Francis M. Cornford, Thucydides Mythistoricus
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Table of Contents
[[xiii]]
CONTENTS
PART I: THUCYDIDES HISTORICUS
Thucydides' first Book does not provide either Athens or Sparta with a
sufficient motive for fighting. The current views that the war was (1) promoted
by Pericles from personal motives; (2) racial; (3) political, are inadequate.
Thucydides' own view that the Spartans were forced into war is true.
Their reluctance explained. But Pericles also had no reason to desire war.
Thucydides states only official policies; perhaps this poticy was
unofficial.1-14
What party at Athens made the war? The country population was a
negligible factor in politics before the war. The large and growing
commercial population in the Piraeus, who regarded the naval supremacy of
Athens as a means of controlling trade, furnished the bulk of Pericles'
majority in his last years, and became strong enough to dictate his policy.
15-24
All non-Thucydidean accounts of the outbreak of war make the negotiations
turn solely on the Megarian decrees. Thucydides records none of these
three decrees and keeps Megarian affairs in the background, suppressing
Pericles' connection with them. The coercion of Megara was the first step in
the unofficial policy forced on Pericles by his commercial supporters; the
object being to establish a trade-route from the Piraeus to the West across the
Megarid from Nisaea to Pegae, and so to cut out Corinth. The earlier
Peloponnesian War offers a parallel: the Egyptian Expedition analogous to the
Sicilian, which was from the first part of the commercial party's
plan.25-38
Thucydides says nothing of earlier Athenian relations with the West, or
of the part taken by Pericles in the alliance with Corcyra; though he gives
one or two indications that this alliance was a step towards conquest of the
West. Similarly, designs on Carthage date from nine years earlier than
Thucydides' first mention. The Western policy was hindered by Pericles, who
always disapproved of it; but it explains the fresh course taken by the war
after his death. Thucydides always regarded the Sicilian Expedition as an
irrelevant diversion, because he never saw its connexion with the Megarian
decrees, and could not know that Pericles adopted the anti-Megarian policy only
because it was forced upon him.
39-51
[[xiv]]
How could Thucydides regard his account of the origin of the war as
complete and final? The contrast between it and our own hypothesis points to
his conception of history being different from the modern. He undertakes to
record only what was actually done in the war ([[paragraph]]rga) and the
`accounts' (lÒgoi) given by the agents. (This method was partly imposed
by circumstances. His original plan of the work.) He says nothing about
causes; and draws no distinction between afit[[currency]]ai and
profãseiw. The first Book is not about causes but `grievances'
(afit[[currency]]ai)Ñthe story of a feud between Athens and Sparta; which he
traces down from the Persian Wars (i. 88-118). The only natural causes
of human events, considered by ancient historians, are
psychologicalÑthe characters and immediate motives of men or of
personified states; whereas moderns look to social and economic conditions,
&c., and formulate abstract laws. The ancients' latent assumption is that
every motive is a first cause; human action is not part of a universal
causal nexus, and hence only immediate motives were thought relevant to history
by rationalists who rejected supernatural causes--the will of gods, of spirits,
or of Fate. Thucydides had not only no religion and no philosophy, but no
science or scientific conceptions. He limits himself to recording observed
actions and alleged motives. 52-76
PART II. THUCYDIDES MYTHICUS
The impression conveyed by the whole History contains an element of
artistic unity not accounted for by the original design. The explanation of
this will, by the way, remove the moral cloud which hangs over Thucydidcs'
treatment of Cleon. 79-81
The new principle is first traceable in the Pylos narrative. Summary of
this. The impression conveyed is that the seizure of Pylos was a mere stroke
of luck, and the obscurities of the story all tend to this effect; and yet we
can make out, by inference from the narrative itself, that the occupation was
designed. Why is this impression given? Thucydides is not moralizing, or
actuated by malignity. He really saw an agency called Fortune at work;
for he had no general conception of natural law to exclude such an agency. The
whole narrative illustrates the contrast of human foresight (gnomŽ) and
non-human Fortune (TÊxh), which are the sole determinant factors
in a series of human events.
