[[82]]
CHAPTER VI
THE LUCK OF PYLOS
The first episode in the History which presents features apparently
inexplicable on the supposition that Thucydides is working on his avowed plan,
and certainly not fully explained by any hypothesis yet advanced by modern
criticism, is the story of the occupation of Pylos. We shall first give an
outline of the narrative, in which we shall merely summarize or abbreviate,
refraining, with all the Thucydidean caution we can muster, from throwing any
colour over it. We shall include those parts of the story in which the
unexplained factor is evidently at work, excluding details which present no
difficulty. A few introductory words are necessary to describe the situation
which immediately precedes our episode.
The History has reached the opening of the seventh year of war (B.C. 425). In
consequence of the check which the Peloponnesian arms had suffered in
Acarnania, following upon the failure of Demosthenes' daring plan of campaign
in the same region, a lull had fallen. The first heat of conflict was over; at
Athens, as at Sparta, discouragement had strengthened the party of peace. Year
by year the suffering peasants must crowd into the plague-stricken city, when
word came that the irresistible army of invasion was mustering at the Isthmus;
and year by year trudge sadly back to find the seared vestiges of ruin in
trampled cornfield, in uptorn vine and olive, and blackened homestead. In the
early summer evenings, when the invader had crossed the pass above Acharnae,
knots of ragged and dejected figures would gather on the northward slopes of
the Acropolis, and
[[83]]
you might have heard husky voices debating whose farm was that, which
was marked by the ugly red glow, yonder, on the foot-hills of Parnes. The
Acharnians of Aristophanes was produced at the Lenaean Festival in
February of this year. The poet's genial sense of the clean healthfulness and
beauty of life on the country farms in happier days had enforced the strong
sanity of his appeal. He attempted to turn the current of blind exasperation
against the invader into the channels that made for peace. It is no good, he
told the poor fellows, to grind your teeth at the wicked Spartans; the thing to
do is to stop the war. Some of the real Acharnians must have been convinced;
for the good Nikias and his friends were returned in some force at the
elections in April. True, the war-party had insisted that the operations in
Sicily must be seen through, and forty ships were sent to relieve the small
squadron already in the western seas. But Sicily was far away; and it was
understood that this expedition was to `put an end to the war in that region',
and to give the fleet the benefits of exercise'. (note 1) From this point we
will take up the text of the narrative and follow it closely with just the
necessary abbreviation. (note 2) We shall draw attention in the notes to
certain expressions which the reader is asked to bear in mind.
The fleet sailed for Sicily under the command of Eurymedon and
Sophocles, with orders to put in by the way at Corcyra, where the democratic
and philathenian party who held the capital were reduced nearly to starvation
by the depredations of the exiles ensconced on Mount Istone. With the fleet
went Demosthenes, who `though since his retreat from Acarnania he held no
official command, (note 3) was at his own request instructed to make use of the
fleet, if he so wished, about the coasts of the Peloponnese'.
As the squadron rounded the southern promontory of
[1. iii. 115. 4. [2. iv. 2 ff: The passages within inverted commas
are translated without abbreviation or addition.
[3. He was general elect,
but would not enter on office for some months.]
[[84]]
Messenia, news came that a Peloponnesian fleet had stolen a march on
them and was already at Corcyra. Eurymedon and Sophocles were anxious to push
on. Demosthenes, however, `urged them to put in first at Pylos and do what was
necessary before proceeding on their voyage. The generals objected, but it so
chanced that a storm came on which drove the fleet into Pylos. (note 1)
Demosthenes began at once to urge that the position should be fortified; this,
he said, was the object he had had in view when he accompanied the fleet. He
pointed out that there was great abundance of timber and stones, and that the
position was naturally strong, while the country for a considerable distance
round was, like the place itself, uninhabited. Pylos is about forty-six miles
from Sparta, and lies in the land which was formerly Messenia; it is Dow called
Koryphasiurn by the Lacedaemonians. The generals replied that there were plenty
of desert promontories round the Peloponnese, which Demosthenes might occupy if
he wanted the public money to be wasted. But Demosthenes thought that this
particular spot bad special advantages. There was a harbour at hand, (note 2)
and the Messenians, whose ancient home this had been and who spoke the same
dialect as the Lacedaemonians, could do them much harm from such a base; and
further they would be a trusty garrison.`The generals would not
listen to him; no more would the soldiers, when he proceeded to impart his plan
to the officers. Hence, the weather being unfit for sailing, he was compelled
to remain idle; until the soldiers themselves, having nothing to
[1. iv. 3. 1 éntilegÒntvn dcents katå tÊxhn
xeim[[Delta]]n [[section]]pigenÒmenow katÆnegke tåw
[[section]]w tØn PÁlon. The large and deep bay of Navarino is
partly closed by the narrow island of Sphacteria which lies, with a length of
243 miles, along its mouth, leaving a narrow channel to the north, and a wider
to the south. The north channel is dominated on its further side by the
deserted peninsula of Pylos, the circumference of which is naturally defended
by inaccessible cliffs except for a small distance at the north end (where a
sandy isthmus joins it to the mainland), and for a somewhat longer extent on
its south and south-west shores. [2. The anchorage was close to Pylos at
the north-west corner of what is now the lagoon of Osmyn Aga. At this date the
lagoon was navigable and formed an inner chamber north of Havarino Bay, and
partly cut off from it by a sandspit.]
[[85]]
do, were seized with an impulse (note 1) to fortify the position. So
they set about the work; and, being unprovided with iron tools for
stone-cutting, they brought rocks which they picked out and put together as
they happened to fit. Where mortar was required, for want of buckets, they
carried the mud on their backs, bending double to form a resting-place for it,
and locking their hands behind, to keep it from falling off. By every means in
their power they hurried on, so as to complete the parts most open to attack,
before the Lacedaemonians should arrive, the position being in most places so
strong already that no wall was needed. The Lacedaemonians were just then
celebrating a festival (note 2); and, besides, when they heard the news they
made light of it, thinking that, when they did go out, they could easily take
the place by assault, even supposing the Athenians would wait to meet them.
They were also somewhat delayed by their army being still in Attica. In six
days the Athenians finished the fortification on the land aide and at other
points where it was most required. They then left Demosthenes with live ships
to defend it, while the greater part of the fleet hastened on their voyage to
Corcyra and Sicily.' (note 3)`The Peloponnesian army in Attica,
on hearing of the occupation of Pylos, retreated homewards in haste; for the
Lacedaemonians, and especially King Agis, saw that this occupation touched them
closely; and further, the invasion having been made early, while the crops were
still green, they were running short of provisions for the soldiery, and bad
weather had come on with a severity unusual at that season, and distressed the
expedition. Thus many things coincided to hasten their retreat and to make this
invasion very short. They had stayed in Attica only a fortnight.'
