Introduction
THOUGH we have several ancient biographies of Thucydides,
1 our trustworthy knowledge of
the circumstances of his life rests almost exclusively on a few notices casually
imparted by himself. Everything else that we are told of him either by his biographers
or in the occasional remarks of other writers has the character of uncertain conjecture
based upon fragmentary tradition.
2 The more
we examine these scanty testimonies, the stronger becomes the impression that Thucydides
seldom appeared in person in public life, and that except in a few instances he withdrew
from the gaze of the world. We may infer, therefore, that the rhetorical exaggerations
of the later biographies have very slight value for us; and only a few definite
statements, which present themselves here and there, appear to be derived from
trustworthy sources. In the following survey of his life, therefore, we must take as the
basis of the narrative only the circumstances reported by himself, and endeavour to
combine them into a whole with a cautious use of material coming from other quarters.
Thucydides belonged by birth to a family which by its wealth
3 secured him complete independence, and by its foreign
possessions early directed his gaze beyond the borders of Attica to the relations of
distant nations. The Attic deme Halimus, on the coast between Phalerum and Colias, in
the tribe of Leontis, is mentioned as the place of his birth. He tells us himself (
iv.104.15) that his father's name was
Olorus;
4 and his grave was undoubtedly in the family vault of
Cimon, near that of Elpinice, Cimon's sister,
5 as Plutarch evidently saw it himself (
Cim. c. 4); and we may
accordingly assume it as certain that Olorus, the father of Thucydides was a near
kinsman of the Thracian prince of that name, whose daughter Hegesipyle was wife of the
great Miltiades (Hdt. vi. 39) and mother of Cimon; but the degree of relationship cannot
be more nearly defined. It is only Marcellinus (§ 2) who gives to his mother
the name of the mother of Cimon, Hegesipyle; while Plutarch makes no such statement
where he could hardly have failed to do so, had he been aware of the fact; and we must,
therefore, be content with the knowledge that Cimon's grandfather Olorus was an ancestor
(
πρόγονος in Plutarch)—from the similarity
of the name we may perhaps infer the grandfather—of the younger Olorus, the
father of the historian.
6 That this Olorus was in full possession of
Athenian citizenship appears probable from the way in which his son designates himself
(
iv.104.15),
Θουκυδίδην τὸν
Ὀλόρου, for here, where he introduces himself as a
στρατηγός, it is only as an Athenian citizen that his father could be
mentioned in the official style.
7 Cimon no
doubt owed his wealth to the possessions of his mother's family on the Thracian coast,
which may have been enlarged by the reduction of the neighbouring Thasos
(B.C. 463; i. 101. § 3); and so Thucydides by the same relationship came into
the possession of his Thracian property, which consisted in goldmines near Scapte
Hyle.
8 The assertion of Marcellinus (§ 19), that
he married a rich woman of that region and so became possessed of the gold-mines, can
hardly be anything else than an idle guess.
On the whole it seems likely that Thucydides was of near kin to Cimon, and younger by
one generation. We may conjecture that as boy and youth he looked up with reverence to
his noble kinsman, while he was in the full strength of his manhood and at the height of
his renown. If no other information were at hand, we might assume that when Cimon died
(B.C. 449) about sixty years of age—greater exactness is not
attainable—Thucydides was a young man between twenty and thirty. But as to the
time of his birth two statements are made. The one is in Marcellinus (§ 34), of
extreme vagueness: (
λέγεται）παύσασθαι τὸν βίον ὑπὲρ
τὰ πεντήκοντα ἔτη μὴ πληρώσαντα τῆς συγγραφῆς τὴν προθεσμίαν. The
other is due to Pamphila, who in the time of Nero made a great compilation of the
results of learning. A Gellius (
N. A. xv. 23) writes as follows: “
Hellanicus, Herodotus, Thucydides historiae scriptores in isdem fere
temporibus laude ingenti floruerunt, et non nimis longe distantibus fuerunt aetatibus.
nam Hellanicus initio belli Peloponnesiaci fuisse quinque et sexaginta annos natus
videtur, Herodotus tres et quinquaginta, Thucydides quadraginta. scriptum est hoc in
libro undecimo Pamphilae.” Marcellinus's remark is plainly of no use for any
certain inference.
How much beyond fifty years is one to go back to reach
the birth-year of Thucydides? It is hardly more than the result of an approximate
calculation, that Thucydides, who represents himself (i. 1. § 1;
v.26.24) as of competent judgment at the beginning of the
Peloponnesian war, and who must have died in any case after the end of it in B.C. 404,
must have been born before B.C. 454. One who wrote
ὑπὲρ τὰ
πεντήκοντα ἔτη clearly had himself no accurate knowledge. As to the
testimony of Pamphila, Diels indicates the proper way of looking at it in his
Untersuchungen über Apollodors Chronika (Rhein. Mus. 31, p.
1-54). The dates given are no doubt taken from Apollodorus, whose
chronological handbook had reached among the Greeks and Romans an almost canonical
acceptance. He adopted the method usual among Alexandrian scholars of determining the
ἀκμή or
floruit of historical
personages by reference to any circumstance the date of which was known; and as this
ἀκμή was regularly assumed to be the 40th year,
probably on the basis of Pythagorean doctrines, it was easy from it to deduce the year
of birth. The
ἀκμή of Herodotus was placed by
Apollodorus probably at the time of his settlement at Thurii (B.C. 444), and accordingly
his birth would be in 484, and his age is given as 53 at the beginning of the
Peloponnesian war.
9 The
ἀκμή of Thucydides may have been fixed by Apollodorus on the
ground of his own assertion (i. 1. § 1;
v.26.23）
as to the maturity of his judgment at the beginning of the war.
10 Diels therefore is right in saying that these considerations forbid us
to regard the dates assigned to Herodotus and Thucydides as based on anything stronger
than more or less probable hypothesis. If we cannot, however, find in the testimony of
Pamphila any positive basis for inferring the exact year of the birth of Thucydides, it
is nevertheless not without importance that in the exposition of his own words we reach
the same conclusion as Apollodorus. Thucydides says of himself (
v.26.23) that he lived through the whole war
αἰσθανόμενος τῇ ἡλικίᾳ καὶ προσέχων τὴν γνώμην ὅπως ἀκριβές τι
εἴσεται, and it is clear that he did not make this remark at the close of
the twenty-seven years' war in order to set his readers at rest as to his mental power
and his capacity for observation
at that time—the whole
work, with the completion of which he was then engaged, was ample evidence of
that,—but to insist upon the circumstance which was much more likely to be
called in question, that nearly 30 years before he was possessed of all the qualities
requisite for the undertaking of so great a work with a full consciousness of its
importance; and so was justified in asserting that he had lived through the whole of it with his power of observation and inquiry at their best. And it is just
this clearness of vision and maturity of judgment that Thucydides asserts of himself in
the opening words of his history:
ἀρξάμενος（ξυγγράφειν）εὐθὺς καθισταμένου καὶ ἐλπίσας μέγαν
τε ἔσεσθαι καὶ ἀξιολογώτατον τῶν προγεγενημένων, τεκμαιρόμενος κτἑ.
It is plain that an author could not so write of himself unless he felt that at the time
of which he speaks he was able to exercise on important questions an independent
judgment founded on experience of life and a wide-reaching survey of the relations of
things. Of course it cannot be asserted that for this an age of 40 years is
indispensable; but still less can it be denied that such a maturity is in excellent
harmony with expressions of this character.
11
If we adhere to the testimony of Pamphila, which goes back to Apollodorus, that
Thucydides was born about B.C. 470, the first forty years of his life, about which we
possess no further knowledge, divide themselves into two portions; the period namely in
which, mainly under the guidance of Cimon, Athens created her Hegemony externally,
during the self-effacement of Sparta; and that in which, under the imperial
administration of Pericles, she enjoyed the freest internal development and at the same
time took up and cultivated all the elements of the noblest intellectual life.
12 How closely Thucydides
stood related to public life, particularly in the second period, during
which his self-consciousness must have been fully awake, is a matter on which we have
not the slightest information. But in his history we find evidence, that, though his
family traditions must have inclined him to a moderate aristocracy, his full love and
admiration were given to the intellectual greatness of Pericles. If, as is probable, he
did not discharge any public duties under Pericles, he must have followed with his
liveliest sympathy the public administration of that great man and have rejoiced in the
results accomplished by his creative spirit; certainly he heard from his own lips those
speeches of which he has given us imperishable records, and in them trustworthy outlines
for forming a true picture of the mind of Pericles. It is, however, a probable
conjecture that Thucydides, not only at a later time during his banishment, but also in
his earlier life, often passed his time on his Thracian estates, which no doubt
frequently required the presence and oversight of the owner for the
ἐργασία τῶν χρυσείων μετάλλων. Only in this way could he
gain the high regard among the Thracian dynasts from which Brasidas feared results
injurious to his purposes (
iv.105.2). It seems also very
natural that the position of independence, which under these circumstances Thucydides
enjoyed also in Athens, may have exerted an important influence on the calmness of
spirit and the impartiality of judgment with which he surveyed and described for
posterity the relations of the Greek States and the events of his time.
If we try to form a picture of the early training of Thucydides as we may conceive it
between Ol. 80 and 82, B.C. 460-450, when we examine the scanty notices which seem at
first to promise a fuller knowledge, we find ourselves limited to what we can gather
from our acquaintance with the intellectual life in Athens at that epoch. The often
repeated story that Thucydides as a boy was present at a recitation by Herodotus at
Olympia or elsewhere, and was moved thereby to tears, plainly is of later origin than
the time of Lucian, who in his account of the powerful effect produced by Herodotus at
Olympia
13 would certainly not have failed to mention this story
if he had known it; later too than the better portion of the biography of
Marcellinus, which also does not notice it. The story is found in Suidas, s.v.
ὀργᾶν and
Θουκυδίδης, in
Photius,
Bibl. n. 60, and in the last part of the biography of
Marcellinus, § 54; though only Suidas mentions Olympia as the scene of it. All
are derived from one and the same confused statement, the chief purpose of which was to
retain in remembrance the unusual expression in the assumed exclamation of Herodotus,
ὦ Ὄλορε, ὀργᾷ ἡ φύσις τοῦ υἱοῦ σου (or
ὀργῶσαν ἔχει τὴν ψυχήν, τὴν φύσιν）πρὸς
μαθήματα. Even if we pay no regard to the chronological difficulties, which
cannot be surmounted unless we give up the testimony of Pamphila, it cannot be said that
Krüger (
Untersuchungen, p. 30 ff.) has succeeded in giving
credibility to a story so late and so ill-attested. The recitation of Herodotus at
Olympia with all its embellishments in Lucian Dahlmann
14 is
no doubt right in regarding as a fiction. If Herodotus recited portions of his work at
Athens, the most probable date is that furnished by Eusebius,
15 Ol. 83. 3, B.C. 446; and that Thucydides may have been among
his listeners—yet not as a boy of 10 years but as a young man of between 20
and 30 years—is very credible. He may have then received an abiding impression
that an engaging narrative of entertaining events may be well enough adapted for a
single recitation before an assembled crowd, but not so a strict historical
representation, which is based on painstaking inquiry; and this may explain his somewhat
bitter assertion,
i.21.4,
ὡς
λογογράφοι ξυνέθεσαν ἐπὶ τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῇ ἀκροάσει ἢ
ἀληθέστερον, and gives fuller meaning to the famous contrast of his own
history as a
κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί to an
ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν (
i.22.19).
Whether the statement of Marcellinus, § 22, that Thucydides studied philosophy
with Anaxagoras and rhetoric with Antiphon, rests upon authentic grounds, is of little
importance for us; these two men are so decidedly representatives of the new spirit,
which in both these departments made its way into Athens in their time and
exercised a powerful influence on all who had any share of culture, that we should be
forced to assume for Thucydides a relation of this sort, even if there were no testimony
for it. Both lived at a time quite compatible with this assumption. Anaxagoras, who was
probably born in Ol. 70, about 500 B.C.,
16 sojourned permanently in Athens between 470 and 450 B.C., and lived on
terms of intimacy with Pericles: Antiphon, born about 485 B.C., and therefore some 10
years older than Thucydides, must have stood before his eyes as the pattern of manly and
energetic expression
17 and may have been in nearer personal relations with
him; and accordingly the historian in the terms in which he describes the character of
Antiphon (
viii.68.5) has left a testimony to his merits in
which personal affection is unmistakable. An influence on the training of Thucydides of
a similar character may be presumed to have been exercised also by the Sophists
Protagoras, Prodicus, and Gorgias, who from the middle of the fifth century exerted
themselves for a longer or shorter time in Athens to spread abroad, by formal
instruction and by lectures, that adroitness of thought and speech which they had
acquired by manifold study and practice. We are told by Marcellinus,
18 and it is in itself sufficiently credible, that
Thucydides appropriated and employed for his own style many of the results of the close
attention which these men paid to the forms of speech and their relation to thought.
