¹ Hobbes, Thomas, English Works, SirMolesworth, William (ed.), Vol. 8 (London: J. Bohn, 1843), viii.Google Scholar

² For brief discussions of the gamut run by the literature, see Hunter, Virginia, Thucydides The Artful Reporter (Toronto: Hakkert, 1973), 3–8Google Scholar, and Wallace, W. P., “Thucydides,” Phoenix 18 (1964), 251–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The literature on Thucydides is enormous and I would tend to follow the dictum of G. F. Abbott that students should “take as their principal instructor in Thucydides Thucydides himself' (Thucydides: A Study in Historical Reality [New York: A. Routledge, 1925], vi.)

³ The outstanding exception is Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964).Google ScholarPubMed Strauss's discussion reveals that Thucydides' writing is “most politic” as regards its subject, its object, and its method. Jaeger, Werner (Paidaia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, trans, by Highet, Gilbert, Vol. 1 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939])Google Scholar began down this road in his essay on Thucydides, but did not travel it as far.

⁴ Hobbes, Works, viii; my italics.

⁵ Hobbes, Works, xxii.

⁶ References to Thucydides will be included in parentheses in the text, citing book, chapter, and, where relevant, sentence. Successive citations from the same book will usually omit the book number. Translations are my own to this extent: while they tend to follow the Loeb, they are in fact an amalgam of several translations, corrected by me for accuracy and consistency, and I take responsibility for them.

⁷ Wallace (“Thucydides,” 258) speaks of the effect of Thucydides' writing being almost that of “subliminal persuasion” and describes it well (252); compare with Hunter, Artful Reporter, 8, 40, 115, 180. Although they would seem to be unaware of the fact, the efforts of scholars like Hunter, Romilly, Jacqueline de (Histoire et Raison chez Thucydide [Paris: Les Belles lettres, 1956])Google Scholar, and Wallace were substantially anticipated by Hobbes's view. Would that in following his methods they also shared his concerns! Collingwood, R. G. (The Idea of History [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961], 29)Google Scholar thinks that Thucydides has a “bad conscience” about writing history and is not really writing history at all. I doubt that Thucydides has a “bad conscience.” Compare Engeman, Thomas S., “Homeric Honor and Thucydidean Necessity,” Interpretation 4 (1974), 66 n. 5.Google Scholar

⁸ I say “so-called” because Thucydides is himself capable of calling a passage a digression when he wants to: for example, 1.97.2.

⁹ If a regime could be established, and endure, that practised Spartan domestic policy and Athenian foreign policy, it would undoubtedly be the most impressive regime Thucydides could imagine. One of the things we learn from reading Thucydides, however, is that such a regime could not endure. Athens and Sparta represent the peaks of fundamental alternatives according to Thucydides. The Athenian principle is “motion,” the Spartan “rest,” and there can no more be a synthesis of “Athenianism” and “Spartanism” than there can be a synthesis of motion and rest. Compare Edmunds, Lowell, Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 120–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Strauss, City and Man, 145–63.

¹⁰ For other views on the role of the “digression” on the end of the tyranny at Athens, see Abbott, Historical Reality, 101–02; Adcock, F. E., Thucydides and His History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 25–26Google Scholar; Cornford, F. M., Thucydides Mythistoricus (London: E. Arnold, 1907), 132–33Google Scholar; and Westlake, H. D., Individuals in Thucydides (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 221–22.Google ScholarBury, J. B. (History of Greece [New York: Macmillan, 1959], 470–71)Google Scholar appears to view Alcibiades and the question of tyranny in much the same light as I, but in his The Ancient Greek Historians ([New York: Macmillan, 1958], 89)Google Scholar he sees no significance in this “digression.” I saspect that the narrations themselves hath secretly instructed Bury, and more effectually than could possibly have been done by precept. See Strauss, City and Man, 196–97.

¹¹ See the article “Aristogiton” in the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

¹² On the question of Nicias' “virtue,” see Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 4 Vols. (Vol. 4 rev. and ed. Andrewes, A. and Dover, K. J.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945–1970), 462–63;Google Scholar Westlake, Individuals, 209; Strauss, City and Man, 208–09; and my n. 42, below.

¹³ I suspect that Gomme, , Commentary, Vol. 4, 318Google Scholar, in objecting to Thucydides' tone at 54.1 and 59.1, has not attended sufficiently to this fact. See Strauss, City and Man, 196.

¹⁴ Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1367b19. Thucydides lifts Archedice out of the obscurity that Pericles recommends for women (2.45.2). Women are seen to participate in political life on occasion, as at Thebes (2.4.2 and 4) and in the Corcyrean civil war (3.74.1) but Thucydides calls their participation “beyond nature” (para physin). Compare Engeman, “Homeric Necessity,” 76 n. 24.

¹⁵ Compare Comford, Mythistoricus, 244–49.

¹⁶ Hobbes, Works, 127 n. 3. It is on this passage that an ancient commentator made the oft-quoted remark, “Here the lion laughed.”

