Greek Historiography

by Thomas F Scanlon

  if the city of the Lacedaemonians were deserted and the shrines and

  foundations of buildings preserved, I think that after the passage of considerable time there would eventually be widespread doubt that their power measured up to their reputation … but if the Athenians were to suffer the same fate their power would be estimated, from the city’s pure appearance, as twice what it is. (Th. 1.10.1–2)

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  The complex comparison is aimed at assessing the power of Mycenae by

  viewing that of present Sparta against its hypothetical future ruins, present Athens against its future self, and the two states against each other – all serving the purpose of setting up the major powers in the current war and suggesting, by implication, that both are superior to a much earlier

  Mycenae. The second half of this section (Th. 1.13–19) discusses sequentially the rise of tyrants and the nature of their rule (Th. 1.13 and 17–18), the origin of trireme navies (Th. 1.14), the Persian navy in Ionia (Th.

  1.16), and Sparta versus Athens in alliances conducted either through

  oligarchies or through the appropriation of others’ navies (Th. 1.19).

  Obviously the digression is sharply honed to discuss the real bases of

  military might, which arises from capital resources and the extension of power by navies. It is also a model of sorting oral, literary, and material evidence by probability and human motives.

  This leads to a consideration of the difficulty in ascertaining the truth of events in the present as well as in the distant past. Three crucial chapters discuss historical method, an excursus of a kind wholly alien to

  Herodotus: “men accept one another’s accounts of the past, even about

  their native countries, with a uniform lack of examination” (Th. 1.20).

  Thucydides directly questions the accounts of the past as recounted by

  poets and prose chroniclers (“logographers,” possibly including speech

  writers who allude to the past), especially since their truth claims cannot be verified and are distorted by patriotic fiction (Th. 1.21). The careful analysis of his own method has been discussed above, but we note how

  radically innovative it was for him to offer such a self‐conscious evaluation as a paradigm of caution in writing history. The prize for such painstaking research is, he claims, the “plain truth,” which proves useful for analysis of future events (Romilly 2005; Grethlein 2004). The famous chapter on

  methodology (Th. 1.22) has been described above, in the discussions of

  speeches and the utility of the work for future: “a possession for all time,”

  as the historian describes his work.

  The coda to the proem is the chapter on the causes of the war

  (Th. 1.23), which circles back to the first chapter (Th. 1.1) and pointedly deflates the greatness of the Persian Wars (“a quick resolution in two battles on sea and two on land”), but also underlines the unprecedented greatness of suffering in the present war (cities desolated, men exiled and slaughtered). The chapter ends with a summary of the motives expounded later in Book 1, namely that the war was caused by both sides breaking the Thirty Years Truce, and that the “truest cause [is] the one least openly expressed, that increasing Athenian greatness and the resulting fear among the Lacedaemonians made going to war inevitable”

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  (Th. 1.23). The analysis reveals the fundamental human motivations of

  acquisitiveness and fear.

  The first narrative relates the incidents at Corcyra and Potidaea, where Athenian intervention caused an immediate backlash among the

  Peloponnesians (Th. 1.24–65). When pro‐Spartan Corinth fell into

  conflict with its former colony Corcyra in northwest Greece, both came

  to Athens in 433 bc to ask respectively that the Athenians remain neutral or come to Corcyra’s aid (1.32–43). Corcyra has conceived a “hatred” of Corinth due to envy of the latter’s being wealthier in resources and more powerful in its army and navy, all terms relating exactly to the “archaeology”

  and rooted in emotion (Kallet‐Marx 1993: 71–2). Corcyra appeals to

  expediency and Corinth more to justice, but one has the sense that justice is less at issue and the “amorality of interstate relations” constitutes the

  “background against which Thucydides’ emotional and principled atti-

  tudes stand out” (Crane 1998: 108; see also Morrison 2006b: 25–43).

