[[1]]
CHAPTER 1
EURIPIDES AND THUCYDIDES
1
Editors have noted, and readers must often feel, resemblances tl'
thttiigllt and expression between Euripides' tragedies and the History
of Thucydides. No extant Euripidean play, except the Cyclops, fails to
present many such. Nor is the fact surprising. The two men lived for some years
in the same city, surveyed throughout their lives the same march of events, and
felt the force of the same rhetorical and speculative movements. It is true
that Thucydides was in exile from Athens after 424; how old he was at the time
is not known. Even if he was a comparatively young man, still he had passed the
formative years of his life in the city, and his own statement (I 1) leads us
to believe that he elaborated much in exile that he had conceived at home. It
is possible that he later met Euripides at the court ofArchelaus. (note 1) So
much is at least implied in the doubtful tradition, that he wrote the
well-known epitaph in the poet's honor. (note 2)
It is not difficult then to understand why resemblances should exist in the
works of the two men. What those resemblances mean and what can be learned from
them are
[1. In Marcellinus, 29-30, Thucydides is mentioned with Archelaus and
authors known to have been at his court, although not with Euripidcs. Cf. R.
Hirzel, "Die Thukydideslegende," Hermes 13 (1878) 449. [2. Anth.
Pal. VII 45; Athenaeus Deipn. V I87e; Vita Eur. 40, where
Timotheus is also given as author.]]
[[2]]
questions which present, on the other hand, great difficulties. It is
not my purpose here to treat all of the subject, interesting and profitable as
it might be to study each man in the light of his agreements with the other.
Rather, I have collected relevant passages in the plays and fragments merely
for their use in studying the History. (note 3) What will be said of
Euripides will be said, therefore, for the exclusive purpose of illumi ating
the outlook and method of his contemporary.It will be well to
state at the start what problems in the interpretation of Thucydides a
comparison with Euripides might help to clarify. The essential problem might be
stated thus: if Thucydides, as scholars have maintained, composed his work as a
unit in the years about 404 (or to put the matter in another way, if it is
extremely difficult to show that any large part of his work was composed many
years earlier), (note 4) and if, in addition, he meant by the famous sentence
in 122.1 that neither in form nor in expression were his speeches intended to
be close copies of speeches actually delivered,s then what means have we of
judging how far he reflects ideas and forms of expression current in Athens as
early as 431? The question is important; our whole concept of the intellectual
temper of Periclean Athens would be affected if we failed to believe that the
speeches in the first and second books, or anything like them, could have been
delivered at the start of the war. Yet that view has in effect been upheld.
Great weight has, for instance, been placed on the influence
[3. I have used for Thucydides the edition of H. S. Jones, Oxford 1898;
for Euripides, the second edition of Gilbert Murray, Oxford 7913; for the
fragments, A. Nauck's Tragicorum Graecum Fragmenta (note 2), Leipzig 79,
6. [4. Harald Patzer, "Das Problem der Geschichtsschreibun,g des Thukydides
und die Thukydideische Frage," Neue Deutsche Forschungen, Abt. klass.
Phil., Berlin 7937. But it is unnecessary to reopen here the complex
contro:ersy on when Thucydides composed his History. Even the advocates
of an earlier version admit that much of the work which we have was written
after 404.
[5. August Grosskinsky, "Das Programm des Thukydides," Neue
deutsche Forschungen, Abt. klass. Phil., Berlin 1936.]
[[3]]
of Gorgias on Attic prose after his arrival in Athens in 427, and his
figure has loomed so large that prose before his time has been thought to be
undeveloped. Yet he came to Athens two years after the death of Pericles.
Again, Wilamowitz saw in the Peloponnesian War itself the stimulus that gave
rise to political thinking. (note 6) Is then the developed political thought of
Thucydides, nowhere more apparent than in the speeches of the first two books,
anachronistic in the period from which it purports to emanate? Finally, our
knowledge of political oratory in the Periclean Age is so slight and the piety
of Sophocles and Herodotus so imposing, that we are slow to believe that
anything like the rhetoric or the rationalism of Thucydides can have flourished
at that time. And yet we know of Pericles' intimacy with such men as
Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Damon, and feel that so great an upheaval as that
caused by the rise of democratic Athens cannot have been unattended by either
political theory or political rhetoric.A comparison between
Euripides (note 7) and Thucydides might therefore give some insight into the
question how faithfully Thucydides represents the thought of the years which he
describes. For if ideas or forms of argument which the latter puts into the
mouths of his speakers appear likewise in the tragedies of Euripides, then it
is apparent, not of course that the speakers actually used those ideas or
arguments, but that they could have, and that Thucydides is therefore giving a
possible picture of men's attitude towards events some of which took place more
than a quarter of a century before he himself, in all probability, wrote. Some
such accuracy he certainly claimed for his speeches in the
[6. Aristoteles und Athen, (Berlin 1893) I 777-85. [7.
Relevant passages of Sophocles will also be adduced, but since he was less
affected than Euripides by the sophistic movement and, as a dramatist, was less
addicted to discussing topics of the day, his plays offer fewer parallels to
the History.]
[[4]]
well-known phrase (122. I), [[section]]xomdeg.n[[florin]] ~ti
[[section]]ggÊtata t[[infinity]]w jumpãshw gn~mhw t<<n
élhy<<w lexydeg.ntvn, and again when he remarks of Pericles' first
speech (I 145), ka< to>w Lakedaimon[[currency]]oiw
épekr[[currency]]nanto t[[ordfeminine]] [[section]]ke[[currency]]nou
gn~m[[dotaccent]] kayÉ ßkastã te ...w [[paragraph]]frase
ka< tÚ jumpan. The close correspondence, likewise, which has been noted
between the Pseudo-Xenophontic ÉAyhna[[currency]]vn Polite[[currency]]a
and the speeches of Pericles shows that, in a few cases at least, Thucydides
attributes to the statesman ideas which were apparently commonplaces in the
contemporary discussion of democracy and which, as such, Pericles must have
known. If Euripides offers further resemblances of the same kind, then these
should give further proof that the historian at the end of the century is not
entirely rephrasing in his own way what he conceived to have been the issues of
the past, but that he does in fact keep the echo of ideas and arguments once
used when those issues were before men. Similarly, resemblances in thought
between the early plays of Euripides and parts of the History other than
the speeches would suggest that the historian was himself influenced by ideas
current in Athens before his exile.But another consideration
presents itself to anyone who tries to appraise resemblances in Greek
literature, the question, namely, of traditional language. Where similarities
exist, it may well be the case that one author is not imitating another nor
even that both are following a common source,
[8. W. Nestle, "Thukydides und die Sophistik," Neue Jahrbucher
f. d. klass. Altertum 33 (1914) 6481, and F. Taeger,
Thukydides (Stuttgart 1925) 174-88. The comparable passages are: on
naval power, 11 62.1-3 (cf. I 143.3-144.1, II 65.7), Ath. Pol. 2.2-6; on
the advantages to Athens of being an island, I 143.5, Ath. Pol. 2.14; on
trade, II 38.2, Ath. Pol. 2.7 and 11; on festivals, II 38.1, Ath.
Pol. 2.9; on free election to office in a democracy, II 37.1, Ath.
Pol. 1.2-3; on the [[section]]mpeir[[currency]]a of Athenians as sailors, I
142.6-143.2 (cf. I 80.4, 121.4, VI 68.2, 69.1, VII 21.3), Ath. Pol.
1.19-20; on litigation at Athens, I 77, Ath. Pol. 1.118; on the tendency
of the d[[infinity]]mow to blame its leaders, I 140.1, II 64. I, Ath.
Pol. 2.17; on the allies, II 13.2, Ath. Pol. 1.14-15; on the wealth
of Athens, I 142.1, II 13, Ath. Pol. 2.11.]
[[5]]
but that they are independently using conventional expressions. Now
formal argumentation must have been the rule in the rhetoric of the fifth
century. Antiphon repeats himself word for word in different speeches; (note 9)
Aristotle says of Gorgias and the early sophists that they provided their
pupils with a limited stock of fixed arguments to be used the occasion
demanded; (note 10) only with Plato's Phaedrus, the Per< Sofist<<n
of Alcidamas, and Isocrates' Katå Sofist<<n (XIIl) is the formal
method of the earlier rhetoric seriously questioned. (note 11) Thus there is
reason to believe that not only Thucydides in his speeches but the original
speakers whom he alleges to quote conceived of oratory as following certain
fixed rules and using certain lines of argument, more or less well known. It is
striking that when he says of his speakers (I 22.1) that he has had tå
ddeg.onta mãlistÉ efipe>n, he is using exactly the words with
which Socrates in the Phaedrus (234e6) characterizes the older type of
argumentation--...w tå ddeg.onta efirhkÒtow. And similarly, the
rhetoric by which Euripides was influenced must have been of the same formal
type. When then Thucydides and Euripides set forth similar ideas, it is a very
possible deduction that neither of them is primarily imitating some well-known
rhetorician or orator, but on the contrary, like all men who concerned
themselves with
[9. V 14 = VI 2; V 88-89 = VI 5-6. O. Navarre, who sees in the
Tetralogies of Antiphon a rhetorical Tdeg.xnh, characterizes its method as
"rebaissant l'art de plaider à une tâche presque mecanique." He
concludes, "le travail d'invention personelle se trouvait restreint au strict
minimum" (Essai sur la Rhétorique Grecque Paris [1900] 153). Cf.
F. Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit 2, (Leipzig 1887) I 121. [10.
Soph. Elench. 34.183b36. The passage is quoted below, p. 39.
[11.
The three works differ in their exact import. Alcidamas advances reasons why
the memorizing of prepared arguments gives insufficient training for actual
speaking; in section 31, he refers to his own extempore speeches as unusual to
his audiences. Isocrates, who likewise ridicules the use of fixed arguments
(XIII 10 and 12) judiciously states that oratory demands not only natural gifts
but practice and theoretical training (XIII 14-I 5; cf. Navarre [above, n. 9]
187-207). Plato attacks the older rhctoric on far more philosophical grounds
when he says that it fails to depend primarily on logical analysis
(Phaedrus 265d-266b), and that hence it is repetitious (263a-b) and
lacks order and unity (264b-c).]
[[6]]
speaking, they are merely following the customary rules of rhetoric. In
resemblances between the two one would thus be dealing with the tools, as it
were, of fifth-century oratory.Such considerations cast an
interesting light on the speeches of Thucydides. It must never, of course, be
forgotten that these are without exception the product of his own style, that
they are so intimately tied to one another by cross-references as to play a
vital and progressive part in his History, and that they are much more
compressed than actual speeches would have been. Still, once it be admitted
that oratory in the fifth century was conventional, it becomes possible to say
that the speeches of Thucydides are his own and yet to contend that they
reflect types of thought and of argumentation widely used among his
contemporaries. The chief objection to such a line of argument would be based
on the view of Wilamowitz cited above: namely, that both rhetoric and political
theory developed so fast during the Peloponnesian War that Thucydides actually
attributes an anachronistic skill and intellectuality to his speakers. But it
is just here that the utility of comparisons with Euripides appears. If he can
be shown to use, even in his early plays, forms of conventional argumentation
similar to those attributed by Thucydides to his speakers, then we should be
justified in considering the latter's speeches as representative of the oratory
commonly known even as early as at the outbreak of the war.
Resemblances therefore between Euripides and Thucy dides might indicate: first,
that the historian was himself influenced by ideas current in Athens before his
exile;
then, that he attributes to his speakers ideas and arguments familiar at the
time when he represents then' as speaking;
finally, that both authors reflect a common rhetorical
[[7]]
tradition which can only be thought of as well known in Athens and,
therefore, as the common ground between Thucydides and the men whom he
represents as speaking.
II
But before approaching the main subject, one should speak briefly of the
dates of Euripides' plays, since the iollowing argument will often turn on
chronology. The earliest known tragedy is the Peliades of 455 (Vita
Eur. 33); the earliest extant play the Alcestis of 438, produced as
the fourth of a tetralogy consisting of the Cressae, Alcmeon in
Psophis, and Telephus (Arg. Alc.). Next is the Medea
of 431, produced with the Philoctetes, Dictys, and
Theristae, a satyr play (Arg. Med.). These tragedies then
appeared before the outbreak of the war, and to them must be added the
Hippolytus Kaluptotmenos (note 12) and doubtless some, although we do
not know which, of the plays mentioned in Acharnians 418-34, namely, the
Oeneus, Phoenix, Bellerophon, Thyestes, and
Ino (I omit the Telephus and Philoctetes, already
mentioned). The only dated play during the Archidamian War is the
Hippolytus of 428 (Arg. Hipp.), but the Heraclidae was
probably produced shortly after its outbreak and the Andromache and
Hecuba a few years later. (note 13) Near the close of the war appeared
the Erechtheus; (note 14) the Suppliants followed the Peace of
Nicias, either directly or, as seems more probable, in 420 or 419. (note 15)
The Heracles, dated by
[12. M. Pohlenz, Die griechische Tragödie (Leipzig 1930)
258. [13. Cf. the chronological notes on these plays in Murray's edition;
also the introductions to the same in the edition of L. Meridier ("Collections
des Universites de France," Paris, I, 1925; 11, 1927) I 195, II 106 and 179.