But why was Thucydides predisposed to see Fortune at work just in this
episode?
82-109
[[xv]]
In order to find the preoccupying factor in Thucydides' mind, we resume
the story of the negotiations after Pylos and of the capture of Sphacteria.
This incident and the only two others in which Cleon appears, together form the
complete outline of a drama, embodying a well-known theory of human nature,
which is set forth in Diodotus' Mytilenean speech. Thucydides has idealized and
dramatized Cleon, who is quasi-hero of his. own personal drama, and also a
minor character in the larger tragedy of Athens.110-128
How facts `win over into the mythical'. Two phases of this
process--mythical infiguration by a traditional mould, and fabulous
invention--are illustrated by the legend of the tyrant-slayers.
Thucydides was on his guard against fabulous invention, not against
infiguration by an art-form, as seen in the dramatized legend of
Pausanias.
The external form of the History shows some conscious imitation of tragedy;
but it also resembles the Aeschylean drama in technical construction and in
psychology. The structure of Aeschylean tragedy is intermediate between pure
symbolism and realism. The action falls into two planes: the lyric, which is
supernatural and universal, and the dialogue, which is human and particular.
The characters are highly abstract, being little more than personified symbols.
So are the characters in Thucydides. Tragic irony arises from the separation of
the two planes. Hypnotic effect of some speeches in Aeschylus. Compare the
speeches in Thucydides.
129-152
Cleon's relation to the larger plot, in which Athens is the heroine,
involves a further point of Aeschylean psychology. The problem of
responsibility in Aeschylus is solved by conceiving the Tragic Passions both as
supernatural agencies from without and as internal factors in the agent's mind.
This is possible by means of the idea of spiritual possession. The passions are
internal tempters from God; and Temptation (Peitho) also comes
externally as incarnate in another person, e. g. Clytemnestra. Examples of
this conception from History: Miltiades at Paros, Pausanis at Plataea. Elpis,
one of these dangerous, tempting passions, is thought of as incarnate in Cleon,
who acts as Peitho, or Apatê, to Athens, when she has been intoxicated by
Fortune at Pylos.153-173
The dialogue (which is summarized, with Dionysius' comments) is designed
to express a pathological state of mind--insolence and blindness which Athens
voted the massacre of Melos, just [[xvi]] before the Sicilian
Expedition. Alcibiades' part in this incident is omitted by Thucydides.
174-187
Thucydides' conception of Alcibiades is `mythical', as may be seen from
the first episode in which he appears. The motive of Apatê in the legends
of Darius and Xerxes, who are outwitted on the eve of their expeditions. So are
the Athenians, on the eve of theirs, by the
Egestaeans.188-200
Thucydides turns against Athens the moral of Aeschylus' Persians,
and of Herodotus vii-ix. Nikias resembles Artabanus; Alcibiades, Mardonius and
Xerxes. Alcibiades and Eros, the tyrant passion. The starting of the
expedition, and its end, where the train of mythical `causes'
terminates.201-220
The tragic theory of human nature turns on reversal of Fortune,
attributed at first to external agencies. Sinister conception of Elpis, who
was originally a Ker; so too was Eros. These and other violent passions
were at first invading daemons (explained by the notion of orenda),
whose permanence was due to cult, while myth developed their personality. The
daemons were later subordinated to fully human Olympians; and in the
theological stage of the tragic theory, the passions similarly became
ministerial agents of Divine Jealousy. God increases the arrogant delusion by
enhancing its causes.
Thucydides had not the sceptical Ionian temper of Herodotus. He rationalized
the Aeschylean theory, not realizing that, when the theology was removed, what
was left was mythical in origin. Even Euripides still feels the supernatural
quality of the elementary passions.
221-243
Thucydides, tracing back his mythical `causes', may have been driven to
connect the violence of Pericles against Megara--the inexplicable circumstance
in the origin of the war--with the hereditary madness of the Alcmaeonidae. At
any rate, his preoccupation with these mythical causes prevented him from
seeing the real factors at work.244-250
. 251-252
PLATES
Design from Apulian Vase (Darius). facing page 194
Belief in Naples Museum (Peitho). facing page 195