  Athens, out of its own interest in keeping open the route to Italy and

  Sicily, gave limited assistance to Corcyra (Th. 1.44). An engagement of navies at Sybota is inconclusive – both sides set up trophies (Th.

  1.52–4).

  After Corinth encourages a revolt around Potidaea, which results in

  a siege of the city by the Athenian navy (Th. 1.56–65), Sparta, in 432

  bc, calls an assembly of those who suffered from Athenian aggression

  (Th. 1.66–7). Two pairs of speeches (a “tetralogy”) illustrate the key

  issues from the perspectives of the Corinthians, the Athenians, the

  Spartan king Archidamus, and a Spartan ephor, Sthenelaïdas (Th. 1.66–

  87). The Corinthians frame the inevitability of the conflict as a clash of city‐state character, Athenian impulsive aggression and Spartan hesitation (Th. 1.70). They seek to frighten Sparta to wage war, while the

  Athenians urge restraint from war as the command of the league is

  deserved and humanly justifiable as an opportunity any city would take.

  The Athenians’ famous formulation of the “law” of empire, discussed

  above, is enunciated here, stealthily conveying their great might in

  arguments claiming justification (Th. 1.76). Archidamus advises

  restraint, building resources and following the Spartan virtue of moderation, as epitomized by the following:

  Through our orderliness we are rendered both warlike and wise; the former, because a sense of respect is the greater part of moderation, and courage is the greatest part of respect; and wise because we are educated with too little learning to despise the laws and too sensibly, though our strictness, to disobey them. (Th. 1.84)

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  Sthenilaïdas appeals rather to the bellicose side of the Spartan spirit and its disdain for complex rhetoric; an emotional appeal to avenge the

  Spartans’ allies is his primary argument, blindly ignoring the problems of resources and allied support (Th. 1.86). The crucial tetralogy lays out motivations on all sides. Corinth describes the dilemma of a “hot”

  aggressor and a “cold” opponent; Athens justifies its claim to power on the basis of just actions in the past (against Persia) and human nature.

  And Sparta performs its problematic identity, illustrating how, despite the measured advice of the king, the emotions of the polemical hothead

  win out. The vote was taken with public claims that Athens broke the

  treaty, but with the truer cause of Spartan fear of Athenian power (Th.

  1.88, echoing 1.22) (Crane 1998: 196–236; Immerwahr 1973;

  Raubitschek 1973).

  This momentous event is marked off by the “ring composition” of

  narratives related to the building of empire and interstate tensions,

  which begin and end with stories related to Themistocles and Pausanias, namely (1) Themistocles’ stealthy scheme to fortify Athens and the

  Spartan Pausanias’ missteps in being overbearing to other Greeks,

  which led to the Greeks’ request that Athens lead the Delian League

  (87–97); and (2) the dramatic and ironic endings for those two great

  leaders (Th. 1.128–38). In between these is positioned a lengthy

  digression, the “fifty years” ( pente ̄ tkontaetia), which “flashes back”
to the period between the end of the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian

  War (Th. 1.97–118), an era of tremendous Athenian aggression, sum-

  marized at the end:

  In this period the Athenians both made control over their empire [ arche ̄]

  more secure and made great advances in their power [ dunamis] …

  [the Spartans] did not oppose it except in limited ways and remained inactive most of the time, slow as in the past to go to war. (Th. 1.118)

  The digression details in rapid succession the events by which the

  Athenians secured allies, punished those who tried to withdraw from

  the league (punishments in violation of the agreement), fought the

  Spartans and their allies, and eventually agreed to a thirty‐year peace in 446 bc (1.115). The unstable “peace” was the background for the tensions at the time when the formal present war was declared.