When the army reached home, the Spartiates raised the country-side and started
to the rescue of Pylos. The rest of
[1. iv. 4. 1 irmØ [[section]]ndeg.pese peristçsin
[[section]]kteix[[currency]]sai tÚ xvr[[currency]]on. We omit
peristçsin, the meaning of which is doubtful. [2. iv. 5. 1
*ortÆn tina [[paragraph]]tuxon êgontew. ÖEtuxon denotes the
coincidence of two events with the implication that the coincidence was
undesigned, or accidental. Often this implication is not felt at
all.]
[3. iv. 5. 2 ta>w dcents ple[[currency]]osi naus< tÚn
[[section]]w tØn Kdeg.rkuran ploËn ka< Sikel[[currency]]an
+/-pe[[currency]]gonto.]
[[86]]
the Lacedaemonians were slower to move: having but just returned from
another expedition. They sent round a summons to their allies in all quarters,
and recalled their fleet from Corcyra. It `reached Pylos, unperceived by the
Athenian fleet at Zakynthos'. (note 1) On their approach Demosthenes sent two
of his five ships to summon `Eurymedon and the Athenians in the fleet at
Zakynthos' to come to him, as Pylos was in danger. They came in all haste. The
Lacedaemonians were preparing for a combined attack by sea and land, `expecting
to capture with ease such hastily constructed works, defended by so small a
garrison.' They intended to block the fairway of the two entrances to the
harbour with lines of ships, so as to exclude the Athenian fleet, (note 2)
`unless indeed they should have taken Pylos before' it arrived.
[1. The fleet of Eurymedon, last mentioned as leaving Pylos for Corcyra
and Sicily. Zakynthos is the first port of call on the route northwards, about
seventy miles from Pylos. [2. There has been much controversy on the
question which were the two channels to be blocked. My own opinion is (1) that
in this part of the narrative `the harbour' means the present lagoon of Osmyn
Aga; (2) that the sand-spit separating this lagoon from Navarino Bay reached
nearly to Pylos, leaving only one narrow entrance just under Pylos; (3) that
the two channels to be blocked were the two approaches to this entrance,
viz. the Sphagia channel, between the north end of Sphacteria and the south
shore of Pylos, and the channel between the north-east corner of Sphacteria and
the end of the sand-spit. The object of blocking both these approaches, instead
of the one entrance (between Pylos and the sandspit), was obviously to keep
open communications with the Spartans on the island. If the entrance only had
been barred, they would have been isolated. I also believe that Thucydides'
informant in the first narrative (the siege of Pylos) was one of the defenders
of Pylos who would naturally mean by `the harbour' the lagoon, just under
Pylos, which was his centre of interest; and that the informant in the second
narrative (the capture of Sphacteria) was a different person, much better at
describing localities, who had personally fought over the island on the day of
its capture. His centre of interest was Sphacteria, and by `the harbour' he
indisputably meant Navarino Bay, where the Athenian fleet then was. Thucydides
never found out that there were really two harbours, owing to the curious
duplication of the sites: two harbours, each with two approaches, in the one
case at the two ends, in the other on the two sides of one end, of the same
island The only new point in this view is the identification of the two
channels; the rest is taken from the valuable papers of Mr. Grundy (J.H.S. xvi)
and Mr. Burrows (J.H.S. xviii).]
[[87]]
They landed a strong party on the island of Sphacteria, to prevent the
enemy from occupying it. Pylos, which had no landing-place towards the open
sea, would thus be completely isolated. They thought `they would probably carry
the position by siege, without a sea-fight or any danger, as it was
unprovisioned and had been occupied with little
preparation'.Demosthenes drew up his three remaining ships under
shelter of a stockade at the south-east corner of his defences. The sailors he
armed as best he could, mostly with shields of wicker-work. `For there was no
means of providing heavy armour in an uninhabited spot; and even these arms
they only obtained from a thirty-oared privateer and a light boat belonging to
some Messenians who just then arrived on the scene. (note 1) These Messenians
proved to include about forty heavy-armed men, whom Demosthenes used with the
rest.'
Then follows a detailed account of Brasidas' unsuccessful attempt to force a
landing on Pylos by running his ships ashore. The description concludes with
the reflection: `It was a singular turn of fortune (note 2) that Athenians
should be on land, and that land Laconian, repelling an attack from the sea by
Lacedaemonians; while Lacedaemonians on ship-board were trying to effect a
landing on their own soil, now hostile to them, in the face of Athenians. For
in those days it was the great glory of the Lacedaemonians to be an inland
people superior to all in land fighting, and of the Athenians to be sailors and
the first power by sea.' This observation is echoed again after the battle
which followed between the two fleets in the harbour. The Peloponnesians had at
the moment neglected the precaution of closing the entrances. (note 3) The
Athenian fleet, reinforced by a few guard-ships from Naupactos and three
Chians, sailed in and knocked them into bits, following up the pursuit to the
point of attempting to tow off from the shore some ships which bad not been
launched.
[1. iv. 9. 1 Messhn[[currency]]vn...ofl [[paragraph]]tuxon
paragenÒmenoi. ipl>tai te t<<n Messhn[[currency]]vn toÊtan
...w tessarãkonta [[section]]gdeg.nonto. [2. iv. 12. 3 [[section]]w
toËto perideg.sth <= tÊxh ste...
[3. iv. 13. 4
oÎte í dievoÆyhsan, fãrjai toÁw
[[paragraph]]splouw, [[paragraph]]tuxon poihsantew.]
[[88]]
The Lacedaemonians ran down into the water to save them, and a fierce
struggle ensued. Thus `the usual methods of war- fare of the two combatants
were interchanged. For in their excitement and dismay the Lacedaemonians were
(one might almost say) fighting a sea-battle from land, while the Athenians as
they were winning and were desirous to follow up their present good luck to the
furthest point fought a land- battle from ships'. (note 1) So ended the first
round of hostilities at Pylos.
In shortening the above narrative we have intentionally brought into
prominence a series of suggestions which are any- thing but conspicuous in the
long story as it stands in the text. We have cut away the mass in which they
are embedded and left them clumsily sticking out, so that no one can miss them.
Probably thousands of readers have passed them without attention, and yet
carried away just the impression which they ought to convey. That impression is
that the occupation of Pylos--the first step to the most decisive success
achieved
by Athens in this war--was the most casual thing in the world.
The fleet, bound as it was for Sicily, with instructions to call on the way at
Corcyra, where it was urgently needed, would never have put in at Pylos, if a
storm had not `by chance' (note 2) driven it to shelter. The generals in
command could not imagine why the position should be occupied; and when
Demosthenes tried to convince the troops, he failed. It was owing to the
accidental continuance of bad weather that from sheer want of something to do
`an impulse seized' the soldiers to fortify the place. The undertaking was so
unexpected that no tools had been provided; the walls were patched up somehow
with rocks and mud. They had time to finish it because the Lacedaemonians at
home were just then celebrating a festival. A singularly happy
improvisation on
[1. iv. 14. 3 BoulÒmenoi t[[ordfeminine]]
paroÊs[[dotaccent]] t~x[[dotaccent]] ...w [[section]]p< ple>wton
[[section]]pejelye>n. [2. Observe that the note of accident is clearly
sounded at the outset in katå tÊxhn (not [[paragraph]]tuxe) and
below in irmØ [[section]]ndeg.pese. Later the fainter suggestion of
[[paragraph]]tuxon suffices to sustain it.]
