CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 086 055 658 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924086055658 THUCYDIDES BOOK I IV/TH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES W. H. FORBES, M.A. BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD With Maps PAJ?T I— INTRODUCTION AND TEXT AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1895 h^']']%S3 £ottbon HENRY FROWDE Oxford University Press Warehouse Amen Corner, E.C. Macmillan it Co., 66 Fifth Avenue PREFACE The notes in this edition are for the use of readers of Thucydides in the upper forms of schools and in universities and university colleges. The introductions are intended rather for teachers. To avoid repetition, remarks on grammar and on the use of particular words have been as far as possible thrown into the grammar notes and glossary at the end of vol. ii. In the notes on the text, not more than one way, or at the most two, of interpreting a disputed passage has been given. Such passages are seldom very important for the history ; the difference in the sense made by difference of interpretation is often small ; and no great profit is to be got by arguing about them in print. As, however, the interpretation preferred in the notes may seem wrong to some readers, alternative explanations have been given in the footnotes and in the appendix to the notes, together with discussions on points of Greek antiquities which are too long for insertion in the notes themselves. The notes are printed separately from the text, in accord- ance with the plan of the series in which the edition appears. I hope to proceed with other books of Thucydides in the same or a somewhat different form. I have not sufficient knowledge of MSS. to attempt anything like a critical edition. But the departments of iv Preface. interpretation and textual criticism are suflBciently independent of each other to justify a certain division of labour ; and for nine readers of a school and college edition out of ten, any- thing beyond a minimum of textual criticism is unnecessary. I have therefore retained Bekker's text, with a very few changes in punctuation. These have mostly been indicated in the footnotes, together with some of the most important various readings and a few well-known emendations of passages presenting obvious difficulties. Something of this kind is necessary if only to remind the reader that the received text of an author at any given time does not repre- sent any single MS., and that no single MS. can possibly represent the work as it came from the author's hand. But, although for these reasons critical questions have not been treated fully in the course of the notes, I should be sorry to underrate their importance as subsidiary to the work of interpretation, or the valuable contributions which have been made by recent discussions of them to the next really great critical edition of Thucydides, which may be destined to supersede Bekker as Madvig's Livy has super- seded earlier texts. In particular, some expression of opinion, however unauthoritative, may be expected about the view that the text of Thucydides has been extensively corrupted by ' glosses,' or more properly ' adscripts ' ; viz. marginal or interlinear notes, which have accidentally been written out by copyists as part of the text; a view chiefly associated with the name of Cobet, and recently maintained at length in this country by Dr. Rutherford and Professor Marchant ^ I. It is quite certain, from a comparison of the MSS. and the scholia, that, in some MSS. at least, explanatory words ^ For criticisms on ttiese opinions by scholars who write with authority, see Herbst, Ueber Cobet's Emendationen zu Thukydides, and Zu Thukydides, Erklarungen nnd Wiederherstellungen ; Hude, in Neue Jahrbiicher, 1890, i. p. 8oi ; and the Introduction to Professor Good- hart's Thucydides, Book viii. Preface. v have found their way into the text (Marchant, Thucydides, Book ii. p. xxxvii). It is impossible to deny that this may be the case in many passages where it cannot be proved ; and there are good grounds for believing it in certain definite groups of cases where words or phrases of a particular kind frequently occur both in the scholia and in the text, and are occasionally redundant or awkward in the text \ E. g. ' the text of Thucydides ' may very possibly be»' dotted over with AaxeSai/idwoi and 'KBrivdioi in every case and every construction, none of which he ever wrote' (Rutherford, Thucydides, Book iv. p. xlvii). And it is highly probable that some of the passages dealing with geography, customs, constitutional details, and the like, which embarrass the com- mentator ^, may owe their complexity to accidental insertions, and not to what can only be called clumsiness on the part of the historian. 2. Where the grammar, not the sense, of a passage renders the text suspicious, certainty is less attainable. It will always be disputed how far it is likely or unlikely that Thucydides used expressions which strict logic or grammar would forbid ^, or departed from the syntax or vocabulary which are de- scribed as ' Attic ' by ancient or modern grammarians. For 'Attic Greek,' whatever may be said of ' Greek,' has after all been a dead language for 2,000 years : a foreign language it certainly is ; and in dealing with Sophocles or Thucydides the greatest of scholars is, as Professor Campbell remarks (Sophocles, vol. i. p. 106), in the position of a foreigner criticising an English classic. There can be no doubt how- ever that much time has been wasted over subtle explanations ' But each case of this kind must be judged on its own merits, for it is obvious that a short explanatory clause is likely to be expressed in the same kind of language, whether it be inserted by the author or added as a note by a commentator. = E.g.i. 93, 11. II, 18; 96, 11. 6-9 (?) ; 126,11. I8-2I- " See, for illustrations, Part ii. pp. I63-I55- vi Preface. of passages in our Thucydides which, whether he wrote them or not, are blemishes in the work and exceptions to his usual style. Where there is no difficulty in the translation or real difference in the sense I have passed over without comment words which may very well be ' adscripts \' nor have I stopped to defend words which have been bracketed without sufficient cause in good editions ; being unwilling to overload a small edition with disputable matter of minor importance. But in judging of Thucydides' style as a whole, the uncertainty of the MS. tradition must be borne in mind; and good service has been done by the attention recently called to it. 3. It is unlikely that much can be done by the method in question for really difficult passages. Where such a passage is corrected, and the original reading professedly restored, on the supposition, not merely that an adscript has been inserted, but that the insertion has caused successive omissions or alterations (deliberate or accidental) in the original text, we find ourselves in a region of sheer guess-work, where the uncertainty of each link in the chain of hypotheses fatally weakens the whole, and where no light is thrown by an argumentative note either on the facts of the case or on the style of the author. The aim of the ordinary student in such cases should be to see what the actual difficulties of the place are, and what the author probably meant to say : if he tries to do more, he will either confuse himself, or acquire a habit of mistaking guesses for facts and theories for certainties. An edition like the present must necessarily be under great obligations to preceding commentators, and to the 1 One of Cobet's best suggestions on Book i may be mentioned here. In ch. 129, I. II, Xerxes is represented as writing to Pausanias, koi tSiv dvSpwv oijs ixoi -ncpav ea\aav ipyatrias iv rfi Trep'i ravra QpaKrj) ^. They may have been the mines of Scapte Hyle (Hdt. vi. 46), on the mainland opposite Thasos, given up to Athens after the revolt of that island (Thuc. i. 102), or those of Mount Pangaeus (Hdt. vii. 112), a little to the west; they may also have been the gold mines of Crenides " (later the site of Philippi) further inland *. If the first, Thucydides' expression may mean that he rented the right of working them from the Athenian state. In that case there is no foundation for the suggestion that in 424 he was neglecting his duty at Amphipolis ' Jowett, Thucydides, Introduction, p. xiii. ^ One of his ancient biographers reflects his language accurately, TcL Tifpl Qiffoi' iricTTevSels /iiTaWa (Vit. Anon. p. 13. 1. 6). = Strabo, vii. exc. 34 : the mines of Datum (Hdt. ix. 75) were near to, or identical with, those of Cienides. ' The expression ^v rri Trepl ravra ®pdKri just after the mention of Thasos might be used of any of these. Thucydides' ancient biographers, whatever their testimony may be worth (see below), speak only of Scapte Hyle. Thucydides, his life and mind. xv by lingering about Thasos for the protection of his own private property. We do not know whether, on his failure to save Amphipolis, Exile, he returned to Athens and was formally tried and condemned to exile, like Pythodorus and Sophocles (iv. 65), or whether, like Demosthenes for a short time after his defeat in Aetolia (iii. 98), he remained in voluntary exile 'fearing the Athenians.' (In this case he may or may not have been tried in his absence.) Nor do we know whether, if tried at all, he was charged with mere negligence, or with irpohoa-ia, the penalty of which was death and confiscation of goods '- Voluntary or involuntary, his twenty years' exile began at the end of 424 or the beginning or early part of 423. Thus it ended during the eventful years 404-403 ; after the fall of Athens (about April, 404), and during the power of the thirty tyrants, or possibly after the restoration of the democracy (autumn of 403). The circumstances of his recall are unknown ; the period of Recall, his sentence may have expired ; he may have been recalled by a special vote of the Assembly ^, or (as the coincidence of the date may perhaps suggest) he may have been included in the amnesty passed at the beginning of the siege of Athens, in the recall of the exiles demanded by Sparta at the Peace, or in the amnesty passed after the restoration of the democracy. We know however from passages in the Orators that these amnesties excluded certain classes of definitely convicted persons '. That after the expiration of twenty years Thucydides returned to Athens is almost necessarily implied in his own words, ^weprj fioi v AaKeSaipoviav pel^ov e^dvi] (v. 68) : this has been thought to indicate that he was an eye-witness of the battle. But we cannot safely argue thus : the expression may have come from an informant. Much less can we argue from the life-like character of any particular part of his narrative that he was present at the scene which he describes (Pylos, Syracuse, Olympia, v. 50). The description of the departure of the Athenian fleet for Sicily (vi. 30, 32) is as graphic as any of them ; and Thucydides, then an exile, cannot possibly have been at the Piraeus on that memorable day. Composi- Save for the rare cases in which Thucydides mentions a diflfi- tion of the culty in getting information on particular points (pp. cvii, cviii), we know no details of the manner in which he wrote his history. He tells us that he began it as soon as the war began : to what extent, if any, he proceeded beyond the collection of materials, or when he worked up into a final or nearly final form the successive stages of the history, it is impossible to say with certainty. Some passages were certainly vnritten after the fall of Athens (i. 23 ; ii. 62, 65 ; v. 26), and even bear traces of the impression produced on him and throughout Hellas by the well-deserved unpopularity of the Spartan dominion (i. 76, 77 ; probably iii. 82) . Other passages in the earlier books gain greatly in force if we suppose them to have been written with a know- ledge of the Sicilian expedition, the occupation of Decelea, and the end of the war ; especially those anticipations of the future in the speeches which are more definite than they could naturally have been at the time when the speeches were delivered (see Thucydides, his life and mind. xvii Part ii. p. 107). We naturally imagine him as living and work- ing for some little time after the end of the war, although with no more definite internal grounds than these. That Thucydides took advantage of the break in the war Theory of after the Peace of Nicias to put into shape what he had already P'l"<='i ^. , . , , . ., tocomposi- composed m the rough is not unlikely in itself: he could not tion of the have divined at once that the war would break out afresh. History. But the internal evidence is quite insufficient to show that Books i — v. 4c, or the greater part of them, form a separate section of the history, written, excepting a few definite inser- tions, in the interval between the Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian expedition ' The passages mentioned above render it ' This theory was first put forward by Ullrich (Beitrage zur Erklarung des Thnkydides) in 1 846. It was well worth suggesting that there was a kind of break in Thucydides' work after 421, which may account for the fresh start which he makes in v. 26 {yeypcupf 5J xal ravra airos &ovKvSiS7]s 'AOrjvaTos, k.t.X.). But the existence in the first four books of passages which must have been written before the Sicilian expedition and cannot have been written afterwards is insufficiently supported. It is said that the words of Thucydides in ii. I apx^rai Si 6 nSKe/ios kyScvde ijdrj . . , €v S> ovT€ i-nefxiyvvvTO ert dicTjpvKTl irap' dWrjXovs Kol Karaaravrts ^ui/€x2$ e-noKe/iow, can only refer to the first ten years of the war, and not to the whole war which was interrupted by the Peace of Nicias : that Thucydides cannot have described the second Peloponnesiau in- vasion of Attica as the longest and most calamitous (ii. 37 ; iii. 26), if he were writing after the occupation of Decelea, which he also calls an lopr;6eis. Antyllns is spoken of as a good authority by the author of the anony- mous Life of Thucydides, but his date is unknown. ^ A remarkable passage in Thucydides' contemporary, the physician Hippocrates, shows that we must not argue too hastily from a rejection xxviii Introduction: Part I, § 13. It would be a mistake to suppose that Thucydides sympathised with the cynical observations of the Athenians in their speeches at Sparta and Melos, about the hollowness of justice and the universal rule of grasping self-interest (o5 hv Kparrj, apx^iv), ' among men as we know, and among the Gods as we believe.' It