Philostratus
19 too says expressly that he borrowed
τὸ μεγαλόγνωμον καὶ τὴν ὀφρῦν from Gorgias, who no doubt
visited Athens before the famous embassy of 427 B.C.;
20 and Spengel
21 proves by many
particular instances the influence exerted on the language of Thucydides by the theories
of Prodicus on synonymy. We must remember, besides, that the Athens in which Thucydides
passed his boyhood and youth was full of the noblest efforts and most glorious products
of poetry, sculpture, and architecture; that he must have seen the aged
Aeschylus before his departure to Sicily, have been acquainted with Sophocles and
Euripides in the highest maturity of their artistic activity, and have seen Phidias and
his disciples creating their immortal works before his eyes. When we recollect these
things and consider besides what has been said about his relation to the great statesmen
of that time, we may form a tolerably complete conception of the influences which worked
upon his mental development. There can be no doubt that he expresses his own love and
admiration for these intellectual blessings in the delineation of Attic culture and
Attic genius which is found in the funeral oration of Pericles, especially in ii. 38 and
40. In the joyous recognition of the
πλεῖσται ἀναπαῦλαι τῶν
πόνων to be found in the
ἀγῶσι καὶ θυσίαις
διετησίοις we may perceive his delight in the splendour and brilliancy of
the Attic stage and the panathenaic processions; and in the charge (
ii.43.7)
τὴν τῆς πόλεως δύναμιν καθ᾽
ἡμέραν ἔργῳ θεᾶσθαι καὶ ἐραστὰς γίγνεσθαι αὐτῆς we can recognize
his pride not merely in the well-equipped warlike power of Athens but also in the
glorious buildings of the Acropolis, which daily looked down on the citizens. We may
conceive, then, that all the means of cultivation which the Athens of Pericles offered,
as no other spot in the world has ever offered them within the same limits, and
intercourse with men of eminence in all directions, combined to excite and forward the
intellectual development of Thucydides up to the maturity of his manhood.
But the question still remains whether and to what extent he took an active part in the
public life of his native city in peace or war. As an answer to it we cannot be
satisfied with the statement of Marcellinus, § 23,
οὐκ
ἐπολιτεύσατο ὁ συγγραφεὺς οὐδὲ προσῆλθε τῷ βήματι, or with the
assertion of Dionysius,
Ep. ad Cn. Pomp., 3. 9, p. 770,
ἐν πρώτοις ἦγον（αὐτὸν）Ἀθηναῖοι στρατηγιῶν τε
καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τιμῶν ἀξιοῦντες. All precise knowledge of his early
life is wanting; but while on the one hand we cannot doubt that, if Thucydides had taken
any prominent part in public affairs, we should have learned the fact either from
himself or from some other source, and while it is not at all improbable that his
Thracian interests often kept him at a distance from Athens; still on the other hand it
is certain that he must have recommended himself to his fellow-citizens by
some manifestation of capacity before B.C. 424, since he was then elected one of the 10
Strategi. The inference of K. F. Hermann (Göttingen Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1847, p.
1383) from the minuteness of the narrative of the expedition of Myronides against Megara
(i. 105. § 5, 6), that Thucydides may have been personally concerned in it, is
to be rejected on chronological grounds. For he could not then (B.C. 460) have been more
than 11 years old, even assuming the earliest date, B.C. 471, which is assigned as the
year of his birth.
We shall not be very far from the truth if we conceive the life of Thucydides, till the
occurrence of those events which directed the whole power of his mind to a new task, to
have been passed more in the pursuit of private interests than of the career of a
statesman, whatever may have been the sympathy with which he observed public events. But
the relations in which he was placed must have been eminently calculated to keep his
attention alert in all directions and to make him susceptible to the influences of a
rich and energetic life. In this way he gained that maturity of mind with which, as he
tells us himself, he recognized from the very beginning the importance of the momentous
war and devoted himself with unintermitting interest and attention to the observation of
its course.
22
Twice in the course of the war events occurred which give him occasion to mention
himself. In
ii.48.15 he introduces his precise and vivid
description of the plague at Athens with the words
ταῦτα δηλώσω
αὐτός τε νοσήσας καὶ αὐτὸς ἰδὼν ἄλλους πάσχοντας. He must
therefore have been at Athens during that fearful visitation, B.C. 430-29, and his
account is derived from his own experience and observation.
In the eighth year of the war, B.C. 424, when he was 48 years old, he was, as he tells
us
iv.104.15, charged as
στρατηγός with the care of the Thracian coast (
ὁ
ἕτερος στρατηγὸς τῶν ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης), when Brasidas was
threatening Amphipolis, the most important possession of Athens in those parts. In the
late autumn of B.C. 424 he lay with seven triremes in the harbour of Thasos, and at the
first summons of his colleague Eucles, who was in command at Amphipolis, hastened to his
aid. But the town had surrendered before Thucydides could reach it. The town of
Eïon, however, at the mouth of the Strymon, which he reached the same evening,
he occupied in good time, and made his preparations so skillfully that the assault made
by Brasidas by land as well as by water was successfully resisted (iv. 107. §
2).
The results for himself personally which followed this misfortune Thucydides reports
with the same reserve with which he excludes from his narrative everything which does
not belong to the course of the war; mentioning them not at this place but only casually
in v. 26. § 5, in order to found thereon a remark important for the character
of his history. As in that passage by the words
ἐπεβίων . . .
εἴσομαι he asserts from one point of view his competence as the historian
of the Peloponnesian war, so, in order to show the advantage he possessed in wide local
knowledge and personal observation of the matters in hand, he adds the statement:
καὶ ξυνέβη μοι φεύγειν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ ἔτη εἴκοσι μετὰ
τὴν ἐς Ἀμφίπολιν στρατηγίαν, καὶ γενομένῳ παρ᾽ ἀμφοτέροις τοῖς πράγμασι,
καὶ οὐχ ἧσσον τοῖς Πελοποννησίων διὰ τὴν φυγὴν, καθ̓ ἡσυχίαν τι μᾶλλον
αἴσθεσθαι. It is certain from this passage that Thucydides, in consequence
of his failure to save Amphipolis, had to leave his country for 20 years, and that he
employed a portion of this time in visiting the scenes of the war on both sides,
particularly in the territory of the Peloponnesians. Everything else, however, which
passes beyond this distinct testimony of Thucydides, rests on conjecture; it is
probable, though it cannot be proved, that Cleon, who was then at the height of his
influence, caused the adoption of the decree for the banishment of Thucydides;
23 it is possible also that the charge brought against him
may have been
προδοσία, as is asserted by Marcellinus,
§ 55, and the anonymous biographer, § 2, and is
apparently implied by Aristophanes
Vesp. 288; and that he may have
withdrawn himself by a voluntary exile from the penalty of death thereby incurred.
24 His own expression,
ξυνέβη μοι φεύγειν, admits
this view; and the precise statement of Pausanias, that Thucydides was at a later time
recalled from banishment on the motion of Oenobius
25 can only thus be understood. If
he had been simply banished by a decree of the people, the peace of Lysander would of
itself have given to him, as to other exiles, permission to return home. But if he was
subject to a severer sentence, there was need of a special decree; and that such was
made under the rule of the Thirty is not incredible in view of the character of their
government. Though we may not with Pliny
26 assume that
it was due to admiration for his merits as a writer, there can be no doubt that
Thucydides, having been persecuted by the extreme democratical party, had his friends
among the ruling faction, to which Oenobius, otherwise unknown, must have
belonged. His own statement that his exile lasted twenty years, since it must be
reckoned from the end of B.C. 424, leads us to the last months of 404 for the time of
his recall. This took place, accordingly, before the Thirty, after the destruction of
Theramenes, gave themselves up to insolent and wanton violence, at a time when the forms
of a legal government, and therefore that of recalling by a psephisma, were still
observed.
27
The most important fact, however, which we learn from Thucydides himself about his
exile, and which he wished his readers specially to note for the appreciation of his
merit as an historian, is this: that, having from the beginning of the war a clear
insight into its importance, in order to attain the most accurate knowledge, he availed
himself of every opportunity of personal observation and inspection during those twenty
years, which brought with them the most important and decisive actions. His course in
this respect, as he himself describes it in general terms in i. 22. § 2
(
τὰ δ᾽ ἔργα τῶν πραχθέντων . . . περὶ ἑκάστου
ἐπεξελθών), the combination of careful inquiry from trustworthy witnesses
with the results of his own knowledge, gains a clearer light from the statement in v.
26. § 5. He used the period of his banishment to inspect in person the scene of
events, and took special pains (
οὐχ ἢσσον) to visit
the Peloponnesian lands which would otherwise have been closed to him; and the result of
his exertions was,
καθ᾽ ἡσυχίαν τι αὐτῶν μᾶλλον
αἴσθεσθαι, that he attained a clearer insight into the facts by being in
repose, i.e. remote not only from the party strifes of Athens, but also from the
excitement which would probably prevail during or immediately after
occurrences on the spot where they took place.
In this way, from the scanty notices Thucydides himself has given us of his personal
relation to the history, we gain a view of his aim and method. In mature
manhood,—so the most probable testimony leads us to believe;—in
possession of external advantages which secured him a position of independence and
rendered easy for him an unprejudiced observation and judgment of public affairs and the
persons engaged in them; penetrated by all the influences of the intellectual culture
which made Athens at that time the
παίδευσις τῆς
Ἑλλάδος; filled with the conviction that only by the ascendency of truly
great statesmen and by the moderation and docility of the citizens could his
mother-city, to which he was devoted with love and admiration, be maintained on her
eminence; he understood from the very beginning the task of writing the history of this
war, and at once commenced his preparations for it.
The first seven years of the war, excepting that time which he necessarily devoted to
the management of his Thracian property, the
ἐργασία τῶν
μετάλλων, he spent beyond doubt in Athens; and there can be no question
that he stood in near connexion with the leading statesmen, and was present at the
deliberations and decisions of the public assemblies. The speeches of Pericles which he
has given us in outline, and the imperishable testimony he has left (ii. 65) of the
activity of that great statesman, reflect the vivid impression made on the mind of the
historian by that mighty personality; and there can be no doubt that at a later time he
was present as an eye-witness at the discussions about Mitylene (iii. 36-49) and about
Pylos (iv. 16 ff.); and in all probability he took part in one or more of the
expeditions which preceded his own
στρατηγία, perhaps
in the naval operations of Phormio in the Corinthian Gulf (ii. 80-92), or the movements
of Demosthenes in Aetolia and Acarnania (iii. 94 ff.). The statesmen, too, who succeeded
Pericles, though they failed to replace him, Nicias, Cleon, Demosthenes, he has
succeeded in placing before our eyes in clear outlines. And the young Alcibiades (born
B.C. 451), with the brilliancy and haughtiness of his ambitious character, must have
early attracted his attention, so vividly does he place him before us in
his later speeches and actions. On the other hand, the twenty years which followed the
unfortunate result of his
στρατηγία in B.C. 424, were
probably passed by Thucydides, so far as the circumstances of the war allowed, mainly on
his Thracian property, except at such times as travelling was required by his
investigations. It is not likely that the change of control, by which in B.C. 412 (viii.
64) the island of Thasos and the neighbouring coast also probably passed into the
possession of the Lacedaemonians and was at a later time (
Xen. Hell. i.4.9) recovered by Thrasybulus for the Athenians,
interfered at all with his residence there. We are told by Plutarch,
28 and the
compiler of the biography of Marcellinus says in two places,
29
that Thucydides wrote his work on his estate in Thrace. This may rest only on
conjecture; but it is a conjecture which would be naturally formed by every reader
acquainted with the circumstances. We can hardly doubt that it was here mainly that he
carried out the work so early undertaken and prosecuted so uninterruptedly; and this not
only by the working up of his accumulated materials, but also by the journeys which he
undertook from thence for the purpose of closer inquiry into the scenes and the events
of the war. We may assume with certainty that he visited not only the various parts of
Greece which the war had rendered notable, but also the islands, as well as Italy and
Sicily.
30 Besides his own testimony couched in general terms
(
γενομένῳ παρ᾽ ἀμφοτέροις τοῖς πράγμασι καὶ οὐχ ἧσσον
τοῖς Πελοποννησίων), we have as evidence the vividness of his
delineations of the most important events; and the surprising notice, adduced by
Marcellinus, § 25, from Timaeus, that after his banishment he lived in Italy
(
ὡς φυγὼν ᾤκησεν ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ), which in
§ 33 goes further and asserts his burial there (
ἐν
Ἰταλίᾳ αὐτὸν κεῖσθαι), is explained most naturally by the assumption
that Thucydides made a long stay in those parts.