[14. Cf. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff Euripides Herakles 2 (Berlin
1933) 134, and L. Parmentier and H. Gregoire, Euripide (a continuation
of the edition of L. Méridier, noted above; III, 1923; IV, 1925) III
98.
[15. The earlier date is advocated by Wilamowitz and by Parmentier and
Gregoire; we above, n. 14. The argument in favor of the later date, in my
opinion very strong (see below, p. 37), is set forth by G. H. Macurdy, The
Chronology of the Extant Plays of Euripides (Columbia diss. 1905)
55.]
[[8]]
Wilamowitz shortly after the Suppliants, (note 16) has been
placed by Zielinski on metrical grounds with what he calls the plays of the
free style, composed after 415. (note 17) He ascribes the Ion to the
same group, (note 18) although historical references in the play seem to point
to the year 418. (note 19) No doubt attaches at least to the tetralogy of 415,
the Alexander, Palamedes, Trojan Women, and
Sisyphus (Aelian Var. Hist. II 8). The order then seems with some
certainty to be, Iphigenia among the Taurians 414-413, Electra
413, Helen and Andromeda 412. (note 20) The Phoenissae was
probably produced in 409, perhaps in the same tetralogy with the
Hypsipyle and Antiope, (note 21) the Orestes following in
the next year. Finally, the Iphigenia at Aulis, Alcmeon in
Corinth, and Bacchae were produced after the poet's death (Schol.
Ar. Ran. 64), the first suffering then or later many additions. (note
22)This list, it need hardly be said, is incomplete, and it does
far less than justice to many problems of date and order. It is given for
convenience and largely to remind the reader what plays were produced before
and during the Archidamian War. For most of these go back to the years when
Thucydides knew Athens and give evidence for the thought of the times. Iturn
now to the parallels between the two authors, treating them by the books of the
History.
Euripides echoes a few of the facts cited by the historian in the Archaeology:
that the Athenians, unlike other peoples, has always inhabited their country (I
2.5-6; Erech. fg. 360, Ion, 589-93, 673), that they had settled
Ionia (I 2.6; Ion 1578-88), and that in early times the sons of Hellen
had
[16. Page 135; see above, n. 14. [17. Tragodumenon, Libri
Tres (Cracoviae 1925) 185.
[18. So also Pohlenz (above, n. 12)
Erläuterungen, 123.
[19. Parmentier and Grégoire (above,
n. 14) III 168.
[20. See the chronological notes in Murray's edition.
[21. J. U. Powell, The Phoenissae of Euripides (London 1911) 34-38.
[22. D. L. Page, Actors' Interpolations in Greek Tragedy, Oxford
1934.]
[[9]]
been called in to assist states (I 3.2; Ion 54). Far more
instructive is it that Thucydides' method of using tekmÆria to establish
uncertain events (I 1.3, 20.1, 21.1) is described in a line of the
Phoenix (fg. 811), (note 23)téfan[[infinity]]
tekmhr[[currency]]oisin efikÒtvw
èl[[currency]]sketai.The method, closely
allied as it is to the rhetorical principle of efikÒw elaborated by the
Sicilians Corax and Tisias, may have become known in Athens through Protagoras,
who visited Sicily and went as a lawgiver to Thurii in 443. (note 24) The
latter principle is, at all events, well illustrated in another fragment of the
Phoenix (fg. 812) which, after stating that you can judge a man by observing
his fÊsiw and his way of life, concludestoioËtÒw
[[section]]stin oÂsper [[yen]]detai jun~n. (note
25)It is hardly necessary to point out how greatly Thucydides
relies on these principles of tekmÆria and efikÒw when he deduces
a course of history from Homer's description of men's habits in former times.
(note 26) And although it is only in a late play (Archelaus fg. 261)
that Euripides expresses in so many words what is perhaps the fundamental law
of the Archaeology, namely, that the strong control the weak for their mutual
advantage, his early plays abound in ideas of a similar cast. One might cite
the remark of the Paedagogus which sets the whole tone ofjason's character in
the Medea (85-86),êrti gign~skeiw tÒde,...w pçw tiw
aÍtÚn toË pdeg.law mçllon file>,
(note 27)
[23. See also the saying of Peticles, quoted below, p. 54. J. T. Lees
(DikanikÚw LÒgow in Euripides, Johns Hopkins diss. 1891,
41) gives the following passages as illustrating Euripides' use of
tekmÆria: Alc. 634, 653; Andr. 677; Elec. 1041,
1086; Hec. 1206; Hel. 920; Hcld. 142; I.A. 1185;
Tro. 961, 962, 970. [24. Navarre, Rhétorique Grecque,
21-23.
[25. J. T. Lees (above, n. 23) cites the use of the argument from
efikÒw: in the following passages: Bacch. 288; Elec. 947,
1036; Hec. 271, 282, 1207; Her. 1314; Ion 594, 611;
Hipp. 1008; Orest. 532.
[26. E. Täubler, Die
Archaeologie des Thukydides (Leipzig 1927) 103-7.
[27. Cf. I 8.3 where
it is said that the strong and the weak made common cause in early times, both
equally [[section]]fideg.menoi t<<n kerd<<n.]
[[10]]
or the lines from what is probably an even earlier play (Hipp.
Kal. fg. 434),oÈ går katÉ eÈsdeg.beian afl
yhnt<<n tÊxai,tolhmÆmasin dcents ka< xer<<n
Íperbola>wèl[[currency]]sketa[[currency]] te pãnta ka<
yhreÊetai.
These ideas, although not identical with those expounded in the Archaeology,
reflect at least the same realistic attitude toward human
motives.
When in I 20-23 the historian criticizes his
predecessors, states the methods and aims of his own work, and contrasts the
latent with the superficial causes of the war, he again touches the thought of
Euripides in several ways. The latter's criticism of Aeschylus is well known
(Elec. 524-44, Suppl. 8457, Phoen. 751-52), but it is
worth observing that in the first of these passages he finds fault with his
predecessor's criteria and, in the second, states the extreme difficulty of
learning what takes place in the course of a battle--ideas to which Thucydides
gave a special and quite technical importance. There can be no question of
influences here; Euripides is merely expressing in small details that critical
and rationalistic spirit which he reveals in far more searching ways in such
characters as Pheres, Jason, and Electra. All the more then do these detailed
resemblances in the thought of the two men appear to reflect a more widespread
rationalism which, since it is evident in the poet's early plays, must not be
considered as resulting from the war alone. The well-known statement of
Sophocles ill which he contrasted his art with that of his younger rival
(Arist. Poet. 25.1460b33) could, in fact, have been said almost as
appropriately by Herodotus or Thucydides. When it is remembered that that
contrast applies entirely to what we know of Euripides' early plays, then it
seems at least possible that Thucydides also acquired his critical and
innovating
[[11]]
outlook before the beginning of the war when, he says (I 1), he already
thought of writing his History.The cyclic view of life by
which Thucydides justifies the usefulness of his book appears likewise in the
Ino (fg. 415), but a more important resemblance to the thought of I 22
is suggested by what the historian says there of his speeches. He remarks that
he has caused his speakers to express especially what in his own opinion would
be demanded under the successive circumstances, while at the same time he has
kept as close as possible to the general import of what was actually said. When
one turns to the speeches themselves, it is clear that Thucydides meant by the
phrase "what would be demanded"--tå ddeg.onta--those broad
considerations, material, social, and psychological in nature, by which men
form their own or others' judgment on specific topics. And without anticipating
here what will be better discussed under the different speeches, (note 28) one
can at least say that Euripides also conceived his debates in a similar spirit.
Contrasting the latter's Philoctetes with those of Aeschylus and
Sophocles, Dio Chrysostom (Orat. 52. 11 and 13) felt that it was written
metå pãshw [[section]]n t" efipe>n dunãmevw; the prologue
in which Odysseus announces a coming embassy of Trojans served as
éneur[[currency]]skvn lÒgvn éformãw, kayÉ
ìw efiw ténant[[currency]]a [[section]]pixeir<<n
eÈpor~tatow ka< parÉ intinoËn flkan~tatow
fa[[currency]]netai. Much the same judgment could be made of the debate in the
contemporary Medea (446-575), in which both Medea and Jason expound those broad
considerations of human nature and human experience by which their own acts can
be justified and the other's condemned. Thucydides' plan for his speeches has
then much in common with the rhetorical practice of Euripides in his early
plays. And when the historian in I 23
[28. See below, pp. 17-18, 22-24, 30-35, 40-44, 49-50.]
[[12]]
goes on to distinguish between the superficial and the real causes of
the war, he makes in large a distinction which Euripides several times makes in
small (Andr. 391-93, Elec. 1040, I.A.
938-40).We come now to the speeches, the first of which, that of
the Corcyreans at Athens (I 32-36), turns on the argument that the Athenians
will be wise to prepare for the inevitable war by allying themselves with
another naval power ka< proepibouleÊein aÈto>w mçllon u
éntepibouleÊein (I 33.4). They further state that it will be just
for Athens to do so, an argument opposed by the Corinthians (139-40) and from
the foregoing account (esp. I 25-26) apparently doubtful, on purely moral
grounds, to Thucydides. Their plea recalls the words of Creon in the
Medea (349-51), that it is a weakness to be turned from your material
interests by moral scruples, and again (289), that one must anticipate evils by
action,taËtÉ oÔn prn fulãjomai.
Like Jason in the same play (548-50), the envoys state at the start what they
must prove (I 32.1); in both cases also, the argument turns on personal
advantage clothed in the terms of justice. Again, like the Mytileneans pleading
for Spartan help (III 9), they seek to forfend ill opinion by explaining why
they have deserted their natural ties (I 34), (note 29) a form of reasoning
which brings to mind Electra's words on the dead Aegisthus (Elec.
918-24), that he should have judged his wife's future by her past conduct. In
the Medea (869-905) Jason to his cost is thus convinced of his wife's
change of heart. In short, the Medea shows Euripides to be fully aware
not only of the lines of argument, tÚ sumfdeg.ron and
[29. Cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 1424b36, de> ddeg., ~tan
sunagoreÊein boÊl[[dotaccent]] t[[ordfeminine]]
ginomdeg.n[[dotaccent]] summax[[currency]]&,... deiknÊnai toÁw
tØn summax[[currency]]an poioimdeg.nouw mãlista mcentsn
dika[[currency]]ouw ^ntaw. The treatise professes to rely in part on the
teachings of Corax (1421b2) and thus may in some cases reproduce arguments
known in Athens during the Periclean Age (see above, p. 9).]
[[13]]tÚ d[[currency]]kaion
, on which the Corcyreans base their appeal, but also of the formal use
of those arguments in speeches. Medea appealing to Jason and, later, Jason to
Medea have, like the envoys, "dressed their utterance well" (Med. 576);
beneath, in all three cases, are entirely material ends.I omit
the first speech of theCorinthians at Sparta (I 68-71); for although the
contrast there made between Spartan <=sux[[currency]]a and Athenian
polupragmosÊnh is well known in Euripides, it may best be discussed under
later speeches. After the Corinthians, the Athenians come forward "to remind
the old and instruct the young" (I 72.1; cf. Suppl. 842-43) and, like
Adrastus in the Suppliants (253), state that they are not speaking as
before judges. After rehearsing the feats of Athens in the Persian wars, a
subject necessarily absent from Euripides but, to judge by Pericles' dismissal
of it makrhgore>n [[section]]n efidÒsin oÈ boulÒmenow (II
36.4), evidently common at the time, they proceed to justify the Athenian
empire, first, as involving peril for themselves if it were abandoned and,
second, as natural since men subdue what fails to resist (I 75-76). Euripides
offers no such exact parallel to either idea as does a fragment of Democritus
to the latter, fÊsei tÚ êrxein ofikÆion t"
krdeg.ssoni. (note 30) But the praise of the b[[currency]]ow
ék[[currency]]ndunow (Ion 597, 621-47; Antiope fgs.
193-94, 198; I.A. 16-27; cf also Soph. O.T. 577-602) as well as
the statements of the dangers which surround power (Her. 65-66; fg. 850)
are ideas closely related to the first; still more so is the import of the
following fragment (Hipp. Kal. 433),[[paragraph]]gvge fhm< ka<
nÒmon ge mØ sdeg.bein[[section]]n to>si deino>w t<<n
énagka[[currency]]vn pldeg.on.It is remarkable that
Euripides seems nowhere to expound
[30. Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 9
(Berlin 1959) II 200, fg. 267.]