would be an equal mistake to dwell upon the striking expres- sion which he twice puts into the mouth of the Melians, ^ rvxri €K Tov 6fiov, or to apply it to the conception of rixr] as it occurs elsewhere in him. We may with more plausibility find an expression of his own feeling in the utterance which he ascribes to Pericles (ii. 64) ep€i.v re xph ^ '"^ Satfwvia avayKaims rd re anb Tav noXe/iiav avSpeias. There are, however, only three places where he speaks at all of such matters in his own person. The Describing the Plague (ii. 52-54) he tells us how, 'when they Plague. were afraid to visit each other, the sufferers died in their solitude, so that many houses were empty because there had been no one left to take care of the sick ; or if they ventured they perished, especially those who aspired to heroism (01 dpe-nis n fi€Tanoiov- p-fvoi). For they went to see their friends without thought of themselves, and were ashamed to leave them.' He also tells us how, besides the disregard of funeral ceremonies, 'there were of superstitious explanations of particular phenomena. Speaking of a malady prevalent among some of the Scythians, he says ot iiiv otv iTTixoipioi TTjv a'iTirjv TrpoaTiOeadL d(^, Kai aepovrat tovtovs tovs avSpdmovs Kai Trpoatcvviovcrit SeSoiKSres ircpi ye kaivrSiv eKaaTot. c/jloI S^ Kal avrw SoK€L Tavra rd TraOea Beta etvat Kal rdWa TrdvTa, Kal ovS^v erepov krepov OeidrepoVy ovSk dvBpcoTTivirrepov, aWcL irdfTa ofioTa Kol iravra 6eia' tKoffTOf S^ eX^* fpvaiv TQiV toioijtwv Kal oifSiu avev (pvffios ylyverai. After giving a simple explanation of the disease in question, and ironically remarking that if it were more ' divine ' than others, the rich who can afford to appease the Gods with sacrifices would not suffer from it, he continues uWd ydp ojailfp Kal Trpdrtpov eKe^a, Beta pXv Kal Tavrd hoTi dpLoiois TOts dWois' yiyviToi 8^ Kard ^vaiv eKaara. (De Aere, etc., 29 — one of the treatises recognised as genuine by Littr^ : quoted in Mahaffy, Greek Classical Literature, Prose Writers, Part i. p. 48. Cp. ch. i of the treatise nepl iepijs voiiaov, probably by some member of the school of Hippocrates.) Thucydides may, though we do not know, have thought of events what Hippocrates thinks of maladies, that though all ' human ' and ' natural,' they were also ' divine ' — not of course that the word meant to the men of that day all that it means to us. Thucydides, his life and mind. xxix other forms of lawlessness which the plague introduced at Athens. Men who had hitherto concealed their indulgence in pleasure now grew bolder. For seeing the sudden change— how the rich died in a moment, and those who had nothing imme- diately inherited their property— they reflected that life and riches, under the circumstances, were alike transitory, and they resolved to enjoy themselves while they could, and think only of pleasure. Who would be willing to sacrifice himself to the law of honour {npotTToKanraipeiv ra ho^avTi Kokto), when he knew not whether he would ever live to be held in honour .' The pleasure of the moment and any sort of thing which conduced to it took the place both of honour and expediency. No fear of Gods or law of men deterred a criminal. Those who saw all perishing ahke, thought that the worship or neglect of the Gods made no difference. For offences against human law, no punishment was to be feared ; no one would live long enough to be called to account. Already a far heavier sentence had been passed, and was hanging over a man's head ; before that fell, why should he not take a little pleasure ? ' Again, speaking of the Corcyraean sedition, he says among The other things (iii. 82, 83), ' In peace and prosperity both states t^oibles at and individuals are actuated by higher motives, because they do not fall under the dominion of imperious necessities ; but war which takes away the comfortable provision of daily life is a hard master, and tends to assimilate men's characters to their conditions. . . . He who could outstrip another in a bad action was applauded, and so was he who encouraged to evil one who had no idea of it. . . . The seal of good faith was not the divine law, but fellowship in crime ^. ... In general the dishonest more easily gain credit for cleverness than the simple for goodness^ ; men take a pride in the one, but are ashamed of the other ^ aal tAs ks (7 xat voixina. Expressions like e«os v6iios occur in Heraclitus, Fr. 91, and Gorgias, see pp. Iii, Ivi. ^ This sentiment is noteworthy from a critical and intellectual mind like that of Thucydides : we may think of his evident appreciation of the simple character of Archidamus with his maxim oi ttoXu Sia^epet dvdpajiros dvdpajwov. XXX Introduction: Part /, §§ 13, 14. The un- deserved fate of Nicias. Neither faction cared for religion ^, but any fair pretence which succeeded in effecting some odious purpose was greatly lauded.' These passages show how very far Thucydides was from being ' cynical ' or indifferent about questions of right and wrong : they show too that he regarded the breaking down of the restraints of the popular religion as one of the worst evils of plagues or revolutions : and in the second of them he quietly speaks of ' the divine law ' as a real thing, which ought to have kept men faithful to their oaths, though, in this extremity, ineffective. It may, however, be observed that the motive which generally failed in the Plague, though it proved operative in a few cases, is not what we should call conscience or religion in the higher sense, as Socrates might have felt it, but regard for an honour- able reputation (aicrx>J<"7 or ro 8d|ai/ koKov), or fear of immediate punishment from the Gods. One more passage remains to be noticed. In the Plague, as we have seen, the good and bad perish alike, or the good more than the bad. The confident appeals to the justice of heaven which Thucydides puts into the mouth of the Plataeans, the Melians, and Nicias on the retreat from Syracuse do not avail to save them ^ The tacit thought or feeling which the historian betrays here seems to be more fully expressed when, besides merely recording the fate of Nicias, he says, 'No one of the Hellenes in my time was less deserving of so miserable an end, for he lived wholly in the practice of virtue '.' 1 Eiai^fia, meaning, as the context and the common use of the word show, the ' piety ' which will not break an oath taken in the name of a God. ' Professor Jebb in ' Hellenica,' p. 301 . * vii. 86 Kal d filf ToiavTig ij on e-yy^Tara tovtojv aiTia inOvrjKet, ijfetaTa 5^ ci^ios &v tSiv 7' Itt' k^iov ^'EWi^vajv is tovto SvffTVxias cupiKeaBcu diA T^jv irdaav Is ap^T^v vcvot^ifffxevrjv f-jriT^Sevfftv. There is a * harder reading' of at least equal manuscript authority, Std, t^v vivoiuaiiivqv (TTiTTiSevaiv, which must mean 'because he lived in the observance of recognised obligations' (t'cvofiiafi4vTjv = voiufiijv), If these were Thucydides' words, he must be understood to feel the injustice of such a fate ending so scrupulous and well-regulated a life — a sentiment less impressive to our minds but perhaps more Greek (Miiller-Striibing, Aristophanes, p. 638), and showing the same feeling of a claim upon the justice of the Gods. Thucydidesi his life and mind. xxxi Thucydides has been called ' cold ' and ' cynical,' because he § 14. Ab- does not pass judgment on the crimes which he records. It ^™'^^ °^ is true that he often mentions without comment the cruel but judgments.' recognised severities of Greek warfare^. He is reserved and to some degree hard (a truth more often exaggerated than overlooked) : he is the very reverse of ' sentimental ' : and his contempt for weakness or miscalculation or plans well con- ceived but feebly carried out, is more obvious than his disappro- bation of wrong-doing ^. But the tone of his narrative leaves us in no doubt as to what he thought of exceptional cruelty or meanness, like that of Alcidas (iii. 32), Paches (iii. 34), Menedaeus (iii. 109), Tissaphernes (viii. 108), or the treacherous massacre of the bravest Helots by the Spartans (iv. 80). Often, as in the story of the final massacre at Corcyra or the miseries of the Athenian prisoners at Syracuse, the pity which he knows so well how to awaken for the sufferers makes all comment on the deed superfluous. About the fate of the Plataeans there is not much to be said after Thucydides has given us their own plea. The conduct of the Thebans in the matter would certainly not have seemed so unjustifiable to the ancients as it does to us. Plataea was, from the ancient point of view, their ' colony,' though founded in what we should call semi-legendary times, and they hated it as ' We must remember that modem history is written by civilians or by soldiers for civilian readers : the distinction did not exist in the days of Thucydides, who lilce any other arparrjjds might have been called upon to order a conquered population to be put to the sword, and the women and children to be sold for slaves. The massacre or execution of the wretched remnant of the Aeginetans (iv. 57) probably took place during his aTparijyia, though he may by that time have started for the coast of Thrace. ' Diodotus in pleading for the people of Mitylene appeals to interest, and in one place (iii. 47) to gratitude and justice (irpaiTOV /j-iv aSi/c-qaerc roils (iepyiras KTeivovT€s), not at all to mercy and human feeling ; and conclusions have been drawn from the circumstance about the hard- heartedness of the historian or the Athenian people at this period. But Diodotus (or Thucydides putting ' the appropriate arguments ' into his mouth) wanted to convince the waverers who had been influenced by Cleon's most effective though unscrupulous harangue, and that could not be done better than by affecting to disregard all higher considerations. xxxii Introduction: Part I, §§ 14, 15. Corinth hated Corcyra. Nor would it have occurred to a Greek, as it does to every modern schoolboy who is moved to indigna- tion by the story, that the Plataeans deserved consideration simply for their gallantry against overwhelming odds. Of the hypocrisy and moral cowardice of the Spartans, Thucydides hints his disapprobation in two words (tj^Iovv Srj6ev airois ijo-u^nf""" ^'''d TTfpt nXarmav oi AaKedaiftovioi. ovras anoTfTpafj.- fiii/oi iyevovTo Qrj^aiaiv fvcKo). In the case of the Melian massacre, no condemnation that the historian could have pro- nounced could possibly have added to the effect of the ' Melian Dialogue' standing where it does; just before the story of the Sicilian expedition. § 15. lA.- The picture which we draw for ourselves of the mind of TTiSi fiaaov ^ great and reticent writer like Thucydides will vary at different (* fvvf- times and with different readers : AfyiTa nepi avrov ms eKaaros o-is), yyiiiiri yiyxaxTKei. But his most heart-felt conviction, and one which he is . a™ Ton/ jjgygf weary of expressing, is the supreme value of rational fore- Tttii/, Sr 0e- sight ; a ' commonplace ' no doubt, but a commonplace which is $atoTf pa ever receiving, in the pages of Thucydides as in the experience of * "''"'■ life, anew interest from the neglect of it by'states and individuals.' Chance (that is, the operation of unknown causes) is strong, the future is hard to foresee, hope is dangerous ; we must look facts in the face whether we like them or not, and ' think it out.' Such is his most characteristic utterance about human things, recurring over and over again both in the speeches, and in his own obser- vations. We should wish to think of his own character as answer- ing to it, and also to his words (iii. 83) about the simplicity which is the chief element in a noble nature. There are some persons in whom strong common sense and keen insight exist in so unusual a degree that they seem to indicate the presence of qualities greater than themselves, and attract, not admiration only, but affection. The genius of Thucydides as expressed in his writings has the power of characters like these. Thucydides: Ancient traditions. xxxiii APPENDIX A. Readers of Thucydides may sometimes have wondered what credit is to be given to the hves of him which are printed at the beginning of Bekker's and other editions, and to the numerous stories about him, derived from these sources, which are to be found in Dictionaries of Biography and Histories of Greek Literature. An enumeration of the errors or improbabilities in the ' Lives ' will show that their authority is not high. Marcellinus (p. 3, I. 9) ', says that Miltiades ' when the Per- § 16. Inac- sians came against Hellas ' (meaning when they attacked the curate re- shores of the Hellespont after the Ionic Revolt), sent most of his Herodotus family away in safety from the Thracian Chersonese, but that a andThucy- ship was taken in which some of his children were : ' But they d'des in the are released by the King, if Herodotus is Aot mistaken.' What Herodotus really says (vi. 41) is that Miltiades' eldest son was taken and that the King treated him kindly and gave him a house and property and a Persian wife ; his children being counted as Persians. Marcellinus (p. ;, 1. 21) charges Herodotus with having for personal reasons accused the Corinthians of cowardice at Salamis. Herodotus gives this indeed as a story told by the Athenians, but clearly implies his disbelief in it (viii. 94). Marcellinus (p. 9, 1. 25) ^ says that Thucydides wrote with a view to accuracy rather than entertainment, kqI yap mvdfiaafv ayavLtrfia rrjv iavTOv ^uyypa<^i7i/. Cp. Thuc. i. 22 KTri{j.d re es aet fiaXKov ^ ayiovitTjxa es to 7rapa)(pjifia aKoveiv ^vyKeirau Marcelhnus (p. 5, 11. 5-9) makes two mistakes in giving Thucydides' account of the loss of Amphipolis. He says that Thucydides ' having been sent to Amphipolis" — meaning having been sent by the ' The references are to Bekker's text. ' This is apparently from the second of the three Lives combined under the name of Marcellinus. The author is not so inaccurate as the writers of the first and third Lives, but he tells us few facts, confining himself chiefly to criticism on the language and style of Thucydides. ' The writer may have been thinking of Thuc. v. 26 furA Tfjv h 'AiKpiTToXiv (TTpaTTjyiav. C xxxiv Introduction: Part I, Appendix A. Athenians to the Thracian coast, or sent for by Eucles to Amphi- pohs — failed to save it and was blamed, but that though he missed Amphipolis he ' took ' Eion, meaning that he kept Eion ^. § 17. Mis- Marcellinus says that Miltiades, when he received the Dolonci '^vf'v'r (according to the story in Hdt. vi. 35), was ' sitting before the ties or cor- frontiers of Attica'" (p. 2, 1. 21 note) : that the tomb oi Herodotus ruptions in and Thucydides is shown among the tombs of the family of the ' Lives, cjmon (p. 3, 1. 