.1) 105; (53.2) 115; (53.4) 106; (54.1)
342 n.13; (68.7±8) 357 n.50; (70) 305 106, 110; (54.2) 106; (54.3) 111; (54.5)
n.61; (70.1) 216; (71) 288; (71.1) 124 n.77, 106, 115; (55.3) 106, 115, 119 n.62, 165;
Index locorum 407
(55.3±4) 108; (55.4) 122; (56.1) 106; 310, 312 n.74, 313 n.75, 318; (83) 59
(56.2) 106, 112, 113, 117, 224 n.41, 287; n.108; (83.1) 14, 58, 65 n.122, 137, 215,
(56.3) 107, 112, 115, 116; (56.4±5) 111; 273, 309, 376; (83.2) 66, 265 n.123, 266,
(56.5) 142 n.31; (56.6) 106, 108; (56.7) 267; (83.3) 25, 310 n.70; (83.3±4) 50±7,
107±8, 142 n.31, 143 n.34; (57.1) 98 55 n.102, 245; (83.4) 182; (84) 8 n.3, 27
n.27, 110, 115; (57.1±4) 107; (57.2) 106 n.43; (85) 55 n.102; (85.2) 7 n.2; (86.2)
n.42, 142 n.31, 230, 273 n.139; (58) 109; 159, 160 n.70; (86.4) 159; (87.1) 15 n.14;
(58.1) 115, 142 n.31; (58.2) 108, 110, 115; (87.1±2) 221; (91) 272 n.137; (92) 154
(58.3) 109, 113, 115; (58.3±5) 230; (58.4) n.57, 158; (93) 158; (94.2) 232; (94.5)
110 n.49, 111 n.52, 224 n.41; (58.5) 107, 216; (94¨.) 273 n.138, 290 n.34; (95±8)
111; (58.5±59.1) 109±10; (59.1) 106, 115; 221; (96.1) 227; (98.3) 15 n.16; (98.4)
(59.2) 110 n.49; (59.3) 110 n.49; (59.4) 359; (100¨.) 290 n.34; (100) 273 n.138;
111; (60) 125; (60.1) 51 n.97; (61.2) 118; (102.2) 357 n.50; (104) 220; (104.3, 4)
(62) 114, 121; (62.2) 120; (62.3) 121; 221; (109.3) 49 n.91; (113.6) 359; (114.1)
(62.5) 118, 121; (63±6) 125; (63.1) 113; 232
(63.2) 118; (63.3) 120; (63.3±4) 115; Book 4 (1.3) 12, 291 n.36; (7) 291 n.36; (10.1)
(63.4) 115; (64.1) 120; (64.1±2) 115; 53 n.100, 265 n.123; (17±20) 91; (17.1)
(64.2±3) 116, 120 n.64; (64.4) 97 n.24, 144; (17.3) 53 n.100; (17.5) 91; (18.4) 91;
98 n.27, 116, 121; (65±66.1) 122; (65.1) (18.5) 53 n.100, 91; (19.1) 144; (19.2, 3)
117 n.59, 224 n.41, 287; (65.2) 104, 116, 142 n.31; (19.2±3) 144; (19.4) 51 n.97;
117 n.59; (65.3) 60 n.111, 103±4, 123 (20.4) 145, 273 n.139, 372; (21.2) 145,
n.70; (66.1) 116; (66.2) 116, 117 n.59; 305 n.61; (21.3) 163; (22.2) 163; (23.1)
(66.2±3) 112; (66.3) 117 n.59; (67.1) 117, 214; (28.5) 265 n.123; (34.1) 175, 186
117 n.61; (67.2) 97 n.24, 115, 164; (67.2± n.122; (40.1) 51 n.97, 175, 359; (41.4) 305
6) 117; (67.5) 105, 112, 117, 117 n.59; n.61; (46±8) 276, 292; (48.5) 72; (49)
(67.5±6) 122; (67.6) 112; (67.7) 26 n.39; 290 n.34, 291 n.36; (50) 292, 364, 368;
(68.1) 124 n.77, 125; (68.1±2) 124 n.73; (50.3) 365;
(68.3) 123 n.72, 232, 288, 292; (68.4) (52) 353 n.36; (52) 276 n.3, 292; (52.3) 291