Unfortunately, we cannot gain any clear insight into the gradual growth and completion
of this incomparable work. The reason of this is, in part at least, the fact that it was
not brought to an end by its author. The history suddenly breaks off in the midst of the
most exciting events of the Ionic-Decelean war. The most natural conjecture as to the
reason of this, that the author was called away from his work by a sudden death, is
confirmed by trustworthy evidence. Plutarch says that it was commonly reported that he
died a violent death in Scapte Hyle.
31 Pausanias tells us that he was
treacherously murdered on his journey home from exile, and that his tomb was to be seen
at Athens not far from the Melitid gate.
32 Marcellinus,
33 however, was
aware of two different reports: one, which was plainly the most general and is referred
to Zopyrus and Cratippus,
34 that Thucydides died in
Thrace;
35 the other,
for which Didymus is the authority, and which Marcellinus himself adopts, that after his
return from exile he died and was buried in Athens. The anonymous biographer leaves the
place of his death undefined, saying, “after his death he was buried in
Athens, near the Melitid gate, . . . whether it was that he himself after the expiration
of the term of his exile returned to Athens and there died, or that only his bones were
brought from Thrace after his death there; for both accounts are given.”
36 When we
examine these statements closely, we see that the assumption that Thucydides died at
Athens rests only on the well-attested fact of his tomb being found there with an
often-quoted inscription. For as his death in a foreign land would naturally be
connected with his continued exile, so an honorable burial in Athens would seem to imply
that he died there. Pausanias, in order evidently to reconcile the apparent
contradiction of his death abroad with his well-known tomb in Attica, devised the
harmonizing story that he perished on his homeward journey, for only this can be the
meaning of
ὡς κατῄει.
37 This solution, however,
cannot be accepted; for Thucydides himself speaks so definitely of the end of his
banishment—
ξυνέβη μοι φεύγειν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ ἔτη
εἴκοσι, which could have been written only after it was over—and
he refers so often, and particularly in v. 25 and 26, to the conclusion of the whole
war, that he must have lived a considerable time after this, and therefore after his
recall, which was subsequent to it; and accordingly we must seek for some other way of
explaining the apparent contradiction in the accounts we have. The facts may have been
as follows: Thucydides returned in the autumn of B.C. 404 to Athens, six months after
the city had surrendered to Lysander. He himself indicates in i. 93. § 5 that
the walls round the Piraeus lay in ruins, in accordance with the harsh terms of the
peace. He can hardly, however, have remained there long, under the increasing severity
of the rule of the Thirty; and he may probably have sought again the peace and repose of
his Thracian estate, where he had so long been engaged in the preparation of the
material he had collected for the history of the war. Though it is probable that large
portions of his work, particularly such as were prominent and almost independent parts
of the larger whole,—e.g. the war of the first ten years to the peace of
Nicias, and the expedition to Sicily,—were composed and written down before,
still, from the even character and unbroken connexion of the eight books as we have
them, it seems likely that Thucydides gave the whole its present form in a long period
of repose after the end of the war, which a resi dence in enslaved Athens
was little calculated to offer. A sudden death overtook him while thus engaged.
How long a time was granted him for the final revision cannot be defined with
exactness; but a reasonable inference allows us to fix the year 396 B.C. as the extreme
limit of his life. In iii. 116. § 2, Thucydides tells us, no doubt after a
careful inquiry into the facts, that the eruption of Aetna which took place in the
spring of B.C. 425 was the third on record.
38 Accordingly the one which occurred in B.C. 396
(Diod.
xiv.59.3) could not have been known to him; for as
he had given attention to the subject, it is hardly likely that he could have remained
in ignorance of it. We may, therefore, conceive that his life extended to about this
date, i.e. to his 75th year.
39 We get in this way a period of from six to seven years during which we may
imagine that the old man, with that repose and clearness which a powerful spirit obtains
from many-sided culture in youth and the experience of good and evil fortune in
maturity, was devoted to his great undertaking and engaged in combining the materials he
had collected into one completed whole, which with reasonable self-consciousness he
designates a
κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί. It is very possible that
during these last years Thucydides may have undertaken other journeys and
have more than once revisited Athens; but it is most natural to suppose that he carried
on his proper work in the quietness of his Thracian estate.
40 With
this, too, best agrees the statement that he met a violent death by assassination, which
is made by Plutarch, Pausanias, and Marcellinus, in reliance on early authorities.
41 An event of the
kind in Athens is hard to conceive, and could scarcely have remained without
attestation. On the contrary, an attack by robbers on a lonely and wealthy residence on
the Thracian coast is easily credible; and thus also is explained the variation in the
accounts as regards the place; distance sufficiently accounts for the conflicting
opinions of those not immediately interested.
42 But if Thucydides, as is very probable, was
slain in Scapte Hyle by the hand of a robber, the second alternative of the anonymous
biographer
43 is to be accepted, that his
bones were conveyed to Athens and laid in the sepulchre of Cimon, where Plutarch saw his
tomb, whether the inscription he quotes be genuine or not:
Θουκυδίδης Ὀλόρου Ἁλιμούσιος ἐνθάδε κεῖται. The difficulty
raised by Didymus as to the unauthorized burial of a banished person in his native soil
disappears on the hypothesis above given. On the other hand, the suddenness of a death
by assassination explains fully the condition in which his history remains to us; the
thread of the narrative is broken off before the end of the twenty-first year of the
war, in the midst of an account of a subordinate circumstance. The way in which the
incomplete work was preserved and became known will be discussed later.
44
[Classen at this point proceeds to discuss at length the theory of F. W. Ullrich as to
the composition of the history of Thucydides which was put forth in his
Beiträge zur Erklärung des Thukydides, Hamburg,
1845. This theory may be thus stated nearly in Ullrich's words: Thucydides regarded the
first ten years of continuous war as terminated by the Peace of Nicias; and accordingly
after the conclusion of that peace began to compose the history of this war, which by
itself was sufficiently remarkable: beginning with the preface of the first book, he
wrote this book, the second, the third, and the first half of the fourth in exile,
before he could have had knowledge of the later war: then, towards the middle of the
fourth book,
45 being overtaken by
the march of events, when the war between Athens and Sparta began again before Syracuse,
and was afterwards in the Decelean and Ionian war carried on more actively than before
through the participation of all the Hellenes including even the Argives and the Greeks
of Italy and Sicily, he discontinued his work in order to await the result of this
second war: while these events, however, were taking place, he was constantly making
preparations for the continuation of his work by collecting information about facts and
by prosecuting inquiries; and after a break of from ten to eleven years, i.e. from the
beginning of the Decelean war to his return to Athens, he took up again the thread of
his narrative. With this view is connected the conjecture that, as Thucydides completed
the first three books and half the fourth after his banishment and during the Peace of
Nicias, i.e. in about eight years, so the composition of the second portion, which he
did not begin till after the conclusion of the whole war, may have required
about as much more time. This will accord very well with the assumption made that B.C.
396 must be regarded as the extreme limit of his life.
Ullrich argues that, on the assumption that Thucydides did not begin the final
redaction of his work until the end of the twentyseven-years' war, the whole of it must
have been written with the consciousness of the final result, and could not therefore
contain any statements which are incompatible with this assumption. Such statements are
however, according to Ullrich, discoverable in the former part of the history (as far as
v. 26) and not in the latter; and he infers, therefore, that the former half must have
been written substantially as we have it between the end of the ten-years' war and the
Sicilian expedition. He admits, indeed, that these earlier books contain certain
passages which imply a knowledge of the whole war, but regards them as later insertions
made by Thucydides himself in the work he had already substantially completed.
The passages which Ullrich cites, as having been penned by a writer who could not have
known the final issue of the war, are the following: i. 10. § 2; 23. §
1-3; ii. 1. § 1; 8. 1; 34. 20; 54. § 3; 57. 7; iii. 86. § 2;
87. 5; iv. 48. § 5. All of these are fully discussed by Classen, and it is
shown by him at the least that they come very far short of supporting the inference
which Ullrich deduces from them. The whole question is discussed with great lucidity and
fairness by A. Schöne, in
Bursian's Jahresbericht, Vol.
III. p. 823-848. He is inclined on general grounds of probability to adopt Ullrich's
opinion as to the actual mode of composition of the history; but of the passages above
referred to he finds only one (
iii.87.5) which favours
decidedly, and another (i. 23. § 1-3) which favours partially the conclusion
Ullrich bases upon them. Under these circumstances it does not seem worth while to
reproduce in this edition the lengthy discussion which Classen devotes to the question.
In giving his adhesion in the main to the view of Ullrich rather than to that of
Classen, which will be stated immediately, Schöne is influenced to a great
degree by the consideration (p. 844) that it is improbable that Thucydides, though he
might have anticipated with a high degree of assurance the failure of the
Peace of Nicias and a renewal of the war, would have allowed this six-years' period of
comparative quiet to pass without availing himself of it to work up the materials he had
already collected for the history of the ten-years' or Archidamian war. But Classen
nowhere asserts or implies any such neglect of opportunity on the part of the historian.
Though he believes that the work as it has come down to us took its final form from the
hand of the writer after the conclusion of the whole war, he admits to the fullest
extent the probability that portions of it had been worked up into substantially their
present shape at an earlier period. Such portions may in all likelihood have been those
which most readily admitted of treatment as wholes, e.g. the Archidamian war and the
Sicilian expedition.
In the introduction to the fifth book, where it was necessary to make clear the
connexion and the special character of it, Classen expresses the following opinion (p.
3): “Though I am convinced that the whole work was written in the shape in
which we have it after the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war, and that Thucydides was
called away from life when engaged in the last revision and combination of the portions
which he had noted down and sketched in outline from the beginning of the war, yet I do
not believe that all parts of the work received an equally thorough review. I think that
the masterly introduction, which makes our first book, was first completed with the full
knowledge of the disastrous result of the twenty-seven-years' war; that then the history
of the ten-years' war, and the Sicilian expedition, for which it is likely that the
results of laborious inquiry were already at hand more or less perfectly worked out,
received their final touches; and that after this, before the thread of the narrative
was taken up again with the Ionic-Decelean war, the intervening period of the
εἰρήνη ὕπουλος was described.”
This opinion as to the mode of the composition of the work of Thucydides rests on two
simple propositions. (1) Thucydides followed the course of the Peloponnesian war from
its beginning to its close with minute attention, and committed to writing with more or
less completeness notes of all its circumstances, particularly of the Archidamian war
and the Sicilian expedition, which were in themselves relatively distinct
wholes. (2) After the close of the whole war and his recall from banishment, he took in
hand the composition of the whole history of the war with a clear view of the relation
of its several parts; composed the first book as a general introduction to his work; and
combined into an organic whole the material already collected and partially reduced to
formal shape, continuing his narrative to the first year of the Ionian war, at which
point in his labours his life came to an end. Classen's view as above stated agrees in
the main with that of Krüger,
Unterss. p. 74, and
Epikrit. Nachtr. p. 37.
It may be worth while to give here a list of the chief publications on this question
which have been issued within the last few years.
The following writers adopt the Ullrichian hypothesis with more or less variation in
detail.
L. Cwiklinski:
Quaestiones de tempore etc. Diss. inaug. Gnesnae, 1873;
also an article in Hermes, 12, p. 23-87.
P. Leske:
Ueber die verschiedene Abfassungszeit etc. Liegnitz, 1875.
J. Helmbold:
Ueber die successive Entstehung etc. Colmar, 1876.
F. Vollheim:
Zur Entstehungsgeschichte etc. Eisleben, 1878.
J. Steup:
Quaestiones Thucydideae. Bonnae, 1868.
Müller-Strübing:
Aristophanes und die historische
Kritik (p. 529 ff.). Leipzig, 1873.
Glogau:
Die Entdeckungen des Thukydides. Neumark, 1876.
The following are in substantial agreement with Classen.
Ἀ. Κυπριανός, Περὶ τῆς οἰκονομίας τοῦ
Θουκυδίδου, in
Φιλίστωρ, Athens, 1862, p.
193-210; 1863, p. 1-19.
J. J. Welti,
Ueber die Abfassungszeit etc. Winterthur, 1869.
