Levine Lecture Notes on Thucydides 2 and 3. March 29 2021.
Chronological Exactness?
Each Greek city-state had its own calendar, with different month names, and there was not a universally accepted way of marking years.
Note how Thucydides gives a date to the beginning of the war (the invasion of Plataea by Thebans), using events known all over the Greek world to specify the exact year, season, and time of day: He gives the names of the priestess at Argos, the Ephor at Sparta, the Archon at Athens, and then specifies further, “six months after the battle of Potideia, at the beginning of spring, around the first watch…” (2.2).
Stasis. Faction. Thucydides’ view is that it grows from personal greed.
“Naucleides and his faction” (Ναυκλείδης τε καὶ οἱ μετ᾽αὐτοῦ) opened the gates of Plataia to hostile Theban troops because they wanted “to kill those in opposition and align their city with Thebes for the sake of their own personal power” (2.2).
Source Discussion. Like Herodotus, Thucydides sometimes gives different sources. Here he does not say what side he believes:
“This is what the Thebans say, and they claim that the Plataians swore an oath; the Plataians, however, say that they did not promise to give them back the men immediately, but if after discussion they reached some agreement, and they deny that they swore an oath” (2.5).
The Greek powers recognized and coveted the power of the Persians and other non-Greeks.
Note that both the Athenians and Lacedaemonians intended “to send representatives to the king and to the barbarians in other areas, wherever they hoped they might acquire some additional help, and making allies of any cities outside their direct control” (2.7). So, like the individuals Pausanias and Themistocles, the Greek states were willing to make deals with the Persians to further their own agendas.
Thucydides is a close observer of human nature and emotion: Enthusiasm, Anger, Grief, Rage.
Enthusiasm:
He notes that “everyone takes up a cause more eagerly at the beginning,” and implies that the reason that young people were eager for war was due to their “inexperience” (ὑπὸ ἀπειρίας 2.8). This implies that Thucydides thinks that they were wrong to be so gung-ho for war.
Anger:
The Lacedaemonians claimed that they were liberating Hellas (τὴν Ἑλλάδα ἐλευθεροῦσιν), and got lots of support, for “such was the anger most felt toward the Athenians…” οὕτως ἐν ὀργῇ εἶχον οἱ πλέους τοὺς Ἀθηναίους 2.8).
Grief:
Thucydides understands the feelings of the people who were forced to leave their country homes and to move to the city, where many had no place to stay, “The uprooting was a difficult process for them because the majority were always accustomed to living in the country” (2.14: χαλεπῶς δἐ αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ αἰεὶ εἰωθέναι τοῦς πολλοὺς ἐν τοῖς ἀγροῖς διαιτᾶσθαι ἡ ἀνάστασις ἐγίγνετο. They took it ill, it aggrieved them.)
Rage:
When the Athenians see the Spartans raving the deme of Acharnai, it was so terrible (δεινόν) that they formed into political groups (ξυστάσεις) and were in a great deal of strife (ἐν ἔριδι); “they felt rage against Pericles” (τὸν Περικλέα ἐν ὀργῇ εἶχον) and demanded that Pericles lead an army out against the enemy (2. 21). Note here that Thucydides uses the exact same words for the anger/rage against Pericles that he had used to describe the anger/rage of the other Greeks against the Athenians in 2.8: ἐν ὀργῇ εἶχον, literally “they held anger against…”
Thucydides says that Pericles acknowledged that they were angry (χαλεπαίνοντας 2.22), but did not call them to assembly because he was afraid that they would act in error as a result of their being “in a passionate rather than reasonable state” (2.22: τοῦ μὴ ὀργῇ τι μᾶλλον ἢ γνώμῃ ξυνελθόντας ἐξαμαρτεῖν).
Despair, Fear, Pity, Misery and Anger During the Plague:
The most terrible part of the plague, says Thucydides, was “the despair when someone realized he was sick (for immediately forming the judgment that there was no hope, they tended much more to give themselves up instead of holding out), and the fact that from tending one another they died like a flock of sheep; this brought on the most destruction. If they were unwilling, in their fear, to approach one another, they perished in isolation, and many homes were emptied for want of someone to give care; if they drew near, they were destroyed, especially those making some claim to virtue. For out of honor, they did not spare themselves in visiting friends, since even relatives, overcome by the prevailing misery, finally grew tired of the lamentations of the dying. Nevertheless, those who had survived felt the more pity for anyone dying or suffering because they had foreknowledge and were also now in a confident state as to themselves; for the disease did not attack the same person twice, at least not fatally” (2.51).
2.59. Athenians were in despair (ἄποροι) and angry (χαλεπαίνοντας) with Pericles for forcing them to sty in the city and suffer from the plague. He saw their anger (τῆς ὀργῆς 2.60), and spoke to them to tell them to bear up and prosecute the war with good hopes, encouraged them not to give up their empire, and to bear, “what comes from heaven with resignation, and what comes from enemies with courage” (φέρειν δὲ χρὴ τά τε δαιμόνια ἀναγκαίως τά τε ἀπὀ τῶν πολεμίων ἀνδρείως 2.64). “By speaking this way, Pericles attempted to relieve the Athenians of their anger against him and lead their minds away from the perils of the present.”