[[89]]
the part of Fortune; but there is more to come. Just when reinforcements
and a supply of arms are urgently needed by the extemporized garrison, a couple
of piratical craft come bearing down the wind from the north. They turn out,
oddly enough, to be Messenians with forty hoplites aboard and--bow very
fortunate!--a supply of spare arms. When, finally, the Peloponnesians at the
critical moment neglect a precaution vital to their plan, and leave the
garrison of Sphacteria cut off on the island, we feel that Fortune has filled
the cup of the Athenians almost overfull. To crown all, in her whimsical way,
she reverses the roles of the combatants, and sets the sailors fighting on land
and the landsmen by water.We observe, too, that if Fortune
favoured the Athenians, they were also helped by an extraordinary series of
stupid mistakes on the Lacedaemonian side. When the news first reached Sparta,
the Lacedaemonians at home could not see, what Agis saw clearly enough, that
the capture of Pylos was a serious incident. They also thought they could
easily capture the position; though they might have remembered that Sparta was
notoriously incompetent in siege operations, and that the revolted helots, who
were not backed by the first sea-power in the world, had, in a similar
extemporized stronghold at Ithome, held them at defiance. When they saw the
position, they were equally confident of taking it with ease. They expected to
exclude the Athenian fleet by closing the entrances, and so to avoid a
sea-battle altogether. They landed troops on the island, and then by neglecting
to close the entrances left them cut off--and this, though they knew the
Athenian fleet was close at hand and were expecting its arrival. When it did
arrive, their own fleet was not even clear of the beach and arrayed for battle.
This series of blunders is hardly less remarkable than the series of accidents
on the Athenian side.
We may admit, however, that it is not incredible that Spartans should be
exceedingly stupid. The difficulty arises over that part of the narrative which
is more concerned with the Athenians. Can we accept this as a simple and
natural
[[90]]
account of what really happened? The moment we turn back on it in a
critical mood, we find that it is full of obscurities, gaps, incoherencies,
which cry out for explanation. When we look still closer, we remark two further
points. One is that some of these obscurities can be removed by careful
comparison of one part of the narrative with another, so that we can piece
together an hypothesis to fill the gaps, from evidence supplied by Thucydides,
but not used by him for this obvious purpose. The other is that we have
not here, as at other places in the History, a mere odd assortment of
obscurities; but all the omissions contribute to one effect. What is left out
is whatever would explain the motives and designs of the principal actors; what
is put in and emphasized is every accident and every blunder of the enemy, that
favoured the occupation. There is hardly a sentence in the whole story which is
not so turned and so disposed as to make us feel that design counted for
nothing and luck for everything. Let us look at some of the questions which
these omissions and incoherencies leave unanswered.First, we may
ask whether it is credible that Demosthenes should not have explained sooner to
Eurymedon and Sophocles `the object he had in view when he accompanied the
fleet'. The details of this plan are not disclosed till the latest possible
moment in the narrative. When he first asked the generals to put in at Pylos,
he is said to have requested them `to do what was necessary before proceeding
on their voyage'. They refused. Then followed the storm and drove them into
Pylos. Not till this note of accident has been sounded are we allowed to know
`what was necessary'. Then, as if the sight of Pylos for the first time
suggested the plan, Demosthenes points out the natural strength of the
position. The generals, as if they had never had such a plan before them, say
that there are plenty of desert promontories, if Demosthenes wants to waste the
public money on occupying them. Demosthenes urges that this one has special
advantages, and produces his trump card--the Messenians. In the next sentence
we are told that he failed to convince any one whatever. By this arrangement of
the story, Demosthenes' design
[[91]]
is before our minds for the least possible time. It is not disclosed
until in the first place it is firmly fixed in our thoughts that the fleet is
hastening to Corcyra, and in the second place Fortune has intervened decisively
to hinder its journey; and when it is disclosed, it is immediately (as it were)
effaced again by the statement that the disclosure had no effect on any one. We
are left with the impression that Demosthenes had not explained the whole thing
to the generals before the storm occurred, and pressed on them all the
advantages he mentions later. No wonder they objected to doing `what was
necessary'.In the second place, if the generals were so blind to
the possibilities of the place that they regarded the occupation as a waste of
public money, we may naturally ask what occurred to make them change their
minds and ally Demosthenes, after all, to remain? A Peloponnesian fleet of
sixty sail, as against their own forty, was already in their path. Why did they
detach five ships and leave them with Demosthenes, while they `hastened on
their voyage to Corcyra and Sicily'? Did Demosthenes appeal to the irregular
commission which licensed him to `use the fleet, if he wished, about the coasts
of the Peloponnese'? But, if he did so, he was overruled; for we are definitely
told that no one would listen to him. No; the occupation of Pylos was the
purest of accidents. The building of the defences was a schoolboy frolic, begun
(in schoolboy language) for a lark, to break the tedium of kicking heels and
whistling for a wind. It kept them amused for six days, till the gale dropped.
For all we are told, besides this piece of mudlarking, nothing whatever
occurred in the interval to change the opinion of the responsible officers.
Yet, without a syllable of explanation, we learn that they detached five
ships--one eighth of their strength--to garrison the deserted promontory, and
themselves `hastened on their voyage to Corcyra and Sicily'. Did they expect
that Demosthenes with no provisions (note 1) and a small, insufficiently armed
force would hold Pylos till they came back, or did they mean to leave their
fellow citizens, for whose lives they were
[1. iv 8. 8 s[[currency]]tou te oÈk
[[section]]nÒntow.]
[[92]]
responsible, to a certain fate? What would they say to the Athenian
people when they returned from Sicily?When we read on, however,
we learn from a side-allusion to `the Athenian Beet at Zakynthos' that, so far
from `hastening to Corcyra and Sicily', they were, after at least ten days' or
a fortnight's interval, (note 1) still only seventy miles away, at the nearest
port of call. This change of plan is not even directly recorded, much less
explained. Yet it means that the generals pitched their sailing orders to the
winds, left Corcyra to the imminent peril of starvation or capture by assault,
and endangered the advanced squadron in Sicilian waters which they here sent to
reinforce. Examples were not wanting to warn them that in such circumstances, a
failure or even a reverse, meant certain prosecution and death, if ever they
set foot again in Athens. Yet they took the risk--all because of the
mudlarks!
Our purpose, however, is not to attack the veracity of Thucydides, but
to understand his method. Without enlarging upon the obscurities of this
episode, we have said enough to prove that some explanation is needed. It is
now clear that the story of Pylos, from first to last, is so treated as to
convey the suggestion that it was all a stroke of luck. It is also clear
that, unless Eurymedon and Sophocles were out of their minds, some elements in
the situation of a less fortuitous nature have been omitted or left almost out
of sight.