[[14]]
the "natural right" of the strong. (note 31) He is familiar, at least,
with the doctrine that convention fetters men (Cycl. 338-41) and several
times says that power knows no moral inhibitions. (note 32) A conspicuous trait
of language in this speech is the repeated use of a series of three general
nouns; their empire, say the Athenians, is justifiable through ddeg.ow,
timÆ, and >>fel[[currency]]a (I 75.3, 76.2; cf. I 74.1, 122.4, III
40.2). If Heraclidae 238-42 and Medea 548-49 are perhaps not
exact parallels, the formal resemblance to the TriagmÒw of Ion of Chios
is striking, pãnta pr[[currency]]a ka< oÈdcentsn pldeg.on u
[[paragraph]]lasson toÊtvn t<<n tri<<n...sÊnesiw ka<
krãtow ka< tÊxh (Vorsokr. 9 I 379, fg.
1).The aged king Archidamus, after advancing reasons for
delaying the war, answers the Corinthians' criticism of the Spartan
<=sux[[currency]]a by setting the trait in a more favorable light and by
showing how it is rooted in the Spartan system of discipline (I 83-85).
Superficial resemblances to Euripides exist in his appeal to the coolness and
experience of the older Spartans (I 80.1; Bellerophon fg. 291,
Suppl. 476-85), in his statement that the strength of Athens is in her
allies (I 81.4; Ion 1584-85), and in his remark that intellect impedes
action (I 84.3; Peliades fg. 610). But the part of the speech which
touches the thought of Periclean Athens most closely is his description of the
Spartan égvgÆ. Thucydides saw it as a profound contrast to the
Athenian way of life expounded in the Funeral Oration: the one relied on
discipline and strict observance of law, because, as Archidamus says (I 84.4),
men being much alike, those trained in the severest school are most effective;
the other, although essentially controlled by law, especially the unwritten
laws (II 37.3), trusted its citizens to think and act without recourse to
constant
[31. But see W. Nestle, Euripides (Stuttgart 1901)
203. [32. Cf. pp. 10, 12, 29, 40-41.]
[[15]]
discipline (II 39.3, 40.3). Now this contrast between authoritarian and
liberal government must have been very seriously debated at Athens; it is, in
fact, at the root of any possible theory of democracy. Aeschylus foreshadowed
it when he made the Eumenides threaten that the loss of their power, involved
as that loss was with the change in status of the Areopagus, meant the decline
of all discipline (Eum. 490-505). But the Ajax and
Antigone of Sophocles first discuss the question in the form of
antithetical debate made familiar in Athens through Protagoras. (note
33) In the former play (1073-80), Menelaus, in forbidding Teucer to bury the
dead Ajax, enforces his demands on the grounds that law cannot endure without
ddeg.ow,oÎtÉ ín stratÒw ge svfrÒnvw
êrxoitÉ [[paragraph]]timhdcentsn fÒbou prÒblhma
mhdÉ afidoËw [[paragraph]]xvn...ddeg.ow går /
prÒsestin afisxÊnh yÉ imoËsvthr[[currency]]an
[[paragraph]]xonta tÒndÉ [[section]]p[[currency]]staso.
Creon (Antig. 666-76) likewise thinks civil obedience the school of
military discipline. And it is striking how close these passages are to the
thought of Archidamus who, like Menelaus, represents discipline as resulting
from afid~w and svfrosÊnh inculcated by the state and, in his brief
speech to the troops early in Book II, lays weight on ddeg.ow (II 11.4-5). His
insistence on unquestioning obedience to law (I 84.3) recalls especially the
first lines of the passage cited from the Antigone, and Euripides echoes
the point in the Orestes when, after making it clear that Tyndareus is a
Spartan (457, 537), he portrays him as a legalist (491-541).
On
the whole, however, the contrast appears in a different but closely related
guise to Euripides. In the Iphegenia at
[33. For the Antilogies of Protagoras, see Vorsokr. 9 II
254.7; 255.4; 259.25; 266.1,3. He professed to teach knowledge of government
(Plato Protag. 318e6), and Aristoxenus saw in his Antilogies the
substance of Plato's Republic (Vorsokr. 9 II 265-66).]
[[16]]
Aulis, 558-72, it is stated that training (trofa[[currency]]) is
chiefly instrumental in producing éretÆ. But Euripides was not
always so sure of the value of training; in the earlier Hecuba, 592-602,
and Phoenix, fg. 810 (cf. Elec. 390, 941-42), he states his chief
confidence in men's native powers, and one is possibly justified in explaining
this change of attitude by the poet's growing conservatism and by the
disillusionment with democracy which he felt towards the end of his life. (note
34) For that, in contemporary theory, democracy implied a trust and oligarchy a
distrust of man's native capacities appears not only from the opposing views of
Pericles and Archidamus, but from such other contrasts as that between the
ékr[[currency]]beia of the aristocrats and the étaj[[currency]]a
of the poor in the pseudo-Xenophontic ÉAyhna[[currency]]vn
Polite[[currency]]a (I.5), between the afid~w of the older generation and the
self- indulgence of the younger in the Clouds (992, 1077), between the
restrained knowledge of the few and the ignorant wildness of the many in the
debate among the Persians (Herod. III 81). These last passages are
unfavorable to the free ways fostered by democracy, but arguments were made on
the other side, one of which seems to have centered about the êgraptoi
nÒmoi. It is, at least, a striking coincidence that the unwritten iaws
are cited by Pericles as especially regarded in a democracy (II 37.3), appear
as the sanction of Theseus' conduct in the Suppliants, (note 35) and are
Antigone's chief support against the oligarchic Creon (Antig. 450).
(note 36)
[34. Wilamowitz, Einleitung in die greichische Tragodie 2 (Berlin
1921) 14-15. [35. Theseus speaks, not of the "unwritten laws," but of the
nÒmow palaiÚw daimÒnvn (Suppl. 563; cf. 311, 526).
Andocides, I 85-87, cites a law forbidding judicial decisions based on an
égrãf[[florin]] nÒm[[florin]]. But he is referring to laws
not included in the written code of 403, and the words therefore have an
entirely different meaning from those under discussion.
[36. It is perhaps
worth reminding the reader that the play won Sophocles the office of general
(Arg. Antig.) at a time when the rivalry of Pericles and Thucydides the
son of Melesias had raised serious questions concerning the nature of Attic
democracy (see the article of H. T. Wade-Gery cited below, n. 47). It is
likely, therefore, that the play conveyed political overtones to the
audience.]
[[17]]
The argument may have run somewhat as follows: although democracy lacks
the strict nÒmoi of oligarchy, democratic man vith his freer trust in
himself feels instinctive accord with the great natural laws. But the point
need not be pressed; certainly there were other arguments in favor of democracy
as having written laws available for all (II 37.1-3; Suppl. 443). It is
enough for our purpose if it be accepted that the difference between democracy
and oligarchy was analyzed in the years when Thucydides knew Athens and that in
introducing into the debate the related questions of strict obedience and
freedom, training and natural inclination, distrust and trust of human nature,
he is true to the thought of the time.The second speech of the
Corinthians at Sparta need not long detain us. There exists a close parallel to
Bellerophon, fg. 287,to>w prãgmasin går oÈx<
yumoËsyai xre~n:mdeg.lei går aÈto>w oÈddeg.n:
éllÉoÍtugxãnvntå prãgmatÉ
iry<<w un tim[[ordfeminine]], prãssei kal<<w,
when, speaking of the unexpectedness of war, the envoys conclude
[[section]]n / i mcentsn eÈorgÆtvw aÈt" prosomilÆsaw
bebai[[currency]]terow, i dÉ ÙrgisyeI.T.
729-30, Alc. 671-72, Ion 585). In form, this speech is a very
simple example of a sumbouleutikÒw, the first and last paragraphs being
exhortation (I 120 and 124), while the second and third show respectively that
it is possible for the Peloponnesians to win and at all events shameful for
them not to make the attempt. (note 37) The two topics of possibility
(tÚ dunatÒn) and
[37. Cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 1425a17, ^tan mcentsn oÔn
[[section]]p< tÚ pleme>n parakal<<men... deiktdeg.on, [[section]]j
oen [[paragraph]]sti perigendeg.syai t" poldeg.m[[florin]].]
[[18]]
honor (tÚ kalÒn) are prominent in the Rhetoric to
Alexander (1421b21-33), and a good example of the use of the latter by
Euripides is Suppliants 306-19. The former topic is by nature nearly
identical with the argument from efikÒw (Ion 585-620), and it is
worth noting that, if that argument must look to the past in dicanic speeches
such as Antiphon's first Tetralogy or the self-defense of Hippolytus
(Hipp. 991-1035; cf Soph. O. T. 577-602), it looks of course
chiefly to the future in deliberative speeches. (note 38) Now a glance at the
passage cited from the Ion, where the boy surveys the possible dangers
awaiting him if he returns with Xuthus to Athens, shows how closely allied is
this future use of efikÒw with the prÒgnvsiw which Thucydides
thought the chief quality of statesmen (I 138.3, II 65.5 and 13). In practice,
a statesman undoubtedly showed his prÒgnvsiw by expounding what was
likely to result from a given step. (note 39)The speech of
Pericles with which the book ends is similar in plan to the preceding except
that, after a short introduction (I 140.1), he speaks briefly of the justice of
the war (I 140.2-141.1) and, most appropriately in one whose foresight
Thucydides considered supreme, then canvasses at much greater length the
prospects of victory (I 141.2-143). Such detailed weighing of chances is
foreign to tragedy, but when Pericles states that the essential reason for war
is to make clear that Athens will not be commanded by another power, we must
believe that this reason was actually the common explanation of the war in most
men's minds, since it is a chief theme of the Heraclidae (197-201,
286-87, 362-63)
[38. Cf. the well-known passage of Aristotle's Rhetoric (I
1358b14) in which he specifies the times appropriate to the three classes of
oratory: xrÒnoi dcents [[section]]kãstou toÊtvn efis< t"
mcentsn sumbouleÊonti i mdeg.llvn (per< går t<<n
[[section]]somdeg.nvn sumbouleÊei u protrdeg.pvn u épotrdeg.pvn).
Even epideictic orators sometimes look to the future, tå mdeg.llonta
proeikãzontew. [39. Demosthenes (De Cor. 246, cE 189) describes the
task of the =Ætvr as fide>n tå prãgmata
érxÒmena ka< proaisydeg.syai ka< proeipe>n to>w
êlloiw.]
[[19]]
and of the Suppliants (517-23). An echo of the statesman's
figurative style may remain in his remark that events go no ]ess foolishly than
the minds of men (I 141.1), a figure repeated in the outcry of Hecuba
(Tro. 1205) that fortune moves [[paragraph]]mplhktow ...w
ênyrvpow.Before leaving the first book we may pause to
consider one other subject in which the thought of the poet and of the
historian is in close accord, namely, the Spartan character. Something was said
of it under the speech of Archidamus in which Thucydides expounds its social
origins, but he often recurs to the subject both in the speeches and in his own
words, and although it is impossible to treat the shades of his meaning here,
one can at least note his main points. The Spartans are slow to act (I 70,
118.2, 132.5; IV 55.2; V 63.2; VIII 96.5), fearful (I 23.6, 88, 90.1; IV 55.2),
suspicious of others (I 68.2, 90.2, 102.3, 120.2; III 13.1), and chary in
revealing their motives (I 90.2, 102.2). Hence in spite of their great
reputation both as warriors and as men of honor (I 132.5, III 57.1, V 105.4),
they are bitterly attacked as sunk in their own way of life (I 71.2), cowardly
(I 83, V 75.3), and double-faced (V 105.4). That Thucydides thought of them as
in fact supremely guided by self-interest appears not only from the biting
statement of the Melian Dialogue (V 105.4), [[section]]pifandeg.stata oen
[[daggerdbl]]smen tå mcentsn <=ddeg.a kalå nom[[currency]]zousi,
tå dcents jumfdeg.ronta d[[currency]]kaia, but from his judgment of the
real causes of the war (I 23.6, 88) and of the trial at Plataea (III 68.4-5).