32) : that Thucydides shows his impartiality by not reviling Cleon or Brasidas who were the cause of his misfortunes (p. 5, 1. 17), whereas he does 'revile' Cleon, so far as he can be said to revile anybody : that after his banishment he lived in Aegina, which, as we have seen (p. xx), was impos- sible. A writer named Zopyrus (but see below, p. xxxvii) seems to be quoted for two inconsistent statements, viz., that Thucy- dides died in (a) Thrace, (b) Attica (Marc. p. 6, 11. 12, 23). The author of the anonymous Life carelessly says, after giving the correct account, that AmphipoUs ' revolted ' from Athens after the battle in which Cleon was killed ; and confuses Thucydides the historian with Thucydides son of Melesias (14. 12 ff.). Some of the biographers or the authorities whom they quote seem to have got hold of the idea that Thucydides died in exile, and are sorely exercised to account for his having been buried in Attica (p. 6, 1.18; p. 11,1. 15). ' Cicero, Brutus xii. 47, affords a curious illustration of a loose refer- ence to Thucydides which might easily give rise to error. ' Antiphontem Rhamnusium . . . quo neminem unquam melius ullam oravisse capitis causam cum se ipse defenderet, se audiente, locuples auctor scripsit Thucydides.' Cicero is thinking of Thuc. viii. 68 med. apiara (paiverai Tuiv ^e'xpi f/iov . . . Bav&Tov S'ncrjv diro\o'/riaaiJievos. But he only just avoids saying — perhaps for the moment he thought — that Thucydides was present at the trial of Antiphon, which of course took place during his exile. ^ Bekker accepts the conjecture irpd tSv BupSit' KaBe^ofiivcu t^? cairov oiKi'as (Hdt. loc. cit., iv roTai npoBvpoKn rotai iaivrov) for the manuscript reading npb tuiv opoiv /caefCoiievqi t^s 'Attik^s. But as Stahl says of a similar case, the correction of vjr6 n\aTavai into iirrA nayyaiq, in p. 5, 1. 14, ' frustra est tales fabellas ad rationem velle revocare.' Thucydides: Ancient traditions. xxxv Two of the best known stories about Thucydides are stated, § i8. Some by two of the late writers who record them, in such a form as °^ ^^^ ''■^" to make us suspect that they were only conjectures intended to jook like account for the little that was really known of him. mere Thus, in the ' Lives of the Ten Orators,' ascribed to Plutarch, guesses. we read (p. 832, C. § 6) Kat/«'Xios S', ev tm mp\ airov {' AvTt(j)5iVTOs) a-vvTajfiaTi, QovKvhibov toO ^vyypacpems fjLadrjTrjv TeKfiaiperai yeyovevai, e| &u eiraivelrai Trap' avra 6 'AvTKpZv — ' Caecilius ' (a rhetorician of the Augustan age) ' concludes that Antiphon was a pupil of Thucydides the historian ', from his praises of Antiphon ' (viii. 68). Marcellinus (p. 3, 1. 20), after quoting the assertion that Thucydides was 'descended' from Miltiades, continues, koX IJ,€yis Kar^d). It may very well be true that Oenobius proposed his recall, though we cannot assert it with confidence '- ' Muller-Striibing and others have pointed out that the name Oenobins (a very uncommon one) occurs in inscriptions in close connexion with the name of Encles, Thucydides' colleague on the coast of Thrace, and with the Thracian district. For an Oenobius is a aTparriyos at Neapolis opposite Thasos in 409 (C. I. A. iv. Pt. i. 51) ; and a ' [EJucles son of Oenobius' occurs on an inscription of the fourth century (C. I. A. ii. Pt. ii. 1033). If the names ran in the family in the usual Greek manner, there is some reason for thinking that Oenobius was the son of the Eucles mentioned in Thuc. iv. 104, and that he really proposed the recall of his father's colleague. II. Greek Prose Literature previous to or contemporary WITH Thucydides. When Thucydides made up his mind to write the history § 22. Prose of the impending war (435-431 B.C.), the work of Herodotus ^"'^" '^^^ was not yet completed in the form in which we have it, although °'^^ '^^^' it may already have become known by reading or publication ^. Prose writing had existed in HeUas for at least seventy and per- haps for more than 100 years. Much of it was of a historical character, though it dealt chiefly with legendary times and with the chronicles of particular places, that is to say, it was rather mythological or antiquarian than properly historical. There also existed maps and geographical works in the form of lists of towns and peoples arranged in order, together with some account of them (nepiotoi yrjs, nepmXol) ; and several philosophers had written books, including not only abstract arguments on the nature of the universe or of ' Being,' but physical theories of particular phenomena, and thoughts on men and things. There ' is even said to have been an early prose work, by Theagenes of Rhegium, on the interpretation of Homer ; but this rests only on late authority. Much too had been written in poetry about subjects for which prose would seem to us a more natural expression — Solon's and Theognis' reflexions on politics and ' Herodotns speaks of the Propylaea at Athens, which were not finished till 431, as if he had seen them (v. 77) ; of the surprise of Plataea by the Thebans in 431 (vli. 233) ; and of the capture and execution of Aristeus and the Spartan envoys, which happened in 430 (vii. 137; cp. Thuc. ii. 67). How long after 430 Herodotus was writing we do not know ; arguments from his silence about incidents which ' he must have mentioned ' are very weak. xlii Introduction : Part II, §§ 22-24. society, the supposed traveller Aristeas' description of Scythia (Hdt. iv. 13-16), the philosophy of Xenophanes, Empedocles, and Parmenides. The Ionian cities of Asia Minor, especially Miletus and her colonies, the islands of the Aegean, and the cities of S. Italy, were the chief homes of this literature. At Athens itself, where poetry had flourished more than prose, there had written, or were writing, besides Herodotus, a voluminous chronicler and mythologist Pherecydes (of Leros), and two authors of memoirs or recollections of Athenian statesmen of the present or past generation — Stesimbrotus of Thasos and Ion of Chios. We must not forget that by this time there were thousands of inscriptions, laws, decrees, treaties, etc., scattered over Hellas, dating in part from far earlier days than any of the writers referred to, in which a form of Greek prose had been fixed in writing before there was any Greek prose literature. § 23. Prose Between Thucydides' first conception of his history and its writers, interruption by his death (not long after B. C 400 ?) a great deal more Greek prose literature had been written. Herodotus' history had been completed. Hellanicus had written, in his ' Athenian History,' not only about mythical times, but about the interval between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. Antiochus of Syracuse had brought a history of Sicily down to the year 424. Other chroniclers, beginning a little before the Peloponnesian war, had continued their work in various parts of Hellas. Sophists (also beginning before the Peloponnesian war) like Protagoras and Hippias had written on the most various subjects. Rhetoric (about which a treatise seems to have been written in Sicily in the previous generation) had been introduced to Athens by Gorgias of Leontini in 427. Our earliest complete specimen of Attic prose literature, the De Republica Atheniensium (wrongly ascribed to Xenophon), had been written before the Sicilian expedition, perhaps before the Peace of Nicias, by an Athenian oligarch ' r possibly by ' The arguments for this date far outweigh the very slight difficulties which have led some critics to put the work later. ' No political philo- sopher examining the constitution of Athens after 403 B. c. . . . could, I think, have contrived to make us live so absolutely in the days of the Peloponnesian war.' (Dakyns, Xenophon, vol. ii. p. Ixxii.) Prose writings in Thucydides' time. xliii Phrynichus, or by the famous Critias of whom a few interest- ing prose fragments survive. The speeches of Antiphon and some of those of Andocides and Lysias had been delivered, and (unlike those of Pericles) preserved in writing. And two great contemporaries of Thucydides (perhaps beginning earlier and continuing later than he) had written numerous works which unfortunately exist only in a doubtful or fragmentary con- dition — Hippocrates the ' father of medicine,' and the physicist, moralist, and philosopher, Democritus. The accompanying table of prose writers of the sixth and fifth centuries will show how numerous were the predeces- sors and contemporaries of Herodotus and Thucydides. Two cautions are necessary in dealing with the early history § 24. Un- of Greek literature : (l) We are too apt to think of great writers '^^'^ o"^ ^^' or of different classes of literature as succeeding each other dfjfnctfons like kings or dynasties ; one dying before the other begins, between— And (2) the perfectly correct and necessary distinctions which we draw between different classes of writers are probably a good deal sharper to us than they were to the ancients. (l) There was no great gulf between the 'age of Herodotus ' (i) 'the and the ' age of Thucydides ' : Herodotus, as we have seen, ^S^ °^ , had not completed his history in its present form until after ^^^ ^j^g Thucydides, ala-davoiienos rrj fjXiKia, had begun to write. The 'age of difference between the two is rather one of intellectual cha- TH"'^^" racter than of epoch, and is not greater than may often be observed between older and younger contemporaries : probably (see Professor Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece, p. 361 ff.) the average Athenian citizen at all times was more in sympathy with Herodotus than with Thucydides. Again, it is natural to think of Hellanicus as one of an obscure set of people called ' logographers,' who were all dead before ' the first real page of Greek history ' was written by Thucydides. As a matter of fact, Hellanicus' history must have been written after the begin- ning of the Peloponnesian War : it is said to have contained references to the mutilation of the Hermae, and the battle of Arginusae : and other works of much the same class were written during the war : just as epic poetry of a kind continued to be written long after the introduction of lyric poetry. xliv Introduction : Part II, §§ 24, 25. (2) histo- nans and philoso- phers. (3) histo- rians and ' logogra- phers.' I 25. Char- acter of the earliest Greek history. Again (2), we very naturally print and read the fragments of the early Greek historians and those of the early Greek philo- sophers in different books : but we must not exaggerate the distinction, as it must have appeared to their contemporaries or immediate successors, between those who wrote Trtpi (pva-cas and those who wrote 'ApyoXtKa or yeveaXoyiai. We do not know that Thucydides had ever read Heraclitus, or Democritus, or Hippocrates, but in some ways they were far more of kindred spirits to him than Hecataeus or Hellanicus. Another distinction, real enough, but not drawn by contem- poraries, is sometimes made by speaking of the early Greek his- torians, other than Herodotus and Thucydides, as 'logographers.' The word is never used by ancient authors in this sense : in Thuc. i. 21, 1. 4 (see note) it simply means 'prose writers.' Thucydides very likely includes Herodotus among those of whom he speaks. Herodotus applies the allied word Xoyoiroios not only to Hecataeus (ii. 143), but to Aesop as the supposed writer of a collection of fables in prose (ii. 134). We do not add to our knowledge of Antiochus of Syracuse (who is interesting because Thucydides may have used him) either by disparaging him as an ' old chronicler,' or by speaking highly of him on the ground that an ancient critic calls him ' a a-vyypa^ievs and not a \oyoypdcf)os.' Dionysius of Halicamassus prefaces his criticism of Thucy- dides' with a valuable account of the historical writers who preceded him, or who lived into his time. The earliest group, among whom he specifies Cadmus of Miletus and Aristeas of Proconnesus, were to him as they are to us mere names : their writings, he says, were mostly lost, and the authenticity of those which survived was disputed ^. Of the somewhat later writers, whose works he had before him, while we know them only in frag- ments, he says, speaking of Hecataeus and Hellanicus among ' De Thuc. Hist. Jud. 5, 23. ^ Two fragments from a work called by the unintelligible name kTTTa/xvxos, said to have been theological in character, i. e. a cosmogony, and ascribed to one of these shadowy writers, Pherecydes (the earlier) of Syros, may be quoted :— Diogenes Laertius (I. xi. 6) says that it began Zeis fiiv xal Xpivos fcratt «aJ Xeiiv rjv. Xffon'j; Si oivo/ia eyevfTO r^, lrr«8^ airp Zeiit yipas SlSoi. Clement of Alexandria (741) quotes Prose writings in Thucydides' time. xlv others, that their object in writing and their abilities were much alike. They wrote of particular cities, Greek or Barbarian, and did not attempt a general history like Herodotus. They wished to make commonly known, without adding or taking away, the records of these cities, sacred or secular (sit' iv Upois Ar iv ^f^tjXois diroKelfievai ypa-y instance {Fr. 346) says that the ' dog of Hades ' which Heracles ^ brought to Eurystheus was really a dreadful serpent, called the dog of Hades because his bite was fatal, who lived on Mount Taenarus (cp. Fr. 349, quoted above, p. xlvi). Hellanicus {Fr. 61) and Pherecydes (Fr. 32) both said that the Stymphalides were not women but birds, whom Heracles frightened with a rattle : Hellanicus also denies the commonly-received story that the rattle was made by Hephaestus ; ' Heracles made it himself.' There are similar explanations of myths, some of them remark- ably silly ones, in a writer contemporary with Thucydides, Herodorus of Heraclea. The interest in natural phenomena which is noticeable in (2) interest Herodotus and Thucydides, and which was so strong in the '" °^'"''' early ' philosophers ',' was shared by some of the chroniclers, mena. Xanthus not only argued from the existence of fossils {Fr. 3, quoted above), but mentioned the frequent physical changes which had taken place in the KaraKiKavfiivr) or volcanic country adjoining Mysia {Fr. 4). Another writer, Democles of Pygela in Ionia, earlier than the Peloponnesian War, seems to have noticed earthquakes which had occurred in Lydia and Ionia, and resulting inundations {Fr. l). There are traces of an interest in astronomy and physics in a Hippys of Rhegium, perhaps the same with the earliest historian of Sicily {Fr. i, 5, 6) : see p. Ixxiv. Some trifling etymologies in Pherecydes of Leros show the (3) begin- nings