124; (69.1) 304 n.60; (69.2¨.) 291 n.36; n.36, 292; (53±7) 292; (55.2±4) 150
(70±81.1) 6 n.1; (70±85) 276; (70.1) 6 n.49; (57.4) 214; (58) 170; (58±65) 292;
n.1, 46, 276; (70.3) 145 n.40; (70.4±6) (59±64) 170; (59.1) 170; (59.1) 170; (60.1)
218 n.26; (73) 7; (74.2) 6; (75.2) 208 n.5; 158 n.65, 170; (61.1) 170; (61.2) 158, 170;
(75.3) 232 n.61; (75.5) 7 n.2, 218 n.26, (61.3) 159; (61.5) 27 n.42; (62.3) 142
232 n.61; n.31; (64.1) 313 n.75; (64.3) 158; (64.3±
(79.1) 218 n.26, 232 n.61; (81) 12, 218 n.26, 4) 170; (64.4) 146 n.41; (64.5) 170; (65.1)
232 n.61; (81±2) 12; (81±3) 3; (81.2± 171; (66±74) 291 n.36, 292; (71.1) 296
83.4) 8±11; (81.4) 37; (81.5) 9 n.4, 14, n.44; (73.4) 265 n.123; (74.4) 359 n.56;
62, 215; (82) 60 n.110; (82±3) 67, 289, (75) 276 n.3, 292;
309; (82.1) 12, 125, 208, 215 n.20, 273 (76±7) 225, 291 n.36, 293; (76.4) 208 n.5;
n.139, 290, 312, 359 n.57, 372; (82.1±2) (78.2) 294 n.43; (78.3±5) 294 n.43;
22±6; (82.2) 6, 13, 15, 18, 26, 54, 59, 76, (80.4) 232 n.61; (81) 248±50, 252; (81.1)
227, 236, 258; (82.3) 14, 25, 26 n.37, 65, 296; (81.2) 53 n.100, 250 n.102, 267
77, 89; (82.4) 39±50, 44 n.81, 53±4, 58± n.127, 294; (81.2±3) 249±51; (84±5) 291
9, 113, 141, 310 n.70; (82.4±5) 31 n.52, n.36; (84±88.1) 252, 296; (84.2) 296
32, 61; (82.4±83) 39±72; (82.5) 49, 50, n.44; (85.1) 145 n.40; (85.1, 5) 297;
51 n.94, 54, 57, 62±3, 65 n.122, 185 (85.6) 53 n.100, 297; (86.1) 145 n.40,
n.120, 298, 309, 310 n.70; (82.6) 27 146, 297; (86.2) 297; (86.4) 145 n.40,
n.43, 29 n.47, 59 n.109, 60±1, 65 n.123, 297; (86.5) 142 n.31, 146, 268, 297;
84, 123, 137, 271 n.33, 307, 309; (82.6± (86.6) 297; (87.1) 297; (87.2) 230; (87.2±
8) 59±67; (82.7) 47±8, 54, 55±7, 63, 65, 5) 252, 297; (87.4) 146, 153; (87.5) 297
81, 137, 263, 265±6, 309, 310 n.70; n.47; (88.1) 252, 296, 298; (88.2) 299;
(82.7±8) 22; (82.8) 24, 30, 32, 44, 58, (89) 291 n.36; (89±101.1) 225; (91) 294;
63±4, 66, 72, 104, 117, 218, 239 n.77, (91±2) 291 n.36; (91±93.1) 226; (92) 146
246, 247 n.96, 256, 266, 271 n.133, 272, n.41; (92.2) 265 n.123; (92.4) 294; (92.6)
408 Index locorum
Thucydides, History (cont.) n.60; (37) 285 n.24; (38.2) 136; (38.3)
118; (92.7) 294; (95) 226; (95.3) 180 285 n.24; (39.3) 271, 285 n.24; (41) 231
n.102, 294; (97.2) 226; (97.2±3) 226; n.60; (43) 271; (43.2) 313 n.75; (43.2±3)
(97.2±99) 226; (97.3) 226 n.45; (97.4) 272; (43.3) 255, 256 n.109; (44±6) 271±
226; (98.2, 6±7) 113 n.57; (100) 359 2; (45) 256; (46) 256; (47) 231 n.60; (49±