Almost, but not entirely. The reader may have felt that, although the narrative
indicates no connexion between the two references to the Messenians, some
connexion there must have been. One of the exceptional advantages of Pylos to
Demosthenes' mind was that it was the ancient home of the Messenians, whose
knowledge of the local dialect would give them peculiar facilities for
distressing the Spartans. The point is just mentioned and dropped. Six chapters
later, a Messenian privateer with arms and reinforcements arrives in the nick
of
[1. The time needed for news to reach Sparta and be forwarded to Agis in
Attica; for the withdrawal of the army of invasion, and after that, for
word to be sent to the Peloponnesian fleet at Corcyra, and for these to come
south.]
[[93]]
time. These Messenians were (though Thucydides does not mention it) the
exiles whom the Athenians had established at Naupactos, their naval base near
the mouth of the Corinthian gulf. We remember now that in the previous year
Demosthenes had been cooperating with these very Messenians in the Aetolian and
Acarnanian campaigns. Moreover, in one of the battles he had employed them to
play off a trick on his Doric antagonists. (note 1) The accent of his Messenian
friends was now again to come in useful. And when the sentinel on Pylos
reported that a couple of sail were standing in from the direction of
Naupactos, we fancy Demosthenes was not surprised when they turned out to have
forty hoplites aboard and a stock of spare shields in the casemates. Can we
avoid the inference that the selection of Pylos was not so casual after all,
that Demosthenes had learnt all about the possibilities of the position from
his Messenian allies the year before? Further, must we not conjecture that
Eurymedon, not daring to leave more than five ships behind, since the
Peloponnesian fleet would almost certainly be recalled south and meet him, sent
an urgent message to Naupactos, describing the position of Demosthenes and
telling the Messenians to send a fast ship with such reinforcements and spare
arms as they could produce without a moment's delay. The conjecture is
confirmed by the later statement (note 2) that some guard-ships from Naupactos
joined the fleet while still at Zakynthos. Eurymedon may have meant to wait
there within call till Demosthenes: force should have been replaced by a
sufficient garrison of Messenians, and then to reunite his fleet and proceed to
Corcyra and Sicily. But why are we left to fill all these blanks by
conjecture?
[1. iii. 112: `At the first dawn of day he fell on the Ambrakiots, who
were still lying where they had slept, and who so far from knowing anything of
what had happened, thought his men were their own comrades. For Demosthenes had
taken care to place the Messenians in the front rank and desired them to
speak to the enemy in their own Doric dialect, so putting the outposts off
their guard, since it was still dark and their appearance could not be
distinguished.' This connexion has, of course, been remarked by other
writers. [2. iv. 13. 1.]
[[94]]
Moreover it is implied that Demosthenes knew that the Athenian
fleet was still close at hand when he needed to be rescued; and this seems to
prove that when Eurymedon and Sophocles left him, they arranged with him that
they should stop at the nearest possible port. If that is so, to describe
Eurymedon's fleet on leaving Pylos as `hastening to Corcyra and Sicily' is, at
least, misleading. But here, at any rate, there can be no intention to mislead,
since the contradiction with what follows is patent. We can only conclude that
Thucydides' mind is for some reason so bent on regarding the occupation of
Pylos as a mere casual episode in a `voyage to Corcyra and Sicily', that this
phrase slips out at a place where the context certainly contradicts it by
implication. Such a lapse, in so careful a writer, is by itself sufficient
evidence of a preoccupied mind.
We have here, in fine, a narrative which is unlike any earlier part of
Thucydides' story. Hitherto he has told a plain tale, lucid, intelligible,
natural. Now we find an episode in which facts of cardinal importance for the
understanding of the events are left unmentioned, and indispensable links are
wanting. If the missing facts and connexions were within the author's
knowledge, why are they omitted?. If they were not, we might at least expect
that he would avow his ignorance and draw some attention to the blanks, instead
of passing over them as if he were unconscious of their existence.
The question then is this: Why has Thucydides represented the occupation
of Pylos as the merest stroke of good luck, undertaken with the least possible
amount of deliberate calculation, and furthered at every turn of events by some
unforeseen accident?
The simplest of all answers would be that as a matter of fact so it was.
Accidents do happen; and there certainly was a considerable element of luck. No
one can foresee the occurrence of a storm. The festival at Sparta was a
coincidence--though we note by the way that it was not a festival
[[95]]
sufficiently important to prevent the army of invasion from being absent
in Attica. The Messenian privateer might conceivably have come by
accident--though the supply of spare arms on so small a vessel is certainly
odd. And so on. But all this does not explain the blanks and incoherencies we
have noticed; and it is fair to add that every additional accident increases
the strain on our belief. As soon as we reject this first answer, we have
admitted that Thucydides--for whatever reason--is not telling the story just as
it happened anti just as we should tell it. There is some unexplained factor at
work, something of which we have not yet taken account.The
solutions that have been offered, when the problem before us has been faced at
all, fall under two heads. We are told either that Thucydides is `moralizing'
on the uncertainty of war, or that he is actuated by some personal feeling of
`malignity' and indulging it in detraction. The first of these hypotheses is,
in our opinion, a grave charge against him as a man of sense; the second is a
still graver charge against his moral character.
It is true that the uncertainty of war is one of the most frequent topics in
the speeches; and small wonder that it is so. Thucydides' generation lived
through a life-and-death struggle waged almost continuously for twenty-seven
years. A nation at war is always, more or less, in a fever; (note 1) when the
nation is intelligent and excitable by temperament, and the war is close at
home, the fever will run high. For these twenty-seven years no Athenian mind
was ever quite at rest. Not a record or document of this period but we find in
it the mark of this unhealthiness, of nerves on the strain with watching, of
the pulse which beats just too fast. Every capricious turn of good or ill luck
in the struggle sent a thrill through their hearts. But, can we think that
Thucydides would deliberately distort the facts of the occupation of Pylos,
solely in order to illustrate the truth that accidents will happen? The
question hardly needs an answer. No man of common intelligence could say to
himself, `In order to
[1. Cf. ii. 8 [[yen]] te êllh ÑEllåw ëpasa
metdeg.vrow [[Sigma]]n juvious<<n t<<n pr~tvn pldeg.vn.]
[[96]]
show how uncertain are the chances of war, I will describe a series of
events not just as they happened, but with the causal links, which would show
that the cents were not fortuitous, disguised and almost suppressed.' There
were plenty of real instances of good and ill luck. What need of this perverse
invention of a spurious one?Plainly, then, this is not a case of
`moralizing'; there is some other reason; and so we fall back on the hypothesis
of `malignity'. The malignity could only be directed either against Cleon,
whose exploit at Sphacteria followed on the occupation of Pylos, or against
Athens. There is, on this supposition, some personal grudge, against the hated
political opponent, or against the city which banished Thucydides.