of ' Besides their explanations of the heavenly bodies, rainbows, light- ning, etc., and their growing interest in physiology, we are told that Xenophanes mentioned the occurrence of shells inland or on mountains, and of the impression of ' a fish and of seals in the quarries of Syracuse, of an anchovy at Paros deep down in the rock, and the caudal pinnae (7rXa«es) of marine animals at Malta,' whence he concluded that earth and sea had once been mixed, ' and the impressions had dried in the mud ' (Ritter and Preller, 86 a). Anaxagoras too ' predicted ' (we may suppose that he noticed or recorded) the fall of a meteoric stone near Aegospotami in 469 B.C. (Ritter and Preller, 118 a). See Professor Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy. d 2 lii Introduction : Part II, §§ 32-34. etymology beginning of an interest in language. And finally the titles of andchrono- ^ book of Charon, irpvTaveis tj rlpxavres AaKeSmpiOvimv, and one of °^' Hellanicus, 'Upeim ai ev "Apyei, indicate the earliest attempts at historical chronology, founded on lists of priests or magistrates. § 33. We may complete our picture of Greek prose before and Specimens during the Peloponnesian War by a few extracts from the philoso- remains of the early philosophers: not of course as bearing phers. directly on Thucydides, but as correcting the impression of the limited capacities of early Greek authors which we derive from the fragments of the chroniclers just quoted. Heraclitus. When we turn from these fragments to those of the earliest great writer of Greek prose, Heraclitus of Ephesus, the con- temporary of Hecataeus, it is like entering on a new world. ' The King, whose is the oracle in Delphi, neither tells, nor conceals, but indicates.' ' Seekers after gold dig up much earth and find little gold.' ' This one system of all things no God made and no man, but it always was and is and will be, an everliving fire, kindled in measures and put out in measures.' ' Common to all is thought ; we must speak with reason and hold strongly by the common (law) of all things as a city by the law, and much more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by the one divine (law), for it rules as much as it will and is sufficient for all and more than sufficient.' ' The people ought to fight for the law as for a fortress.' ' Insolence must be put out sooner than a fire.' ' The Ephesians had better hang themselves every grown man of them and leave the city to the boys : for they drove out their best man, Hermodorus, saying, There shall be no best man of us, or, if there is, let him be so somewhere else and with other people.' ' For what sense or mind have men ? they go after bards, and make the crowd their teacher ; not knowing that many are bad but few good. For even the best of them choose one thing above all, eternal glory among mortals, but the many fill them- selves like cattle.' ' And to these images they pray, just as if a man were to chat to the house, not knowing Gods or heroes, who they are.' ' There await men when they die things which they do not expect or think '.' ' Fr. II, 8, 20, 91, 100, 103, 114, III, 126, 122 (Bywater). Prose writings in Thucydides^ time. liii Even earlier than Heraclitus, prose books had been written and earlier by Anaximander of Miletus, who is said to have been sixty-four ^^"ters. years of age in 546 B. C, and by his successor Anaximenes, also of Miletus. The late writers whv(Tea>s) is quoted by Diogenes Laer- tius, ' All things were together : then mind came and arranged them.' (Ritter and Preller, 120, 122.) ' Existing things in the universe, which is one, are not separated or cut off with an axe, neither heat from cold nor cold from heat.' (R. P., 123, c.) ' The Greeks do not think rightly about becoming and perish- ing. For nothing either comes into being or perishes, but every- thing is mingled together and separated out of things already ' ' He said that things pass away into that from which they arose ' (viz. T& aiTEipov, infinity or unbounded space), ' as it is due, for they give each other satisfaction and recompense for their injustice according to the order of time, speaking of them thus in somewhat poetical language ' (Simplicius, the Aristotelian commentator of the sixth century A. D.). If the date and the quotation can be trusted (see Ritter and Preller, 12, and Burnet, pp. 49, 50), we have here the earliest extant piece of Greek prose literature. 2 Xenophanes may be called a philosopher because Plato and Aristotle give him a place in the development of philosophy; but his poems, besides their well-known assaults on the popular mythology, contained descriptions of social Ufe : and he may perhaps be compared to Epichar- mus of Syracuse (first half of fifth century), who said much about philo- sophical subjects in his satirical comedies. See Abbott, History of Greece, vol. ji. 13. 17, and Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 112, 113, 1.83. liv Introduction : Part II, §§ 34-36. Melissns. Diogenes of Apol- lonia. § 35- So- phists. existing. And so they would be right in calling " becoming," " mingling," and "perishing," "being separated."' (R. P., 119.) Here again is a specimen of a class of arguments introduced by Zeno, the Eleatic, which have left their trace upon Plato. It is a fragment of Melissus of Samos, one of the commanders of the fleet which fought against Pericles after the revolt of Samos. ' So that it is eternal, and boundless, and One, and all alike : and it cannot perish or increase, or change its form, and does not suffer pain or grief. For if any of these things happened to it, it would not be One any more. For if it is altered, "that which Is " cannot be alike (always), but that which formerly was must perish and that which was not must come into existence. Now if the All were to be altered by a single hair in ten thou- sand years, it would perish in infinite time.' (R. P., 113 a.) Such were the writers whom Thucydides must have read or heard talked of in his youth and early manhood, if he was interested in philosophy at all. Only one of the philosophers of his time bears any resemblance to him in point of style — Diogenes of ApoUonia in Crete, apparently a younger contemporary of Anaxagoras. He is said, like Anaxagoras and Socrates, to have got into trouble at Athens, Sia /liyav (fidovov. The long sentences of Diogenes, his argumentative and critical manner of writing, and his anxious care that the reader shall follow him in every step, produce a very different effect from the reserved and almost mystical utterances of some of his predecessors. Diogenes Laertius quotes the opening of one of his books : ' In beginning any argument, I think we ought to make the beginning incontrovertible, and the expression simple and dignified' (R. P., 160). Another fragment is — ' Besides these, there are the following strong arguments. Men and other animals, breathing as they do, live by the air. And this is life and thought to them, as has been clearly shown in this book. And if this departs, they die, and thought leaves them' (R. P., 163)'. It is singular that of the Sophists, apart from Gorgias, who was rather a teacher of rhetoric than a sophist, hardly any 1 A6yov Trarris dpx6iievov SokUi /xoi xp^oiv (Xvat rijv apxr/v avafupia- ■'Eti Si Trpds rovTotai Kal rdSe pey6.\a armifia- dvepcairoi ■yd.p kolI xi Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Iv fragments remain. Hippias of Elis dealt with historical sub- jects (cp. Part ii. p. 6), and is quoted {Fr. 7) as saying that the word Tvpavvos was not used in Hellas until Archilochus' time. Two or three famous sentences of Protagoras and Gorgias show that they could express, in a brilliant and forcible manner, the intellectual difficulties whfch called forth the constructive genius of Socrates and Plato. ' About the Gods I am not able to know either that they are or that they are not : for many things hinder our knowing, the obscurity of the matter and the shortness of men's life.' ' Man is the measure of all things, of things which are, that they are ; and of things which are not, that they are not' (Protagoras: see Ritter and Preller, 177, 178). 'Nothing exists : if it does, it is unknowable ; if it is knowable, it cannot be explained to others' (Gorgias : the words are probably in- tended as a ' reductio ad absurdum ' of previous philosophies : see Ritter and Preller, 184). The extraordinary performance known as the Funeral Oration § 36. of Gorgias (of which a long extract is given, in a late scholium, Funeral from a work of Dionysius of Halicamassus), shows us the Gorgias. source of the antithetical ~and artificial style which disfigures the Funeral Oration of Thucydides, and which exercised so pernicious an influence on much of later Greek oratory and literature. We have no means of knowing whether it was actually spoken in the Ceramicus by some Athenian citizen for whom Gorgias wrote it, or whether he merely wrote it to show what he could do if he had the chance. ' For what was wanting to these men of what men ought to have ? and what had they of what men ought to lack ? May I be able to say what I wish, and wish to say what is right, eluding the vengeance of God, and escaping the ill-will of men. Divine was the worth which they possessed ; human alone was their mortality. Far above stubborn Justice they set gentle Equity : and soundness of argument far above strictness of law ; for they oKKa foJa avairviovra ^iifi rai aipi, koX tovto avTOtai xal ^pvxq iuTi Kal i/6rioifir]v), one in counsel, the other in accom- plishment. For they were champions of those who unjustly suffered, and chastisers of those that unjustly rejoiced: stubborn at the call of expediency, calm at the call of propriety : by the wisdom of mind putting down the folly of might : insolent were they to the insolent, courteous to the courteous, fearless to the fearless, terrible among the terrible. In witness whereof they planted trophies over their enemies that they might be gifts pleasing to Zeus, and votive offerings of their own : not unknown to them were either inborn Valour or lawful loves, either strife in arms or art-loving peace : reverent were they to the Gods in due observance, and pious to their parents in tendance : just to their countrymen in equality, and conscientious towards their friends in faith. And therefore, though they died, loving sorrow died not with them, but immortal in bodies bodiless it lives though they live not ■'.' Fine as some of Gorgias" thoughts are, the whole passage lacks the very elements of the simplicity and sincerity due to the subject : one old-fashioned Athenian inscription like McXeti) si>6d8e KfiToi, yvv^ ayaSr/, or ivQabe 'Apiaa-TvWa kcItm, ■kols 'Apicr(TTa>v6s re km 'PoSiXXijs, o-(a0piai' y, & dvyarfp, is worth it all. It may be true, among the many imperfections of the world of letters, that Gorgias' pompous antitheses helped to introduce a needful element into prose style. Yet, on the whole, Aris- tophanes and Plato, and with them no doubt many a sensible Athenian who could not have said all he thought about it, were right in concluding that this Art of Rhetoric ' woiJd never do.' Memoirs Several memoirs or treatises of a historical or political character and vferc written at Athens or about Athenian affairs during Thucv- treatises. o j § 37- Ion- dides' life-time. Ion of Chios and Stesimbrotus of Thasos were his older contemporaries ; we should have rated the historical ' loiyapovv airSiv omoBarivToiv o m6o% oi avvaitiSavtv, 6,X\' ajBAvaTos iv [ouk] aaojucLTOis aiifiaai fij ou C'^vraiv. The ' bodies bodiless ' mean the imagined forms of the dead in the memory of the living. The original will be found in Thompson's Gorgias, pp. 175, 176. Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ivii value of their works more highly than we do if we knew less about them. Ion, who was also a tragic and lyric poet of some eminence, probably died a little before 421. He wrote a Xi'ou KTiVir, dealing, as appears from a fragment, with the mythology and early history of his native island: and a book called iniSrjiiiat, 'visits,' apparently containing anecdotes of famous men whom Ion had met. One long fragment tells a story of Sophocles, whom he met at Chios when Sophocles was one of the a-Tparrfyoi on the expedition against Samos ; another, a story of Cimon {Fr. 4 ; Plut., Cimon, 9). ' Ion said that when he was quite a lad, after coming from Chios to Athens, he met Cimon at a dinner-party at Laomedon's. After the libations he was asked to sing, and sang rather pleasantly. The company complimented him and remarked that he was more accomplished than Themistocles, who said that he had never learnt singing or the lyre, but that he did know how to make a city great and wealthy. Then, as was natural over their wine, their conversation glided on to the great things that Cimon had done. The chief of them were mentioned, and Cimon himself told them what he thought his cleverest piece of general- ship. The allies had taken many barbarian prisoners at Sestos and Byzantium, and ordered Cimon to divide them. He put the men themselves on one side, and their fine clothes and ornaments on the other : this, they said, was not a fair division. ' Take whichever you like,' said he ; ' the Athenians will be satisfied with the other.' Herophytus of Samos recommended them to choose the Persians' belongings sooner than the Persians themselves : so they took the finery and left the prisoners to the Athenians. Cimon went, away, and for a time the laugh was against him : there were the allies carrying off golden anclets and bracelets and collars and fine mantles and purple robes, while the Athenians only got naked fellows who had had no training to make them fit for work. But soon the friends and relations of the prisoners came down from Lydia and Phrygia, and paid high ransoms for every one of them : so Cimon got four months pay for his crew to begin with, and there was a large sum left over for the treasury.' Two other fragments of a similar ' gossiping ' character may be quoted {Fr. 6 and S). imbrotus. Iviii Introduction : Part II, §§ 37-39- ' Cimon, as Ion the poet says, was of no unhandsome appear- ance, but tall and had plenty of curly hair.' (Plut., Cimon, 5.) ' The poet Ion says that Pericles was impudent and conceited in society, and that there was a strong touch of arrogance and contempt for others in his loftiness ; but he speaks highly of the courtesy and the easy and cultivated manner of Cimon in ordinary intercourse. Enough, however, of Ion, who said that " goodness, like a tetralogy, should by all means have a satyric element." ' (Plut, Pericles, 3.) Plutarch (Cimon, 16) also quotes from him the expression by which Cimon urged the Athenians to send help to Sparta after the revolt of the Helots — o d' "Iuhj anofijiTifiovevei (tat tov \6yov 0) ^xaKitTTa tovs 'ABTjvaLovs ^KLvrjae, irapaKoKoiv ^t]T€ rfjv *EXXdSa ^ayXTjv fJ'rjre rqv iroXtv erepo^vya irepubeiv ycy^viqpevqv, § 38. Stes- Stesimbrotus of Thasos must have been virriting after the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, for he mentions the death of Xanthippus, Pericles' son, in the Plague. He wrote a book Trepl QefxKTTOKK^Qvs Koi QovKvhihov (the son of Melesias) kcll Ilepi- kK€ovs. Such a work, by a contemporary of Thucydides and Pericles, might be expected to be of the greatest value, but Plutarch, who frequently quotes Stesimbrotus, seems to rate his authority very low. Plutarch may have been offended by the scandals about Pericles' private life which Stesimbrotus retails, but the fragments tend to confirm his judgment. Stesimbrotus tells a story about Themistocles (see p. Ixxiii) which we may be sure that Thucydides, if he knew of it, did not credit. He appears to have lauded Cimon as a plain honest man, and to have abused Pericles. 