J. M. Stahl: in the preface to the B. Tauchnitz edition of Thucydides, p. v. ff.
H. Steinberg: in the Philologische Anzeiger, 6, p. 20 ff.
L. Herbst: in Philologus, 38, p. 535 ff.
The last-mentioned article examines with great minuteness the use of
ὁ πόλεμος with and without a demonstrative pronoun; and shows
that in all the passages where
ὁ πόλεμος ὅδε occurs
in books ii. to v. 24 inclusive the ten-years' war is referred to, though in many places
a knowledge of the whole war is evidently implied; whereas in book i.
ὁ πόλεμος ὅδε does not occur at all; but
ὅδε ὁ πόλεμος (11 times) and
ὁ
πόλεμος with
οὗτος (twice) refer to the
war the writer is going to describe in opposition to other wars and without thought of
its duration; and the same is true of the later books where
ὅδε
ὁ πόλεμος occurs. In the later books, vi., vii., viii.,
ὁ πόλεμος ὅδε refers to the then existing war; whereas
ὅδε ὁ πόλεμος occurs only three times and
evidently with the same implication as before. It is also noted that in book v. (39. 19;
51. 11; 56. 20; 81. 11; 83. 22) in the designation of the successive years of the
ὕποπτος ἀνοκωχή the demonstrative pronoun is
omitted as well as the usual mention of the writer; whereas in
vi.7.25 the full formula occurs again. Herbst, therefore, agrees so far with
Ullrich as to admit that Thucydides regarded the Archidamian (
δεκαετής) war as a unit; but argues convincingly that the whole history
took its present form after the conclusion of the whole war.]
The extraordinary significance of the history of Thucydides may be recognized in its
effects. The picture he has drawn for us of a period of history so important and so rich
in consequences, with its incomparable vividness in the delineation of events and of
characters, is secure of its place for all time in the memory of mankind, and not only
surpasses in its life-like truthfulness all other historical narratives of antiquity,
but is outdone by the work of no modern historian. We become the more sensible of this
if we compare our knowledge of the period Thucydides has described with that we possess
of the times immediately preceding or following, or if we endeavour to leave out of our
conception of the characters he has depicted the traces which are due to him, and to
realize Pericles and Cleon, Nicias and Alcibiades, from the writings of Xenophon,
Plutarch, and Diodorus.
46
We possess no distinct evidence that the exceeding merit of Thucydides was adequately
recognized in his own time or in that immediately succeeding. Neither by the orators
whose works we have, nor in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, is any mention made of
him. The judgment of Theophrastus, which Cicero
47 has preserved for us, is only of a general character, and hardly answers to our
own high estimate. But out of this silence of earlier antiquity there comes to us, only
the more welcome and important, the single notice, that the orator Demosthenes copied
the books of Thucydides eight times with his own hand.
48 It was his own kindred spirit which attracted him above all to the
essential truthfulness of the great historian.
49
The pre-eminent effect of his work, however, is shown by the fact that a series of
successors, Xenophon, Cratippus, Theopompus, essayed to continue it, but no one ventured
to take up again the material handled by him or to throw it into a different form;
until, when a later time called for a general review or instructive entertainment, men
fastened upon Thucydides, though often with deficient judgment and insight, as the most
trustworthy source for the period treated by him. Among the Romans the masterly
character of his work was thoroughly recognized, in spite of the difficulty caused by
his language and style; his statesmanlike insight attracted them and excited their
admiration. Sallust exhibits the clearest proofs of conscious imitation; Cornelius Nepos
follows by preference his testimony; and Cicero studied him persistently and
closely;
50 Quintilian expresses in few words an excellent judgment about him as
regards his style.
51
The grammarians and critics of the Alexandrian school knew how to rate his
value; especially did they recognize his work as one of the models of Attic speech;
52 and to their careful treatment we are indebted for the relatively excellent
preservation of it in numerous copies, as well as for the diligent observation of his
style, which is everywhere to be seen in later lexicographical writings. On the other
hand, the scholastic rhetoric of the later age, as it was practised and brought into
currency by learned Greeks particularly at Rome, was ill-adapted to comprehend and
appreciate the most peculiar characteristics of Thucydides, his complete self-surrender
to his subject and the determination of the form only by the nature of the matter. From
the most important representative of this tendency, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, we
possess two treatises (
περὶ τοῦ Θουκυδίδου χαρακτῆρος καὶ
τῶν λοιπῶν τοῦ συγγραφέως ἰδιωμάτων and
περὶ
τῶν Θουκυδίδου ἰδιωμάτων, the second being a more detailed development
of a section of the former) in which he exclusively, and a third (
πρὸς Γναῖον Πομπήιον ἐπιστολή）
53 in
which he partially (3), undertakes a thorough examination of the work of Thucydides as
to form and matter. Interesting and instructive to us as these writings are, as
furnishing us with a living picture of the way in which literary and grammatical
criticism was practised by the rhetoricians of that day, and as containing in detail
many useful remarks, yet the criticisms themselves, whether we regard the choice and
arrangement of the material or the way in which it is handled and discussed, are wholly
without value for us. Dionysius has so little conception of the task of history, to
bring to light the actual course of events as it would disclose itself to unbiassed
inquiry, that he actually makes it a reproach to Thucydides that he selected as his
subject the history of a war which was unsuccessful.
54
He imputes to a passion for singularity the division of the war-years into
summer and winter which Thucydides adopted.
55 He blames him for arranging particular parts
without having regard to their best rhetorical effect; e.g. that the funeral oration is
placed where it is and not after some important event of the war.
56 He is displeased that events are not treated at all
times on a scale proportionate to their relative importance.
57 He even
attributes it to the arbitrary will of the writer that the work is broken off before the
end of the war.
58 In general he fails to find a
skilful distribution of the material or any proper employment of rhetorical arrangement
and ornament. In fact in the whole criticism the same contrast finds expression as is to
be seen between the historical writing of Thucydides and that of Dionysius himself; in
the latter, a dressing up of facts to suit arbitrary assumptions and subjective
theories; in the former, an absolute subordination of the record to the facts which are
to be narrated.
We have already noticed the circumstances in the life of Thucydides which specially
favoured him as the writer of the history of his time. With these unusual advantages
were united all the qualities of mind which go to make up a great historian; of these
two may be indicated as the most important: the moral earnestness of his view of the
world and of life, and the temperate good sense of his own nature, by which he maintains
at all times his simple and incorruptible appreciation of the real truth.
Thucydides shares with many profound characters a reluctance to expose to
view and announce in express language his own secret feelings, particularly as regards
the divine administration of things; but any one who enters with true insight into the
character of his narrative will recognize everywhere as its fundamental tone a sense,
that, while man is responsible for his actions, the conduct and decision of human
affairs is subject to the control of the deity. We shall probably not be mistaken if we
attribute to the influence of the philosophical conception of the order of the world,
which Anaxagoras made current among the most prominent men of Athens, that religious
view which apprehends the agency of the gods not so much in the immediate indications of
a personal presence, which was so natural to Herodotus and the earlier chroniclers, as
in a controlling power, which is indeed withdrawn from human sight, yet is nevertheless
to be reverenced with the feeling of complete dependence. It is true that, in the
expression of this, the customary language of the popular belief and of the traditional
forms of worship is not abandoned. The personal name,
θεός,
θεοί, appears most frequently either as a collective designation of those
generally venerated divinities under whose protection the people feel themselves to be,
whose feasts they celebrate and by whom they swear (
i.71.21; 78. 13;
ii.15.21; 71. 21;
iii.59.10;
iv.87.9;
v.30.10;
vi.54.29;
viii.70.5), or in application to particular deities who are
understood without their being named, as the Delphian Apollo (
i.25.3; 118. 20; 123. 8;
ii.54.13;
iii.92.19;
iv.118.7;
v.32.6), Athene (
i.126.5;
ii.13.36; 15. 17;
iv.116.11),
or the Eumenides,
αἱ σεμναὶ θεαί, (
i.126.37). Only once, in a Boeotian religious formula, is
δαίμονες used for
θεοί, (
iv.97.17). Yet the belief which rises
above the forms of special worship to the general conception of divine government finds
distinct expression in some places. It is to the writer an infallible symptom of extreme
disturbance in the order of society if awe of the divine is broken down, whether, as in
ii. 53. § 4, this is the result of the fearful plague at Athens (
θεῶν φόβος ἢ ἀνθρώπων νόμος οὐδεὶς ἀπεῖργε), or, as
in iii. 82. § 6, of the virulence of party hatred (
τὰς
ἐς σφᾶς αὐτοὺς πίστεις οὐ τῷ θείῳ νόμῳ μᾶλλον ἐκρατύνοντο ἢ τῷ
κοινῇ τι παρανομῆσαι). In the remarkable debate between the Athenian
envoys and the council of the Melians (v. 85. ff.), on the one side the consciousness of
a good cause manifests itself by confidence in protection from above
(
τὸ θεῖον), and on the other the exaltation of brute
strength above every other consideration shows how the sense of right and wrong had
become confused. In the same sense Nicias in his last speech (
vii.77.17) is represented as basing his hope on this
θεῖον. The real sentiment of Thucydides is expressed in the noble words
with which Pericles (
ii.64.9) urges his fellow-citizens to
meet the uncertain future:
φέρειν χρὴ τά τε δαιμόνια
ἀναγκαίως τά τε ἀπὸ τῶν πολεμίων ἀνδρείως. What in this
passage—and only here—probably with some allusion to the language of
the philosophers—is called
τὰ δαιμόνια, i.e.
everything which in the life of man is sent by a higher hand and is withdrawn from the
calculation and control of human prudence, Thucydides usually embraces under the term
τύχη, as an operative power, and
τύχαι as the manifestation of it; the former in
i.140.11; 144. 24;
ii.42.25;
iii.45.22; 97. 6;
iv.12.12; 18. 20; 64. 7 (
ἧς οὐκ ἄρχω
τύχης); 86. 21;
v.16.16; 75. 12 （
τύχῃ μὲν ὡς ἐδόκουν κακιζόμενοι, γνώμῃ δὲ οἱ αὐτοὶ ἔτι
ὄντες); 111. 17;
vi.23.11; 78. 15 (
οὐχ οἷόν τε ἅμα τῆς τε ἐπιθυμίας καὶ τῆς τύχης τὸν αὐτὸν
ὁμοίως ταμίαν γενέσθαι);
vii.33.29; 67.
23; 68. 1: the latter in
i.69.26; 78. 5; 84. 19 (
τὰς προσπιπτούσας τύχας οὐ λόγῳ διαιρετάς);
ii.87.11;
iv.18.15;
v.102.2;
vi.11.22: and in the
same sense
τὰ τῆς τύχης or
ἀπὸ τῆς τύχης,
ii.87.6;
iv.55.16;
vii.61.12.
59 It is
of no importance for a critical examination of Thucydides's use of language whether
these expressions are found in his own narrative or are placed by him in the mouths of
his speaking characters. Everywhere we are to understand by
τύχη a power superior to man, which is not blind chance, but exercises
control in accordance with a higher order; on which man can never calculate, but the
operation of which he cannot without damage disregard. If
τύχη is opposed to
γνώμη, as in
i.144.24;
v.75.12, this is
from the human point of view, which finds its calculations at fault; but it is by no
means intended to assert the superiority of the latter. In the remarkable declaration on
the death of Nicias (
vii.86.24),
ἥκιστα δὴ ἄξιος ὢν τῶν γε ἐπ᾽ ἐμοῦ
Ἑλλήνων ἐς τοῦτο δυστυχίας ἀφικέσθαι διὰ τὴν πᾶσαν ἐς
ἀρετὴν νενομισμένην ἐτιτήδευσιν, Thucydides does not conceal that it
will not always be easy for the human understanding to reconcile itself to the
incomprehensible administration of the divine omnipotence. It is characteristic that
nowhere is
τύχη more distinctly referred to its divine
source than by the Melians in their fruitless struggle against the doctrine of the right
of the strongest. Twice,
v.104.4; 112. 7, we find the
significant expression
ἡ τύχη ἐκ τοῦ θείου.
In the view of the world which all these passages imply there is unmistakably a pious
feeling of dependence on the divine power, though any deeper penetration into the laws
and relations of its operation is not granted to man. And while it is the aim of the
writer in the spirit of Anaxagoras to inquire into the causes of surprising
incidents,—as of the eclipse of the sun,
ii.28.2; of a flood consequent upon an earthquake,
iii.89.18; of the eclipse of the moon, in contrast with the superstitious
terror (
θειασμός) of Nicias,
vii.50.27; of violent tempests, in contrast with the alarm of the dispirited
Athenians,
vii.79.10;—still he does not venture
to draw the line between the province of positive human knowledge and that where the
obscure operation of the gods makes itself felt in human things. Accordingly, while he
is far from unconditionally ascribing validity to omens and oracles, and even allows
himself to make a critical examination of their true meaning (
ii.17.11; 54. 9), and in
v.16.21 plainly admits
the assumption that even the utterances of the Delphian oracles could be corruptly
procured, still his bringing forward instances of omens and oracles actually verified
(
v.26.20;
vi.27.9), and
in general his frequent mention of predictions, portents, and marvellous occurrences
(
i.118.21; 134. 18;
ii.8.7; 77. 22; 102. 27;
iii.88.8; 92. 18; 96. 3;
104. 2;
iv.52.1;
v.32.6; 45.