Now Euripides echoes certain of these opinions, notably in Adrastus'
characterization (Suppl. 187),Spãrth mcentsn >>mØ
ka< pepo[[currency]]kiltai trÒpouw,and
in Andromache's longer and fiercer invective (Andr. 445-63). Her
questionoÈ ldeg.gontew êlla mcentsngl~ss[[dotaccent]],
fronoËntew dÉ êllÉ
[[section]]feur[[currency]]skesyÉ ée[[currency]];
[[20]]
repeats the historian's judgment of their conduct at the time of the
rebuilding of the Athenian walls (I 90.2) and at Ithome (I 102.3). Her allusion
to their plight when forced into naval warfare parallels his opinion (I 18.3,
IV 55.2; cf ps.-Xen. Ath. Pol. 2.1), and her outcry that they are
unjustly famous in Greece, repeated earlier in the play (319-24) and in the
Heraclidae (745-47), recalls not only the criticisms cited above but the
historian's essential idea that, had Athens followed the plan of Pericles, she
would have replaced Sparta's outmoded leadership. Their slow secretiveness
contrasts with the open vigor of Athens (I 70; Suppl. 320-25), their
<=sux[[currency]]a with her polupragmosÊnh, points on which more will
be said under the following speeches of Pericles. And although it is true that,
writing war plays for popular hearing, Euripides is often led to blacken Sparta
and those whom he portrays as Spartans (for example, Menelaus in the
Andromache and again, with Tyndareus and Helen, in the Orestes),
and although he represents Athens as the idealistic protectress of the weak
(Hcld. 329-32, 757; Suppl. 337; and Theseus in the Her.),
whereas Thucydides regards alliances in the cold light of policy, still even
the latter feels that Athens at her best had a vigor and a generosity (II 40.5)
which contrasts markedly with the cold and covert self-interest of Sparta. His
History therefore analyzes and in many ways confirms what Athenians
thought of Sparta early in the war. One could go farther and say that it is
incorrect to imagine, as some have done, (note 40) that Thucydides wrote his
History chiefly to exonerate Pericles when, at the end of the war, his
policies seemed to have ruined Athens. For since Thucydides states that he
contemplated his work at the start of the war and is seen, as in the case just
discussed, to have kept in mind certain issues as they were then pre-
[40. E. Schwartz, Die Geschichtsschreibung des Thukydides 2 (Bonn
1929) 133.]
[[21]]
sented, it is far easier to believe that, even at the beginning, he saw
much that was at stake and spent his life observing and testing the original
issues.With the speeches of Pericles and the historian's
judgment of him in the second book we pass from the Spartan government and
character, which have much occupied us hitherto, to the Athenian. Euripides not
unnaturally mentions the latter constantly; the Suppliants, in
particular, is almost as enlightening as a friendly exposition of democratic
theory as is the tract of the Old Oligarch as an attack upon it. Thus the
connection between Euripides and Thucydides is very close for this part of the
latter's work and continues to be so through the debate of Cleon and Diodotus
in the third book.
Plutarch (Per. 8) quotes a phrase from an earlier oration delivered by
Pericles after the Samian War, and in II 35.1 the statesman begins by referring
to those who had spoken on such occasions in the past. The practice of
delivering orations over the fallen must therefore have been familiar, and it
is not surprising that Euripides should introduce such a speech into the
Suppliants (857-917), with the same purpose of public instruction
(909-17) as that expressed by Pericles (II 36.4, 43.4-6). A speech exactly
opposite in character but with the same didactic purpose is delivered by
Electra over the dead Aegisthus (Elec. 907-56). (note 41) In all three
cases the subject is the way of life--in the Funeral Oration, the way of life
of a whole city--through which the dead came to act as they did. References to
the common grave (II 43.2; Erechtheus fg. 360.33), free offering of life
to the city (II 43; Phoen. 1013-18), love of it (II 43.1; Erech.
fg. 360.54), children as its protectors (II 44.3; Erech.
360.14-17;
[41. TÚ [[section]]gkvmiastikÒn and tÚ
cektikÒn are treated as the two main divisions of epideictic oratory in
Rhet. ad Alex. 1425b36.]
[[22]]
Ion 483-84), the immortality of noble death (II 43.2-3;
Erech. 361), offer superficial parallels. That the fame of women is to
avoid fame is said by both (II 45.2; Tro. 647-50), and like the Funeral
Oration, the long fragment 360 already cited from the Erectheus begins
by referring to the purity of the autochthonous Athenian stock. But a deeper
kinship exists in the exposition of democratic theory. Like Pericles (II 37),
Theseus in the Suppliants (403-8) speaks of the rule of the demos, of
the equality of rich and poor in office and before the law (433-34), and of the
distinction accorded to those who can benefit the state (438-41). More
significant is it that when Pericles states his firm confidence in debate and
in the capacity of all citizens both to interest themselves in the city and to
think clearly of its affairs (II 40.2), he is answering exactly the arguments
which the Theban Herald in the Suppliants (409-25) makes against
democracy. The latter says that the oratory of politicians leads the masses
astray and that the poor in any case lack the time and ability for politics.
Now of these two objections, the second appears in the debate on constitutions
(Herod. III 81.2) and is subtly treated by the Old Oligarch, who states that,
although the kako[[currency]] cannot make right decisions, still their vicious
counsels are in their own interest, since good plans would favor the good, that
is, the aristocrats (Ath. Pol. 1.7-8). Clearly then the question was
crucial in the contemporary debate on democracy, and when Pericles defends the
fitness of the masses for government, one must see in his words not merely the
faith of a convinced democrat but the line of argument actually pursued in the
Periclean Age by the advocates of a democratic system.Other
considerations should make the point more clear. We have seen that Pericles
states his confidence not only in the masses but in debate, while the Theban
Herald sees in
[[23]]
the oratory of the demagogues the greater danger to democracy.
Thucydides thought exactly that. In the contest between Cleon and Diodotus, he
represents the latter as well aware of the danger of ignorance, dishonesty, and
diabolÆ, yet still true to the Periclean ideal of serious debate (III
.2); Cleon, on the other hand, the master of diabolÆ, opposes real
deliberation and taxes the Athenians with an empty love of words. The contest
is doubtless meant to convey the increasing difficulty of honest and profitable
debate in the assembly. For, speaking of the successors of Pericles, Thucydides
says that none far outshone the others but all vied to gratify the demos for
their personal ends (II 65.7-10; cf. III 82.8). Herein he sees the chief reason
for Athens' defeat (II 65.7-11; VI 15.3-4, 29.3). He clearly felt that
Pericles' confidence in the popular judgment proved unfounded in the light of
later events, and he therefore welcomed the narrower democracy briefly
instituted in 411 (VIII 97.2). The same opposite judgments on oratory appear in
Euripides. Theseus in the Suppliants and Heracles and Erechtheus,
as we see him in the two long fragments 360 and 362, are portrayed as political
orators in the fullest sense of which Aristotle uses the term of older tragedy
(Poet. 1450b7). Yet in as early a play as the Medea, Jason, an
accomplished pleader, uses words only to deceive; the Suppliants
(229-37) refers to the ruinous self-interest of the younger politicians in
exactly the way in which Thucydides speaks of the demagogues in general and of
Alcibiades in particular (II 65, VI 15); the diabolÆ referred to by the
Theban Herald (Suppl. 411-16) echoes Thucydides' and Aristophanes'
judgment of Cleon (V 16; Ach. 380, 502; Eq. 710); and the
Palamedes, Orestes, and Iphigenia at Aulis show the
popular orators in an increasingly venal and vicious light. Besides
self-interest, hope, passion, and desire
[[24]]
are represented by both authors as misleading. (note 42) And since
reason then seems so beset by dangers, both authors, like Aristotle in the
Rhetoric, see in a man's éj[[currency]]vma a force ultimately
more persuasive than words (II 65.8; Hec. 293-94) Now although the
figure of Jason in the Medea warns us against blaming the war alone for
this breakdown of confidence in reasoned debate, there can be no doubt that, as
Thucydides says (III 82.8), war and covert revolution greatly hastened the
process. It follows, therefore, that when Pericles justifies reasoned debate as
both necessary and possible in democratic Athens, he is stating, as the
objections of the Theban Herald in the Suppliants clearly show, a vital
article in the theory of democracy of his own times. Both Thucydides and
Euripides lost faith in debate, although both, it must be added, were molded
intellectually by it. Thus in this respect also the Funeral Oration conveys,
not the opinion of Thucydides, but the thought of the older Athens of his
youth.Finally, when Pericles says that the poor, although not
despised as such, should struggle to escape their poverty (II 40.1), he is at
one with the Suppliants (177-78, 238-45) and the Erechtheus (fg.
362.11-15). And his concluding words that that city is best served which
rewards virtue most generously give the theme for a speech in the Hecuba
(299-331, esp. 308; cf. Rhes. 161-63, and Soph. O.T. 879-80).
Thus these ideas too were evidently common in the older democracy. In fact,
they comport well with the bracing and optimistic trust in human nature which
is not less characteristic of Theseus in the Suppliants (195-218) than
of Pericles, and which, as we have seen, is fundamentally opposed to the less
hopeful Spartan outlook. The city which
[42. I 140.1; II 62.5; III 39.3, 97.2; IV 108.4; V 103; Her.
309-10, Med. 1078-80, Hipp. 382, Chrysippus fg.
841.]
[[25]]
offered this freedom of opportunity prided itself, as Pericles says in a
famous sentence (II 41.1), on the wisdom and versatile grace of its citizens.
Just such a claim for it is made by Euripides in a hardly less famous chorus of
the Medea (824-45), sung a few months before the war began and less than
a year before Pericles delivered his Funeral Oration. The Heraclidae,
produced not long after, repeats the boast (379-80).The
historian represents Pericles as speaking a third time to cheer the citizens
who now repented of the war, being dejected by a second, more severe invasion
and by the plague. If the speech is narrower in purpose than the Funeral
Oration, it is, in a sense, as searching in its exposition, first, of the unity
necessary within a state, then, of Athens' justified hopes of keeping and later
extending her empire through her navy, and finally, of the nature of empire
itself. The second part of the speech, although necessarily without parallel in
Euripides, is shown to be in keeping with the thought of the times by its
similarities to pseudo-Xenophon, (note 43) and we may confine ourselves to the
first and third points. Pericles begins by saying that a city must stand
together, since individual citizens, even if temporarily successful, will fail
if the city as a whole fails and, conversely, will in the end succeed if the
city succeeds (II 60.1-4). The thought is closely echoed by Erechtheus (fg.
360. 126; cf. Philoctetes fg. 798), who, like Theseus in the
Suppliants, seems to have worn the character of an ideal
prostãthw; he concludese[[daggerdbl]]per går èriymÚn
o[[perthousand]]da ka< toÈlãssonowtÚ me>zon,
oÍnÚw o[[perthousand]]kow oÈ pldeg.on
sydeg.neipta[[currency]]saw èpãshw pÒleow
oÈdÉ [[daggerdbl]]son ddeg.re.The Periclean ideal
is contrasted with the conduct of the
[43. See above, n. 8.]
[[26]]
later demagogues (II 60.6, 65; VI 15), which, as was observed above,
(note 44) Euripides criticizes in terms similar to the historian's
(Suppl. 232-37). After stating the folly of unnecessary war in much the
same way as in Troiades 400, Pericles goes on to say that, unlike the
rest of the citizens, he has not changed his original view that this war is
necessary (II 61.1-2). That consistency, aped by Cleon (III 38.1), is commended
by Erechtheus with other political advice to his son, when he says (fg.
362.9-10; cf. Soph. O.T. 557),duo>n parÒntoin pragmãtoin
prÚw yãterongn~mhn prosãptvn tØn
[[section]]nant[[currency]]an mdeg.yew.
And although, like Theseus (Her. 12228), Pericles admits the power of
unexpected reverses to bring men low, like him again (1248-50), he encourages
the citizens to resist in a manner worthy of themselves (II 61.3-4). There
follows the passage on the naval power of Athens (II 62. 1-3), after which in a
phrase which recalls the verbal distinctions of Prodicus, (note 45) he urges
the Athenians not merely to frÒnhma but to katafrÒnhma. The words
convey Pericles' characteristic intellectuality, and contrasted as they are
with the far more usual statements on the unreliability of hope (IV 108.4;
Hcld. 169-70), give evidence of genuineness.
We come now
to Pericles' celebrated apology for empire (II 63), which to him is in essence
an expression of men's will to do (i drçn ti... boulÒmenow II
64.4). Empire involves labor, is dangerous to undertake, still more dangerous
to abandon, and contrasts wholly with that gentlemanly quietude which will not
recognize the harsh fact of power.
[44. Page 23. [45. Cf. I 69.6; III 39.2, 72.1, 82.4. CE H. Mayer,
Prodikos von Keos (Paderborn 1913) 48-54, who lists perhaps an excessive
number of synonyms in Euripides, omitting, however, what is possibly an early
example, Alc. 727-28, also Her. 165-66.]
[[27]]
Pericles, it may be observed, does not use the invidious word
polupragmosÊnh of the attitude which he describes, although the Athenian
Euphemus does not scruple to do so at Camarina (VI 87.3). Its opposite is
repeatedly called <=sux[[currency]]a or épragmosÊnh (II 63, 6.;
cf. I 70.8, II 40.2, VI I8.2) or, in a more flattering although not less
oligarchic sense, svfrosÊnh (I 32.4, 8.2; III 82.8). W. Nestle (note 46)
discussed the significance of these words as they touch Socrates' manner of
life, and from a more historical point of view, H. T. Wade-Gery (note 47) saw
in the present passage a reflection of the quarrel between the advocates of a
small (and conservative) and an imperial (and democratic) Athens. But while the
latter's view is quite justified since Pericles is in fact opposing the wealthy
advocates of peace and conciliation, and since such a party was doubtless
equally active in the early political struggles to which Wade-Gery applies the
passage, still the contrast between épragmosÊnh and
polupragmosÊnh has a wider, more international significance, as the
parallels of the Suppliants show. The ideas receive great emphasis
there. When Aethra first urges Theseus to intervene in Thebes on behalf of the
fallen Argives, she says that Athens is mocked by her foes for taking upon
herself such foreign quarrels, yet proudly opposes them;[[section]]n går
to>w pÒnoisin aÎjetai.afl dÉ [[yen]]suxoi skoteinå
prãssousai pÒleiwskoteinå ka< bldeg.pousin
eÈlaboÊmenai(Suppl.