With regard to Cleon, this hypothesis will not fit the facts. The occupation of
Pylos was the exploit not of Cleon, but of Demosthenes. For Demosthenes, the
only soldier of genius whom the Athenians could match with Brasidas, Thucydides
consistently shows a marked admiration. The capture of Pylos was his
master-stroke, and there was no motive for belittling the achievement. Cleon
does not appear till later, when he goes to the scene of action and cooperates
in the capture of Sphacteria. Malignity against him might be fully satisfied
either by representing that subsequent operation as favoured by fortune or by
attributing all the skill involved in its success to his colleague,
Demosthenes. Thucydides actually does both these things--whether from malignity
or because he thought it was true, is no matter for our present problem. But a
personal grudge against Cleon could not be satisfied, or be in question at all,
in the earlier narrative of the seizure of Pylos.
Was it, then, a grudge against Athens that moved him? Did he hate the city
which condemned him to banishment for his failure at Amphipolis, and desire to
represent--or rather to misrepresent--her most successful feat in the war as a
mere stroke of luck? This, we believe, is an hypothesis which is now,
reluctantly and with many attempt at palliation, allowed to pass current. It
cannot be so easily and certainly dismissed as the other Suggestions. It is a
possible
[[97]]
motive--possible, at least, to some men--and it would account for those
facts we have hitherto considered. We cannot at this point finally disprove it;
the facts which it will not account for have yet to be discussed. But we do not
believe that any one who knows Thucydides is really satisfied with imputing to
him a motive which, candidly described, is dishonourable, ignoble, mean. The
imputation does not fit in with our general impression from the rest of the
History. If there is any one who is satisfied with it, we will ask him to read
once more the story of the retreat from Syracuse. Were those pages written by a
man who hated Athens and triumphed in her fall?We cannot think
of any other motive which could have induced Thucydides deliberately to
represent as fortuitous a series of events which we, after some reflection, can
see to have been in great measure designed. We next observe that the
supposition of `malignity' is itself based on the tacit assumption that
Thucydides is writing from the same standpoint, and handling his story on the
same methods, as a modern historian. If a modern had written the narrative of
Pylos, we could say with the highest degree of moral certainty, that the
distortion was deliberate and the motive must be at least dishonest, if not
ignobly personal. Hence we assume, unconsciously, that Thucydides' motive must
have been of this sort. In our eagerness to hail him as `a modern of the
moderns', we thought we were paying him a compliment; but now the epithet turns
out to carry with it a most damaging accusation. If we decline to regard
Thucydides as a modern, and recur to our thesis that, being an ancient, he must
have looked at the course of human history with very different eyes from ours,
it seems that an alternative explanation may yet remain.
The suggestion which we would put forward is that Thucydides thought he
really saw an agency, called `Fortune', at work in these events. When we
say `chance favoured the designs of Demosthenes', (note 1) of course we mean,
not that any of
[1. Bury, Hist. of Greece (1900), p. 429.]
[[98]]
the accidents had no natural cause, but only that they were such as
could not have been foreseen. But have we any ground for saying that this, and
nothing more, was what Thucydides would have meant? (note 1)We
will, for the moment, leave the notion of Fortune without precise definition.
It is enough to take a belief in Fortune as meaning a belief in any non-natural
agency, which breaks in, as it were, from outside and diverts the current of
events, without itself being a part of the series or an effect determined by an
antecedent member of it. Now, we have already pointed out that human actions
are not to be fitted into such a series. Their only causes--if we are to speak
of causes at all--are motives, each of which is itself uncaused by anything
preceding it in time; all human motives are absolute `beginnings of motion'. A
view of the universe in which this irruption of free human agency is tacitly
assumed is at any rate illogical if it denies the possibility of similar
interruptions into the course of Nature by non-human agencies.
But we can go further than this. We observed that Thucydides had no word at all
for `cause' in our sense. From the fact, among others, that instead of
discussing the causes of the war, he thought he had completely accounted for
its origin when he had described the grievances (afit[[currency]]ai) of the
combatants, it appeared that it was not only the word that was missing, but the
concept. Having no clear conception of cause and effect, he cannot have had any
clear conception of a universal and exclusive reign of causal law in Nature. In
criticizing Professor Gomperz we denied that Thucydides conceived the course of
human affairs as `a process of Nature informed by inexorable causality', or as
having anything in common with such a process. We may now further deny that he
could have thought of the processes of Nature themselves as informed by
causality, in our modern sense--the sense, namely, that every event has a place
in one total series of all
[1. That Thucydides would have meant just whd we mean is commonly
assumed, as for instance by Mr. Forbes, Introduction to Book I (p. xxxii):
`Chance (that is, the operation of unknown causes) is strong, the future is
hard to foresee, hope is dangerous; we must look facts in the face, whether we
like them or not, and "think it out".']
[[99]]
events, and is completely determined by previous events, and so on
backwards into infinity; and that this is true of the future as well as of the
past. By an afit[[currency]]a, in nature as in man, Thucydides does not mean a
member of such a series, but a free agency, a `beginning of
motion', an incursion of fresh original power. If this is so, there was nothing
whatever in his view of the universe to exclude the possibility of
extraordinary intervention on the part of some undefined non-human powers. We
shall presently see that his language elsewhere implies that such a possibility
was admitted by him.That Thucydides had, on the contrary, a
quite definite notion of causal law is commonly taken for granted, or actually
asserted. M. Croiset, (note 1) for instance, after contrasting Thucydides with
his predecessors, continues: `De là sa conception de l'histoire. Si les
faits sont liés par des lois permanentes et nécessaires, la
connaissance des causes et des effets dans le passé peut faire
prévoir le retour des mémes effets, produits par les mémes
causes, selon la régle des choses humaines (katå tÚ
ényr~peion).' This passage suggests that Thucydides based his conception
of history on a belief in permanent and necessary laws, connecting events in
such a way that from a sufficient knowledge of the present state of the world
the future could be predicted with certainty. If this is true, it of course
excludes the operation of Fortune. (note 2) Let us, however, examine the
passages to which ilk. Croiset refers in his note, as the foundation of the
above statement.
The first is as follows: `For recitation to an audience, perhaps the absence of
the "mythical" will make these facts rather unattractive; but it will be enough
if they are judged useful by those who shall wish to know the plain truth of
what has happened and of the events which, according to the course of human
things, c(re likely to happen again, of the
[1. Croiset, Hist. de la lit. grecque, iv. 113. [2. We may note, by
the way, that if Thucydides thought this, he had discovered a truth of which
Aristotle was ignorant. The whole Aristotelian doctrine of Possibility rests on
the logical thesis that propositions which refer to future events (e. g. `there
will be a battle to-morrow') are neither true nor false, because, unless the
future were undetermined, `nothing would happen by chance' (épo
tÊxhw) and all deliberation would be futile.]