20;
vi.70.2), proves that he does not mean to deny the
possibility of supernatural operations. Just as he views
τύχαι, so he allows to the supersensible world no influence over the
judgment and action of men, and therefore for practical purposes leaves it out of
account. It is very intelligible to him that in times of excitement men should look
about for miraculous instruction (
ii.8.7) or help (
ii.47.15); but he himself attaches no importance to such
things, and has had no experience of useful results therefrom; and his real
opinion would probably coincide with that of the Athenian envoys,
v.103.7, whose advice to the Melians is:
μὴ ὁμοιωθῆναι τοῖς πολλοῖς, οἷς παρὸν ἀνθρωπείως ἔτι
σῴζεσθαι, ἐπειδὰν πιεζομένους αὐτοὺς ἐπιλίπωσιν αἱ φανεραὶ ἐλπίδες, ἐπὶ
τὰς ἀφανεῖς καθίστανται, μαντικήν τε καὶ χρησμοὺς καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα μετ᾽
ἐλπίδων λυμαίνεται.
Clearness and definiteness were essential to Thucydides; and accordingly the proper
sphere of his observation and inquiry was man, his action and his history. The less he
tried to penetrate into the secret course of the divine government of the world, so much
the more earnest was he to attain the most exact knowledge of everything which makes up
the life of man; the motives of his action as well as their external manifestation; the
efforts and conduct of individuals as well as the great movements which take place in
the life of states. His judgment of human affairs, however, is controlled by one
principle, that it is power of mind which makes up the value of the individual, just as
it conditions the result of every activity.
With decision and clearness Thucydides recognizes the opposition between body and
spirit, which found its most definite expression in Anaxagoras. He is fully alive to the
weakness of human nature, and often insists upon its limitations (e.g.
iii.45.30; 84. 10;
v.68.6); and
yet he is penetrated with the conviction that the spirit of man can attain the mastery
over the agitating influences of the surrounding world and nature, and is competent in
large measure to define and shape its own life as well as the fortunes of states. The
views of Thucydides may thus have been influenced by the doctrines of Anaxagoras; yet
his use of language manifests independence, and deserves a special examination so far as
it touches the phenomena of the mind. The centre of all the mental power of man is for
Thucydides the power of thought and cognition, from which come the energetic will and
resolutions which press to action. This power, however, is not called
νοῦς, which word occurs in Thucydides only in the less
pregnant sense of the perceiving and observing faculty,
60 but rather
γνώμη, which has in our
author a very wide range of meaning. It includes the aggregate of psychical powers,
intellectual as well as emotional, as opposed to the body (cf. especially
i.70.19;
ii.38.2); sometimes,
however, it denotes on the intellectual side insight and cognition in general (cf.
i.70.10; 75. 2; 77. 9; 91. 25;
ii.13.21; 34. 17; 43. 21; 62. 30; 65. 32;
iii.37.21; 83. 4; etc.); or a view, opinion, judgment, in reference to a
particular matter (cf.
i.32.17; 33. 17; 45. 1; 53. 7; 62.
8; 78. 2; 79. 5; 140. 28;
ii.20.1; 86. 17;
iii.31.11; 36. 5; 92. 3; 96. 8;
iv.18.7; 32. 23; 58. 5; 59. 3;
etc.); sometimes on the
moral side it denotes disposition, temper, decision, as a quality (cf.
i.71.4; 90. 10; 130. 10;
ii.9.1;
11. 21; 20. 18; 59. 4, 8; 64. 32; 65. 3; 87. 9; 88. 7;
iii.9.8; 10. 6; 12. 2; etc.), or a determination in a particular case (cf.
αἱ γνῶμαι,
i.140.4;
ii.89.50;
iii.82.16;
γνώμην ποιεῖσθαι,
i.128.27;
ii.2.24;
vii.72.8). In the same way the verb
γιγνώσκειν,
and its compounds with
διά, ἐπί, κατά, μετά, πρό,
is used sometimes with an intellectual meaning,
apprehend,
understand (cf.
i.25.1; 36. 3; 86. 2; 91. 5; 102. 15;
126. 21; 134. 5;
ii.40.7; 43. 10; 60. 17, 19), sometimes
with a moral reference,
resolve, determine (cf.
i.70.7, 26; 91. 23;
ii.61.12;
iii.40.18; 57. 3;
etc.). By the
side of this verb
διανοεῖσθαι often occurs in the same
sense (cf.
i.1.7; 18. 18; 52. 6; 93. 22; 124. 18; 141. 2;
143. 22;
ii.5.16; 93. 16; 100. 20;
iii.2.5; 75. 18; 82. 35;
iv.13.16; etc.), and
it is notable that while
νοῦς remains on the lower
plane,
διάνοια is placed nearly on a par with
γνώμη, as well in the sense of a perfected intellectual power
and state of mind (cf.
ii.43.3; 61. 12; 89. 23;
v.111.9;
vi.15.15; 21. 3;
vii.73.2), as in that of its employment in a particular
case,
thought, plan, purpose (cf.
i.84.17; 130. 9; 132. 20; 138. 2; 140. 10; 144. 5;
ii.20.19;
iii.36.12; 82. 22;
iv.52.10;
v.9.19; 105. 21;
vi.11.23; 31. 6; 38. 19; 65. 2; 76. 5;
vii.60.2, 25). Other compounds of
νοῦς, both substantival and verbal, occur frequently in Thucydides, always
with reference to mental action.
61 As to meaning
ξύνεσις
stands very close to
γνώμη, but only in
the intellectual sense of clear insight and circumspection (cf.
i.138.11; 140. 8;
ii.62.32; 97. 33;
iii.37.23; 82. 50;
iv.18.22;
81. 10; 85. 21;
vi.72.5). (On the combination
γνώμης ξύνεσις in
i.75.2, see
the note on the passage.) Thucydides uses the verb
ξυνιέναι only in
i.3.20, of acquaintance with
a language; but the adjective
ξυνετός is his usual word
to describe a man of clear insight (cf.
i.74.4; 79. 8; 84.
15; 138. 8;
iii.37.18; 82. 27;
iv.10.2;
vi.39.1;
viii.68.25), while from
γιγνώσκειν or
νοεῖν no corresponding epithet is formed; and
σοφός occurs only in
iii.37.19 with the unfavourable sense of
crafty,
over-wise; so
σοφιστής,
iii.38.31, and
σόφισμα,
vi.77.6, have a similar implication. Thucydides uses
φρονεῖν absolutely only a few times (
v.7.10;
vi.89.26;
φρονεῖν τι,
have insight); elsewhere with defining
adverbs (cf.
ii.22.2;
iii.38.30;
v.89.7;
vi.36.2). He does not employ
φρόνησις and
φρόνιμος: but
φρόνημα occurs in the sense of
self-consciousness,
confidence (cf.
i.81.14;
ii.43.28; 61. 13; 62. 27;
iii.45.17;
iv.80.15;
v.40.16; 43. 7;
vi.18.22).
λόγος is in
Thucydides most commonly
word or
speech in
a wide as well as in a restricted sense; and only as derived from this has it sometimes
the meaning of an expressed reason (cf.
i.76.14;
ii.101.13;
v.18.57; 98. 2;
vi.61.5; 92. 20), or of consideration based upon this
(cf.
v.37.11;
δίκαια ἐν τῷ
ἀνθρωπείῳ λόγῳ ἀπὸ τῆς ἴσης ἀνάγκης κρίνεται, 89. 8; perhaps
also
i.102.16). This last meaning of a reasonable
consideration or calculation is distinctly prominent in the phrases
κατὰ λόγον (cf.
ii.89.25;
iii.39.24;
vi.25.13) and
παρὰ λόγον (cf.
i.65.3; 140. 11;
ii.64.8; 91. 15;
iv.26.11; 55. 17; 65. 18;
vi.33.31;
vii.71.42), as well as in the compounds
ἄλογος, ἀλόγως (cf.
i.32.11;
ii.65.39;
v.104.9; 105. 20;
vi.46.10; 79. 9; 84. 10; 85.
2;
viii.27.10) and
εὔλογος (cf.
iii.82.29;
iv.61.28; 87. 12;
vi.76.8; 79.
10; 84. 6). The verb
λογίζεσθαι and its compounds with
ἀνά, ἐκ, διά (cf.
i.76.13;
ii.89.24;
iii.82.49;
iv.28.25; 73. 17;
v.15.2; 26. 18; 87. 1;
vi.18.20; 31. 34; 36. 11;
vii.73.19; 77. 21;
viii.2.20), and the noun
λογισμός (cf.
ii.11.30; 40. 14,
23;
iii.20.18;
iv.10.6; 92.
10; 108. 23; 122. 9;
v.68.7;
vi.34.25;
viii.57.11), belong to the same
sphere (they often, however, refer to a literal reckoning with numbers); while
κρίνειν, which is used chiefly of judicial decision (cf.
iii.48.5; 57. 3; 67. 20;
iv.130.30;
v.60.29;
vi.29.3; 40. 16), is not seldom transferred to any judgment based on reason
(cf.
i.21.11; 22. 19; 138. 15;
ii.34.15; 40. 15; 53. 13;
iii.65.11;
iv.60.3;
v.79.12; 89. 9;
viii.2.13). To
λόγος in the
sense of an intelligent course of reasoning is related
βουλή, of prudent consideration (cf.
i.138.12;
v.101.3; 111. 27;
vi.9.5), with the compounds or derivatives
ἄβουλος (
i.120.25),
ἀβουλία (
i.32.17;
v.75.11),
εὔβουλος (
i.84.11),
εὐβουλία (
i.78.11;
iii.42.4; 44. 4),
ἐπιβουλή (
i.93.23;
vii.70.36;
viii.24.38),
βουλεύειν, βουλεύεσθαι, διαβουλεύεσθαι, ἐπιβουλεύειν, προβουλεύειν,
etc. Thucydides uses
ψυχή
almost exclusively of physical life (cf.
i.136.19;
iii.39.42;
viii.50.29); only
in
ii.40.15 (
κράτιστοι τὴν
ψυχήν) is it employed in a moral sense, though this is the constant meaning
of the compounds
εὔψυχος (cf.
ii.11.23; 39. 7; 43. 23;
iv.126.38;
v.9.2) and
εὐψυχία (cf.
i.84.12; 121. 16;
ii.87.19;
89. 11;
vi.72.21;
vii.64.15). While
θυμός is used by him only for
passionate excitement (cf.
i.49.11;
ii.11.31;
v.80.7), and
correspondingly
θυμοῦσθαι (cf.
vii.68.5),
ἐπιθυμία (cf.
ii.52.8;
iv.81.12;
v.15.3;
vi.13.6; 15. 10; 24. 15;
33. 10; 78. 14;
vii.84.8), and
ἐπιθυμεῖν (cf.
i.80.3; 124. 13;
iii.84.5;
iv.21.3; 108. 22; 117.
8;
v.36.17; 41. 19;
vi.10.2; 15. 7; 92. 16;
vii.77.37), he is fond of
ἐνθυμεῖσθαι to express clear apprehension or
profound consideration (cf.
i.42.1; 120. 27;
ii.43.9;
iii.40.26;
v.32.5; 111. 4, 25;
vi.30.14;
78. 3;
vii.18.17; 63. 11; 64. 11).
This review of the language employed by Thucydides in the field of psychology, and
especially the perception of the large range of
γνώμη
and expressions connected with it, is calculated to convince us that in his conception
of the basis of morality he must in one important point have approximated closely to
that of his great contemporary Socrates. As he referred all human virtue to knowledge
and therefore regarded it as capable of being taught and learnt, so with Thucydides the
capacity of men on which he sets the highest value rests first of all on
clearness and acuteness of insight, which judges correctly the existing relations of
things, and thus is able to take a sure glance into the future. See especially the
description of Themistocles, i. 138, in whom the
οἰκεία
ξύνεσις resulted in his being not only
κράτιστος
γνώμων τῶν παραχρῆμα but also
ἄριστος εἰκαστὴς
τοῦ γενησομένου. Pericles also is
λέγειν καὶ
πράσσειν δυνατώτατος (
i.139.24) because he
is
γνώμῃ ξυνετός (
ii.34.17, 22), and because, as being
δυνατὸς τῷ τε
ἀξιώματι καὶ τῇ γνώμῃ (
ii.65.31), he
had clearly foreseen the importance of the war (
ii.65.21,
προγνοὺς τὴν δύναμιν . . . ἐγνώσθη ἡ πρόνοια αὐτοῦ ἐς
τὸν πόλεμον). Out of a right understanding flow all the qualities on which
efficient action depends, and chiefly self-control and moderation (
ἡ σωφροσύνη:
i.32.16; 68. 3; 84. 5, 12;
iii.37.16; 84. 3;
viii.64.21;
τὸ σῶφρον:
i.37.7;
iii.62.10; 82. 26;
σωφρονεῖν:
i.40.8; 86. 8;
iii.44.3;
iv.60.2; 61. 1; 64.