n.56; 50) 219;
(102±8) 291 n.36, 298; (102.3±4) 357 n.50; (53) 230; (54.2) 231 n.60; (54.3) 223±4;
(103.2±3) 298; (104.4±5) 298; (105.2) (55.3) 231 n.60; (60) 301 n.53; (60.3)
298; (106.1) 298; (108.2) 145 n.40, 251; 359, 359 n.55; (60.6) 230 n.58; (62.2)
(108.3±4) 251, 299; (108.4) 265, 265 291 n.36; (63.4) 304 n.60, 359 n.56;
n.123; (108.5) 252; (108.5±6) 251; (108.6) (64.1) 291 n.36; (64.2) 359 n.56; (65±74)
253±4; (108.7) 250, 253, 304 n.60; 13; (66.2) 359; (68.2) 21; (69.1) 353 n.38;
(109.3±5) 299; (109.5) 252; (110±16) 252, (74.1) 359; (75.2±6) 224;
291 n.36, 300; (110.1) 231±2; (114.3) 145 (76.2) 301; (77) 72; (79) 72; (80.2) 154 n.57;
n.40, 146, 252; (116.1) 214 n.18; (116.2) (80.3) 224; (80¨.) 291 n.36; (81.2) 291
228; (117) 264 n.122; (118) 231 n.60; n.36; (82) 272 n.134; (82.1) 273 n.138,
(118.3±4) 229; (120) 291 n.36, 300 n.51; 291 n.36; (82.2) 224; (82.2±83.3) 301;
(120.3) 145 n.40; (121.1) 145 n.40; (121.2) (83.2) 213; (84.1) 301; (84.2) 269 n.131;
291 n.36, 300; (122.2) 300 n.51; (122.6) (84.3±85) 296 n.44; (85) 196, 202; (85±
214, 253; (123) 300; (123) 291 n.36; 113) 195±204; (86) 100; (87) 167 n.84,
(123.1) 253; (123.2) 51 n.97; (123.4) 214 197, 265 n.123; (89) 101, 162, 169, 200,
n.18; (124) 225 n.43; 202; (89±99) 199±203; (91) 200±1; (93)
(126.2) 142 n.31; (127.2) 51 n.97; (129±30) 201; (94) 201; (95) 201±2, 301 n.53; (96)
291 n.36; (129.1¨.) 300; (129.3) 232, 300 202; (97) 201±2; (98) 202; (99) 201±2;
n.51; (129¨.) 300; (130) 291 n.36; (130.1) (100) 203, 301 n.53;
300; (130.4) 232; (132.3) 250; (133.1) 120 (101) 98, 203; (102) 203; (103) 185 n.121,
n.66; (134.1) 232; (135.1) 253 203; (104) 109, 160 n.70, 203±4; (105)
Book 5 (1) 220, 368; (2) 300; (3.2±6) 300; (3.4) 204; (105.2) 27 n.42, 197, 344; (105.3)
214 n.18; (3.5) 291 n.36; (4) 291 n.36; 142 n.31; (105.4) 91, 142 n.31, 204; (106)
(4.3) 12; (5.1) 12, 140 n.29, 291 n.36; 204; (111.4) 313 n.75; (116.1) 231 n.60,
(8.2) 157; (9.1) 157; (9.9) 353; (10) 225 301; (116.3) 291 n.36; (116.4) 214
n.43; (10.2) 228; (11.1) 253; (14±26) 263± Book 6 (1.4) 170; (3.1) 231 n.60; (6.1) 159; (6.2)
73; (14.1±2) 264; (14.3) 51 n.97, 359; 160 n.70; (8.2) 229 n.56; (8.4) 241; (8.5)
(14.3±4) 264; (14.4) 357 n.50; (14¨.) 264; 147 n.44; (9.1) 146 n.41; (9.2) 51 n.96, 51
(15.1) 265; (16) 253, 304 n.60; (16±17.1) n.97, 242; (10.2±4) 267; (10.5) 101±2;
266; (16.1) 240 n.82, 241, 250; (16.2±3) (11.5) 51 n.97; (11.6) 142 n.31; (12.1) 102;