¹⁷ This is particularly striking in his revisionist interpretation of the Trojan war, the essence of which is to ascribe a mundane cause to those things that Homer's version links with the divine, for example, fear of Atreides' power, not an oath, bound the suitors to his cause (1.9.1 and 3), and the aitia of the siege of Troy lasting so long was not the power of the gods but the weakness of the Greeks: they lacked money (11). Compare Benardete, Seth, Herodotean Inquiries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), 20, 33; and Strauss, City and Man, 154–62, and 235–36 (on Thucydides, 3.104).Google Scholar

¹⁸ The most renowned book dealing with Athenian imperialism is Romilly's, Jacqueline deThucydides and Athenian Imperialism, trans, by Thody, P. (Oxford: Black well, 1963).Google Scholar But see the excellent discussion of Christopher Bruell (“Thucydides' View of Athenian Imperialism,” American Political Science Review 68 [1974], 11–17), who argues that the differences between his own and Romilly's conclusions, “on the meaning of the opposition of right and force or compulsion… are not unrelated to the greater seriousness with which I take, and argue that Thucydides takes, the issue of justice, the issue of the justice of Athenian imperialism, in the first place.”

¹⁹ At Delium (4.98.1–6), the Athenians attempt to avoid the charge of impiety while admitting committing acts traditionally viewed as impious. Their excuse is that they acted from compulsion. But if piety is the highest compulsion—this is the traditional view: compare Nicias at 4.44.5–6 and Hobbes, Works, 429 n. 1—they are still impious. Their solution is to interpret piety itself as sanctioning acts committed under the constraints of compulsion.

²⁰ Gomme, , Commentary, Vol. 4, 284–85;Google Scholar compare Westlake, Individuals, 221 n. 1. Of course, why Alcibiades should be suspected in an affair that could do nothing but raise doubts about an expedition he so strongly supported is another question. Nevertheless, although the informers implicated Alcibiades not in this but in a related affair (28.1), his enemies insisted that he was involved in both and more (28.2).

²¹ Gomme, , Commentary, Vol. 4, 289Google Scholar, contrasts this with 2.65.11 and makes an important point: “Here there is an important difference, in that Thucydides treats Alkibiades' enemies as a group (‘preventing them from leading the people themselves’); Alkibiades was a giant, and men who were potential rivals of one another combined to overthrow him” (Gomme's italics).

²² Gomme, , Commentary, Vol. 4, 329Google Scholar: “The most plausible explanation is that he succumbed here to the temptation before which all historians and commentators are by their very nature weak, the temptation to correct historical error wherever they find it, regardless of its relevance to their immediate purpose.” Gomme should not be so generous in ascribing his own weaknesses to all other historians and commentators, especially to Thucydides; it is “unhistorical.” As for the story's being told twice, Gomme (Gomme, , Commentary, Vol. 1, 137)Google Scholar suggests that not only the first, but the second account also would have been eliminated if Thucydides had had time for a final revision. I see no reason to doubt that the text as we have it, with the possible exception of the eighth book, is substantially as Thucydides wanted us to have it.

²³ Lord, L. E. (Thucydides and the World War [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1945], 189–90)CrossRefGoogle Scholar has a different view of the purpose of this as well as other “digressions”: they serve to heighten dramatic suspense; compare Hobbes, Works, 29. See also Dover, K. J., Thucydides (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 30Google Scholar; Edmunds, Chance and Intelligence, 194–95; Finley, J. H. Jr., Thucydides (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942), 222–25;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hunter, Artful Reporter, 173–74; Liesbeschuetz, , “Thucydides and the Sicilian Expedition,” Historia 17 (1968), 304–06;Google ScholarRomilly, , Athenian Imperialism, 4 n. 1, 207–09;Google ScholarSaxonhouse, A. W., “Nature and Convention in Thucydides' History,” Polity 10 (1978), 483–84;CrossRefGoogle ScholarStahl, Hans-Peter, “The Speeches and Course of Events in Books Six and Seven of Thucydides,” in Stadter, Philip A. (ed.), The Speeches in Thucydides (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973), 70;Google Scholar and Lang, Mabel, “The Murder of Hipparchus,” Historia 3 (1955), 395–407.Google Scholar Lang is clearly convinced of the importance and relevance of the “digression,” but her primary concern is to determine, by comparing Thucydides' account of the murder with other ancient accounts, what happened historically; this is not my concern.