323-25).Pericles speaks in the same way of pÒnoi, in the
present passage, and Alcibiades repeats the argument in the debate on
intervention in Sicily (VI 18.2). The ideas recur at the
[46. "ÉApragmosÊnh," Philologus 81 (1925)
129-40. [47. "Thucydides the Son of Melesias," JHS 52 (1932) 205-27,
esp. 224-25.]
[[28]]
culmination of the quarrel between Theseus and the Theban Herald
(576-77):Kh. prãssein oÁ pÒllÉ e[[daggerdbl]]vyaw
[[yen]] te sØ pÒliw.yh. toigår ponoËsa
pollå pÒllÉ eÈdaimone>,
and it is significant that while Theseus is prepared to defend the
unwritten laws, the Theban's whole argument is for acceptance and quietude at
all cost (476-509). Now, as was said above, Euripides sees idealism in
alliances where Thucydides sees policy alone; with that exception, the ideas of
labor, of discontent with the status quo, and of consequent power and fame are
the same in both authors. Basically, the contrast between polupragmosÊnh
and épragmosÊnh seems to describe the conflict between a rising
and an established power. The Spartans, hereditary leaders of Greece, quite
naturally deprecated change, and the established classes in any given city held
the same views for the same reasons. Athens, on the other hand, conscious of
her energy, alleged it as a justification of her empire, an empire which meant
a shift of power, internationally, from Sparta to herself and, domestically,
from the rich to the poor. To Athenians, then, the word polupragmosÊnh,
vulgar as its connotations could be to aristocrats, had nobler meanings; it
was, in fact, as the correspondences between Thucydides and Euripides show, one
of the watchwords which justified her rise from a second-class to a dominating
power.The concluding paragraph of Pericles' speech is echoed by
Euripides in several minor ways: the exhortation to bear tå
daimÒnia (II 6.2; Her. 1228, Phoe. 382); the reminder that
all things great decline (II 64.3; Bellerophon fg. 304, Ino fg.
415); the statement that it is worth enduring fyÒnow for great ends (II
64.5; Phoenix fg. 814). Yet even these parallels, some of them from early
plays, are significant in
[[29]]
a speech the texture of which comports well with our earliest sources of
Athenian political thought.It has already been noted that
Euripides speaks of the persuasiveness of an honest man's
éj[[currency]]vma and arraigns the destructive self-interest of lesser
politicians in much the same way as Thucydides in II 65. I therefore merely
note a few further parallels to the latter idea (Hcld. 3-5, Hec.
254-57, Her. 588-92, I.A. 527, 1362), before passing to the
debate between Cleon and Diodocus in the third book. In general cast, Cleon's
speech reveals his characteristic reliance on diabolÆ (III 38.2-3, 42-43;
V 16.1; Suppl. 415-16; Aristoph. Ach. 380, 502, Eq. 710);
in substance, its most striking part is a violent criticism of the
ineffectiveness of democracy. Whereas Pericles had set forth the
éretÆ of the Athenians as a force mitigating the harshness of
empire (II 40.4-5; cf. I 76.3-4), Cleon expounds the naked fact of power, the
maintenance of which, he says, permits no feelings of o[[perthousand]]ktow or
[[section]]pie[[currency]]keia (III 37.2, 40.2-3). Just so, Creon in the
Medea asserts that pity is hostile to self-interest (349, 1051-52);
indeed, few ideas recur more insistently in Euripides or seem to have troubled
him more than that education, with all it implies of decency, pity, and fellow
feeling, nevertheless can harm its possessor (Med. 291-305, Hcld.
458, Hipp. 955-57, Her. 299-301, Elec. 294-96). And it is
exactly this softening influence of the mind that Cleon attacks. He therefore
repudiates Pericles' ideal of intelligent debate, asserting o. te
faulÒteroi t<<n ényr~pvn prÚw toÁw
junetvtdeg.rouw ...w [[section]]p< tÚ pldeg.on êmeinon
ofikoËsi tåw pÒleiw (III 37.3), to which one may compare the
lines of the nearly contemporary Andromache (481-82),sof<<n te
pl[[infinity]]yow éfrÒon ésyendeg.steronfaulotdeg.raw
frenÚw aÈokratoËw.Such criticism of the
divided leadership of democracy is
[[30]]
inevitable always and never more so than in wartime, although Pericles
had so avoided it that the historian saw in his ascendancy the rule of one man
(II 65.10). The misfortune is, as Thucydides means to show, that to escape it
one must return, as Cleon in fact does, to a harsh travesty of the Spartan
ideal (cf. the present passage to I 84.3 and III 83.3).Cleon
goes on to attack not merely softness of feeling, but delight in words (III
38.3-7). One may compare Phaedra's remarks on the influences hostile to reason
(Hipp. 383-85),efis< dÉ <=dona< polla<
b[[currency]]ou,makra[[currency]] te ldeg.sxai ka< sxolÆ, terpnÒn
kakÒn,afid~w te,as well as the Nurse's characterization
of the queen's sick mood (Hipp. 184-85),oÈddeg. sÉ
érdeg.skei tÚ parÒn, tÚ dÉ
épÚn,f[[currency]]lteron <=g[[ordfeminine]],
to Cleon's similar indictment of the Athenian temper (III 38.7),
zhtoËntdeg.w te êllo ti ...w efipe>n u [[section]]n oÂw
z<<men (cf. also Alc. 202-3). The contexts here are quite
different, but the essential similarity of expression shows at least that Cleon
is using the language of his time. And the same is true when he sees in the
previous good fortune of the Mytileneans the cause of their rebellion and draws
from it the old moral, often repeated in Euripides (cf. Suppl. 124),
that most men cannot bear prosperity (III 39.4). But finally, one should not
leave Cleon's speech without noting its general similarity to several
well-known speeches of tragedy. In the Antigone when the attempted
burial of Polynices has been revealed, Creon shows his innate violence by
immediately alleging disloyalty and profit as
[[31]]
motives of the crime and by descanting on these at length and in the
most general terms (Antig. 280-301; cf. O. T. 125, 380). The same
rash intensity showing itself in sweeping accusations appears in the speeches
of Theseus in the Hippolytus (936-80), Pentheus in the Bacchae
(215-62), and Jason in the Medea (446-64). The opening words of the last
speech,oÈ nËn kate>don pr<<ton éllå
pollãkiw,surprisingly resemble Cleon's,
pollãkiw mcentsn >=dh [[paragraph]]gvge ka< êllote
[[paragraph]]gnvn dhmokrat[[currency]]an (III 37.1). It is notable too that,
just as the foregoing speeches of tragedy are followed by careful and logical
replies--one thinks especially of Hippolytus' extremely careful self-defense
(Hipp. 983-1035; cf. Soph. O.T. 577-615)--so the following speech
of Diodotus is remarkable for compressed and tightly woven argument. Now it
seems beyond question that Euripides and Thucydides are consciously attempting
the same contrast of impetuosity and reason, and it might therefore be argued
that the historian is here adopting the methods of tragedy. Another
explanation, not wholly incompatible with the first, is that both authors are
portraying a well-known type of speech which in its violence neglected the
ordinary rules of rhetoric and relied on the forceful outpouring of familiar
judgments. Thucydides, at least, calls Cleon biaiÒtatow t<<n
polit<<n (III 36.6), and Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 28.15) says of him,
pr<<tow [[section]]p< toË bÆmatow éndeg.krage ka<
[[section]]loidorÆsato... t<<n êllvn [[section]]n
kÒsm[[florin]] legÒntvn. If the second explanation be accepted,
then it follows once more that Thucydides is true to the period when he
distinguishes between orderly and disorderly forms of argument. For Euripides,
as we have seen, makes that distinction in plays as early as the Medea
and the Hippolytus.
[[32]]
The orderliness of Diodotus' reply shows itself at the start in his neat
and balanced clauses. In a manner similar to Orestes 490 and
Archelaus fg. 257, he begins by noting factors that impede sound
judgment (III 42.1), and goes on to observe that those who oppose debate are
either uiin telligent or venal, a form of antithesis to which one may compare
Heracles 347 (cf. Soph. O.T. 535),émayÆw tiw
e[[perthousand]] yeÒw, u d[[currency]]kaiow oÈk
[[paragraph]]fuw.Then after dwelling at some length on the harm
resulting from diabolÆ, he turns to the burden of his speech, namely,
that the subject cities are to be tended for profit, not judged by abstract
right (III 44)--a forceful use of the argument from tÚ sumfdeg.ron.When,
to support his views, he adduces men's proneness to act on their desires in
spite of all deterrents (III 45), he touches perhaps the central idea of both
the Medea and the Hippolytus, the heroines of which state that
they know their error but are irresistibly drawn to follow it (Med.
1078-80, Hipp. 373-87; cf. Andr. 368-69, I.T. 414). It is
interesting that Diodotus expounds an evolutionary view of law, confirming it,
like Thucydides in the Archaeology (by an allusion to Homer (III 45.3); and
from the speech of Protagoras in Plato (Protag. 320d-322), the
Hippocratic Per< ÉArxa[[currency]]hw ÉIhtrik[[infinity]]w, and
the interest of all the tragedians in the development of society, (note 48) his
words seem entirely natural. He ends by elaborating the statement of the
Medea (2991) that prevention is better than cure (III 46.4) and by
saying that, even if the subject cities do revolt, Athens should pretend not to
see (III 47.)--advice frequently given in Euripides (Ino fg. 413,
Hipp. 462-66, I.T. 956). Finally, to say a word of the speech as
a whole, it is noteworthy that Diodotus opposes Cleon's position of
[48. Aesch. Prom. 442-506, fg. 182; Soph. Antig.
332-76, fg. 479 (Pearson); Eur. Suppl. 201-13, Elec. 743-45, fg.
578; Critias Sisyphus fg. 1.]
[[33]]
rigid justice with the same cool arguments from the laws of nature and
from personal profit with which the Nurse in the Hippolyuts (433-81,
500-502) disputes Phaedra's more idealistic stand. This practice of refuting
tÚ d[[currency]]kaion by tÚ sumfdeg.ron seems to have been well
known, (note 49) and the debate between Phaedra and the Nurse makes it quite
certain that such tactics were familiar in the Athens of Cleon and
Diodotus.Since I have dwelt with perhaps excessive detail on the
foregoing speeches, a simple summary of parallels should in most cases suffice
henceforth, and of the Plataean speech (note 50) I merely observe that, like
Medea 475-95 and Orestes 640-79, it rests on a recitation of past
benefits (III 54.2-56) and, like Suppliants 297-319, on an appeal to the
Spartans not to disgrace their name or the religious laws of Greece (III
57-58).
The historian's brilliant catalogue later in the same book (III 82-83) of the
effects of war on the public mind does not, for obvious reasons, resemble
anything in tragedy, but Euripides parallels a few of its expressions and
ideas, and its general form is perhaps not inexplicable in the light of
fifth-century thought. To discuss the parallels first, Euripides speaks of war
as meaning the abandonment of the eÈsdeg.beia common in peace (III 82.2;
Ion 1045-47), of poverty as teaching men evil (III 82.7; Elec.
376; cf. ps.-Xen. Ath. Pol. 1.6), of the poor as therefore
inclined to impute evil motives (III 83.1; I.T. 678), and of the
distortion of standards in times of excitement (III 82.4; Hec.
607-8),
[49. In Hec. 251-331, the aged queen appeals to Odysseus to save
the life of Polyxena, asserting (271), t" mcentsn dika[[currency]][[florin]]
tÒndÉ èmill<<mai lÒgon. He replies (315-16)
that giving honors to the dead conduces to valor. Similarly Jason refutes
Medea's just plea on grounds of practicality (Med. 559-67). Cf. also
Bacch. 334-36. [50. With the Plataeans' conciliatory opening in
which they speak of their sad plight and their fear (III 53), compare the early
fragments Alcmeon in Psophis fg. 67 and Telephus fg. 703, also
Aristophanes' judgment of Euripides as a master of appeal (Ach. 415-18).
See also C. T. Murphy, "Aristophanes and the Art of Rhetoric," HSCP 49
(1938) 88-92.]