230; (17.2) 269, 272; (18) 231 n.60; (18.4) (12.2) 102; (15) 256±7; (15.3) 256 n.111;
287; (18.5) 297 n.47; (18.7) 232; (20.1) (15.4) 257; (16) 261; (16±18) 261 n.119;
284, 287; (20.3) 267 n.127; (21.2) 272; (16.2) 218 n.28; (16.4) 102, 261; (17.4)
(22±3) 301 n.53; (22.2) 357 n.50; (22.4) 258 n.114; (18) 261; (18.2) 169 n.87;
313 n.75; (23) 231 n.60; (24.2) 267 n.127; (18.4) 265 n.123; (20.4) 231 n.60; (23.1)
(25) 270; (25.1) 208 n.5; (25.2) 268; 146 n.41;
(25.2±3) 283; (25.3) 268, 269; (27±9) 226; (31) 359; (31.1) 359 n.55; (32.1±
(26) 264±5, 270, 283; (26.1) 267; (26.2) 2) 226; (33±4) 171; (33.1) 171; (34.1) 140
264, 291, 300; (26.4) 221 n.36; (26.5) n.29; (34.3) 208 n.5; (34.4) 171, 265
13±14, 19; (26.6) 283; (27) 270; (27.2) n.123; (34.8) 51 n.97; (36.3) 265 n.123;
145 n.40, 353 n.38; (28) 270; (28.2) 357 (39.1) 53 n.100; (44.3) 227; (46.3) 229
n.50; (29) 270; (29.3) 353 n.38; (30) 270; n.56;
(30.2) 271; (30.2±5) 272; (30.54) 230 (54.5) 52, 247 n.96; (54.6) 59 n.109; (55.1)
n.59; (31) 230, 271, 272; (32) 301 n.53; 273 n.139; (55.4) 231 n.60; (55.6±7) 231
(32.1) 214, 223, 290 n.34, 300 n.51; n.60; (56.2) 231 n.60; (57.1) 231 n.60;
(32.2) 225 n.43; (33) 291 n.36; (34.2) 304 (57.3) 25 n.34; (59.1) 47; (60.1) 273
n.60; (35) 271; (35.2) 268; (35.8) 269; n.139; (61.3) 214 n.18, 227, 301; (64.1)
(36) 271; (36.1) 285 n.24; (36.2) 304 227 n.49; (67¨.) 225 n.43; (68.2) 48
Index locorum 409
n.88; (69) 171; (70.4) 227 n.49; (71.1) 227 (5.5) 367, 371 n.81; (5.7) 301 n.53; (6)
n.49; (72.2) 53; (74) 291 n.36; (75.1) 227, 302 n.55; (6.4) 137 n.20; (7) 302 n.55;
227 n.49; (9±10.1) 219; (9.2±3) 301 n.53; (10) 302
(76±80) 171; (76.2) 146 n.43; (76.4) 147, n.55; (10.1) 301 n.53; (14.1±2) 302 n.55;
171, 193 n.5; (77.1) 146 n.43, 147 n.44, (14.3) 301 n.53; (14.23) 301 n.53; (14.31)
157±8; (78) 171; (78.1) 140 n.29; (78.3) 301 n.53; (15.1) 301 n.53; (15.2) 302
46; (80.2) 158; (82±7) 162, 165±6; (82.1) n.55; (17) 301 n.53; (17.1±2) 302 n.55;
166; (82.2) 102 n.32, 159; (82.3) 102, (17.2) 262 n.120; (18.1) 140 n.28, 371;
167; (82.4) 167; (83.1) 168; (83.2) 166, (19) 302 n.55; (19.2) 233, 367; (19.4) 301
167 n.84, 168 n.86, 247 n.96; (83.4± n.53; (19.24) 301 n.53; (19.63) 301 n.53;
84.1) 166; (85) 102; (85.1) 143; (86.2) (19.73) 301 n.53; (22±4) 302 n.55; (24.3)
102; (86.5) 167 n.84; (87.2) 159; (87.3) 303; (24.4) 303, 321 n.85; (24.5) 303;
122 n.69; (87.3±5) 169; (87.4) 102.167 (24.6) 303; (25±7) 301 n.53; (25.3) 156
n.84; (88.7) 160 n.70; (88.10) 258; (89± n.62, 157; (25.5) 156, 157;