'According to Stesimbrotus of Thasos, Cimon had never been properly taught either music or any other liberal accomplish- ment common among the Greeks. He was perfectly free from Athenian sharpness and loquacity. There was much nobility and sincerity in his character, and the features of the man's soul were rather Peloponnesian than Athenian.' {Fr. 3, Plut., Cimon, 4.) ' Cimon took every opportunity of glorifying Lacedaemon to the Athenians, and especially when he was blaming them or provoking them, according to Stesimbrotus, and used to say, " Why, the Lacedaemonians are not like that " (oi yap oi -ye AaKebaijxovioi ToiovToi)'. (Fr. 6, Plut., Cimon, 16.) Prose writings in Thucydides' time. lix Again, 'Stesimbrotus tells us that Pericles, pronouncing a pane- gyric on the platform over those who had fallen at Samos, said that they had become immortal like the Gods, " for we do not see the Gods themselves, but by the honours they enjoy and by the good things they bestow, we infer their immortality : this is true also of those who die for their country." ' (Fr. 8, Plut., Pericles, 8.) The anonymous 'A.drjvalwv noKirda (see p. xlii) is, notwith- §39-. 'Con- standing its diffuseness, more like Thucydides in style than any ^t^gns" °^ Greek writing except the speeches of Antiphon. Three extracts [Xeno- from it, not the most interesting passages, but akin to Thucydides phon]. in matter, will show how closely it bears on the history of Athens during the Peloponnesian war. The work is a short ironical defence of the Athenian constitution as admirably calculated, however bad in itself, to serve the ends of the populace. Chapter 1, 14-18, is our chief authority for the system by which the suits of the allies were tried at Athens. The passage illus- trates also the popularity of the Athenian empire with the people (' the rascals ') in the allied cities (Thuc. iii. 47, viii. 48), and the real meaning of Aristophanes' profession that he and his party are the champions of the allies : ' the aUies ' means the oligarchs or ' honest men,' in the allied cities whom they supported against the people. ' As for the Allies, those who sail out from Athens cheat Athens and (as the impression is), and show their hatred to honest men, ^^^ Allies, because they know that the ruler is bound to be hated by the ruled in any case, but that if the rich and powerful are to have the power in the cities, the rule of the Athenian people will last a very short time. This is why they disfranchise honest men and take away their property, and exile them and put them to death, and promote rascals. But the honest among the Athenians are the preservers of the honest men in the allied cities, know- ing that it is a good thing for them always to preserve the best men in the cities. Some one may say that it is the strength of the Athenians that the alhes should be able to pay them money (Thuc. iii. 46). But the democrats think it better that indi- vidual Athenians should have the alhes' money, and that the allies should have only enough to live upon and work their land, and be unable to intrigue against them. Ix Introduction : Pari II, § 39. Judicial arrange- ments. Sea and land powers compared, ' Another point in which the Athenian people is supposed to be wrong is that they compel the allies to sail to Athens for the settlement of lawsuits. But they reply by enumerating all the advantages which the Athenian people gain by this. First, they get their pay as jurymen from the court fees all the year round. Then they administer the allied cities sitting quietly at home without ships sailing out ; and they preserve the men of the popular party and destroy the men of the other party in the lawcourts. If each of the allies decided their suits at home, the Athenians being unpopular with them, they would destroy such among themselves as were most friendly to the Athenian people. Besides this there are other advantages which the Athenian people gain from the allies having their suits tried at Athens. First, the duty of one per cent. levied at the Piraeus brings in more to the city. Then, any one who has lodgings to let gets on better, so does any one who has a pair of animals or a slave who can be hired out. Then the court officials get on better because the allies have to stay at Athens. Besides, if the allies did not come to Athens for trial, they would pay respect only to such of the Athenians as sailed out to them, the generals and the trierarchs and envoys. As it is, every one of the allies indi- vidually is forced to flatter the Athenian people (Thuc. iii. 1 1), knowing that he must, if he is plaintiff or defendant in a trial, come to Athens and appear before the people and none other, such being the Athenian law ; and he is compelled to supplicate before the lawcourt, and, when any one comes in, grasp his hand. In this way the allies are rendered more completely slaves of the Athenian people.' In chapter 2. 2, the writer points out that the Athenians have a far stronger hold over their allies than the Lacedaemonians over theirs. ' Those who are subjects of a land empire can form larger communities from small cities and fight in one army ^ ; those who are subjects of a marine empire, if they are islanders, cannot bring their cities together — the sea intervenes ; but those who rule them are masters of the sea : if it were possible ' As the allies of Sparta in the Peloponnese were always trying to do. Olynthus (Thuc. i. 58) and Mitylene (iii. 2) are instances of the same policy on the part of Athenian allies. Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixi for the islanders to come together into one island without being detected, they would die of famine. As for the various cities on the mainland which are under the empire of Athens, the great are ruled by fear, the quite small through their necessities ; for there is no city which does not need either importation or exportation. Now both will be impossible, if it be not obedient to the masters of the sea. In the next place, the masters of the sea can do what the masters of the land cannot ; they can some- times ravage the lands of stronger powers, for they can coast along wherever there is no enemy or only a few ; if the enemy come up, one can embark and sail away (Thuc. ii. 25) ; one who does this finds less difficulty than he who marches up on foot. Again, those who hold an empire by sea can go as long a voyage as you like from their own country (Thuc. ii. 62) ; but their rivals on land cannot go many days' journey from their own country ; their marches are slow, and as they go on foot they cannot take provisions for a long time (Thuc. i. 141, iv. 6). And he who goes on foot must go through a friendly country or else win battles ; but he who goes by sea can make a descent where he is stronger, but (where he is weaker he can) coast along until he comes to a friendly country, or to enemies who are inferior to himself Again, those who are strongest on land are heavily smitten by failure of the harvest which comes from Zeus ; more lightly those who are strong by sea ; for every country is not affected at one time, so that supplies are brought from countries where the harvest is good to those who are masters of the sea.' (2- 14, 16.) ' One thing they lack. If the Athenians dwelt in ' if Athens an island (Thuc. i. 143) as well as being masters of the sea, had been they would be able to do evil to others if they wanted, but suffer none themselves as long as they ruled the sea ; their land would not be ravaged, and they would not have to await invasion. But as it is the farmers and the wealthy Athenians are readier to submit to the enemy (Thuc. ii. 63), but the people, knowing that they have nothing for them to burn or ravage, live without fear and without any thought of submitting to them. There is further another dread of which they would be relieved, if they inhabited an island ; that of the city being betrayed by a few, or the gates being opened and the enemy entering (Thuc. i. 108, vi. 61, viii. 90) ; for how could such things happen, if they Ixii Introduction: Part II, §§39-41. inhabited an island ? Nor would they have to fear any insurrec- tion against the people, if they inhabited an island ; for, as it is, if an insurrection were raised, it would be with hope in the enemy, and the intention of inviting him in by land. But if they inhabited an island, they would have no fear of this either. Now since they had not the luck to inhabit an island originally, what they do is this : they deposit their property in the islands (Thuc. ii. 14), trusting in their empire by sea ; but they think nothing of the ravaging of Attica, knowing that if they take compassion on it (Thuc. ii. 62), they will be deprived of other and greater advantages.' § 40. The fragments of Critias, the Athenian oligarchic statesman, Cntias. g^jj(j qjj^ ^f jjjg Thirty Tyrants, are disappointingly trivial, though there is a personal and characteristic tone in them which is somewhat attractive. One fragment of a AaKeSmiMvlav iroXireia (Fr. 3 ; Athen. xi. 66, 483 B, Kaibel) says ' Besides, as to the smallest matters of daily use, the Lacedaemonian sandals are the best ; their dress (cp. Thuc. i. 6) is the pleasantest and most convenient to wear ; the Lacedaemonian mug is the most suit- able kind of cup on a campaign, and the handiest to pack in a knapsack. The reason for its use in soldiering is that one must often drink water which is not clean. Now first (in one of these Lacedaemonian cups) you cannot see very clearly what you are drinking ; then the mug has ' ambos ' (afi^avas, ? hollows inside the cup), in which it deposits the impurities.' (Fr. 8 ; Aelian, V. H. x. 17.) ' Critias says that Themistocles, the son of Neocles, had three talents inherited property before he came forward in politics ; but after he had become head of affairs, and then had been banished and his property confiscated, he was discovered to possess a property of more than 100 talents. So too Cleon, before he came forward in public, was heavily bur- dened in his private property, but he left a fortune of fifty talents.' (Fr. 9; Plut., Cimon, 16.) When Ephialtes protested against sending help to Sparta in the blockade of Ithome, ' Critias says that Cimon, thinking less of the aggrandisement of his country than of the interests of the Lacedaemonians, turned the minds of the people, and went out to help them with many hoplites.' [Fr. 12 ; Aelian, V. H. x. 13.) Critias finds fault with Archi- lochus for speaking very badly of himself. ' If he had not,' says Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixiii Critias, ' spread abroad such a report of himself among the Greeks, we should not have learnt either that he was the son of the slave-woman Enipo, or that he was forced to leave Paros by poverty and distress, and so came to Thasos, or that he quarrelled with the Thasians, or again that he spoke evil of friends and foes alike. Besides all this, we should not know that he was an adulterer, if he had not told us, or that he was sensual and brutal, or what is most shameful of all, that he threw away his shield.' Hippocrates of Cos and Democritus of Abdera are seldom Two of present to our minds in connexion with Thucydides ; they worked J.^"'^?'" on subjects of a very different nature ; and there is an element greatest of uncertainty about the genuineness of the works attributed to contem- Hippocrates, as is so often the case with the founder of a school, poranes. while those of Democritus are preserved to us only in fragments. But they were among the very greatest of the writers con- temporary with Thucydides ^ ; and the fragments of Democritus are sufficient to show that he looked at politics and human nature in somewhat the same way as Thucydides. With regard to Hippocrates, Littre (CEuvres d'Hippocrate, § 4i- Hip- vol. i. p. 474) says, ' The slightest occupation with literary studies P°'^''''-'^^- will show what an air of resemblance and of brotherhood is presented by writers belonging to the same period, of whatever subject they may treat : fades non omnibus una, Nee diversa tamen. We still have the writings of one of the most illustrious contemporaries of Hippocrates ; and in them the justice of this observation seems to me to be fully confirmed. Thucydides lived and wrote at the same time as the physician of Cos : the more I have reflected on the style of the two, and sought to penetrate into its processes, its form, and its feeling, the more fully am I convinced that a close affinity existed between these writers ; an affinity arising from the law that th6 authors of a given period all draw from the common spring of thought, expression, and style, which supplies a whole epoch. It is to Thucydides, therefore, that Hippocrates must be compared : in both we have a grave way of speaking, a style full of vigour, ' They are both said to have been born abont 460; and to have survived till about 370. Ixiv Introduction: Part II, §§ 41, 42. a choice of phrases full of meaning, and a use of the Greek language which, though great pains have been taken with it, is nevertheless less flowing than in Plato.' One passage, of a less technical nature than ordinary, may be quoted from Hippocrates ^ (see also p. xxviii, above) : Contrast ' As to faint-heartedness and cowardice in mankind, the between unwarlike and tame character of Asiatics as compared to Euro- ^lu-opeans ^^^^^ jg (-jjigfly caused by the seasons, which in Asia do not Asiatics. change greatly in the direction either of heat or cold, but are very similar. There are no shocks to the mind, no violent revolutions in the body, such as are likely to produce savage dispositions and, rather than a more equable temperature, to inspire men with inconsiderate passion. For it is change more than any- thing else which stimulates men's spirits and does not suffer them to remain inactive. For these reasons, I think, the Asiatic race is unwarlike, and also because of their institutions, most of Asia being ruled by kings. Now, where men have no power over their own selves, nor independence, but are under a master, their minds are not set on warlike training, but on showing themselves unfit for service. The dangers are not equally shared : the subjects will naturally have to march out and suffer hardship and death under compulsion for the sake of their masters, away from their wives, children, and friends : and any brave and gallant action which they perform turns to the profit and increase of their masters, while their only harvest is danger and death. Moreover, the land of these men must needs be wasted by the enemy and by want of husbandry. Consequently, even if any one is brave and courageous by nature, his disposition is perverted by institutions. .'V strong proof of this is that all the Asiatics, whether Greek or barbarian, who are not subject to masters, but are independent and suffer hardships on their own account, are most warlike of all ; because they run risk for their own benefit and win the prizes of their own valour, and likewise pay the penalties of their own cowardice. Even among Asiatics, however, you will find a difference, some being better and some worse ; this is due to the changes of the seasons as I have explained above. So much for the inhabitants of Asia.' ' Xlipl aipav, vbi.Toiv, Tittaiv, c. l6 : Littre, vol. ii. p. 62. Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixv Democritus, had all his writings been preserved, might have §42. Demo- had hardly less interest for us than Plato or Aristotle. We are <="'"s- not concerned here with his contributions to philosophy, ethics, and science \ or with his works on Homer, music, and grammar. But in the fragments of his writings there are many reflexions on politics and human life which are in the same vein as those of Thucydides ; and they suggest some considerations on the relation of Thucydides to the ideas of his time. For Demo- ' Rational- critus was perhaps the greatest representative — greater than J^'"g ' '^'^^ the Sophists or Euripides— of the ' Aufklarung ' of the fifth tari^^"en- century b. C, a movement parallel to that of our own eighteenth dencies of century, with the difference that in Hellas we find the spirit of Jjj^ ^S^- the Elizabethan poets and of the philosophy and poetry of our hides' rela- own century, as well as that of Rousseau and the Encyclo- tion to pedists, alive at one time in older and younger contemporaries, t"^™- Now Thucydides had too strong an individuality, he was too much interested in action and fact, he sympathised too much with the older ideas and customs of Hellas and the simple and natural human feelings which they represented (see p. xxiv), to be carried away by the ' sophistic ' tendency ; and doubtless he was less open than he might have been to some of its humaner elements : we cannot imagine him feeling deeply about the rights of women and slaves like Euripides and some of the Sophists, or discussing the rights of animals like Democritus ''. But, just as the rhetoric of the day affected without seriously deforming his style, so the better side of the sophistic tendency has left traces on the phraseology and the subject-matter of his 'speeches.' In particular, the general arguments of Hermo- crates against war, and of Diodotus against undue severity in punishment, show the humanity and common sense of the new ideas at their best. There is quite an 'eighteenth- century ' ring about these speeches (iii. 42-48 ; iv. 59-64) : we ' See Beloch's Griechische Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 612-615, 618-19, 624-627. It may be noticed, as connecting Democritus with Hippo- crates and Thucydides, that one of the medical works ascribed to him is entitled ircpi XotuSiv tj XoifuKwv kokSiv: ^ Fr. 158 (206), Beloch, p. 626. The fragments are quoted by the numbers in Natorp's Die Ethica des Demokritus, followed by those of Miillach's Fragmenta Phil. Graec. e cntus. Ixvi Introduction: Part II, §§ 42, 43. are reminded of a well-known weak point of eighteenth-century speculation when we find Diodotus supporting his most just and rational conclusion that the people of Mitylene should not be massacred, by the sadly unhistorical argument that capital punishment had only been resorted to by mankind because milder measures had been found ineffectual '. It is like French writers before the Revolution protesting against flagrant oppression on the ground of a primitive ' social contract.' The fragments of Democritus give us the impression of a good, wise, and thoughtful man, lacking the genius and inspiring force of Socrates and Plato, and not without a ' doctrinaire ' and perverse element^. § 43. Pa- One curious passage finds a parallel in the speech of Diodotus tw e ^Th' ■'"^'' ™6i>tioned. ' It is quite impossible,' says Democritus, cydidesand P''- 167 (205), ' under the present system, that magistrates, even Demo- if they are the best of men, should not commit' (or 'suffer') ' injustice. For it is a singular thing ' (' it is like nothing but itself) 'that the same man should fall under the power of different people ' (i. e. that magistrates when they go out of office should be under the power of their successors). ' The matter should somehow be so arranged that he who commits no injustice, however strictly he deals with the unjust, should not fall under their power' (when his term of office comes to an end), ' but that some law or something else should defend the just doer.' The querulous and somewhat unpractical tone of this protest against the principle of Greek democracy, Spx^iv Kai (Ipxfo'daL iv litpti, reminds us of Diodotus' words in Thuc. iii. 42 : the adviser of the people who proves right should have no additional honour ; he who proves wrong should escape not merely punishment, but discredit. There is a more vigorous tone about another political frag- ment, 166 (204), 'Men remember what is wrongly done' (by those in office) ' more than what is rightly done ; and this is ^ Thuc. iii. 45 koX tiitb^ rh -naXoA. rwv fieyitfTojv aSiK-rjuaToiv fiaXaKO)' T€/)as KeiffOai (rds iTjfuas). If murder could be atoned for by a fine in Homeric society, it was not from motives of humanity. ^ He says, J^'r. iSi (188), that adopted children, whom you can choose for yourself, are better than children of your own, whom you have to make the best of, however they may turn out ! Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixvii just. As the man who returns a deposit should not be praised but he who fails to do so should be thought badly of and punished, so with a ruler. For he was not elected to do evil, but to do good.' Another fragment, 134 (212), is identical in sense with a fine place in one of Pericles' speeches ' (Thuc. ii. 60), ' A man should consider the affairs of the State and its good management more important than anything else. He should neither be obstinate beyond what is reasonable, nor seek to invest himself with more power than the good of the commonwealth requires. For the good management of the State is the greatest of advan- tages ; everything depends on this ; when this is maintained, everything is maintained ; when this is lost, everything is lost.' Cp. Fr. 135 (43) airopirj |wi7 Trjs eKaorou xaKeTTiiiTepri' ov yap iiro- XflTTETat e'XTTlJ fTTlKOVpiaS. Pericles' remark about the meaning of rixr), i. 140, Sionep Ka\ TTjV Tv^rjUf oaa &v Trapa \6yov ^vfi^jjj ela>dap.ev atTiacrdaiy and the common opposition of yvcuixrj and rvxri in Thucydides, find a parallel in Democritus 29, 30 (14) avdpamoi rvxt^ AhaKov eirXd- (TavTO 7rp6(paa-LV Idirjs dyvoii]S. (j)v(Tei yap yvdip.rj rv\r} p^dx^rai to. 6e TrXcto-Ta iv ^io> (i^vveros o^vSepKirj KaTiBvvei. These last words might serve as a motto to Thucydides' whole work. The expression of -?>. 64 (15) is very Thucydidean, tvxi p-iya- \6bci>pos, aXV a^c^aws, ). One of these spoke to him of the few Spartans who would care to make acquaintance with it ' if they got some one to read to them,' 7]v Xd^cufft tov dvaytfaiaofievov. ' The earliest of the many famous stories about Herodotus' reading Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixix But it seems probable that, within a comparatively narrow —common circle, there was more reading, more talk about books, more v' -^ "j interest among authors in the writings of other authors, in circle. Greece and especially at Athens in the last half of the fifth century B. c, than, since the great difference made by the inven- tion of printing, we are inclined to think. The famous passage of the Phaedrus (274 C ff.), in which References Plato makes Socrates disparage writing and reading in com- '■° books r i ,1 • 1 1 ° T^, , , . and read- parison ot talkmg and memory, represents Plato s own prophetic ;„?. feeling, not that of the average cultivated Athenian of the day, nor even that of Socrates, if we judge from Xen. Memorabilia, i. 6. 14. Here Socrates, speaking of the means by which he liked to gain friends, says, ' The treasures of the wise men of old, which they wrote down in books and left behind them, I unroll and peruse with my friends ; and if we see any good thing we pick it out ; and think it a great gain if we prove of use to each other.' Elsewhere (iv. 2. i, 10) we hear of a ' col- lection of many works of the most famous poets and wise men ',' including all the poems of Homer, made by a very young man in preparation for a public career ; and Socrates in talking to him incidentally mentions the existence of ' many writings of physicians.' In the Phaedo, 97 B — 98 c, we hear of Socrates when a young man first ' hearing some one reading out ' a book of Anaxagoras, and then with all speed procuring and reading it. According to the most probable interpretation of Apol. 26 D, E, Anaxagoras' books could be bought for a drachma (lorf.) at most ; Socrates in any case talks — but perhaps ironically ? — as if their contents might be expected to be known to a popular jury. Booksellers and bookshops (ou to j3i/3Xi' &via, Eupohs, Fr. 304, Kock) are mentioned by writers of the Old Comedy. Aristophanes [Fr. 490, Kock) speaks in very modern fashion of a man who 'has been ruined by a book or by Prodicus or some of those lazy chatterboxes.' Euripides (Frogs, 943, 1409) effects a judicious reduction in the superfluous bulk of tragedy by ' doses of essence of twaddle extracted from books ' ; yet his his history aloud is traceable to, though not actually to be found in, Diyllns, an Attic historian of the years 330-290, Miiller, vol. ii. p. 360. 1 2oav avSpav yeyo- vivoA., § 8. Ixx Introduction: Part II, §§ 44-46. whole establishment, books and all, is not worth two lines of Aeschylus. Dionysus on board ship, at the time of the battle of Arginusae, reads Euripides' 'Andromeda,' acted six years before (1. 53). Two incidental references to books (Birds, 1288 ; Frogs, 1114) give us the impression that 'reading,' though a comparatively recent growth, was a delightful and popular thing at Athens between 415 and 400. Finally, Xenophon ' speaks of ' many books' as having been found in 400 B.C. among the spoils of some Thracian wreckers on the dangerous coast of Salmydessus near the entrance to the Black Sea : they may have been on their way to the Greek cities on its shores ''- § 45- Early It is further noticeable how much there is in early Greek tokens of writers of critical remarks on the opinions of others : the spirit a critical ,, ,,j ,,,,-,. spirit. ^^^ shown must have led to a good deal of readmg as soon as facilities for it were at hand. Herodotus quotes by name about a dozen poets, and though he mentions no prose writer by name except Hecataeus, he frequently refers to and refutes current opinions. Hecataeus himself begins his VtveoKoyiai with the words (F'r. 33^) 'EKaraios MiXijo-ioff SSe fivBiiTaf raSe ypdlj>ai, as fiOi aXi]6ea doKeei eivat' oi yap 'EXX^vcor Xoyot ttoXXoi re Koi "yfXotoi, i>s ^alvovrai, dalv. The early philosophers are full of refutations and criticisms. In the fragments of Heraclitus (about 500 B. c.) we find references to Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Hecataeus, Xenophanes, Archilochus, and Bias of Priene. One fragment (16) is very remarkable for the critical spirit which it shows at so early a period of literature. ' Learning does not teach sense : else it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and also Xenophanes and Hecataeus '.' ' Xen. Anab. vii. 5, 14 ivTovBa r/v/uaKOVTO iroWai jiiv K\ivm, noWn Se Kt^wTia, TToXKal 5k 0l^Xol yeypafi/xivai. Hoi rdWa noWa offa kv ^vKivots revx^ffi vaiuKKrjpoi dyovaiv. The word yiypa^iiivai is supported by most of the better MSS., though absent from many of the inferior ones, and is retained in Cobet's edition. $t$\oi by itself might mean ' rolls of papyrus ' for accounts or other business purposes. ^ For information on the whole subject see Birt, Das Antike Buch- wesen, ch. ix ; Jevons, History of Greek Literature, pp. 41-48. ' no\vfm6ir] viov Ix^'" "" SiSiaKCf 'Haiodov yap hv kSiSa^e Kal nvOaySprjVf avrt^ re B€t/o(pavia KaX 'EKaratov. This of course shows nothing about the prevalence of reading in the time of Heraclitus. With the opinions of Pythagoras, who is not known to have written Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixxi There is no anachronism therefore in supposing that Thucy- Possibility dides read the works of his predecessors and contemporaries, 9!,'^'^?'