[[34]]ékÒlastow ^xlow nautikÆ tÉ
énarx[[currency]]akre[[currency]]ssvn purÒw, kakÚw
dÉ i mÆ ti dr<<n kakÒn.
The idea, in fact, that misfortune can in itself do much to vitiate
men's natures had a strong grip on the thought of the fifth century from the
time of Simonides on, (note 51) and although Sophocles especially expounded the
nobler faith that a naturally good man somehow keeps true to himself through
disaster, it was characteristic of Euripides that he felt the former more
mechanistic view profoundly. Now it is not a great step from grasping that
truth and applying it in individual characters as Euripides does, for instance,
in the Hecuba and Electra, to applying it in social terms like
Thucydides. Such statements as that of Euphemus (VI 85.1), éndr< dcents
turãnn[[florin]] u pÒlei érxØn
[[section]]xous[[dotaccent]] oÈdcentsn êlogon ~ti jumfdeg.ron, and
Hecuba 903-4,fid[[currency]]& yÉ *kãst[[florin]] ka<
pÒlei, tÚn mcentsn kakÚnkakÒn ti pãsxein,
tÚn dcents xrhstÚn eÈtuxe>n,are examples of
the pervasive Greek habit of seeing the same truths embodied in the individual
and in the mass. And although one touches here on profound questions concerning
the nature of Greek thought and art, it can at least be said that Thucydides'
desire to see the typical is not unique in him. On the contrary, the whole
rhetorical doctrine of efikÒw depended on the conception that different
ages and conditions of men would act consistently and hence predictably. The
Old Oligarch sketches what is typical in the action of the kako[[currency]],
with no less broad strokes than does Hippolytus the probable conduct of an
upright young man (Hipp. 983-1020). Both argue the particular case by
observations on the type. Or again, when Medea urges the chorus
[51. E. Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica Graeca (Leipzig 1925)
fg. 4.10-11, prãjaw går eÔ pçw énØr
égayÒw, | kakÚw dÉ efi kak<<w. Cf. Soph.
Antig. 564-65, Elec. 617-20; Eur. I.T. 351-53.]
[[35]]
to silence, she speaks at length of the general lot of women
(Med. 230-51), and when she pleads with Creon, she adduces the suspicion
always accorded the wise (Med. 292-301). In short, one need hardly
multiply examples to show that Euripides thought of rhetoric as adducing
fundamental laws of human nature and society to prove, as the case might be,
what was d[[currency]]kaion or sumfdeg.ron or efikÒw. (note 52) It
follows that Thucydides, reared in a similar rhetoric, expected and was
doubtless trained to see the general law underlying the specific occurrence,
and although his greatness as an historian depends also on his wide personal
experience and his unique care in verifying facts, yet his History would lack
its essence without such searching generalizations as those of the present
passage. There is no question here, as in the speeches, of authenticity; the
parallels adduced from Euripides show rather the prevailing breadth of the
rhetoric with which Thucydides approached both his speeches and his
History itself.The fourth book calls for little comment
beside that given in passing hitherto. The speech of the Spartans,
seeking
[52. So Aristotle, Rhet. I 2.7 (1356a28), says that rhetoric is
parafudeg.w ti t[[infinity]]w dialektik[[infinity]]w... ka< t[[infinity]]w per<
tå >=yh pragmate[[currency]]aw, [[partialdiff]]n
d[[currency]]kaiÒn [[section]]sti prosagoreÊein politikÆn.
He repeatedly says that to discuss any given subject demands a familiarity with
the general principles involved (cf. I 4.8, 1359b36; 4.9, 1360a3). For rhetoric
deals with what is probably true of the class, rather than of the individual (I
2.11, 1356b34). Thus in describing tÚ sumbouleutikÒn, he first
discusses the nature of happiness (I 5), then of what conduces to happiness (I
6), and finally the kinds of polities under which men live (I 8; cf. I 8.1,
1365b23, mdeg.giston dcents ka< kuri~taton èpãntvn prÚw
tÚ dÊnasyai pe[[currency]]yein ka< kal<<w
sumbouleÊein, tåw polite[[currency]]aw èpãsaw labe>n
ka< tå *kãthw [[paragraph]]yh ka< sumfdeg.ronta diele>n). He
expounds the underlying principles of epideictic and dicanic oratory with
similar breadth (I 9.1-13 and I 11-12). In short, he conceived of rhetoric as
utilizing the general truths derived from the more specialized studies of
ethics, psychology, and government. Even the Rhet. ad Alex., superficial
as it is, describes the nature of democracy and oligarchy (1424a8-1424b16) in
treating tÚ sumbouleutikÒn. And although it is true that
government and ethics were not studied in the fifth century with that
specialism which they received in the fourth, they were all the more associated
vith rhetoric at the beginning. So Protagoras is represented by Plato
(Protag. 318e5) as teaching eÈboul[[currency]]a per< t<<n
ofike[[currency]]vn... ka< per< t<<n t[[infinity]]w pÒlevw, ~pvw
tå t[[infinity]]w pÒlevw dunat~tatow ín e[[daggerdbl]]n ka<
prãttein ka< ldeg.gein, instruction which Socrates (319a3) characterizes
as tØn politikØn tdeg.xnhn. Cf. above, n. 33.]
[[36]]
peace at Athens while their countrymen were surrounded on Sphacteria, is
however interesting as beginning with an apology for their speaking at some
length, which they say Spartans do not ordinarily do but call if necessary (IV
17.2). So, Euripides, seemingly to avoid incongruity, makes Cassandra say that
she can argue rationally, wild as were her earlier utterances (Tro.
366-67). The parallel suggests that Thucydides feels some inappropriateness in
attributing to Spartans the rhetoric which, I have argued, was common in the
Athens which he knew. The question is difficult. It has usually been assumed
that Thucydides unhesitatingly imposed his own style on all his speakers, but
our evidence on the point is not clear. For although Herodotus seems to keep a
uniform style in his speeches, Aeschylus and Sophocles varied theirs,
especially for humble characters, while Aristophanes introduces dialect, and
Plato in the Symposium, for instance, conspicuously mimics his speakers.
Thucydides himself attributes terseness to the ephor Sthenelaidas, elevation to
Pericles, and violence to Cleon; he evidently tries to impart, if not a
speaker's cast of language, as least the sequence and quality of his thought.
All that has been said hitherto goes to show that he is faithful in the case of
Athenian speakers, but the present parallel may indicate that he consciously
gave up the attempt in reporting foreigners, especially Spartans. Further
parallels in Euripides to the speech of the Spartans are the appeal to quiet
reason (IV 17.3; Suppl. 476-78), the statement that victors should not
trust their luck too far (IV 18.3; Hec. 282-83), (note 53) that good
luck gives good repute (IV 18.5; Hcld. 745-47), that conciliation is
possible through noblesse (IV 19.2-3; Her. 299-301).
[53. Cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 1425a38, >=dh dÉ
[[section]]nest<<ta [pÒlemon] paÊein
[[section]]pixeiroËntaw... toËto pr<<ton lektdeg.on, ~ti de>
toÁw noËn [[paragraph]]xontaw mØ perimdeg.nein ßvw
ín pdeg.svsin.]
[[37]]
The events following Delium, described near the end of the fourth book,
are likewise interesting in their connection with the Suppliants, which
reflects the peculiar bitterness felt between the two neighboring cities after
the battle. Thucydides, who indirectly reports the speeches on both sides,
makes clear that each had grievances: the Athenians because their dead were not
returned, the Thebans because Athens had fortified the precinct of Apollo at
Delium (IV 978). The argument, as in the Suppliants, turns on tå
nÒmima t<<n (IV 97.2, 98.2; Suppl. 122-23, 311, 526, 563),
but in the fiction of Euripides Theseus does what in fact the Thebans taunted
Athens with being unable to do, namely, to retrieve and bury the dead (IV 99;
Suppl. 571). The Athenians, for their part, justified their occupation
as a necessary act, forgivable in the eyes of the god (IV 98.6), a plea used by
Euripides (Hipp. Kal. fg. 433, I.A. 394-95), although not in the
Suppliants where Athens is faultless.
But the play, which did not immediately follow Delium, refers also to events
described early in the fifth book if, as seems the case, (note 54) the oath
prescribed by Athena (1191-93),mÆpotÉ ÉArge[[currency]]ouw
xyÒna[[section]]w tÆndÉ [[section]]po[[currency]]sein
poldeg.mion panteux[[currency]]an,êllvn tÉ fiÒvtvn
[[section]]mpod[[Delta]]n yÆsein dÒru,
gives a
one-sided version of the treaty (V 47; IG I 2 86) between Athens, Argos,
Mantinea, and Elis, which makes in effect the same prescription (V 47.2-4). But
if this point is more significant for Euripides than Thucydides, the opposite
is true of the references, already noted, to the duplicity of Sparta
(Suppl. 187) and the self-interest of
[54. Absolute certainty is impossible, since a clause of mutual defense
was perhaps already a commonplace in treaties, as it later became (IG II
2 I, 14 and 15). Thus Euripides may possibly have in mind the general usage
rather than the specific pact of 420 (cf. above, n. 15).]
[[38]]
the younger politicians (232-37). (note 55) For, in describing the
events immediately following the Peace of Nicias the historian makes exactly
the latter point of Alcibiades (V 43.2, and more fully in VI 15.2-3), noting
his youth, filonik[[currency]]a, need of money, and desire for adventurous
policy, in language often very close to the more general sketch of Euripides.
The duplicity of Sparta, a familiar criticism uttered in the earlier
Andromache, was especially felt in Athens at this time because of
Sparta's tortuous policy in encouraging Thebes while still bound by the terms
of the Peace (V 36-38, 40-43).When, therefore, Thucydides recurs to the idea
both in speech and in narrative (V 36.1, 39.2, 42.2, 43.3, 45.3), and at the
same time expounds the weakness of Alcibiades, he is demonstrably echoing the
very thoughts of the period.The Trojan Women and the
Melian Dialogue have superficially little in common; for although they share, I
think, the same essential attitude toward the event, the one elaborates the
emotions suggested by it, while the other sets forth the policies which were
its cause. To Thucydides' mind the siege seems to have been culpable in two
ways: first, as a departure, foreshadowing greater departures, from Pericles'
plan of war (I 65.7), (note 56) and second, as a symbol of the increasing
brutalization of the Greek mind (III 82.3), a brutalization which he traces
from Pericles' ideal of éretÆ towards the subject cities (II
40.4), through Cleon's doctrine of naked power, to the present passage, and
which he like-
[55. It is no objection that Euripides makes these criticisms of the
heroes who attacked Thebes, rather than of Athenians. He is not arguing a case
but expressing ideas which are in the air, as is clear not only from his
references to Delium and Sparta but from the pronouncements in favor of peace
(134-49, 950-55). [56. At the start of the war Melos was outside the Delian
Confederacy (II 9.4). Athens tried unsuccessfully to reduce the island in 426
(III 91.1), and in the following year imposed a tribute of fifteen talents
(IG I 2 63, line 6), whether paid or not, we do not know. Thus the
conquest of the island represents the very kind of extension of Athenian naval
power which Pericles had feared even to suggest (II 62.I).]
[[39]]
wise observes in the intensified rivalry of the demagogues. If this
interpretation is correct, then the Dialogue embodies the same attitude as is
openly expressed in the prologue of the Trojan Women (esp. 95-97),
namely, that disaster awaits the victors. But although so much might be granted
and although the two works contain other similarities to be noted below, it is
not primarily by such means that Thucydides' veracity can be defended. Rather
it must first be shown that the method of dialogue was in fact so familiar at
the time that the Athenians and Melians might actually have used it in some
such way as Thucydides reports them to have done. Now that presumption is not
hard to establish and, for want of it, the historian's accuracy has too often
been impugned. In the passage of the Soph. Elench. (34.183b36) already
cited, Aristotle says of Gorgias and other sophists that lÒgouw ofl
mcentsn =htorikoÊw, ofl dcents [[section]]rvthtikoÁw
[[section]]d[[currency]]dosan [[section]]kmanyãnein, and the so-called
Disso< LÒgoi (Vorsokr. 9 II 405-16), which derive from some non-
Attic source about the year 400, show exactly such arguments for use in
dialogue. But the practice went back to the middle of the century, when Zeno
and Melissus entrapped their philosophic opponents by question and answer, and
when Protagoras, if he was the first to do so, took the important step of
adapting the method to political discussion. (note 57) Plato's
Euthydemus, the dramatic date of which seems to be before 415, (note 58)
speaks of the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus as having long carried on
their eristic trade in many parts of the Greek world (271c), and it is quite
evident that Socrates was unique in practicing, not dialogue, but only
dialogue. For at least the more celebrated sophists clainied equal skill in
question and answer and in
[57. See above, n. 33. [58. A. E. Taylor, Plato, The Man and His
Works 3 (London 1929) 90.]
[[40]]
continuous speaking, and although their pupils doubtless had more use
for the latter and practiced it more as Plato says they did (Protag.