92) 162, 258±61; (89.1) 259; (89.2) 259; (27.1) 248; (27.3) 367; (27.5) 46, 53 n.100,
(89.3) 259; (89.4±6) 260; (90) 259; 245; (28) 302 n.55; (28.2±3) 371 n.81;
(90.3) 273 n.139; (91) 258±9; (91.2) 167 (28.3±4) 367; (28.6) 371 n.81; (30) 302
n.84; (91.5) 269 n.131; (92) 246±7 n.94; n.55; (32) 302 n.55; (34) 302 n.55; (35)
(92.4) 102 n.33, 260±1; (92.5) 259; (93.1) 301 n.53; (35.3) 232; (37.1) 140 n.28;
150 n.49, 258; (95.2) 291 n.36; (99.3) (37.4) 371; (38.3) 303, 303 n.57; (38.3±4)
227; (100.2) 227; 303; (38.3±5) 302 n.55; (39.2) 304 n.60;
(101) 167 n.84; (105.4) 167 n.84; (111.2) 167 (40) 302 n.55; (41.2) 359 n.57; (43.3)
n.84; (111.4) 167 n.84; (132.2) 59 n.109 146; (43.52) 146; (44) 301 n.53; (45) 262
Book 7 (1) 287; (3.3) 227; (3.4) 214 n.18; (4.6) n.120; (46) 188 n.125, 262; (46.3) 146
227 n.49; (5.4) 157; (13.2) 51 n.97; (18.2) n.42; (46.5) 370, 371 n.81; (47.1) 262
124 n.77, 267 n.127, 286, 287; (26.2) n.120, 371 n.81; (47.2±48.1) 305; (48.1)
232; (27.3) 217 n.24; (28.3) 175, 313 n.75; 208 n.5, 305; (48.2) 307 n.63; (48.3)
(29.1±3) 216; (29.3) 215, 217; (29.3±5) 306, 307 n.63; (48.4±5) 246; (48.4±7)
210; (29.5) 15 n.16, 214, 215, 359; (30.3) 306; (48.5) 146 n.42; (48.5±6) 301 n.53;
214, 359; (33.6) 291 n.36; (34.2) 273 (48.6) 122 n.69; (48.64.65) 301 n.53;
n.138; (36) 359 n.56; (36.6) 359 n.56; (48.99) 301 n.53; (49) 306; (50±1) 306;
(37.2±3) 227 n.49; (42.3) 242, 258; (42.6) (50.1) 246; (50.2) 246; (50.3) 247; (50.5)
227 n.49; (44.1) 21, 359 n.56; (46) 291 247;
n.36; (48.3) 242; (48.4) 102 n.33, 242; (51.1) 247, 248; (51.3) 248; (53.1) 307; (53.2)
(50.4) 242; 227; (54.1) 307; (54.3) 248, 368 n.73;
(53.3) 214 n.18; (55.1) 150 n.49; (55.2) 149; (54.3±4) 367; (54.4) 61 n.112, 307; (55.1±
(56.2) 147 n.44, 353 n.36; (57) 156 n.61; 56.1) 302 n.55; (56) 262 n.120, 308;
(57±8) 155; (57.1) 156; (57.1±11) 221 (56.1) 303; (56.2) 371 n.81; (57.2) 265
n.34; (57.2) 157; (57.5) 155; (57.6±7) 155; n.125; (58.7) 371; (60) 301 n.53; (61) 301
(57.7) 155, 353; (57.9) 155; (57.10) 156; n.53, 302 n.55; (62) 301 n.53; (63.1±2)
(57.11) 156; (58) 156 n.61; (58.3) 156 302 n.55; (63.3±4) 308; (64) 301 n.53,
n.61; (68.2) 353; (68.5) 244; (70.4) 359 354 n.42; (64.1) 308 n.65; (64.3) 353
n.56; (70.7) 313 n.75; (71) 21; (71.3) 186 n.36; (64.5) 146 n.42, 306, 321 n.85, 353
n.122, 313 n.75; (71.7) 360 n.61; (73.2) n.36; (65±6) 310 n.71; (65.1) 308 n.65;
224 n.41; (73.3) 265 n.123; (75.7) 360; (65.1±2) 308; (65.2) 61 n.112, 308; (65.3)