16;
vi.11.29; 79. 9; 87. 20;
viii.24.21); this forms the basis of all moral order, and is lost if the
passions are allowed to rule. Thucydides gives us in iii. 82, on the occasion of the
party warfare in Corcyra, a grand picture of the utter disturbance of all the relations
of life which takes its rise from confusion of ideas. As long as
αἵ τε πόλεις καὶ οἱ ἰδιῶται ἀμείνους τὰς γνώμας ἔχοισι (
iii.82.15), matters of external order are maintained with
stability; but when the
ὀργαὶ τῶν πολλῶν take the
place of
γνώμη, all discipline and morality are
overthrown. Again, it is no doubt the writer's own conviction which he puts into the
mouth of Pericles (
ii.40.11),
διαφερόντως καὶ τόδε ἔχομεν ὥστε τολμᾶν τε οἱ αὐτοὶ μάλιστα καὶ περὶ
ὧν ἐπιχειρήσομεν ἐκλογίζεσθαι ὃ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀμαθία μὲν θράσος,
λογισμὸς δὲ ὄκνον φέρει. On the other hand it is an indication of the
vulgarity of Cleon's character that he considers that that state has the surest basis in
which the citizens unite want of knowledge and culture,
ἀμαθία, with
σωφροσύνη, which last in such
a connexion is degraded to a stupid indifference.
It is the natural result of a correct insight to recognize that righteousness, regard
namely for law and contracts and the performance of duty, is the surest support of civil
order and the reciprocal relations of states. The general term to express this is
τὸ δίκαιον (cf.
i.25.11;
iii.10.1; 47. 18; 56. 8; 82. 61;
iv.61.15; 62. 11;
v.86.6; 90.
2; 107. 2;
vi.79.1); while the abstract
δικαιοσύνη occurs only in
iii.63.21. But since in human affairs it is only seldom that right and wrong
can be estimated with perfect exactness, the recognition and defence of one's own
interest is a necessary condition of self-preservation. Not only Cleon (iii. 37. ff.)
but also Diodotus (iii. 42. ff.) maintains the policy of interest; and even the
Plataeans seek to move the Spartans to mercy (iii. 56. § 7) by the apprehension
of their real advantage. But how little Thucydides sympathized with the cynical doctrine
of the right of the stronger which the Athenians proclaim in their dialogue with the
Melians (v. 85-113) is shown unmistakably by the manner in which he allows it to be
displayed in all its revolting recklessness at that very point in his narrative where
the Athenian empire received its last petty accession, and the Sicilian expedition was
about to be undertaken which was destined to result in its overthrow. He rather shows
with abundant clearness the high regard he has for that temper which even in political
matters gives a hearing not merely to strict right but also to considerations of
humanity and compassion. This magnanimity, which does not allow the weaker to feel the
full weight of superior power, but rather lays him under obligation by benefit, is
called by him chiefly
ἀρετή (cf.
i.37.8; 69. 8;
ii.40.18; 51.
20; 71. 18;
iii.10.1; 56. 27; 57. 10; 58. 2;
iv.19.12; 81. 10; 86. 19;
v.105.16;
vi.54.21). Compassion and mercy are in
his eyes noble feelings. It is true that he makes Cleon reject them with unfeeling
roughness (
iii.40.6,
μὴ τρισὶ
τοῖς ἀξυμφορωτάτοις τῇ ἀρχῇ, οἴκτῳ καὶ ἡδονῇ λόγων καὶ ἐπιεικείᾳ,
ἁμαρτάνειν); but where they are recklessly outraged, the tone of his
narration allows his condemnatory judgment to be felt, e.g. in the execution of the
Plataeans, iii. 68, and in the mournful fate of the captured Athenians, vii. 86, 87. Not
less clearly does Thucydides represent the motive of honour as a noble and worthy one in
the dealings of men. The feeling itself he calls
αἰδώς
in
i.84.12; in other places
αἰσχύνη (cf.
i.84.12;
ii.51.20;
iv.19.15;
v.104.8; 111. 16); and he sets high value upon it, just as in
his finest speeches he gives a prominent place to a regard for fame among contemporaries
and posterity (cf. ii. 41. § 4; 64. 27; iii. 57. § 2). A noble
bearing, which unselfishly keeps in view the higher aims of human life, is
described by Thucydides chiefly as
καλόν (cf.
i.38.10;
ii.35.2; 53. 9; 64.
28;
iii.42.12; 55. 11; 94. 16;
iv.126.26;
v.46.7; 69. 10; 107. 2;
vi.79.8;
vii.70.46; 71. 4;
viii.2.8; 12. 8), and the opposite character by
αἰσχρόν (cf.
i.38.12; 122. 16;
ii.40.4; 64. 29;
iii.42.11; 58. 5;
iv.20.6;
vi.21.7;
vii.48.28); in which we see a
preparation for the more strictly ethical usage of Plato. The combination
καλὸς κἀγαθός, which became so current at a later time,
Thucydides uses once (
iv.40.8) in a moral sense, and once
(
viii.48.37) as a designation of the aristocratical
party.
But while Thucydides thus concedes the fullest right to moral worth and the nobler
sentiments of humanity, he yet finds the highest quality of a statesman in the
controlling power of the thinking mind, in
γνώμη or
ξύνεσις, which gives a clear insight into the reality
of things. Only by help of this do all the other qualities appear in their true import.
It is in Pericles that this power is seen most conspicuously. As in his first speech (i.
140-144) he sweeps away all the self-deception of peace-loving optimists and shows that
with the position of parties in Greece war is inevitable, so his last speech (ii. 60-64)
contains incontrovertible evidence that his estimate of the power of Athens for the
attainment of the end in view was perfectly correct, if only it was employed with
composure and steadiness; and Thucydides himself, in view of the later events, adds his
own confirmation of the words of the orator (ii. 65. § 7 ff.).
This same quality, which he had learnt by his own observation to admire in the great
statesman—the calm consideration of reality and the clear recognition of its
importance in things as well as persons,—it is this which he has himself
striven after as the highest for his own task of writing history. A simple unbeguiled
feeling for the real truth controls his apprehension of things—his judgment of
the actions of men and their results, as well as his delineation itself, both in its
general method and in the details of form and expression. With this intelligent
appreciation of the relation of things he recognized the importance of the impending war
at its very beginning; and devoted the closest attention to the ascertainment of all its
events. He asserts this himself in
i.1.3 (
ἀρξάμενος εὐθύς,
sc.
ξυγγράφειν, where the verb is to be understood of
the collection of material and of every sort of preparation) and also in i. 22, where he
depicts his zealous diligence and strict conscientiousness in making use of every source
of information; and once more in v. 26. § 4, where he repeats that from the
beginning of the war he found himself in a position to observe its course with judicious
scrutiny, that he kept his eyes open at all times for what was remarkable, and that he
used the period of his twenty years' exile in visiting the scenes of the war, on the
Peloponnesian side as well as the Athenian, and in uninterrupted inquiry. As therefore
he had at his command under the most favourable circumstances all the means for
enlarging and certifying his knowledge of the real relations of things, so in his mental
culture and in his experience and knowledge of affairs
62 he possessed all that was requisite for applying the standard
of a just judgment to the persons engaged. The necessity he felt to see even things
remote in time and space in the light of their real existtence is shown especially when
he seeks to reduce to their true value the traditional reports of legend and poetry (cf.
i. 10, 11; ii. 15; 102; vi. 2); he endeavours by the help of facts (
τοῖς ἔργοις,
i.11.18) to
oppose the reality of events to
φήμη and to the
διὰ τοὺς ποιητὰς περὶ αὐτῶν κατεσχηκὼς λόγος,
and if exact proof cannot be brought forward for the true opinion, he does his best to
attain the
εἰκός (cf.
i.10.20, 29;
ii.48.10), as one of the most
important criteria for the historical inquirer. This unceasing demand of Thucydides for
the real facts is no doubt the reason why he shows himself incredulous and even unjust
to Epic poetry. He handles it only in reference to its historical contents, and its
indispensable
ἐπὶ τὸ μεῖζον κοσμεῖν (
i.10.20; 21. 3) is to him only a disfigurement of the truth.
He seeks not for any other ground of its value. So he feels himself in direct opposition
to the work of the so-called logographers which precedes his own, because it aims
ἐπὶ τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῇ ἀκροάσει ἢ
ἀληθέστερον, and with full consciousness that his work will suffer in its
entertaining qualities, he claims for it (i. 22. § 4) the higher
merit of setting forth the unadorned reality, feeling assurance however that it will be
a pattern for all time.
63
This whole mass of historical material he lays before his readers with the utmost truth
of delineation. He is so completely devoted to his subject that he takes no pains to
arrange and mould it according to his own notions of propriety, but allows it to unfold
and develop itself. The living picture which he sees of the course of events and of the
way in which they were influenced by the persons engaged in them he cannot help
embodying in a narrative which by the simplest means is charged with life and truth. If
we examine his most famous delineations,—the siege of Plataea (ii. 71-78), the
escape of the Plataeans (iii. 20-24), the battles in the Corinthian gulf (ii. 83-92),
the Acarnanian expedition of Demosthenes (iii. 105-114), the affair of Pylos (iv. 3-14),
the preparations for the Sicilian expedition and its departure (vi. 26; 30-32), the
siege and defensive operations of Syracuse (vi. 98 ff.), the battles in the harbour of
Syracuse (vii. 36-41; 52-54; 70, 71),
64
the fate of the retreating army of the Athenians (vii. 75-87),—we see that it
is not any artistic disposition of the subject, no rhetorical adornment, which is
presented to our eyes, but the simplest narrative, which accompanies the events as they
advance from day to day and leaves no gap in their natural sequence, so that we receive
the impression of being actual witnesses of them.
65 The
course of the narrative adhering thus closely to the progress of events has, therefore,
little in common with the easy-going manner of Herodotus, who at every turn breaks off
the thread of his story to introduce as an episode some circumstance of which he has
been reminded. The few digressions which we find in Thucydides (i. 126; 128 ff.; 135 ff.; ii. 15; 96 f.; 99 f.; iii. 104; vi. 1 ff.; 54 ff.) have always a
definite occasion and contribute materially to a correct judgment of the circumstances
narrated.
It is with the view of keeping as close as possible in his narrative to the actual
course of events that Thucydides made use of the division of time that he has employed.
This is neither that of the astronomical nor that of the civil year, but one which
corresponds to the actual conditions of the carrying on of war; the larger part of the
year, in which the weather permits freely all operations and especially maritime ones,
is opposed to the shorter portion, in which all more important undertakings must be
suspended. He narrates therefore
κατὰ θέρη καὶ
χειμῶνας (
ii.1.5;
v.20.10), because the occurrences of war actually so divide themselves and are
distributed over two unequal periods, which may vary in length according to the
conditions of the seasons. This is the meaning of the expression in
v.20.11,
ἐξ ἡμισείας ἑκατέρου τοῦ
ἐνιαυτοῦ τὴν δύναμιν ἔχοντος, i.e.
ἑκατέρου（τοῦ τε θέρους καὶ χειμῶνος）τὴν δύναμιν ἔχοντος
ἐξ ἡμισείας τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ, “each of the two divisions of the
year being reckoned as equal on an average to half a year;” in other words,
the two portions, though unequal in length, will always together make up a year.
66 The climatic conditions of Greece and the
Grecian seas are such that during four months— the
μῆνες τέσσαρες οἱ χειμερινοί of
vi.21.14, i.e.