[[100]]
same, or much the same, sort as these.' (note 1) What Thucydides
here has in his mind, we know from the other passage to which M. Croiset refers
(note 2) Thucydides is there explaining why he gives an account of the outbreak
of plague at Athens. `Others may say, each according to his judgement, whether
he be physician or layman, from what it probably arose, and assert that
whatever he considers were the agencies of so great a change, were efficient
to acquire power to (produce) the transformation. (note 3) But I shall say
what it was like when it happened; and I shall set forth the things from
which, if it should ever come on again, one who considers them might best be
able, knowing them beforehand, to recognize it without fail. I fell ill
myself, and I saw with my own eyes others suffering.'Thucydides
will record the symptoms of the plague, from personal observation, so
that posterity may recognize the disorder if it should break out again. This is
all he thinks useful. He hints that the guesses of physicians are not worth
much more than those of laymen, about the `agencies responsible' which they
consider were `sufficient to acquire power to (produce) such a
transformation'. Had the man who wrote that phrase anything in his mind
remotely resembling the modern notion of cause and causal law? The phrase is
the very contradiction of it. The notion it conveys is that of an unknown,
probably an unknowable, something, responsible for the plague, and from time to
time acquiring enough power to produce an outbreak. Thucydides rejects
all attempts to scrutinize the nature of this something, and does not even
directly commit himself to a belief in its existence. He will confine himself
to describing what he actually saw and suffered. He hints that other
people,
[1. i. 22. 4 ...ka< t<<n mellÒntvn potcents aÔyiw
katå tÚ ényr~peion toioÊtvn ka<
paraplhs[[currency]]vn [[paragraph]]sesyai. [2. ii. 48.3.
[3.
legdeg.tv...tåw afit[[currency]]aw ëstinaw nom[[currency]]zei
tosaÊthw metabol[[infinity]]w flkanåw e[[perthousand]]nai
dÊnamin [[section]]w tÚmetast[[infinity]]sai sxe>n. The editors
suspect interpolation in this portentous phrase; but there is no reason to
doubt the text. afit[[currency]]a cannot be rendered `cause' without
misleading. It is something held `responsible', and credited with
power.]
[[101]]
doctors and laymen alike, would do well to follow his example. The
doctors would see in the plague the operation of something `divine' (note 1);
laymen would more definitely ascribe it to the onslaught of malignant spirits
or offended gods. Some undoubtedly connected it with the curse which attached
to the Almaeonid Pericles. (note 2) Others again would murmur that they bad
always said harm would come of allowing the homeless peasants to camp out in
the Pelargikon, against the warning of an ancient oracle.In the
former passage, likewise, Thucydides is not thinking of `necessary and
permanent laws' in the sequence of events. He is merely reflecting that other
wars will happen in the future. Other `events of the same, or much the
same, sort' will occur, according to the course of human things'. (note 3)
This last phrase is ambiguous. It might mean `so far as man can foresee', `in
all human probability'--a phrase which is least likely to be on our lips when
we have in our thoughts a clear conception of non-human `inexorable
causality'.
We are too apt to take the few sound observations of nature, made by the
Greeks at that date, as a proof that they conceived nature as universally ruled
by law. Thucydides notes, for instance, that `it seems (or, is thought) to be
possible for an eclipse of the sun to happen only at the time of a new moon'
(note 4); and again, that when the moon is
[1. Mr. Forbes (Thuc. I, Introd. p. xxvii) rightly observes that
`a remarkable passage in Thucydides' contemporary, the physician Hippocrates,
shows that we must not argue too hastily from a rejection of superstitious
explanations of particular phenomena. Speaking of a malady prevalent among some
of the Scythians, he says: ofl mcentsn oÔn [[section]]pix~rioi tØn
afit[[currency]]hn prostiydeg.asi ye", ka< sdeg.bontai toÊtouw
toÁw ényr~pouw ka< proskundeg.ousi, dedoikÒtew
per[[currency]] ge *vut<<n ßkastoi. [[section]]mo< dcents ka<
aÈt" doke> pãnta tå pãyea le>a e[[perthousand]]nai
ka< tîlla pãnta, ka< oÈdcentsn ßtdeg.rou
yeiÒteron oÈdcents ényrvpin~teron, éllå
pãnta imo>a ka< pãnta ye>a: ßkaston dcents [[paragraph]]xei
fÊsin t<<n toioÊtvn ka< oÈdcentsn êneu
fÊsiow g[[currency]]gnetai....' [2. See ii. 58, 59, where, just after
describing the severity of the plague, Thucydides says that the Athenians, hard
pressed at once by (1) the war, and (2) the plague, (3) blamed Pericles for the
war and (4) thought their misfortunes had come on them `on his account'
(diÉ[[section]]ke>non), Cf. ii. 64.1.
[3. `Nach dem Laufe
menschlicher Dinge'--Classen, ad loc.
[4. ii. 28 noumhn[[currency]]&
katå selÆnhn, Àsper ka< mÒnon doke>
e[[perthousand]]nai g[[currency]]gnesyai dunatÒn, Í [[yen]]liow
[[section]]jdeg.lipe.]
[[102]]
eclipsed, it is full. (note 1) He inferred, moreover, that eclipses
could not, as superstitious men like Nikias supposed, give prognostications of
coming events. But between an isolated observation and inference of this sort
and a general conception of law in nature there was a gulf which many centuries
of labour had yet to fill. In the case of earthquakes, Thucydides had no
sufficient series of observations on which to base an inference. Consequently,
with admirable good sense, he records, without expressing or implying any
belief or disbelief of his own, the one fact of which he was certain, namely,
that `they were said and thought to be signs of coming events'. (note 2)Again, when he is insisting in his introduction that the
Peloponnesian War was the greatest in recorded history, he thinks it worth
while to point out that it was not inferior to previous wars in the number of
earthquakes, eclipses, (note 3) droughts, famines, plagues, and other such
convulsions of nature which accompanied it. Similar phenomena had been reported
of previous wars, but this hearsay was too scantily confirmed by ascertained
facts. `It now became not incredible,' he says, `for all these things
came upon the Greeks at the same time with this war.' (note 4) An
unprejudiced reader of this passage must draw several conclusions. In the first
place Thucydides feels no distinction between famines and plagues on the one
hand, and eclipses, earthquakes, and droughts on the other. To us it seems easy
to connect the former class with a state of war, and absolutely impossible to
connect the latter. Second, he saw no reason
[1. vii. 50. [2. ii. 8. 3.
[3. His putting in `eclipses' shows
that he did not understand why the sun is not eclipsed at every new
moon, or the moon every time it is full. He thought eclipses were
more frequent at times of war and did not know why. Cf. Plut.
Nic. xxiii i går pr<<tow safdeg.statÒn te
pãntvn ka< yarrale~taton per< selÆnhw kataugasm<<n ka<
skiçw lÒgon efiw grafØn kataydeg.menow
ÉAnajagÒraw oÎtÉaÈtÚw [[Sigma]]n
palaiÚw oÎte i lÒgow [[paragraph]]ndojow éllÉ
épÒrrhtow [[paragraph]]ti ka< diÉ Ùl[[currency]]gvn
ka< metÉ eÈlabe[[currency]]aw tinÚw [[partialdiff]]
p[[currency]]stevw bad[[currency]]zvn.