(77.2) 102 n.33; (77.2, 3) 247 n.96; (77.4) 308, 308 n.66, 311 n.72, 324; (66) 308,
265 n.123; (77.7) 315 n.77; (85.4) 360; 310; (66.1) 310; (66.2) 310 n.70; (66.2±5)
(86.2) 258 n.115; (86.5) 242±3; (87.5) 308±9; (66.4) 310 n.70; (66.5) 309 n.68,
360; (120) 234; (139.1) 168 n.86; (139.2) 309 n.69, 310 n.70; (67.1) 311; (67.2) 218
160; (144.2) 160 n.26, 311, 325 n.97; (67.3) 311; (68) 53,
Book 8 (1.2) 360 n.61; (1.3) 301 n.53; (1.4) 301 53 n.100; (68.1) 54, 245, 311 n.72; (68.3)
n.53, 321; (2.1) 273 n.138; (2.2) 301; (2.4) 248, 250 n.102; (68.4) 245, 311 n.72, 321
265 n.123, 363; (3.1) 373; (5.1) 301 n.53; n.85; (69±70.1) 326; (69.1) 311; (69.4)
(5.2) 301 n.53; (5.4) 301 n.53, 302 n.55; 311; (70) 218 n.26; (70.1) 311; (70.2) 312,
410 Index locorum
Thucydides, History (cont.) Tullius Cicero
316; (71) 312; (71.3) 312; (72) 312; (72.1) Fam. (4.7.2) 60 n.110; (4.8.2) 36; (4.9.3) 25
323 n.91, 324; (74) 316; (75±6) 314 n.76; n.35; (4.11.1) 61 n.113; (7.4) 37 (7.5) 61
(75.1) 312, 314 n.76; (75.2) 314, 314 n.76; n.113; (9.3) 37
(75.2±3) 314 n.76; Tyrtaeus
(76.1) 313, 314 n.76; (76.2±7) 314 n.76; (11.27) 27 n.41
(76.3±7) 313; (80) 301 n.53; (81) 262
n.120; (84.3) 230 n.58; (86) 37; (86.3) Xenophanes
312, 324; (86.4) 315; (86.5) 314; (86.6) DK 21 (b18) 335 n.4; (b34) 19 n.26
324; (87.4) 371 n.81; (87.4±5) 370 n.77; Xenophon
(88) 262 n.120; (89) 316, 317; (89±97) Cyrop. (7.5.73) 211 n.10
316±17; (89.2) 317, 324; (89.3) 317, 321; Hellen (2.1.31±2) 289; (2.2.3) 212 n.14
(90.1±2) 248; (90.2) 316; (90.3) 318; HG (2.2.19±23) 363
(90.5) 318; (91.3) 318; (92±3) 302 n.55; Mem. (2.4±6) 142 n.32; (2.6.5) 142 n.32;
(92.2) 248, 318 n.81; (92.4) 307 n.63; (2.6.35) 142 n.32; (3.1.5) 27 n.41; (3.3.12)
(92.4±5) 318; (92.7±8) 319; (92.9±10) 222 n.39; (3.7.9) 183 n.110; (4.2.15) 211
319; (92.11) 322, 324; (93±94.1) 218 n.10
n.26; (93.2) 324; (94±5) 319; (94.3) 67
n.127; (96) 150; (96.1) 302, 360 n.61; Inscriptions
(96.1±3) 319; (96.5) 15 n.16, 148±9, 151; ML (38) 140 n.28; (68) 273 n.138; (69) 273
(97.1) 319, 320; (97.1±2) 324; (97.2) 22, n.138; (70) 140, 366 n.71; (73) 222 n.39;
320, 322, 359 n.56; (97.3) 322; (98.1±3) (77) 367 n.72; (85) 316 n.78, 318 n.81;
322; (98.4) 322; (100) 154 n.57; (100.2) (89) 156 n.61; (196) 229 n.55
302 n.55; CIA (2.814, 1217, 1319) 222 n.39
(101) 302 n.55; (102.3) 233; (106.3) 302 IG (i3 76) 140 n.29; (i3 86) 272 n.134; (ii 2 213)
n.55; (107) 301 n.53; (108.4) 223; (109.3) 140
234; (144.2) 189, 233, 372