329a), still they could not have been ignorant of the former. Now the reason
why Socrates preferred dialogue was that it permitted more careful thought, and
it is significant that the Athenians at Melos advance exactly this reason for
conferring privately rather than speaking in the assembly. When they reject the
latter course, (V 85), they make the same points against oratory that are made
in the Protagoras (329a-b, 336c-d), namely, that it is attractive but
misleading because it obscures logic and is heard only once. In sum,
Protagoras' early reputation in the art and the clear proofs that it was widely
practiced, being considered more suitable than oratory for close reasoning,
confirm the essential good faith of Thucydides. It cannot have seemed
surprising to him, and need not to us, that Athenian generals should have
argued step by step with the magistrates of Melos the issues of submission or
resistance.The actual parallels to the Melian Dialogue in
Euripides are fairly numerous. The Athenians begin by limiting discussion to
the question of advantage (V 89-99), a topic familiar in the Medea,
(note 59) and when the Melians reply that they would be disgraced by not
resisting (V 100), rejoin, like the kindlier Talthybius (Tro. 728), that
the weak must not pretend to what befits the strong. Like the Trojan women,
they are commanded to think simply of saving life itself (V 93; Tro.
729-39).When then they urge the uncertainty of the future, the Athenians crush
them (V 103) with the same figure from risking all on one throw and the same
reminder of the futility of mere hope that are expressed
[59. See above, p. 12.]
[[41]]
in a similar situation by the Argive Herald in the Heraclidae
(148-49, 169-70; cf. Her. 91-94, 282-83, 309-10). The Melians now
advance their trust both in the gods, who, they say, will protect their
righteous cause (V 104), and in Sparta. Their stand recalls the bitter lines of
the Bellerophon (fg. 286.10-12),pÒleiw te mikråw
o[[perthousand]]da tim~saw yeoÊw,a,, meizÒnvn klÊousi
dussebestdeg.rvnlÒgxhw ériym" ple[[currency]]onow
kratoÊmenai.
When the Athenians reply that, in acting according to the laws of nature, they
themselves are not offending the gods who presumably submit to the same laws (V
105.1-2), the thought is close to Hecuba's in the familiar line (Tro.
886),ZeÊw, e[[daggerdbl]]tÉ énãgkh fÊseow
e[[daggerdbl]]te noËw brot<<n.
The
passage in which they go on to remind the Melians how empty is any trust in the
supremely politic Spartans (V 105.4-109) has been mentioned above. (note 60)
Just so, the Spartan Menelaus in the Orestes (718-24) is portrayed as
quite capable of deserting the ties of blood when it is dangerous to defend
them. The sentence in which the Athenians praise their opponents' innocence but
deplore their folly (V 105.3) recalls the line of the Alcestis
(1093),afin<< mcentsn afin": mvr[[currency]]an dÉ
ÙfliskãneiwThe whole attitude of
the Melians is aptly summarized in the words of Talthybius (Tro.
302-3),kãrta toi toÈleÊyeron[[section]]n to>w
toioÊtoiw duslÒfvw fdeg.rei kakã.
Finally to speak of the debate as a whole, it expounds more openly than any
other part of Thucydides' work those
[60. Page 19.]
[[42]]
principles of power which, from the Archaeology on, play a profound part
in his thought, but which, nevertheless, if we may judge by his admiration of
Pericles who insisted that éretÆ must accompany power, were not to
him the sole law of empire. Now Thucydides was not the only Athenian to ponder
these questions; on the contrary, the rival claims of generosity and
self-interest, familiar in the Medea, are discussed in the papyrus
fragment of Antiphon's ÉAlÆyeia (note 61) and form perhaps the
central issue in the whole complex controversy of fÊsiw and nÒmow
which Plato represents as going back to this period (Gorg. 482c-486c;
Rep. 338c). It can then be accepted that there were men in Athens who,
like Callicles in the Gorgias, believed exclusively in the doctrine of power;
Eteocles in the Phoenissae (503-6, 524-25) is, for instance, portrayed
as such a man. Hence there exist no general grounds for doubting Thucydides'
view that in 416 the directors of Athenian policy in fact held such ideas in
regard to the empire. If, further, the previous point be granted, that the arts
not merely of oratory but of dialogue were taught by the sophists and practiced
by their pupils, then we must believe that such an argument as the Melian
Dialogue could actually have taken place. For although, like all Thucydides'
speeches, it is compressed and therefore more abstract than an actual debate
would have been, yet it closely touches the thought of the time, proceeds by
arguments which are familiar in Euripides and hence in Athens, and relies, as
we have seen that contemporary rhetoric did rely, on general propositions to
support specific proposals.I shall say little of books six and
seven, both because the main lines of comparison between Thucydides and
Euripides have already been sketched and because the speeches in
[61. Vorsokr. 9 II 346-55, fg. 44.]
[[43]]
these books contain in fact far fewer parallels to the latter. It is
true that, like the speeches of earlier books, they commonly rely on arguments
from the profitable, the just, or the likely, and to that extent reveal
principles of rhetoric familiar in Euripides. But he can hardly be expected to
touch on the actual issues which arose in Sicily, and it is instructive that
such parallels as exist in his plays are chiefly to the speeches made in Athens
before the expedition and to the letter and speeches of Nicias, who once, at
least, under the stress of danger repeated familiar ideas (VII 69.2). The
argument from silence may then be of value here; for if it is true, as I think
it is, that Thucydides is closest to Euripides when he sets forth what either
took place at Athens or could have been directly reported there, in some cases
before his own exile, then his accuracy is the more authenticated. Conversely,
the common assumption that he was in Sicily and got his information on events
there from local sources will likewise be confirmed.Perhaps the
chief resemblance in Euripides to the debate before the expedition lies in the
conflict of interests, drawn there, between old and young (VI 12.2-13; 18.6).
In the Suppliants, as we have seen, it is the young leaders who mislead
the state for their own interests (ndeg.oiw paraxye[[currency]]w, 232). The
mss. likewise give ndeg.vn in Heracles 257 as the revolutionary
followers of Lycus (cf. 588-92), and the reading, although not above question,
seems confirmed by the general opposition of the aged chorus to their new
rulers. And if in both these passages, young leaders are portrayed as the ruin
of other cities than Athens, in the Erectheus (fg. 362.21) the old king,
among much advice tending to the same end, bids his sonimil[[currency]]aw
dcents tåw geraitdeg.rvn f[[currency]]lei.
[[44]]
Now a sense of conflict between the generations is already apparent in
the Acharnians (esp. 702-18) and, as the parallels in Euripides show,
continued in men's minds through the years shortly before and after the Peace
of Nicias. It was undoubtedly connected with the policies of Alcibiades and his
followers, and hence can only be expected to have flamed out with open violence
in the critical debates on Sicily. Of the further parallels between the poet
and the historian in the latter's estimate of Alcibiades (VI 15) enough has
been said above; so also in regard to the polupragmosÊnh of Athens,
talked of in this book both by the latter (VI 18) and by Euphemus (VI 87.2-3).
Two remaining points might perhaps be mentioned. When Nicias (VI 13.2) urges
that Egesta be left to get out of the difficulties which she had entered of her
own accord, he echoes the counsel of Theseus in the Suppliants (248-49)
before the latter decides to intervene in Thebes on religious grounds. And
Alcibiades' forecast that the democracy of Syracuse could never unite or offer
effective resistance (VI 17.2-6)--a forecast disproved in the event and,
although not to Thucydides' mind the primary cause of the defeat (II 65), still
an important factor in it (VII 55.2, VIII 96.5)--seems not to have been shared
by Euripides. At least in the Trojan Women (220-23) he goes out of his
way to praise the valor of the land of Aetna, a view which corresponds to
Nicias' estimate of the approaching task (VI 20.4), and which therefore
indirectly confirms the whole substance of the debate.The
resemblances in the seventh book, with one exception to be noted below, are
closest in the letter and speeches of Nicias. He wrote to the Athenians,
Thucydides says (VII 8.2), because he feared the falsification of messengers, a
point made in the Heraclidae (292-93). And when in the
[[45]]
letter itself he concludes his account of the army by remarking on the
difficulty which he has in maintaining discipline, he makes a complaint which
must have been all too familiar at Athens and which in one form or another
appears several times in Euripides (Hcld. 415-24, Hec. 606-8,
855-61, Suppl. 247, I.A. 914). His remark that he is sending
unpleasant but necessary information (VII 14.4) recalls the very similar words
of Orestes (Elec. 293), likewise for use in a message. In exhortation
before the great final battle in the harbor, there is little to be noted for
our purpose except his reminder to the sailors what benefits they had enjoyed
by living in Athens and being thought Athenians (VII 63.3). One thinks of Jason
recalling to Medea the similar benefits which she had had from Greece
(Med. 536-41), doubly immoral words on his part, since such reminders
must have been the common substance of more worthy appeals. But when the fight
was near, Thucydides says, Nicias forgot formal reasoning and resorted to such
old and natural pleas as Aeschylus tells were uttered at Salamis--pleas to
wife, children, and ancestral gods (VII 69.2; Pers. 403-5; cf.
Septem 14-16, Eur. Erech. fg. 360.15). The passage is
interesting; for it shows, what has been argued from the beginning, that
Thucydides thought of the Athenians as so accustomed to polished and logical
argument that only under the stress of extreme emotion would they lose their
fear of that trite but universal eloquence, érxaiologe>n, which had been
used unashamedly a half century before. When at last the army was in retreat,
Nicias sought to encourage the soldiers by recalling to them the ancient
doctrine of expiation, saying that they had suffered enough for past errors and
good fortune was in store (VII 77.1-4). It is not hard to imagine that he both
believed and could have expressed these ideas, which in the
[[46]]
plays of Euripides rise naturally to men's lips in time of danger
(Her. 101-6, I.T. 721-22, Hel. 1082,
1446-50).Finally, when Thucydides says of Nicias after his death
that he least deserved such a fate because his whole life had been governed by
principles of virtue (VII 86.5), he echoes what seems to have been the judgment
of Euripides, who at the end of the Electra (1351-52) sends the Dioscuri
off to Sicily to help the righteous--oÂsin dÉ ~sion ka< tÚ
d[[currency]]kaionf[[currency]]lon [[section]]n
biÒt[[florin]].The same judgment seemingly underlies the
portrait of Capaneus (Suppl. 861-71), which in its broad lines is
apparently sketched from Nicias. (note 62) Thucydides' words have been wrongly
suspected of a double meaning. For, although to his mind Nicias lacked
qualities absolutely essential in a general and possessed by Pericles, namely,
realism of outlook and the ability to control the people, still he did possess
one vital attribute of the great statesman which all the other successors
lacked, his uprightness. And the passages from Euripides show how profound an
effect that one quality made on his contemporaries.Since I shall
say nothing of the eighth book, which lacks speeches, the review of parallel
passages is now complete except in one respect, namely, the similarity between
Thucydides' descriptions and the =Æseiw of tragedy. For, altliough the
subject deserves far more space than can be given it here, it is worthwhile, if
only for the sake of completeness, to observe that in seeking Thucydides'
possible models for such a description as that of the battle in the harbor of
Syracuse, one is inevitably drawn to tragedy rather than to Herodotus. From an
artistic point of view, it
[62. Cf. P. Giles, "Political Allusions in the Supplices of
Euripides," CR 4 (1890) 95-98, and E. C. Marchant, Thucydides, Book VII
(London 19I9) xxxvii.]
[[47]]
would be hard to imagine a greater contrast than that between the
descriptions of Salamis by Aeschylus and by Herodotus, and there can be little
question that the account of the battle of Syracuse has much in common with the
former and almost nothing with the latter. Herodotus, although he signifies the
broad divisions of time in the battle (VIII 83.2, 89.2, 91), interrupts his
account by telling who opposed whom, what Xerxes is reported to have said, what
befell individual leaders on either side; his narrative does not fall into
clearly marked divisions, achieves no suspense through the balance of part
against part, and rises to no climax. The opposite is true of the
=[[infinity]]siw of the Persae, and one can note a marked similarity to
it in the account of the battle of Syracuse. Both describe with gathering
emotion the exhortations before the battle, the first successes of the
ultimately beaten (VII 70.2; Pers. 412), then the coupling of ships in
the narrows (VII 70.4; Pers. 413) and the supreme agony of conflict, and
finally the flight of the defeated with outcry and groaning (VII 71.6,
ofimvg[[ordfeminine]] te ka< stÒn[[florin]]; Pers. 426-27,
ofimvgØ dÉ imoË | kvkÊmasin). Both see each stage of
the battle in relation to the whole; both pass with sure steps from the
gathering to the height of the action, then to its decline and end. Their
difference lies chiefly in the historian's greater detail and in his deeper
interest in the feelings of combatants and spectators. And, significantly, it
is in much these same respects that Euripides too departs from Aeschylus. Like
Thucydides (VII 70.7), he observes the cries in the height of an action
(Hcld. 839-40, Suppl. 702, 711-12, Phoen. 1145); creates
the simultaneous impression of many single struggles (VII 70.6; Suppl.