Μαιμακτηριών to
Ἀνθεστηριών (nearly = November to February)—little
or nothing can be done in the field or at sea; while the eight remaining
months—
Ἐλαφηβολιών to
Πυανεψιών (nearly = March to October), —which
include
ἔαρ and
μετόπωρον (
vii.79.10;
viii.108.9) or
φθινόπωρον (
ii.31.1;
iii.18.15; 100. 6),
form the
θέρος or the time for active warfare. To this
division of the year, which rests on natural relations, correspond the particular
subdivisions of the
θέρος which are taken from the
progress of vegetation, particularly of field-crops. Cf.
ii.19.5,
τοῦ θέρους καὶ τοῦ σίτου
ἀκμάζοντος.
iv.1.1,
περὶ
σίτου ἐκβολήν.
iv.2.1,
πρὶν τὸν σῖτον ἐν ἀκμῇ εἶναι. iv. 6. 5,
τοῦ σίτου ἔτι χλωροῦ ὄντος.
67
iii.15.11,
ἐν καρποῦ
ξυγκομιδῇ.
iv.84.3,
ὀλίγον πρὸ τρυγήτου. It would be a mistake to regard these definitions
of time as absolutely fixed for every year; they are in the natural course of things
approximately fixed, but they varied no doubt with the actual phenomena of each
particular year.
68
In his delineation of persons Thucydides shows them to us in their actions, in the part
they take in the promotion of decisive resolutions and in the carrying out of plans
adopted. He is sparing indeed in the expression of any definite judgments of his own
about prominent men;—we have only, among the contemporaries of the
Peloponnesian war, the brief description of Archidamus,
i.79.8; of Pericles, ii. 65. § 5 ff.; of Cleon,
iii.36.27;
iv.21.9;
v.16.5; of Brasidas,
ii.25.13; iv. 81.
§ 1 ff.; 108. 11; of Nicias,
v.16.9;
vii.86.24; of Alcibiades,
v.43.5;
vi.15.5; of Hermocrates,
vi.72.4; of Phrynichus,
viii.27.26; of Antiphon,
viii.68.5; and a few more
casual notices,—but every susceptible reader will find that the plain
narrative of their actions sets the persons engaged vividly before us. The transactions
themselves are so naturally developed that, as if we were eye-witnesses, we cannot help
forming a judgment about the men we read of as to their skill or incapacity, their
profound insight or their intellectual poverty, the purity of their characters or the
duplicity of their motives, their energetic decisiveness or their hesitating
irresolution. Besides this, however, Thucydides uses with the greatest effect another
means of vivid presentation, which was not indeed used first by him, but which he
employed in the most masterly way, that namely of introducing speeches supposed to be
made by the most important personages, wherein they give expression to their innermost
thoughts and the motives of their actions.
The employment of direct speech as a means of expressing feelings and thoughts formed
the most effective mode of presentation in the Epic poetry of Homer, and reached its
highest freedom and completeness in the Attic drama. The same method was resorted to
with the happiest results also in the most strict historical writing to give expression
to the inner side of the transactions recorded; and it may be added that, as this method
gives objective utterance to the psychological side of historical representation, so in
philosophical dialogue the clearest statement of the dialectical development of thought
was effected in the same way. Thucydides sets himself to adhere as exactly as possible
to the speeches actually delivered; of this his own words in i. 22. § 1 leave
no doubt. But that this effort is directed rather to the thoughts than to the form of
what was said he states himself distinctly in the words
ἐχομένῳ
ὅτι ἐγγύτατα τῆς ξυμπάσης γνώμης τῶν ἀληθῶς λεχθέντων. Indeed at
this time a verbally accurate report of the words uttered is not conceivable. In
default, therefore, of an exact account of the language actually used Thucydides
supplied what was lacking,
ὡς ἂν ἐδόκουν αὐτῷ ἕκαστοι
περὶ τῶν ἀεὶ παρόντων τὰ δέοντα μάλιστ᾽ εἰπεῖν. In the free use of
this principle he allows himself to bring forward a speaker to controvert views and
reasons which have been put forth by a different speaker at another place and time. We
find unmistakable examples of this sort in the speech of the Corinthian ambassadors, i.
120. ff., as compared with that of Archidamus, i. 80. ff., and in the first speech of
Pericles, i. 140. ff., in reference to the Corinthian speech just mentioned. So there
can be little doubt that to the writer is due the reservation of a part of his material
which Pericles announces in
i.144.5 (
ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνα μὲν ἐν ἄλλῳ λόγῳ ἅμα τοῖς ἔργοις
δηλωθήσεται) and its subsequent introduction in ii. 13. § 2 ff. It
is a natural result, therefore, of this mode of treatment that, while the language of
the Thucydidean speeches, both in the structure of sentences and in particular
expressions, has a uniform character, viz., that of the writer, still in each separate
speech the character and mode of thought of the assumed speaker are clearly manifested.
This is true of all the speeches without exception, and no less so of the debate between
the Athenian envoys and the representatives of the island of Melos (
οἱ τῶν
Μηλίων ξύνεδροι), v. 85-111. Grote,
69 it is true, has
great doubts of the accuracy of this report, and ascribes the larger part of it to the
“dramatic genius and arrangement” of the writer. But we may very
well assume that on this occasion a report or minute of the discussion was made by the
Athenian deputies and generals, which was kept in the archives of the senate at Athens
and of which Thucydides even in his own absence could have obtained an accurate
knowledge, as he did of other documents which he records and of the letter of Nicias,
vii. 11-15. We may assume also in regard to reports of shorter utterances, that they
rest upon authentic transmission. Cf. iii. 113. § 2 ff.; viii. 53. §
3;
ii.12.14. The few statements of this character, which
are introduced in direct or indirect speech, have the effect of great vividness and
present to us an important crisis with high distinctness. When, however, events develop
themselves in rapid succession and the press of circumstances forbids the employment of
set speeches, the brief and condensed
résumés of what was said serve to enliven the narrative.
Compare the considerable extracts from the second speech of Pericles, ii. 13; from
Cleon's speeches, iv. 22. and 28. It is probably for this reason that in the eighth
book, when the changes are so rapid and the character of many transactions there
recorded is so peculiar that they did not lend themselves to formal treatment, the
thoughts and purposes of the agents are communi-cated indirectly (cf. viii. 27; 46; 53;
63; 67; 76; 81) and we find no complete speeches.
70
But more than all by his use of speeches Thucydides has secured to his narrative the
character of the highest impartiality. He does not indeed occupy the position of an
indifferent spectator of events and their results; we are everywhere conscious how
completely he is an Athenian in sentiment, and how deeply he sympathizes
with the fortunes of Athens, though he never gives expression to this feeling; he
belongs indeed by birth and by social position to the aristocratical party, but looks
for welfare only in a well-tempered form of government, and is always inclined to those
statesmen who unite force of character with good sense and moderation. This sentiment
appears in definite expressions as well as by many other indications
71; but
Thucydides always concedes to those entertaining views opposed to his own the right of
expressing their reasons; and in the conviction that in human affairs error is always
associated with truth, that in political matters absolute right and truth are never
wholly on one side, he presents speech and counter-speech with equally clear and careful
elaboration. At the very beginning the speeches of the Corcyraeans (i. 32-36) and the
Corinthians (i. 37-43) give us an insight into a conflict which from the irritation of
the parties no longer admits a peaceable settlement; and the opposition appears with yet
greater intensity in the speeches made at Sparta by the Corinthians (i. 68-71) and the
Athenians (i. 73-78). At Sparta too the peace party and the war party find their living
utterance in the speeches of Archidamus (i. 80-85) and Sthenelaïdas (i. 86);
but it is felt that passion has now the better of moderation. With excellent effect,
therefore, the pre-eminent position of Pericles is set before us. He proves
incontestably (i. 140-144) the necessity of the war from a consideration of the dignity
and power of Athens, and in a short review (ii. 13) sets forth the sufficiency of her
means; and when the beginning of the war does not answer their expectations, he is able
in his incomparable funeral oration (ii. 35-46) to keep his fellow-citizens up to the
fulness of resolve by the stimulation of a noble and justifiable self-respect; and when
undeserved misfortune has bowed their spirit and confidence, in his farewell speech (ii.
60-64) he raises their courage again by calling to mind all the greatness of the past
and the present. Not less clearly do we become acquainted with the way in
which other leading men thought and acted, from their speeches whether longer or
shorter; e.g. Phormio, ii. 89; Demosthenes, iv. 10; Brasidas, iv. 85-87, of whom it is
said,
ἦν δὲ οὐδὲ ἀδύνατος, ὡς Λακεδαιμόνιος,
εἰπεῖν; Hippocrates, iv. 95; Hermocrates, iv. 59-64; Nicias, vi. 68; vii.
61-64; 77; Gylippus, vii. 66-68; Alcibiades in Sparta, vi. 89-92. But the art of
Thucydides in setting forth with objective clearness the reasons
pro and
con of controverted questions is shown most
conspicuously in the speeches of Cleon and Diodotus, iii. 37-40; 42-48, on the Lesbian
affair; of the Plataean and Theban deputies, iii. 53-59; 61-67, on the Plataean
question; of Nicias and Alcibiades, vi. 9-14; 16-18; 20-23, on the Sicilian expedition;
of Hermocrates and Athenagoras, vi. 33-34; 36-40, on the defence of Syracuse; of
Hermocrates and the Athenian ambassador Euphemus, vi. 76-80; 82-87, on the accession of
Camarina. Without our own choice we find ourselves involved in the conflict of
interests, and are put in a position to form judgment for ourselves from the situation
of affairs and the feeling of parties. Very seldom does the historian himself add a word
of comment. The most remarkable instance of his doing so is found in the declarations
which he makes with regard to the transactions in which Cleon takes part; in iii. 36.
§ 6, on the decision about the Lesbians; and in iv. 21. § 3; 22.
§ 2; 28. § 3 ff.; 39. § 3, about Pylos and the consequent
proposals of peace made by the Lacedaemonians. The strong aversion which Thucydides
manifests when he describes the person and actions of Cleon has been attributed in
ancient as well as in modern times to the personal reason that Cleon was probably the
cause of the banishment of the historian (see above, p. 11); and this is regarded as a
violation of historical impartiality. Grote expresses this opinion most decidedly.
72 But the assumption of any hostile movement on Cleon's part against Thucydides
rests only on conjecture,
73 and appears in fact not necessary to explain the
unconcealed aversion felt by the historian to Cleon. Thucydides a little more than a
year after the death of Pericles, who is the object of his love and admiration, says of
Cleon,
iii.36.26,
ὢν καὶ ἐς τὰ
ἄλλα
βιαιότατος τῶν πολιτῶν τῷ τε δήμῳ παρὰ πολὺ ἐν τῷ
τότε πιθανώτατος, and in
iv.21.9, with
nearly the same words,
ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν
χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ πλήθει πιθανώτατος.
74 We
have in these words only the application to a concrete case of the bitter feeling which
had already (ii. 65. § 7 ff.) found expression in general terms, where the
melancholy contrast is drawn out between the
ἔργῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ
πρώτου ἀνδρὸς ἀρχή and the ruinous conduct of those who
ὀρεγόμενοι τοῦ πρῶτος ἕκαστος γίγνεσθαι ἐτράποντο καθ᾽ ἡδονὰς
τῷ δήμῳ καὶ τὰ πράγματα ἐνδιδόναι. Those judgments about Cleon,
whose nature had not a trace of the exalted magnanimity of Pericles, are the legitimate
expression of the historian's profound sorrow at the decline of his country, which he
saw, after being controlled so gloriously by Pericles, surrendered to the selfseeking
ambition of unworthy men. He points thus prominently at Cleon because there can be no
doubt that before the Lesbian affair—he was even then
τῷ δήμῳ πιθανώτατος—he had attained great influence with the
mob and had probably embittered the last years of Pericles. If from the speeches in
Thucydides the same picture of various personalities presents itself to us as the
historian had formed in his own mind, the highest aim is reached which any historian can
attain. Genuine impartiality does not exclude judgment and personal conviction in regard
either to the wisdom or the moral value of purposes and actions. But it is necessary
that we should be furnished with the materials for forming our own opinions
independently of the previous judgment of the writer. Thucydides has done this for us to
an extent and in a manner which probably no other historian has equalled; and in this
lies his imperishable value for all time.
In close correspondence with the effort the historian is evidently always making to get
as close as possible to men and things in their real relations, is his expression in
language, which he has, we may say, moulded to suit his great task. To form a just
appreciation of its peculiarities we must consider first of all that Thucydides was the first to employ the Attic speech for the purposes of historical
narrative. It may be said in general that Attic prose as a written language was then in
the first stage of its development. It cannot, it is true, be doubted that in the period
from Solon to Pericles with its momentous political changes the Attic speech had in the
manifold needs of public and private life formed itself to that character of simplicity,
clearness, and definiteness by which it is distinguished above all the other Greek
dialects. It must have been employed in the literary efforts of the Pisistratidae for
many sorts of records; and it is still more certain that after the restoration of
freedom the living word of the great statesmen from Clisthenes to Cimon must have
exerted the most potent influence on the cultivation and settlement of the language. But
this is again in its kind a phenomenon without parallel in history, that a people so
rarely dowered as the Greek could live through a long period, crowded with the highest
human interest and calling into play all forms of political and intellectual activity,
without leaving any evidences of its existence except in artistic form. While the
tragedies of Phrynichus and Aeschylus were charming and elevating the Athenian people by
the noblest matter in the noblest form, Attic prose was used for hardly any other
purposes than those of business.