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THUCYDIDES AND INTERNAL WAR

j o n a t h a n p r i c e is Associate Professor of Classics and

  

© Jonathan J. Price 2004

First published in printed format 2001

ISBN 0-511-04088-1 eBook (netLibrary)

part i: the model of stasis 1

part ii: logoi 79

3 Hellenic states rede®ne the community of Hellas 127

4 The failure of communication 190

6 The Peloponnesian War and stasis 274

part iv: thucydides and hellas 331

List of works cited 378

The commentaries by Gomme (and his successors) and by Horn-

This book is an interpretation of one of the great works of western

11 Hankinson 1992. Major discussions of the intellectual in¯uences, particularly medi-

17 Weidauer 1954; Parry 1969.

Alcmaeon goes on to explain that the imbalance can arise from

the genesis and effects of stasis

44 Young-Bruehl 1984, 5±8.

the problem of stasis

54 Ar. Pol. 1304a 4¨., Thuc. 3.1¨.

62 Loraux 1991, 49.

64 Eckstein 1992, 306.

the pathology of stasis

73 Or ``abandonment of party'' (a potrophÂ)?

Logos and ergon

The disappearance of intelligence

99 Curiously, the Scythians are also praised for intelligence (2.97.6).

103 Or ``unlearned,'' ``boorish,'' behaving in society as an educated and cultured person

Convention and society (3.82.6±8)

107 And see Ostwald 1988.

121 Above, n. 34.

stasis and polemos

stasis and the peloponnesian war

144 Contra Plant 1988.

145 HCT i, 233.

An obligatory caution. The thesis of the next six chapters concerns

The transvaluation of words

In the last chapter we identi®ed and examined three species of

4 a dikeiÄ n, adiÂ khma, 1.37.1, 2, 4 (bis), 38.4, 39.3 (bis).

9 1.85.2 (Archidamus); 1.86.1, 2, 4, 5 (Sthenelaidas); 1.87.2, 4, cf. 79.2 (the vote).

11 Surprisingly no conception of justice, conventional or otherwise, emerges in Pericles'

16 de Ste. Croix 1954 set the terms of the modern debate.

Cleon's equation of expediency and justice is precisely repeated

Cleon's combination of justice and expediency to the direct ad-

stasis and rhetoric in boeotia

34 See CT i, 240, 241.

48 See Ostwald 1986, 105±6 for the interpretation of noÂ mima.

52 Surely it is an important argument against the historicity of the so-called ``Covenant of

59 And note the shower of a½rmations of Plataean law-breaking, after paranoÂmwv in

Disruption of shared values implies disruption of the community.

63 Macleod 1977, 240; Chapter 3 below.

This is an over-elaborate way, perhaps, of showing the Spartan

73 3.68.1±2 is clearly a pretext: it does not explain the original attack.

A distance of 2,500 years frees today's reader from the visceral

Hellenic states rede®ne the community of Hellas

It is a banal fact that political leaders of nations ®ghting wars

Sparta is said to have a reputation for virtue because of its libera-

Friendship and its corruptions

We are also di¨erent from most others in regard to virtue (goodness:

Pericles, like the Mytilenians, associates friendship with arethÂ

73 Or ``abandonment of party'' (a potrophÂ)?

4 a dikeiÄ n, adiÂ khma, 1.37.1, 2, 4 (bis), 38.4, 39.3 (bis).

Pericles, like the Mytilenians, associates friendship with arethÂ

53 Reading with Stuart Jones tautaÂ instead of tauÄta.

27 If te e v PlaÂ taian h lqon QhbaiÄ oi e n spondaiÄ v kaiÂ is not an interpolation.