683-93) and the sense of the noise and shifting fortunes of battle
(Hcld. 832-38); he even portrays the effects of the struggle on
observers (Phoen. 1388-89, Suppl. 719-20), as Thucydides
[[48]]
does at much greater length at the climax of his description (VII
71.1-4). In short, although Thucydides, having a definite event in mind,
conveys a greater sense of reality than Euripides and is more copious and exact
in details and, it need hardly be said, far more moving, yet his climactic
order, his interest in men's feelings, and above all, his pervading tragic
emotion betray a deep kinship with the developed =Æseiw of drama. It has
been said that Gorgias emulated in prose the charm of poetry. (note 63)
Certainly it is as true to say that the tragedians, rather than Herodotus,
taught both the means by which description must proceed and the heights to
which it may aspire.Finally, I have noted a few descriptive
phrases in Euripides so similar to those of the historian as to call for
special mention. Early in the Phoenissae (161-62), Electra looking from
the walls at the besieging Argives says,ir<< d[[infinity]]tÉ
oÈ saf<<w, ir<< ddeg. pvwmorf[[infinity]]w tÊpvma
stdeg.rna tÉ [[section]]j[[dotaccent]]kasmdeg.nawords
which vividly recall the night battle on Eipipolae (VII 44.2), when men saw
...w [[section]]n selÆn[[dotaccent]] efikÚw tØn mcentsn
^cin toË s~matow proorçn, t[[infinity]]n dcents gn<<sin
toË ofike[[currency]]ou épiste>syai. And Euripides clearly alludes
to the fighting at Syracuse when, later in the same play (727-28), Eteocles and
Creon, canvassing methods of attack, speak first of the dangers of a sally at
night and then of attacking while the enemy is at mess (cf. VII 40). As was
noted above, Euripides also observes the effect of battle on the spectators:
one may compare ka< épÚ t<<n drvmdeg.nvn t[[infinity]]w
^cevw ka< tØn gn~mhn mçllon t<<n [[section]]n t"
[[paragraph]]rg[[florin]] [[section]]douloËnto (VII 71.3)
tople[[currency]]vn dcents to>w ir<<sin [[section]]stãlassÉ
fldr[[Delta]]wu to>si dr<<si, diå f[[currency]]lvn
Ùrrvd[[currency]]an(Phoen. 1388-89).
[63. Navatte (above, n. 9) 110.]
[[49]]
Like the encircled Plataeans (III 20.3-4), Capaneus prepares for attack
by calculating the height of the opposing walls (Phoen. 180-81), and
Polynices entering Thebes alone feels the same terror of being surrounded by
enemies (Phoen. 269-71) as, in the historian's account, the Thebans feel
when they are first entrapped in Plataea (II 3.4). It is, in fact, remarkable
how many phrases in this one play, the Phoenissae, recall Thucydides.
Like the defenders of Epidaurus (V 55), Eteocles will not treat with an enemy
under arms (Phoen. 510-12); like Pericles, Jocasta says one must bear
the afflictions of heaven (II 64.2; Phoen. 382); like Nicias, Eteocles
forgets under emotion the fear of triteness (VII 69.2; Phoen. 438). But
in all these similarities there seems to be no question of direct borrowing.
Since Thucydides was recounting what he had heard from witnesses, if any one
was the borrower, it should be Euripides. And yet chronology seems to make that
impossible. It follows that both men had in mind events and situations commonly
known. But if so, one is driven again to the conclusion made in the last
paragraph: that Thucydides often sought in prose the effects hitherto achieved
only in verse, or to put it in another way, that verse for its part was so
affected by the rise of rhetoric that Euripides and Thucydides both in speeches
and in descriptions could often work by the same methods for the same
ends.
III
It remains only to summarize the conclusions reached hitherto.
(1) Certain passages of Euripides touch upon the method and outlook of the
History. The poet criticizes his own predecessors, questions their criteria,
and in a broader sense
[[50]]
abandons their idealism for a more exact appraisal of life. Even,
perhaps especially, the early plays and fragments show him fully conversant
with such conflicts as those between decency and self-interest, right and
power, word and motive, apparent and hidden cause. He can see character as
molded by events and can look upon acts, usually called immoral, as the results
of profound natural impulses. In short, he can be, if he by no means always is,
deeply rationalistic and materialistic in outlook. No one would contend that
his plays set forth the precise view of the past that Thucydides expounds in
the Archaeology, or the method which he contrasts to that of his predecessors
in I 20-22, or the sense of historical process which he reveals in such a
passage as III 82-83. Nevertheless, as the parallels show, Euripides is
familiar with many of the basic ideas in all these characteristic parts of the
History. The fact does not rob Thucydides of his originality; on the
contrary, it merely confirms his truth when he said that he conceived the plan
of his work at the outbreak of the war. For although he doubtless spent much of
his exile pondering and developing it, yet the climate in which that plan was
born was essentially the innovating, analytical, realistic climate revealed in
Euripides' early plays. One must not therefore think of Thucydides as primarily
an isolated figure or as one who came to his penetrating reflections merely
through his own observation of a bitter war, although there is undoubtedly some
justice in both these views; rather, he must appear as one who was molded in
early life by the current realism of outlook towards men and
states.(2) Other and more numerous passages of Euripides show
that ideas and forms of argument attributed by Thucydides to his speakers were
known in Athens at or near the time when their speeches were allegedly
delivered. The
[[51]]
parallels were taken to prove, not that the speakers used those
arguments, but that they could have. Of the forms of argument, those from
likelihood (efikÒw), from profit (tÚ sumfdeg.ron), and from right
(tÚ d[[currency]]kaion) were noted as especially common in Euripides and
familiar to pseudo-Xenophon. And since these arguments play a prominent part in
the Rhetoric to Alexander, they perhaps go back to Corax and Tisias and
became known in Athens through Protagoras, who visited Sicily and went as a
lawgiver to Thurii. It was further observed of the argument from efikÒw
that, if it looks to the past in pleas of the courtroom, it must necessarily
often look to the future in parliamentary speeches. Hence it forms the natural
vehicle of a statesman's prÒgnvsiw. Taken alone or with the argument
from sumfdeg.ron, it can likewise be used to show what men as a class tend to
do, and it was seen that both of these uses, if necessarily commoner in
Thucydides than in Euripides, are not unattested in the
latter.It is perhaps unnecessary to summarize in detail how
Euripides confirms the ideas attributed by Thucydides to his speakers. Omitting
much, one may say that there are parallels in the dramatist for Pericles'
exposition of democratic theory in the Funeral Oration, for his plea for civic
unity and his defense of polupragmosÊnh in his third speech, for the
general contrast of thought and manner in the debate between Cleon and
Diodotus, for the attitude on both sides in the Melian Dialogue, and for the
division between youth and age and for the difference of opinion on Syracuse in
the debate between Nicias and Alcibiades. These parallels tend to show that the
speeches of Thucydides are not anachronistic but that, on the contrary, they
expound ideas which the historian knew to have been familiar at the time when
the speeches were delivered. They
[[52]]
therefore create a strong presumption that he thought of his speeches,
not primarily as setting forth his own ideas, but as conveying the actual
policies of the speakers.Still other parallels show that
Thucydides' judgment of the Spartans, of the Athenian demagogues, of Nicias,
and of Alcibiades were not peculiar to himself. In these cases he has evidently
tested and adopted a widespread belief.
One parallel, slender evidence as it was, appeared to suggest that Thucydides
felt some impropriety in attributing to Spartans the manner of speaking which,
as Euripides shows, was common at Athens. On the other hand, evidence was
adduced to support the reliability, in form and content, of the Melian
Dialogue.
(3) Space forbade, and forbids now, any full discussion of the rhetoric of the
fifth century, but a few conclusions concerning it seemed justified. First, it
was seen to be traditional; hence, it was argued, Thucydides' speeches,
although his own and an organic part of his work, at the same time reflect a
rhetoric generally used. Thus it need not be assumed that the speeches should
have varied in style far more than they in fact do if they were to reflect
speeches actually delivered by different persons. Second, it was argued that in
the fifth century speakers were accustomed to look at specific circumstances in
the light of the general class to which those circumstances belonged. If so,
the art of rhetoric implied more than a mere skill in language; it implied an
ability to understand broad laws of individual and social conduct. The point is
extremely important for both authors and, I trust, can sometime be developed at
greater length. But one can at least say that a broad common ground between the
speeches of Thucydides and the debates of the dramatist is that in both alike
the concrete issues at hand are looked on as not, so to speak, interpretable in
and
[[53]]
through themselves, but only through the more universal laws which they
exemplify.All the arguments hitherto adduced tend to confirm
what Thucydides reports was done and said in Greece during the years of which
he writes. I have necessarily been concerned almost entirely with evidence
favorable to his accuracy; for that is the evidence which Euripides supplies. I
have notably failed to discuss the details of Thucydides' style, wherein has
been found the chief argument against seeing ill his speeches the true image of
an earlier Athens. And it must freely be confessed that the exiled historian
would have had every reason and every opportunity to achieve an abstractness
peculiar to himself, and that he may besides have felt the influence of
stylistic fashions which became widespread only after he left Athens. But I
would urge in defense, first, that his speeches are extremely compressed. Any
of them can be read in less than half an hour, whereas, to judge by extant
Attic orations, speeches were commonly much longer. Thus they are to be looked
on as giving the essence, not the substance, of arguments. (note 64) Then,
second, the fullest treatment of Thucydides' language points out that the
so-called Gorgian figures, although common, are not in any sense the primary
instrument of his style. (note 65) Moreover, these figures seem to have been
not unknown m Athens even before the visit there of the famous rhetorician in
427. (note 66) One may cite Medea 408-9 (cf. Soph. Ajax 1085-86,
O.T. 125),guna>kew, [[section]]w mcentsn [[paragraph]]sylÉ
émhxan~tataikak<<n dcents pãntvn tdeg.ktonew
sof~tatai[64. Cf. the judgment of Blass on the
Tetralogies of Antiphon (Attische Beredsamkeit 2 I 150), "Die
Reden der Tetralogien sind Skizzen wirklicher, nicht Abbilder." [65. F.
Rittelmeyer, Thukydides und die Sophistik (Leipzig 1915) 99-102.
[66. Navarre, 102-9 (above, n. 9), observes a great increase of these figures
in Sophocles over Aeschylus, although, as Schmid remarks, the manner is merely
an inheritance from the older Greek gnomic tradition (cf W. Schmid and O.
Stahlin, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur [München 1934] I, 2,
483). But when the early plays of Sophocles were probably influenced by the
antithetical debates of Protagoras (see above, p. 15), it is unreasonable to
deny that early sophistic prose, itself inheriting the same gnomic tradition,
should have been entirely a stranger to these figures. Gorgias may well have
been an innovator only in the degree to which he applied what had been known
before.]
[[54]]
and the sentence attributed by Stesimbrotus to Pericles and seemingly
harboring his own words (Plut. Per. 8 ad fin.), oÈ
går [[section]]ke[[currency]]now ir<<men, éllå ta>w
tima>w, ìw [[paragraph]]xousi, ka< to>w ègayo>w, ì
pardeg.xousin, éyanãtouw e[[perthousand]]nai tekmairÒmeya.
And finally, when we are uncertain how early the ÉAlÆyeia of the
sophist Antiphon is to be dated (note 67) or how representative the style of
pseudo-Xenophon may be considered to be, it is extremely hazardous to argue on
grounds of style alone that Thucydides does not in a real sense echo the Athens
of Pericles. For the parallels between his History and the plays of
Euripides make it abundantly clear both that he was himself deeply affected by
ideas current there before his exile and that he attributes to his speakers
thoughts and forms of argument which were equally well known.
[67. Cf. W. Aly, "Formprobleme der frühen griechischen Prosa,"
Philologus, Supplementband 21, Heft 3 (1929) 153-54, where it is dated
somevhat before the outbreak of the war. Its style is severely antithetical,
far more so than that of pseudo-Xenophon. Cf. (Vorskr. 9 II 347, col.
2.3-20) tå oÔn nÒmima paraba[[currency]]nvn efiån
lãy[[dotaccent]] toÁw imologÆsantawm ka< afisxÊnhw
ka< zhm[[currency]]aw épÆllaktai: mØ lay[[Delta]]n
dÉ oÎ: t<<n dcents t[[ordfeminine]] fÊsei
jumfÊtvn [[section]]ãn ti parå tÚ dunatÚn
biãzhtai, [[section]]ãn te påntaw ényr~pouw
lãy[[dotaccent]], oÈdcentsn [[paragraph]]latton tÚ
kakÒn, [[section]]ãn te påntew Ödvsin,
oÈdcentsn me>zon.]