  At a conference in Sparta in 432 bc, the Corinthians urge Sparta and

  its allies to go to war against Athens and sketch optimistic plans for

  finances and strategies for the campaigns (Th. 1.119–24). The Corinthians offer a specious argument: “The power of the Athenians is more purchased

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  than homegrown, but ours would be less vulnerable there because of

  being based on manpower instead of money” (Th. 1.121). Yes, Athenian

  might relies on the expenses of building and maintaining ships and, where needed, hiring non‐native sailors (Kallet‐Marx 1993: 89–91), but the

  Peloponnesians’ claim of being “homegrown” is answered by Pericles’

  speech (Th. 1.143).

  The Peloponnesian allies vote to declare war, but a year intervenes in

  which preparations are made and embassies are sent. There follow the

  concluding ring stories of Pausanias and Themistocles, a section highly reminiscent of Herodotean storytelling, not least for its focus on the

  personally tragic stories of leaders. The digression is preceded by

  describing how each side asks the other to drive out a sacred curse of the past, one involving the death of the Athenian Cylon on the Athenian

  acropolis (Th. 1.126), the other about the Spartan Pausanias in a

  Spartan sanctuary. The narrative flows to the story of Pausanias and his suspected treachery (Th. 1.128–34), then to the Athenian Themistocles

  and his similar ties to Persia, ending with the latter’s refuge at the court of Xerxes (Th. 1.135–8). The greater “ring” involves the ethnicity of

  the leaders (Athenian–Spartan–Athenian) and seems deliberately to lead

  to the first major appearance of the Athenian general Pericles, whose

  intelligence is comparable to that of Themistocles (1.139–45). Pericles’

  speech lays out his initial strategy of heavier reliance on naval power, and in essence is a response at a distance to the Corinthian speech just before (Connor 1984: 49–50). He also invokes the martial spirit of the

  Persian Wars to underscore his confidence in the present power of

  Athens, though this ironically contrasts with the less noble conflict

  among fellow Greeks:

  Remember that it was our fathers, standing against the Medes … more by

  policies than by fortune, with greater daring than might [ dunamis], who drove out the barbarian and advanced our power to its present level

  (Th. 1.144).

  Book 1 has arguably the most complex structure in the History, and close analysis is required to trace the principles of the author’s method and criteria: prehistory and the growth of resources and power, the care taken in establishing factual content, the proximate conflicts triggering the war, conferences and debates before the decision to act, and lengthy exegesis of the fifty years that bridge the Persian War with this one. In effect this book is equivalent to the “preliminaries” and causal chain presented by Herodotus in his Books 1 to 5.

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  Book 2

  The famous narrative of the first two years of the war (431–429 bc) in

  Book 2 presents the beginning and end of the generalships of Archidamus (Th. 2.10–21, 71–5; 3.1) and Pericles (Th. 2.7–65), ending, in a sense, the acme of both city‐states before the decline presented in later books.

  The highpoints of this section, in style and thematic content, are in the center: the funeral oration of Pericles, the Plague at Athens, and Pericles’

  third speech. Vivid battle narratives occupy the beginning and the end, with a Theban attack of Plataea (Th. 2.1–6), a series of reports of events in Persia, Argos, the Gulf of Krisa and Potidaia (Th. 2.66–70), a later Peloponnesian siege to take Plataea (Th. 2.71–8), a naval encounter

  between Peloponnesian and Athenian forces in Western Greece culmi-

  nating in an Athenian victory at Naupactus (Th. 2.80–92, 102–3), an

  aborted attempt to take the Piraeus (Th. 2.93–4), and fighting on

  the “fringe” between Macedonia and Thrace (Th. 2.95–101). Even the

  descriptions of strategy, exhortations, and decisions in battle reveal

  aspects of effective and inferior thinking by leaders (Stahl 2003: 75–101; Watts‐Tobin 2000).

  The Theban attack offers a set piece on human weaknesses, including

  the traitorous ambition of a pro‐oligarchic Plataean who secretly lets the Thebans in the gates for the sake of his own personal power ( dunamis: Th. 2.2) and the intense emotionality of the besieged (fear: Th. 2.3; disorder: Th. 2.4). When 180 Plataeans are executed, we are presented with a situation, repeated often in the work, of discrepancy between plan and execution, chance and strategy, deception and miscalculation. It is a

  striking rupture of peace, marked by the brutality and inexperience of

  combatants. It also foreshadows a greater episode in the Theban–Plataean conflict (3.52–68).