75
We cannot decide how much of speeches delivered in the assembly or the courts at an
earlier time was either previously or subsequently noted down; in any case the language
retained probably longer than any other its character of originality and its capacity of
receiving new refinements. It still possessed this union of ripeness and power of fresh
development when the first orators, who paid regard to the theory of their art, and
Thucydides made use of it. It has been stated above, p. 7 ff., that Thucydides had
consciously allowed himself to be influenced by the recent elements of culture, which
had been introduced in his youth by philosophers and rhetoricians, and employed by
orators like Antiphon; and it is interesting to observe here and there indications of
this influence;
76 but it is the chief charm of
the language of the his torian that he used it as a master for the freest
expression of his personal judgment. There is no trace in his style of blind following
of worn-out tradition or of phrases made to a pattern.
77 Whatever his mind at the moment concentrated itself upon, finds a corresponding
expression in his words. Accordingly the fundamental character of the language of
Thucydides is the greatest simplicity and naturalness. Everything in it that occasions
trouble to the understanding of the reader is due to the effort of the writer to give to
the expression the most exact correspondence with the matters to be represented. The
solution of the difficulty, therefore, is to be found by penetrating into the connexion
of fact and thought; the more we are able to do this, the better shall we succeed in
getting at the true sense of the words.
The free position which Thucydides occupies in regard to the still unsettled language
is seen as well in the choice of particular words as in the order in which they are
placed. We find in him a considerable number of expressions which occur only in later
imitators; but we must not attribute to him on this account a conscious seeking after
what is unusual or antiquated.
78 In some cases our judgment is at fault, because we do
not know what was usual in the cultivated speech of his time at Athens; and herein
Dionysius himself also was at a loss. We have to make allowance for the creative power
of a master mind which is not content to take the inherited material of language as
all-sufficient for every need of expression, but understands how to employ new forms
according to the necessities of his thought. Thucydides may rightly claim the
ποιητικὸν τῶν ὀνομάτων and the
πολυειδὲς τῶν σχημάτων which Dionysius (24. 6) attributes to him; but he
is far from abusing in an arbitrary and capricious way the right of innovation which a
language in the fresh ness of its vigour concedes to a subtle and accurate
thinker, though this is what Dionysius with little insight, charges him with.
79 A list of all the words which are peculiar to Thucydides or nearly so will show
such forms only as are in accordance with the spirit of the Greek language; and a close
examination will, in all cases, make manifest their fitness for use in their several
places. In proof of this attention may be called to two of the usages which are of
especially frequent occurrence. He uses probably oftener than any other writer the
neuter singular of adjectives and participles as abstract substantives; e.g.
τὸ πιστόν, τὸ βραδύ, τὸ τολμηρόν, τὸ ἐπιεικές, τὸ ξυνετόν, τὸ
δεδιός, τὸ βουλόμενον, τὸ ὀργιζόμενον, τὸ ἐπιθυμοῦν, τὸ
θυμούμενον,
etc. There is in this no capricious
mannerism; but he is striving to clothe the abstract idea in a dress which may render it
in the particular case more easy of apprehension, while at the same time the neuter
secures the maintenance of that indefiniteness which pertains to the notion itself. To a
similar effort to elevate general conceptions as far as possible to distinct
apprehension is due his tendency to employ verbal nouns in
-της and
-σις. Examples of the former occur
in
i.70.10; 138. 14; of the latter,
i.141.6;
iii.82.20-30.
Dionysius ascribes this tendency to mere wilfulness. Hermogenes
80 shows a better judgment when he attributes the frequent
employment of nominal forms instead of verbal ones to an effort to give to the
expression of the thought greater dignity and elevation than could be secured by the use
of the corresponding verbs.
The position of words is of yet more importance in the style of Thucydides. It is a law
of the Greek language that the order of internal importance shall as far as possible be
manifested in the order of external position; not indeed that the external arrange ment defines the importance of the words; but the oral utterance obeys its
own special laws, and natural feeling permits these to be treated with freedom. Here
much must be left to the observation of the reader; but a few observations of
far-reaching application may be offered. (1) Thucydides is fond of placing at the
beginning of a sentence the principal object in the accusative, giving thus as it were
in a single word the theme of the discussion. In these cases the grammatical connexion
is often relaxed and sometimes wholly abandoned. Cf.
i.32.18, and the examples there cited. Similarly portions of the predicate are
placed before the conjunction which introduces the sentence. Cf.
i.19.3; 77. 6;
ii.65.7. (2) A general predicate
noun is placed first in connexion with a following superlative, as noted on
i.1.8; by this arrangement the noun becomes as it were the text
of the following remark. (3) Of a different kind are the numerous cases in which a noun
without the article is placed before a qualifying participle or adjective with the
article; for this throws the principal stress on the qualifying word; for examples see
on
i.1.6. This order is frequent also in Herodotus, but
comparatively rare in other Attic writers. (4) Partitive genitives, as representing the
principal notion, generally stand before the governing nouns, particularly in
designations of places, when the name of the country usually precedes that of a portion
of it. See on
i.100.15. So the objective genitive stands
between a preposition and the noun on which it depends. See on
i.32.8. (5) Two clauses closely related and connected by a copula
—as two objects of the same verb, two verbs with the same object, two
predicates—are often separated by another word of importance. This is not
peculiar to Thucydides but is a favourite arrangement with him. The effect of it is not
to dislocate the structure, but the interposed obstruction forces into notice the
essential connexion of the separated clauses. Examples of this occur on nearly every
page; as in
i.69.4 (
ἐλευθερίας), 17 (
τινα), 18 (
τὴν αὔξησιν). (6) Conversely a parallelism in structure
occasionally is found where there is no exact correspondence in thought. Cf.
i.33.12; 69. 32; 138. 18;
ii.61.19; 74. 16. (7) Great weight is sometimes laid upon an adverbial
expression by its position at the close of the sentence, an arrangement often used by
Demosthenes. Cf.
i.28.12; 77. 19; 133. 8;
ii.7.18.
Thucydides has made large use of the period with its complete structure of protasis,
apodosis, and subordinate clauses. But in the simple narrative he prefers to allow the
circumstances of an event to follow one another in coördination. We often find,
accordingly, a long series of short sentences, united together by various connective
particles, which everywhere demand attentive consideration, and none of them to a
greater degree than the apparently insignificant
τε, the
effect of which has often been pointed out in the commentary. By a paratactic
arrangement of sentences he often produces a greater effect than we should have
expected. See on
i.26.16,
81 and the
examples there cited. We may notice also that it is taken for granted that attention to
the course of the narrative when it is clearly stated will suffice to prevent confusion,
when, without special notice, the subject is changed, as is more frequently done than is
usual with us; and even within the limits of the same sentence the extension of the
subject is enlarged or narrowed, when the circumstances introduced require such a
modification, so that at the end the same term is to be taken in a wider or a more
restricted sense than it was at the beginning. See on
i.18.21; 61. 9; 124. 7;
ii.54.4;
iii.23.1; 53. 17;
iv.6.3;
etc.
The transition from the paratactic arrangement to the period proper is found in the
annexing of an explanatory member with
γάρ at the
beginning of a long sentence. This is not indeed so frequent as it is in Homer (see
Classen,
Beobachtungen über den homerischen
Sprachgebrauch, p. 6 ff.) and in Herodotus, but is found often enough in Thucydides
(see on
i.31.7); and the examples noted on
i.72.1; 115. 14 show how closely this arrangement approximated
to the actual period. It is in such passages that we best apprehend the effort of the
writer to give complete expression to his thought by means of a vehicle not yet reduced
to entire flexibility. Thucydides shares with all energetic thinkers the
desire to use no superfluous words. It is not surprising, therefore, that we cannot
without trouble penetrate through the condensed phrase to the full apprehension of his
meaning, especially in those cases where the most hidden processes of thought and
feeling are to be indicated. It cannot be asserted that Thucydides aims at brevity and
finds pleasure in dark expressions. The truth is that in the department in which he
laboured the Greek language had little or nothing previously worked out, and that he had
often to wrestle painfully with a resisting material to find satisfactory expression for
what he desired to say. The evidence of this laborious effort is to be seen in many
inequalities in the work. Still, where the text is not certainly corrupt, honest and
resolute effort will always succeed in grasping the true sense of the writer even in the
most difficult passages.
82 The task of understanding Thucydides in all his parts and all his peculiarities
is, it is true, no light one, but it well repays the effort. It bestows in
preëminent degree the satisfactory feeling of sharing the labour of thought
with a profound and noble intellect. We can observe how in particular cases the thought
of the writer has even in the very moulding of his sentence taken a direction different
from that he started with, and thus has shifted into inconsistency of expression. See on
i.4.7; 18. 18; 23. 11; 38. 11; 40. 8; 69. 33; 70. 18; 72.
9;
etc. It is this occasional divergence from the customary rule
that creates the greatest difficulty in following the course of the thought of the
writer with intelligence and sympathetic appreciation.
83
As we could reach no certainty with regard to the end of the life of Thucydides, so the
early history of the work he left must remain in darkness. Modern scholars are at
variance even as to the form in which the eighth book was left. Some regard
the absence of speeches as a proof that its author had not given it its final form:
others find this fact sufficiently explained by the character of the events recorded in
it. The latter view is probably correct:
84
yet there are many points of style and matter which seem to indicate that the book did
not receive the last revision of the author, particularly the fact that it breaks off in
the midst of a narrative uncompleted. This, combined with the divergent statements as to
the manner and place of the death of the writer, gave occasion even in antiquity to
various conjectures, which are recorded by Marcellinus, § 43, 44; as that a
daughter of Thucydides wrote the book, or Theopompus, or Xenophon. There is no
probability internal or external for any one of these. There may be so much truth as
this: that the daughter of Thucydides, after her father's sudden death by an attack of
robbers, saved his unfinished work from destruction, and gave it for publication to some
person who by his interest or personal position was fitted for the task. The names of
Theopompus and Xenophon are evidently mentioned only because each of them was known to
have continued the history of Thucydides. Theopompus, indeed, could have been hardly
born at the time of the death of Thucydides. As to Xenophon, we read in Diog. Laert.
ii.6.57,
λέγεται ὅτι καὶ τὰ
Θουκυδίδου βιβλία λανθάνοντα ὑφελέσθαι δυνάμενος αὐτὸς εἰς δόξαν
ἤγαγεν. This statement that Xenophon made known to fame the books of
Thucydides when he might have suppressed them, may suggest that they were intrusted to
him by the historian's daughter: but to treat this as an established fact is to go too
far; yet Letronne
85
has done this when, assuming that Xenophon could have published the history of
Thucydides only before his own expedition to Asia in 400, he fancies that he has thus
secured a fixed limit for the life of Thucydides. Certainty on these points cannot be
attained even by the most acute combination.
The division of the work into eight books is founded upon a just consideration of the
facts. The first book contains the introduc tion proper and all preliminary
notices; the second, third, and fourth contain the first nine years of the Archidamian
war, three in each; the fifth, the concluding year of the same with the intermediate
period of
εἰρήνη ὕπουλος; the sixth and seventh, the
Sicilian expedition from its hopeful beginning to its disastrous close; the eighth, all
that follows this in the Decelean and Ionian wars, so far as the history extends. This
division, however, was probably not made by Thucydides himself; for, if it had been, it
is not likely that any others would have obtained currency, which Marcellinus,
§ 58, asserts to have been the case, one division being into thirteen books. It
was probably introduced, like similar divisions of other works, in Alexandria, and
maintained itself in use from that time on, since Dionysius and other grammarians
commonly make use of it. Dionysius is wont also to define particular portions of the
work by the number of their lines or
στίχοι. For
example, the first 87 chapters amount to 2000
στίχοι
(
De Thuc. iud. 10. 5); the proem alone, i. 1-23, to 500 (
ibid. 19. 1); the reflexions on the Corcyraean sedition, iii. 82,
83, to 100 (
ibid. 33. 1).
86 We see that the
lines of his Ms. contained a number of letters less by about a sixth than those of our
ordinary editions. The passages named above contain in Bekker's stereotype edition about
1700, 440, and 85 lines respectively.