His efforts worked, but the Athenians “did not cease their anger (ὀργή) against him until they punished him with a fine”(2.65), and then soon after they elected him at general again. Thucydides sees this as one of the characteristics of the masses; they are fickle and volatile, and subject to their passions. His words: “as a multitude is apt to behave (ὅπερ φιλεῖ ὅμιλος ποιεῖν)they elected him general and entrusted all their affairs to him… and considered him the most valuable man for the needs of the whole city” (2.65).
The Revolt of Mytilene (427 BCE): Rage and Remorse; Pity.
The Athenians are under the influence of “rage” when The Athenian general Paches brings Salaithos the Spartan who had tried to defend the revolting population of Mytilene against the Athenians. They “put Salaithos to death immediately, although he offered among other things to arrange a Peloponnesian withdrawal from Plataia (which was still besieged). They debated over the others, and in a rage (ὑπὸ ὀργῆς) they voted to put to death not only the men but also all Mytilenean adult males and to enslave the children and women… and it contributed most heavily to their rage that the Peloponnesian ships had dared to venture into Ionia to support them…” (3.36).
Typically, Thucydides points out the volatility of the Athenian populace: “They next day they experienced immediate remorse (μετάνοια) and reconsideration (ἀναλογισμός) about deciding on a savage and extreme resolution to destroy a whole city rather than the guilty ones” (3.36).
Kleon says, Punish the Mytileneans, and do not give in to pity (οἴκτος, ἔλεος). Pity is one of the three things “incompatible with empire” (3.40), the other two being evenhandedness (ἐπιεικεία) and “enjoyment of speeches.”
Diodotus, who speaks in favor of only killing the ones responsible for the revolt, says that the two greatest obstacles to good counsel are haste and anger (3.42). Anger shows ignorance and deficient reasoning. His argument is that it is in the Athenians’ best interest to show good judgment in punishing those who revolted, rather than in anger to kill all the men and enslave the women and children. To answer Kleon, he specifically says that pity should play no part; rather expediency favors the lighter punishment: He says that the better course is to give “no priority to pity (οἴκτος) or evenhandedness (ἐπιεικεία), whose influence I would be the first to disallow…” (3.48).
Bloody Stasis on Corcyra. Hatred.
As the democrats slaughter the oligarchs, Thucydides says, “For the seven days that Eurymedon stayed there after his arrival, the Corcyreans butchered those fellow-citizens they regarded as enemies, charging them with putting down the democracy, but some also died because of personal hatred (ἰδίας ἐχθρᾶς ἕνεκα) and others at the hands of those who owed them money…” (3. 81)
Bloody Stasis on Corcyra and all Greece. Passions.
Of this, Thucydides says, “And during the civil wars the cities suffered many cruelties that occur and will always occur as long as men have the same nature, sometimes more terribly and sometimes less, .. For in peace and good circumstances, both states and individuals have better inclinations through not falling into involuntary necessities; but war, stripping away the easy access to daily needs, is a violent teacher and brings most men’s passions (τἀς οργας = ‘natural impulse, anger’) into line with the present situations” (3.82).
Bloody Stasis on Corcyra and Greece. Passion and Envy.
- 84: With public life confused to the critical point, human nature, always ready to act unjustly even in violation of laws, overthrew the laws themselves and gladly showed itself powerless over passion (ὀργή) but stronger than justice and hostile to any kind of superiority. For men would not have placed revenge above pity, gain above justice, if not for the destructive power of envy (τὸ φθονεῖν) (3.84).
Importance of Xenia.
Pericles the Athenian general was a xenos (guest-friend) of the invading Spartan king Archidamos (Ἀρχίδαμος αὐτῷ ξένος ὤν ἐτύγχανε), and in case Archidamos would spare Pericles’ rural property out of his regard for him, Pericles “would give up his own fields and buildings to become public (δημόσια εἶναι), in case the enemy did not burn them like all the others,” in order to avoid suspicion that he and Archidamos were being too chummy in the war (2.13).
Funeral Oration 2.34ff. Tradition and THUCYDIDES IN OUR WORLD.
Prothesis and Ekphora put into action: “They lay out the bones of the dead two days beforehand, after setting up a tent, and each person brings whatever offerings he wishes to his own relatives. When the procession takes place, wagons carry cypress coffins, one for each tribe, and within are the bones of each man, according to tribe.
One empty bier, fully decorated, is brought for the missing…” Classics in Our World: Today in Athens, you can see the tomb of the unknown soldier in the center of town, below the Parliament building, with this quotation from this passage: ΜΙΑ ΔΕ ΚΛΙΝΗ ΚΕΝΗ ΦΕΡΕΤΑΙ ΕΣΤΡΩΜΕΝΗ ΤΩΝ ΑΦΑΝΩΝ. Contemporary Greek soldiers guard this monument day and night. Also, the Greeks have included a quotation from Pericles’ Funeral Oration to honor the dead in all their wars, which they put just across from the quotation about the missing: ΑΝΔΡΩΝ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΩΝ ΠΑΣΑ ΓΗ ΤΑΦΟΣ (2. 43 “Τhe whole earth is the tomb of famous men”).
Horrors of War.
- Athenians end up killing all the Mytilenean men who were responsible for the revolt.
- Spartans, because they wanted a strong alliance with the Thebans, slaughtered all the Plataians who were left in the city after the siege.
- Corcyreans slaughter one another in bloody civil stasis.
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