  After a statement summarizing Peloponnesian enthusiasm for seeking

  the “liberation of Hellas” from Athens, Archidamus gathers allies at the Isthmus and exhorts a strategy of burning fields to provoke anger and

  mistakes in Athens: “For everything is uncertain in war and attacks usually come at short notice, out of passion [ orge ̄] … For anger [ orge ̄] comes over me on seeing all of a sudden, before their eyes, that they are suffering something unaccustomed, and those who least employ calculation are

  driven into action by passion” (Th. 2.11); later this is called Archidamus’

  “plan” ( gno ̄ me ̄) (Th. 2.20). Pericles’ counterplan is for those in the countryside to abandon their homes and crowd inside the city walls, and to remain optimistic in view of the revenue from allies (Th. 2.13).

  The people comply, and are first disconsolate, then angry at Pericles

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  (Th. 2.16, 21). He is confident in his plan but prudently avoids calling an assembly “lest they make mistakes by coming together in a passionate

  [state] [ orge ̄] rather than in reasonable state ( gno ̄ me ̄)” (Th. 2.22, adapted).

  Human emotion is a strategic pawn of both leaders. After a series of

  Athenian naval raids, the end of the first years of the conflict is marked by burial of the dead and Pericles’ funeral oration (Th. 2.35–46).

  This monumental speech, compared by some in its magnificence to the

  sculptural frieze of citizens on the Parthenon, serves many functions that resonate with themes of the historian, including the vision of the leader, the strengths of the city, a commentary on the achievement of the fallen, a challenge to the survivors, and a counterpoint to the next section, on the Plague (Parthenon parallel: Hornblower 1991: 295, 312). The oration is prefaced by a remark about the difficulty of giving such addresses and praise of the ancestors, after which a core of pure praise comes in three parts: prais
e of the ethos of the state (ch. 37), appreciation of Athenian lifestyle and culture (chs. 38–9), and description of aspects of character ( tropoi) that gave rise to the Athenians’ power (chs. 40–1).

  Finally come the sections praising the dead (ch. 42), exhorting fellow citizens (ch. 43), comforting the parents (ch. 44), and challenging the

  brothers and children of the fallen (ch. 45); and a summarizing farewell (ch. 46). We ultimately cannot say whether this speech is typical of the genre of similar addresses, nor the extent to which it reflects actual

  Periclean rhetoric or that of Thucydides, though it is likely a blend of both, especially for such a public event, at which many contemporary witnesses were present. In any case, the speech captures the spirit of Athens at its acme, as the historian deemed it worthy of presentation. One motif of the speech is the liberal spirit of the democracy, by which men are not compelled to act: service is given according to merit, military training is done in a more relaxed manner, and beauty is appreciated with economy

  in daily life (Th. 2.37–40). All of these qualities are in implicit contrast to Sparta and its more compulsory systems of education, training, and

  service, a contrast therefore carrying on the polarity established in Book 1; for example the mention of things “not hidden” ( me ̄ kruphthen) in Athens alludes to the more secretive system of Sparta and its “secret service”

  ( krupteia). But later events and the present context require readers not to accept the Periclean ideal as the whole truth, again like the Parthenon sculptures, but to see the extended treatment here as one politician’s

  image in a stream of grimmer realities.

  Continuing the power theme from Book 1, the winning of empire and

  the fame of this acme of achievement also resonate through the piece:

  “[our fathers] acquired through great effort the whole of the empire we

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  now rule and left it to us in the present generation” (Th. 2.36). We noted above the passage in which Athens is called “the education of Hellas” to which the very “power” ( dunamis) of the city attests, a power by which

  “we have compelled every sea and land to become open to our daring”