^^'" historians and perhaps other writers as well, somewhat as a ;jj_ read^" cultivated man of our own day would do : though it would of many course be an anachronism to infer that he consulted all available books :— authorities for his subjects (when he had to deal with earlier times), in the manner which is possible to, and expected of, a modem historian. From his actual words, however, next to nothing can be made § 46 — out as to any use which he may have made, in particular places, tliongh he of earlier writers. He only mentions one fellow-historian by g^gj. ^j^^ name, Hellanicus (i. 97). ' I have written of it,' he says, speaking authorities. of the rise of the Athenian empire, ' and have digressed from my if> ^"^^ °f story, for the reason that all my predecessors left out this part empire of the subject and wrote either about Greek affairs before the Hellanicus. Persian War, or about the Persian War itself: while Hellanicus, who did set hand to this period in his Attic history, made a brief and chronologically inaccurate mention of it ■■.' This shows that Thucydides knew enough of his predecessors to be aware that they had not, with one exception, treated of the period in question ; and that his account of it must be derived from his own inquiries and recollections. But there is another con- clusion to be drawn from his words. The fragments of Stesim- brotus, Ion, and Critias show that they mentioned several incidents of the period here referred to (see p. Ivii ff.). That Thucydides says nothing of any one but Hellanicus, indicates that if he knew, as he probably did, the works of these writers, he did not regard them as 'history,' or their references to historical facts as better suited to supply a gap in the history of anything, he may have become acquainted through Pythagoras' dis- ciples ; Xenophanes and Hecataeus were his contemporaries and, for a time at least, his neighbours ; Hesiod he may have read or have heard recited. ' '^ypmfa 5J aird. jcaX v^v (K0oXfiv tov Kiyov iuoirjaaix-qv Sici rdSe, oti ToTs Ttph k/iov aitaaiv eaXnrh tovto ^v rh xt"/"'"", «"' fj Tii irpo toiv M-qSiKav 'EK\T]viicai ^vviriOeaav fj avra to M?;5iK(i' TOVTav 5' oamp xal ^tfiaro kv rg 'Attiicjj (vyypatp^ 'EWapmos, Ppaxiois re «ai Tofs x^eJs-ou ovic dfcpifiais kncf^vqirdT), Ixxii Introduction: Part II, §§ 46-48. § 47- W The Intro duction. Pelopon- nesian tra- dition. Greece than those which Herodotus incidentally makes to the same period. There is one other passage in which Thucydides refers to an authority (other than poetical), but without naming the authority. In i. 9, after stating his own opinion, that Agamemnon's power, and not the oaths taken by the suitors of Helen, enabled Agamemnon to muster the expedition against Troy, he confirms it by the account of the accession of Agamemnon's house in the person of Atreus to the throne of Mycenae, which is given by 'those of the Peloponnesians who have received the most accurate accounts by tradition from former generations'.' Now among the fragments of Hellanicus there is one (see p. xlviii) which re- lates the banishment of Atreus, by his father Pelops, for the part which he had taken in the murder of Chrysippus, a circum- stance referred to incidentally by Thucydides as showing how Atrens came to Mycenae. And the titles of some of Hellanicus' works show that he dealt with the ancient legends of the Pelo- ponnese. The most natural interpretation however of Thucy- dides' words is that they refer to Peloponnesian authorities, whether written or oral, whereas Hellanicus was a Lesbian ^- Hellanicus That Thucydides had written as well as oral authority for and others. ^}^2X he says of the early history of Hellas in his Introduction, especially for the dates which he gives, is highly probable. He mentions several points of which we happen to know that Hellanicus wrote (see p. xlix). There is some reason for thinking that in what he says of the Trojan War he refers to other poets besides Homer (see note on i. 11, 1. 4). After telling us (i. 13) that Ameinocles the Corinthian built four ships for the Samians, he adds en; 6' eori /xa\to"Ta rpiaKdffia es ttjv reXevrrjv Tovde tov noXefiov ore ' AfieivoKX^s Safiiois rjXOev. The expression, ' when Ameinocles came to Samos,' looks rather as if Thucydides' information came from a source which gave the incident and the date as part of the history of Samos, not of Corinth ; but, con- sidering how many writers of early history there were in the ^ Aeyovffi Si udt ol tcL cat^iaTaTa TitXoirovvqaian' y^vqiXTf irapci Tun' irp6- Ttpov Sedey^evot, UeKo-na re TrpuiTOV, k.t.X. ' See note on i. 9, 1. 4, and Appendix. If TlfKowovvTiatiuv can be taken after xd aacpiaTaTa, not after oi ., . SeS(ynivoi, the reference may be to Hellanicus. Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixxiii Greek cities of Asia we cannot safely point to Eugaeon of Samos ' as the authority. Some of Thucydides' statements about Greek navies, — e.g. Herodo- that the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans had a considerable tus? number of triremes shortly before the Persian War, and that Polycrates and the Phocaeans previously had few triremes but considerable fleets consisting of penteconters and war-galleys — partially agree with statements in Herodotus '^ (i. 163 ; iii. 39, 44 ; vii. 158, 168), and may have been derived from them or influenced by them. But it is quite impossible to say how many or how few of such sources Thucydides employed, or how far his conclusions were gained by personal inquiry, or rested on oral tradition or monuments. We only know that he presents to the reader his general conclusions about the earlier state of Hellas, not as founded on, but as more trustworthy than, the accounts of 'poets and prose writers' (i. 21 ovTe ms- noiTjToX viJ.vf]Kat7t Trepl avTOiVy . . . ouVe ws \oyoypd(jiQi ^vveOecrav eirl to npoa'ayayoTspov Tij aKpodcrei rj aKTjdeoTfpov). We know from Thucydides' own words that his account of I 48. {c) Hipparchus was derived from oral tradition, confirmed by f'^'i''-^! reference to monuments (vi. 54, 55). How far his accounts of Theseus, of the conspiracy of Cylon (in which he seems to take the opportunity of correcting an error of Herodotus), and of the fate of Pausanias and Themistocles come from oral tradition or from written sources, there is nothing to show. The story of Themistocles offers one or two interesting points of contact with other accounts which we know to have been current as early as Thucydides himself. Plutarch (Them. 24) says that Stesimbro- Themistocles after taking refuge with Admetus, fled, according t"^- to Stesimbrotus, to Hiero in Sicily, and asked for the hand of his daughter, undertaking to put Hellas under his power: being rejected by Hiero he went on to the King. This, as Plutarch ' Schbne in Bursian's Jahresbericht, 1874-5, p. 837. It is worth notice that Pliny (vii. 67) mentions another early chronicler, Damastes of Sigeum, as having ascribed the construction of biremes to the Erythraeans. " See U. Kohler, Ueber die Archaologie des Thukydides ; and the ' criticism of his too definite conclusions by Herbst, Philologus 40 (i88i), p. 347 ff. Ixxiv Introduction: Part II, §§ 48, 49. says, is a very unlikely story : he observes that Stesimbrotus had just before related how Themistocles' wife had joined him in Epirus. Thucydides, if he had ever heard the story, certainly did not credit it '. Charon of Lampsacus, like Thucydides, represented Artaxerxes as being King of Persia when Themistocles arrived at the Persian coast : while Ephorus (fourth century, B. c.) and other later historians said that he came during the lifetime of Xerxes (Plut. Them. 27). It was natural that the tale which brought Themistocles into personal relations with his great adversary should prevail. Thucydides' account of the message sent by Themistocles to Xerxes after the battle of Salamis differs from that in Herodotus, and is clearly not taken from it (see Appendix to note on i. 138, 1. 24). § 49. ((/) Thucydides' account of the earliest inhabitants of Sicily, Bar- tarly his- ^j^j-jg^jj ^jj^ Greek (vi. 1-3), is curiously like his Introduction in gicily . the expressions of impatience with unfounded traditions which it contains. ' As for the Cyclops and Laestrygonians, I cannot possibly tell who they were, whence they came to Sicily, or where they went to : we must be content with the words of the poets and with our own individual conclusions.' The Sicani call themselves ' autochthones,' but the ' ascertained truth ' proves that they came from Iberia (ms he 17 dXijfleia eipio-Kcrai, "l^rjpes ovTcs). ' The Sicels may very likely, according to the storyi have crossed the strait from Italy on rafts . . . but perhaps they came into the country in some other way : ' i. e. the story is credible enough in itself, but lacks authority ; any one who likes can conjecture that they came in boats or by a longer route. — had been Now there is a certain a priori probability that a narrative of treated of remote times, so full of facts as Thuc. vi. 1-5, and containing several dates, is partly derived from previous writers ; and Hippys of Rhegium, Hellanicus, and Antiochus of Syracuse, had all written about the early history of Sicily. Hippys Hippys of Rhegium is said by Suidas to have been the first historian of Sicily, and to have written a ktio-is 'IraXiar and three ' There is no real indication that Tiiucydides borrowed any part of his narrative from Stesimbrotus, as maintained by Adolf Schmidt, Das Perikleische Zeitalter, though of course he may have used him. by Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixxv books of SiKfXiKd, besides five of Xpowxd and three of 'ApyoXixd. The few extant fragments afford no definite point of contact with Thucydides. Hellanicus, who as we have seen frequently covers the same — Hellani- ground as Thucydides, spoke of the coming of the Sicels from c"s— Italy into Sicily, and of the foundation of Naxos by Thucles. The citations {Fr. 50, 51, 53) are from the 'U'pciat ax iv "Apyei, which seems to have been a chronicle of events happening under each priestess of Here at Argos. Antiochus of Syracuse is said by Diodorus (xii. 71) to have — Antio- written a history of Sicily coming down to the year 424-3. Now ™"^' 424 was the year of the congress at Gela, at which Hermocrates persuaded the Sicilian cities to make peace (Thuc. iv. 63). Hence Antiochus' history may have ended with this event. Diony- sius of Halicarnassus several times cites with respect another work of his, the 'iraXias olKta-fios. Two places are worth quoting (Dionys. Ant. Rom. i. 12, 35 ; Antiochus, Fr. 3, 4) : ' Antiochus of Syracuse a very ancient historian, in his " Settlement of Italy,'' relating the occupation of various parts of the country by the oldest inhabitants, tells us that the Oenotri were the earliest recorded settlers in it, saying, " Antiochus, son of Xenophanes, wrote these things about Italy, being the most trustworthy and certain out of the ancient traditions. This land which is now called Italy, was in ancient times inhabited by the Oenotri." Then, relating in what manner they were governed, and how in time Italus became a king among them, from whom they took the new name of ItaHans, he adds, "Thus they became Sicels and Morgetes and Italiats, being (originally) Oenotri \" ' In another passage Antiochus describes this old king Italus much as Thucydides does Theseus in ii. 13, and with the same ^ 'AvtIoxos fie ^vpaKovtTtos, crvyypafeijs navv dpxaios, Iv 'IraKias oiKuXfiw Toiis iraKaioTaTOVs oltcTjrdpas 5i€^l6jVj ais etcaffroi tl fz4pos auT^s fcaTftxoy, Oivonpovs \4yei irpwrovs rwy fiv7jfj.ov€von€va:v kv avrrj Karoi- KTJffatf eiiTwv c&Se " ^AvTioxos Bevo(p6.vfos TaSe ^vveypaipe irepl 'Ira^ias, l« TOfv dpxaiojv \6yo>v rci -TTiardTaTa Koi ffacp^ffTara' T^r yijv Tavnjv, ^Tis vvv 'IraKia KaKeiTai, jb -naXaiov (Ix^^ OivaiTpoL" '''Eiretra Ste^cXOoJv tv rpdnov iTToKiTtvovro Kai ws Paffi\(vs kv avTOts 'IraXos dvci xp^vov ky4v€To, cup' ov pLeTajvopia.iT&tjaav 'IraXoi . . . emcpepei ravri' *'Ovtoj 5e ^tKe\ol icat M6py7]Tis l7^>'0i'T0 jcal 'iTaAi'ijTCs, e6vTes OivaiTpoi," Ixxvi Introduction: Part II, §§ 49, 50. § 50. Did Thucy- dides use Antiochus? Evidence from (a) agreement in facts. tendency to attribute modem motives and circumstances to legendary times which may be observed in Thucydides. ' Antio- chus of Syracuse says that Italus being brave and wise, and persuading some of the neighbouring tribes by argument while he brought over others by force, reduced under his own power' the whole of ' Italy ' in the limited sense which the word then bore. Niebuhr first suggested that Thucydides borrowed from Antiochus of Syracuse : the hypothesis has been ingeniously supported by Wolfflin ^, and has been so often repeated as if it were a positive fact on which further conclusions may be based, that it is worth while to give in detail the evidence on which it rests. If we examine the facts which Antiochus and Hellanicus, as well as Thucydides, recorded, we find that Thucydides agrees slightly more with Antiochus than with Hellanicus. But this proves little ; for the accidental preservation of a few more frag- ments of Antiochus or Hellanicus (or Hippys) might have put the matter in quite a different light. Antiochus, like Thucydides, derived the word ' Italy ' from the mythical king Italus ; Hel- lanicus, on the other hand {Fr. 97), derived it from ' vitulus,' a calf. All three writers told the story of the coming of the Sicels from Italy to Sicily, and as far as we can make out they all told it differently^. Hellanicus, like Thucydides, mentioned the change of name from Sicania to Sicelia. Antiochus may have done so too for all that we know. Antiochus {Fr. 2) de- scribed the Liparaean Islands and their settlement in a passage ' Antiochos von Syrakus und Coelius Antipater ; Winterthur 1872 (Tenbner). ^ Hellanicus says that the Sicels crossed from Italy in two separate divisions, one fleeing from the Oenotri, the other from the lapygians. Antiochus {Fr. i ) says they fled from the Opices and the Oenotri : Thucydides speaks only of the Opices. Hellanicus dates the occurrence 'in the third generation before the Trojan War, in the twenty-sixth year of Alcyone priestess at Argos ; Thucydides apparently after the Trojan War and 300 years before the arrival of the Hellenes: Dionysius (Ant. Rom. i. 22; Ant. Fr. i) says that Antiochus gave no date for it ; of course Dionysius may only have known Antiochus' book about Italy, and the date may have been taken by Thucydides from his book about Sicily (Wolfflin). Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixxvii quoted by Pausanias (x. ii, 3, 4), and Thucydides may have taken from it his description in iii. 88. Hellanicus (Fr. 50, see Freeman's Sicily, vol. i. p. 570) ascribed the foundation of Naxos in Sicily to Thucles accompanied by Chalcidians and Naxians : Thucydides mentions only the Chalcidians ; though the presence of Naxians, if a fact, would account for the name of the settle- ment. Thucydides, i. loi, says that the descendants of the enslaved Messenians formed ' the greater part ' of the Helots : Antiochus {Fr. 14) says that those who did not join the Lace- daemonians in the war with the Messenians ' were judged slaves and called Helots': there need not be any discrepancy between the accounts, as both writers may mean that those of whom they respectively speak were degraded to the Helot class. Hel- lanicus [Fr. 67) only mentions the derivation of the word 'Ei'KaiTr^s from the town "EXos. He also dates the origin of the Spartan constitution earlier than Thucydides (see Part ii. p. 6). The argument from peculiar expressions occurring in Thucy- {b) peculiar dides vi. 1-5 is very inconclusive indeed. Much has been said ppressions of an Ionic construction, oorir = or, which appears nowhere in (jjjgg Thucydides except vi. 3, and which also appears in Antiochus, Fr. 3 •'. But this construction might have occurred in any one writing in Ionic, the favourite literary dialect for history, and occurs as a matter of fact in Hellanicus, Fr. 71 ^. (jyvs or eyyvrara is four times used in the opening chapters of Book vi to qualify round numbers ; Thucydides elsewhere uses fioXta-ra for the purpose. But he uses eyyuraTa to qualify other expres- sions : the variation here may be accidental ; in any case there is nothing to connect it with Antiochus. Thus the arguments from language only faintly strengthen the probability that Thucy- dides had some documentary source before him here. ^ Thuc. vi. 3 'AiroAAoji/o? 'Apxrjy^Tov Pcofiov oarts vvv efoj t^s TT6\e6js i(TTiv, ISpvffavTQ : Ant. Fr. 3 t^v yyv tu^ttjv, tjtis vvv 'IraXia KaKetrai, rd -naXaibv ilxov OtvajTpoi. ' 'O S^ knirpfxpiv avTois o'ntijaai tov tottov tov irepl Ti)v Movvvx'av, oans fiTwvofma07j nap' avrwv ih Tip-^v tov PaffiXfojs. — The aorist participle /cXrjSeTffa, KXr/Bivras, for which, when used with the article and substantive, Thucydides nearly always has Ka\ov}iivq, KaXovftivovs, occurs three times in places relating to Sicily (iv. 24 ; vi. 4 dis), but also in i. 3 {xKriBivrii) and in Hellanicus, Fr. 45 ; not in the fragments of Antiochus. Ixxviii Introduction: Part II, §§ 50-52. {c) the In vi. 1-5, Thucydides dates from the foundation of Syracuse chronology ttjg foundations not merely of her own colonies, Acrae, Cas- o uc.vi. j^gjj^g ^jjjj Caraarina, but of Leontini, founded from the Ionian Naxos (this however is mentioned immediately after Syracuse) and of Gela, founded direct from Rhodes and Crete. This may perhaps be more easily explained if we suppose that Thucydides had the work of a Syracusan historian before him ; but he may also have taken as a convenient era the foundation of the great city with whose fortunes the next two books are to deal. It is far more curious that he should never have mentioned the date of the foundation of Syracuse herself^. This real difficulty however is by no means removed if he were using Antiochus the Syracusan^. (rf) apriori Thus the evidence consists of a number of small points, each probabi- proving little in itself, but perhaps possessing a certain cumu- lative weight which will be estimated differently by different readers. Granting that Diodorus' date for the conclusion of Antiochus' history, 424, is correct, and remembering the a priori probability that for a remote period, about which books had certainly been written, Thucydides would consult them ; allowing also some weight to Dionysius' description of Antiochus' book on Italy as dealing with ' the foundations and constitutions ' of the Italian cities — ^just the points which Thucydides mentions about the Sicilian — though most earlier ' The traditional date, 734 B. c, comes from Eusebius ; it agrees \vith, and may have been founded on, data given by Thucydides, which, leaving an intei"val of apparently a few years, connect the foundation of Syracuse with the destruction of the Hyblaean Megara by Gelo, almost within living memory (Busolt, Griechische Geschiclite, vol. i. p. 241). 2 Wolfflin thinks that the whole passage is a ' freies Excerpt ' from Antiochus, who gave the date somewhere else, and that Thucydides excerpted straight away without noticing that he had left out the key to the chronology. This is going far beyond our evidence. The foundations of Zankle and Messene and of Himera are not dated either : Thucydides may have been unable to find what he considered good authority for the exact dates in all these cases and have contented him- self as to Syracuse with the approximate date which his narrative im- plies ; see preceding note, and cp. vol. ii. p. 83. There is no independent evidence to show when Antiochus dated the foundation of Syracuse : we only know that he connected it (Fr. 11) with that of Croton, which Dionysius, 400 years later, puts in 710 B.C. Prose writings in Thucydides' time. Ixxix histories probably did the same — we may think that it is rather more probable than not that Thucydides read and used Antiochus ; though there is no reason why he should not have used Hippys, Hellanicus, and his own investigations as well. The tone of Book vi. c. 2 (see p. Ixxiv above) shows that he was as wideawake and critical as usual when he wrote the passage in question. Or we may say more cautiously with Freeman (History of Sicily, vol. i. p. 436), ' The case is of the usual kind. It may be so ; it is perfectly likely ; one has no strong reason to say that it is not so ; but one cannot say that it is convincingly proved that it is so. The slightest piece of positive evidence would settle the question either way, only there is none.' As we really know nothing about the trustworthiness of § 51. Un- Antiochus, except that Dionysius of Halicarnassus calls him <=J''t^'°'y ?' ov Tcov emrvxevTav ns, and that we cannot but be favourably Xhuc. vi. impressed with the resemblance of the opening words of his 1-5. book on Italy to those of Thucydides, we can hardly say that Thucydides' possible dependence on Antiochus affects the trustworthiness of Thucydides himself one way or the other. But it is true in any case, as Professor Mahaffy infers from the dependence which he regards as established (Greek Classical Literature, Epic and Lyric Poets, pp. 97 ff., and elsewhere), that the precise dates given by Thucydides for the foundations of the Sicilian cities cannot, being so early, be accepted with con- fidence. Thucydides, or an authority on whom he depended, may have calculated them on some a ■priori system which approved itself to the chronologists of the day ; various accounts differing from his were certainly current in antiquity. This survey of the less familiar prose writers who were extant § 5 2- Ge- in Thucydides' day, however slight or conjectural their con- "fusion™' nexion with Thucydides, may serve to supplement the impres- sions which we derive from Herodotus, the earlier Orators, and the poets, of the world of thought and language in which he lived and wrote. It shows us too in what respects he resembled his contemporaries, and in what he stood alone. The two great subjects to which the early prose writers of Hellas turned their attention— apart from special treatises like those of Hippocrates— were philosophy — that is to say, Ixxx Introduction: Part II, § 52. something which was afterwards disentangled into philosophy and natural science— and history, or in most cases the materials for history ; mythology, chronicles, and memoirs. The remaining fragments of the second class of writers are sufficient to show that Herodotus and Thucydides towered far above the rest, and found their intellectual equals only in the fathers of philo- sophy and science. Thucydides' interest in politics and human nature was not peculiar to him ; we have found something resembling it in Heraclitus, Hippocrates, Democritus, and others. But no other author as far as we know had so directly applied political principles to facts, or to the relations of states with each other. His interest in natural phenomena was no personal fancy of his, but was shared by several of his predecessors and contempo- raries. His grave and rational conception of history is his own : so is his dignified and weighty style. Except for the influence of Gorgias, Antiphon, and perhaps Prodicus, and some analogies in the author of the De Republica Atheniensium, and Diogenes of ApoUonia, his mode of expression is quite peculiar to him ; while there is no parallel at all in earlier or contemporary prose either to the concentration and force of his writing, or to its occasional irregularities and harshnesses : in both these respects he is more like the poets than the prose writers of his time. III. The Trustworthiness of Thucydides as a Historian. No historian who has ever lived produces a stronger im- § 53. pression than Thucydides of perfect truthfulness. He seems to N^^'^^e of have no other motive than the desire to tell us exactly what dence. happened, neither more nor less. But there is hardly any independent evidence, of an equally early date, by which we can test his statements. Hence our belief in him must be regarded as a kind of personal impres- sion such as we might entertain about the trustworthiness of an acquaintance. His accuracy and credibility cannot be positively proved or disproved. An instance will illustrate the fulness of material which is at our command for testing the accuracy of a modem writer dealing, like Thucydides, with contemporary events. M. Taine (La Revolution, vol. iii. p. 599) says, ' In the National Archives ' the series F' contains hundreds of despatch boxes full of reports "on the situation," "on the state of public opinion," in each department, city, or canton of France from the year III to the year VIII (1795-1800). I have worked at them for several months ; I cannot transcribe my extracts here for want of room. In these boxes will be found the actual history in detail of the last five years of the Republic. The general impression is exactly given by Mallet du Pan in his " Correspondence with the Court of Vienna^' and in his " British Mercury." ' — There is a difference indeed between these ' hundreds of boxes ' and all the knowledge which we have, from any other source, of the facts recorded by Thucydides. Contemporary inscriptions and geographical and archaeo- logical facts are the only evidence, having an equal a priori ' In the 'National Library' at Paris. f Ixxxii Introduction : Part III, §§ 53, 54. claim on our consideration, by which we can test the accuracy of Thucydides. Next comes the comparison of Thucydides with Aristophanes and occasional passages in Herodotus, Xenophon, the contemporary Orators, and fragments of contemporary his- torians, of whom the most important was Philistus of Syracuse, (died 356), an eye-witness of the siege of his native city. This, as might be supposed, leads to very little : Aristophanes from the difference of his point of view, other writers from the fewness and slightness of the points at which they touch Thucydides, leave it open to us to choose which account we will. On the whole it may be said that Aristophanes tends to confirm Thucy- dides, sometimes by his comic pictures of the general situation, sometimes by single phrases indicating the character of persons or political parties. As for later writers, any doubts which may be entertained of Thucydides' desire or ability to tell the truth may much more justly be entertained about them '. The only exception is the ^ hBrjvaiav jroXirfia which may directly or indirectly be the work of Aristotle, and which certainly gives us an instance of vigorous criticism on Thucydides, written within eighty years after his death : the two authors differ in their accounts {a) of the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Thuc. i. 20, vi. 54-59 ; 'kO. UoK. 18) ; {b) of the revolution of the Four Hundred (Thuc. viii. 67 ; 'k6. Uo\. 29-31) \ Leaving for other essays or for discussion on particular ' See Holm, Griechische Geschichte, vol. ii. Part i, pp. 116-120; Abbott, vol. ii. Appendix ii. ^ (a) Apart from minor details, Thucydides says that Hipparchns gave the provocation which led to the conspiracy ; Aristotle (to call him so for convenience) clearly implies that it was Thessalus the younger brother of Hipparchus. Thucydides says that the conspirators were few ; Aristotle that they were many. Thucydides says that Harmodius and Aristogeiton were in the Ceramicns when they saw one of the con- spirators talking to Hippias and took the alarm, and that they rushed into the city to kill Hipparchus ; Aristotle says that they were in the Acropolis : both agree that Hipparchus was killed in the Leocorion. Finally, Thucydides says that the Panathenaea was chosen for the rising because the citizens who marched in the procession could then appear in arms without attracting suspicion ; and that Hippias after the fall of Hipparchus quietly told the people to lay aside their arms, and then Trustworthiness of Thucydides. Ixxxiii passages the relation (i) of Thucydides to Aristophanes, (2) of passages in him to passages in contemporary or nearly contem- porary writers ^, as well as (3) minute or a priori questions of the probability of some of his statements, we will speak here (i) of the Inscriptions as far as they can be said to invalidate or con- firm his authority, (2) of difficulties presented by his account of Pylos and Plataea, (3) of some improbable statements with which he has been charged, (4) of the completeness or incompleteness of his historical treatment of the war, (5) of his political impar- tiality, and the question of his fairness or unfairness to Cleon. There is a certain want of due proportion in entering upon § 54- The this inquiry, which from the nature of the case will often admit f"^^"^"!^' of no positive result, without reminding ourselves of the qualities greatness which give Thucydides a place among the great historians of of Thucy- the world : his descriptive power, and grasp of situations, his "'°^^' reserved and manly sympathy with human action and suffer- ing, his unfailing energy and dignity, his insight into the character and motives of public men and into the life and work- ing of states. A full discussion of the qualities of his genius and their corresponding defects, and also of the limitations of ancient as compared with modern historians, and of the degree in which apprehended the guilty ; Aristotle, who here only refers to the account of Thucydides, says that this last statement is false (6 8^ \e^l>jxivo^ \6yos ovK d\7iSris eariv), and that the bearing of arms in the procession was instituted later by the democracy. We cannot tell which story is the truer, and the probabilities which may be alleged on either side are not decisive. (The subject is discussed by Hude in the Neue Jahrbiicher 1892, i. p. 170 ff.) {6) In the account of the provisional constitution drawn up by the Four Hundred, Aristotle differs from Thucydides in two definite points. In one of these Aristotle, in the other Thucydides, goes more into detail, and in each case the detailed account seems more worthy of credit. Thuc. viii. 67 says that ten (\rfypa