[4. i. 23. 3 tã te
prÒteron éko[[ordfeminine]] mcentsn legÒmena,
[[paragraph]]rg[[florin]] dcents spani~teron bebaioÊmena oÈk
êpista katdeg.sth, seism<<n te tdeg.ri...taËta går
pånta metå toËde toË pldeg.mou ëma
junepdeg.yeto.]
[[103]]
in the nature of things why events of either class should not be more
frequent at times of war in Greece, and he thought the evidence pointed to the
fact that they were. Third, if he was thinking at all of any sort of causal
connexion between wars and (for instance) droughts, he must have attributed
droughts to causes of a sort which find no place in modern science. Fourth, he
shows his usual good sense in merely recording that these occurrences
apparently came at the same time (ëma), without committing himself
to any specific connexion between them. In fine, he shows a completely
scientific spirit, and also an equally complete destitution of a scientific
view of nature. In the former respect he is superior to the man who sacrifices
to a volcano or prays for rain. In the latter he is not so far advanced as a
modern peasant who is just educated enough to feel that there can be no
connexion between his seeing four magpies and some one else having a child.
Thucydides will not worship the inscrutable agencies responsible for
convulsions of Nature; but he cannot rule out the hypothesis that such agencies
exist and may `acquire power' to produce the convulsions coincidently with a
war in Greece. He refrains from dogmatising on either side; regarding, we may
suppose, the current belief that malevolent spirits were responsible for such
outbreaks, (note 1) as an incautious and unverified
explanation.M. Croiset has, in our opinion, slipped into a
fallacy which is so common in the written history of thought that it seems to
deserve a name of its own We will call it the Modernist Fallacy. It takes
several kindred shapes. In the present case, its formula is as follows: `If a
man in the remote past believed a certain proposition, he also believed all
that we
[1. Porph. de Abst. ii. 40 (c)n går dØ ka<
toËto t[[infinity]]w meg[[currency]]sthw blãbhw t[[infinity]]w
épÚ t<<n kakoerg<<n daimÒnvn yetdeg.on, ~ti
aÈto< a[[daggerdbl]]tioi gignÒmenoi t<<n tØn
g[[infinity]]n payhmãtvn, o[[perthousand]]on loim<<n,
éfori<<nm, seism<<n, aÈxm<<n ka< t<<n
imo[[currency]]vn... The belief, seriously entertained by this intelligent
writer, has, of course, flourished to our own time in civilized countries. We
remember an article in the Spectator, in which the writer argued that an
earthquake in the West Indies was designed by God to stimulate seismological
research. Neither the editor nor the readers seem to have been conscious of any
difficulty or impiety in this opinion.]
[[104]]
have since discovered to be implied in that proposition.' Thucydides
believed--who ever did not?--that events of `the same, or much the same, sort'
recur. Therefore, he must have had a full and conscious belief in permanent and
necessary laws of cause and effect, conceived as we conceive
them.
Thucydides' notion of Fortune may be more closely defined by comparison and
contrast with the opinions of the hardest and clearest thinker among his
contemporaries. Socrates, according to his friend Xenophon, (note 1) believed
that omens were signs from the gods or `the spiritual' (tÚ
daimÒnion), and recommended the use of divination to determine actions
of which the future results could not be foreseen. Those who refused to employ
divination in such matters were, he said, as much `possessed by an evil spirit'
(daimonçv) as those who did employ it in cases where ordinary human
judgement (gn<<mh) would have sufficed. He `demonstrated' that men who
supposed that the movements of the heavenly bodies happened `by some sort of
constraints' (tisnote 2) they happen, to be able
to make winds and rains when they pleased? Or were they content merely to know
how these things happened?
The language here attributed to Socrates is religious; he speaks of `the
divine' and `the spiritual' (demonic). His view is that human events are
determined partly by `foresight' (gn~mh) and partly by the agency of gods or
spirits.
[1. Xen. Mem. i. 1. [2. ÉAnãgkaiw, as the
context shows, means `constraints', such as a magician claims to exercise in
rain-making.]
Foresight must be used to the utmost; but when it fails, we ought to
resort to divination, the only means of discovering the intentions of the other
set of agencies. Thucydides, when be is expressing his own opinions, does not
speak of `the divine', but merely of Fortune (TÊxh). But both men are
alike in contrasting the field of ordinary human foresight (gn~mh) with the
unknown field, which lies beyond it, of inscrutable, non-human powers, whether
we call these gods and spirits or simply Fortune. This antithesis is more
frequently in Thucydides' thoughts than any other except the famous contrast of
`word' and `deed'. The two factors--gn~mh, human foresight, purpose, motive,
and TÊxh, unforeseen nonhuman agencies--divide the field between them.
They are the two factors--and the only two--which determine the course of a
series of events such as a War; neither Socrates nor Thucydides thinks of
natural law. One speaker after another in the History dwells on the contrast
between a man's own gn~mh over which he has complete control, and Fortune over
which he has no control at all. (note 1) Men may be ruined by fortune (ta>w
tÊxaiw), but if they are steadfast in purpose (gn~maiw), they have shown
themselves true men. (note 2) Pericles (note 3) says that human designs and the
issues of events alike take a course which is hard to discern; `and hence we
commonly regard Fortune as responsible for whatever falls out contrary to
calculation.' Of the plague, Pericles says (note 4) that it was the only thing
that had so far happened in the course of the war `beyond any man's
expectation'. He knows he is hated the more because of it; (note 5) but this is
not fair unless he is to be given credit for unforeseen success as well.
`Divine things (tå daimÒnia) must be borne as a matter
[1. iv. 64. 1 e.g. (Hermocrates) mhdcents mvr[[currency]]&
filonik<<n <=ge>syai t[[infinity]]w te ofike[[currency]]aw gn~mhw
imo[[currency]]vw aÈtokratvr e[[perthousand]]nai ka< [[Sigma]]w
oÈk êrxv TÊxhw: vi. 78 2 oÈ går
o[[perthousand]]Òn te êma t[[infinity]]w tÉ
[[section]]piyum[[currency]]aw ka< t[[infinity]]w TÊxhw tÚn
aÈtÚn imo[[currency]]vw tam[[currency]]an gendeg.syai. [2. i.
87. 2 (Peloponnesian generals).
[3. i. 140.1 [[section]]nddeg.xetai
går tåw jumforåw t<<n pragmãtvn oÈx
[[Sigma]]sson émay[[infinity]]w xvr[[infinity]]sai [[Sigma]] ka<
tåw diano[[currency]]aw toË ényr~pou: diÉ ~per ka<
tØn TÁxhn, ~sa ín parå lÒgon
jumb[[ordfeminine]] efi~yamen afitiçsyai.
[4. ii. 64.
[5. Owing
to the Alcmaeonid curse, see p. 101.]
[[106]]
of necessity.' He does not argue that the plague cannot be his fault; he
speaks of it as a `divine thing' which he could not be expected to foresee. He
may, of course, be talking down to his audience; in using the phrase tå
daimÒnia he probably is doing so. But what proof is there that he did
not think of the outbreak as a stroke of some unknown power, which it would be
rash to call by any more definite name than `Fortune'?There is
no need to multiply instances. An examination of all the important passages
where this contrast occurs (note 1) has convinced us that Thucydides does not
mean by `Fortune' simply `the operation of unknown (natural) causes',
the working of ordinary causal law in the universe. He is thinking of
extraordinary, sudden interventions of non-human agencies, occurring especially
at critical moments in warfare, or manifest from time to time in convulsions of
Nature. It is these interruptions, and not the normal sway of `necessary and
permanent laws', which defeat the purposes of human gn~mh, and together with
gn~mh are the sole determinant factors in a series of human events. The normal,
ordinary course of Nature attracts no attention and is not felt to need
explanation or to be relevant in any way to human action. When he speaks of the
future as uncertain, he means not merely that it is unknown, but that it is
undetermined, and that human design cannot be sure of completely controlling
human events, because other unknown and incalculable agencies may at any moment
intervene.
What were the possible alternatives in an age which lacked the true
conception of universal causality? There were two, and only two: Fate and
Providence. But both of these were mythical, and associated with superstition.
Fate, the older, vaguer, and less personal of the two, was conceived under the
aspect of veiled and awful figures: the three Moirai, Ananke, Adrasteia. It was
thus that man had his first dim apprehension of that element in the world
outside which opposes the will of men and even of gods, thwarts their purpose,
and
[1. The references will be found in Classen's Introduction to Book I, p.
xliv.]
[[107]]
beats down their passion. Later ages have at last resolved this
inexorable phantom into nothing more--if nothing less--mysterious than the
causal sequences of Law. But this solution lay far in the future; Thucydides'
contemporaries could conceive it only as a non-human will--a purely mythical
entity.The other alternative was Providence; but any conception
of Providence less anthropomorphic than the will of Zeus or the agency of
spirits was not possible as yet. The notion of a supreme Mind intervening once,
and only once, to bring order into chaos had been reached by Anaxagoras; but
this suggestion, 50 disastrous to the progress of thought, was not developed
till Plato took it up. In any case this Mind was merely credited with an
initial act of creation; it did not rule the world which it had ordered.
Thucydides, moreover, as we saw, had probably considered and rejected
Anaxagoras' philosophy. And, after all, the `Mind' was just as mythical as
Fate.
The word `Chance' suggests to the modern educated intelligence something
utterly impersonal; we think at once of the mathematical theory of probability,
of the odds at a gambling table, and so on. But we must remember that the
current name for `Chance' in Greek was the name of a mythical Person,
TÊxh, a spirit who was actually worshipped by the superstitious, and
placated by magical means. The religious spoke of `the Fortune that comes from
the divine', and believed that God's will was manifest in the striking turns of
chance, and in spite of appearances was working for the righteous. (note 1) A
less definite belief in Fortune as a divine or spiritual agency was thought
worthy of mention by Aristotle. (note 2) In his own discussion of `what comes
by fortune' or `spontaneously', Aristotle starts from the very contrast we have
noted in Thucydides--the contrast between purpose (not Law) and chance.
Aristotle, moreover, has no better explanation of Chance than one which
involves the purposes of
[1. v. 104 (We Melians) pisteÊomen t[[ordfeminine]]
tÊx[[dotaccent]] [[section]]k toË ye[[currency]]ou mØ
[[section]]lss~sesyai, ~ti ~sioi prÚw oÈ dika[[currency]]ouw
flstãmeya. [2. Phys. b 54. 196 b 5 efis< ddeg. tinew
o[[perthousand]]w doke> e[[perthousand]]nai afit[[currency]]a mcentsn <=
TÊxh, êdhlow dcents ényrvp[[currency]]n[[dotaccent]]
diano[[currency]]& ...w ye>Òn ti oÔwa ka<
daimoni<<teron.]
[[108]]
a mythical person, called Nature. He does not even approach to the
conception of causal law, but accounts for `chance' by the crossing and
conflict of these imaginary purposes. (note 1) Thucydides, who either had never
considered or had definitely rejected the notion of purposes in Nature, was
even less advanced. He had no explanation to give, and confines himself to the
most non-committal name for these invading
agencies--`Fortune'.The recognition of non-human
agencies--however undefined--as responsible for observed phenomena is, so far
as it goes, a metaphysical belief. It is not a scientific belief, though
perfectly consistent with the scientific spirit in the then state of physical
knowledge. It is not a religious belief; for Thucydides does not imply that
these powers ought to be worshipped or placated. Nothing remains but to call it
mythical.
To recur now to the story of Pylos. We noticed that the series of lucky
accidents on the Athenian side was paralleled by a series of extraordinary
blunders on the Spartan side. In the former series Fortune is prominent to the
exclusion of foresight (gn~mh); in the latter we see successive failures of
foresight rather than the intervention of Fortune. These count as pieces of
luck from the Athenian standpoint; but from the Spartans' they are simply
errors of judgement. This point is clearly made in the subsequent speech of the
Spartan envoys, who are careful to remark: `We have not come to this from want
of power, nor yet from the pride that comes when power is unduly increased; but
without any change in our position, we failed in judgement--a point in
which the position of all men is alike.' (note 2) Thus the whole narrative of
the occupation illustrates the contrast of fortune and foresight. Fortune, not
foresight, has exalted the Athenians; want of foresight, not of fortune, has
depressed the Spartans.
It was in this light that Thucydides saw a series of events
[1. de An. 434 a 31 ßnekã tou pãnta
Ípãrxei tå fÊsei, [[partialdiff]] sumpt~mata
[[paragraph]]stai t<<n [[paragraph]]nekã tou. [2. iv. 18. 2. A
translalion of this speech will be found on p. 111.]
[[109]]
which began with a striking accident, the storm. The element of real
luck was sufficient to suggest a belief that Fortune was active to a mind
predisposed by superstition or some other cause to look for her agency just
here. Thucydides was not superstitious; and he was both careful and acute. The
belief accounts for the peculiarities of the narrative; but we have further to
account for his having the belief at just this moment in his story so
strongly upon him as to miss the clues in his informant's report. There must
have been something which positively predisposed him to see Fortune at work. We
shall explain in the next chapter what this something was.Here
we need only add that the psychological phenomenon we are supposing to have
occurred in his mind is closely analogous to what might occur in a Christian
historian, narrating from incomplete oral information a critical incident in
Church history, which began with a miracle. Looking from the outset for
the divine purpose, he might easily fail to bring his mind to bear critically
on the indications which showed that the whole series of events could be
explained as the effect of purely natural causes; for we know from daily
experience that a belief in occasional interferences on the part of Providence
can coexist in the same educated mind with a conception of natural causality
immeasurably clearer than any that Thucydides could have possessed.