²⁴ Thucydides gives his account of how the Pisistratid tyranny “went bad” in the context of his account of how Alcibiades “went bad.” On the question of Alcibiades' abilities and the Sicilian expedition, see Grene, David, Greek Political Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 68–69;Google Scholar Liebeschuetz, “Sililian Expedition,” 289–306; and McGregor, M. F., “The Genius of Alcibiades,” Phoenix 19 (1965), 33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBrunt, P. A. (“Thucydides and Alcibiades,” Revue Des Etudes Grecques 65 [1952], 59–96)CrossRefGoogle Scholar agrees that this is Thucydides'judgment of Alcibiades and that Thucydides blames the Athenian dēmos for not trusting him, but feels compelled to account for this judgment (rather than by simply saying that Thucydides thought it was true) by maintaining that Thucydides had a personal bias in favour of Alcibiades, having fallen under the spell of, and been blinded by, his virtú (Brunt's usage). The supposed similarity between Thucydides' aretē and Machiavelli's virtu is remarked also by Bury (Greek Historians, 145; compare Lord, World War, 204).

²⁵ Gomme, , Commentary, Vol. 1, 26–27, 447.Google Scholar

²⁶ That Thucydides' purpose in recounting the stories of Pausanias and Themistocles is at least two-fold is indicated by the difference between what he says when introducing these “digressions” and when concluding them. In his introduction, he states his purpose to be to explain how each of the pollutions was incurred (1.126.3,128.1–2). At the end of his discussion of the episodes involving the two famous men, he writes, “Such was the end of Pausanias the Spartan and Themistocles the Athenian, the most distinguished Greeks of their time” (138.6). See Strauss, City and Man, 211–12.

²⁷ This is a virtue which he shares with Thucydides, although they see well into the future in very different ways: Thucydides' book can be a “possession for all time” only if he can see the future in the very relevant sense that he can know the limits of human things and that these limits will not change (1.22.4); compare my n. 9, above.

²⁸ When Alcibiades finds himself at Sparta in similar circumstances to those of Themistocles in Persia, he, too, is willing to tell a fib or two (for example, 6.90.3,91.1). Alcibiades has also courted favour with the enemies of his city and he emphasizes this for the same reason Themistocles does in similar straits (89.2; compare with 5.43.2). Alcibiades and Themistocies were the two most successful Athenians at Sparta (Gomme, , Commentary, Vol. 1, 258).Google Scholar

²⁹ The story of Pausanias (compare 1.94–5) is linked to Spartan decline and loss of allies, of Themistocles, to Athenian ascendancy and acquisition of allies (compare 1.89–93). That Thucydides is aware that complete destruction of one's enemies is sometimes not in one's own best interest is evidenced in his account of Demosthenes' exploits in Acarnania (3.113.6). Compare Bury, History, 283.

³⁰ Bury, Greek Historians, 127–28; compare Pusey, N. M., “Alcibiades and to philopoli,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 51 (1940), 227.Google Scholar For other opinions about the purpose, if any, of Thucydides' including the story of Themistocles in his writing, see Adcock, Thucydides, 23; Cornford, Mythistoricus, 135–37; Finley, Thucydides, 139; Romilly, Athenian Imperialism, 230–35; and Woodhead, A. G., Thucydides on the Nature of Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Woodhead (81) quite rightly points out that while the Athenians doubtless wondered, “How far can we trust Alcibiades?” it is remarkable how little consideration has been given to the reverse question, that is, “How far can Alcibiades trust the Athenians?”

³¹ Compare Romilly, Athenian Imperialism, 242–44, 273.

³² For an elaboration of these themes, see my “Love of Glory and the Common Good,” presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Halifax, 1981.

³³ Hermocrates accepts the “Athenian” understanding of human nature and politics. Compare Bury, Greek Historians, 136; Edmunds, Chance and Intelligence, 29; Grene, Greek Political Theory, 43–44; and Romilly, Athenian Imperialism, 304–05.

³⁴ Whenever Thucydides speaks of Athenians and their policies, including Pericles, he uses the word “me trios” as opposed to “sōphrosynē,” which he does use of Spartans and others. I am translating, respectively, “measured” as opposed to “moderate.” There is one exception that proves the rule. After Cleon's famous taunt to Nicias that he, himself, could capture the Spartans trapped on the island of Sphacteria in twenty days, Thucydides says that the “moderates” in Athens, the “sōphrones,” preferred to rid the city of Cleon than to capture the Spartans, that is, they, like the Spartans habitually, cared more for domestic stability than for victories in foreign affairs (4.28.5; compare 108.7). A “measured” as opposed to a “moderate” policy is merely a means to an end, which end, in itself, may be immoderate. It would be possible for a policy not to be “measured” because it was “moderate.”

³⁵ Nicias' bungling is responsible for the large size of the original expedition (6.8.4., 19.2), and the Athenians' great confidence that it will succeed (24.2–3), therefore, the greatness both of the Athenians' expectations from it and of the final disaster. He contemns the coming of Gylippus to Sicily (104), a big mistake (compare 6.103, and 7.2). He is also responsible for the doubling of the size of the expedition and, therefore, of the disaster (7.15.1). Compare also 7.4.4 and 6, 24.3, 42.3, and 50.4: the Athenians still had time to escape Sicily with their power and empire intact. Compare Finley, Thucydides, 216–17.

³⁶ Especially 7.48.3–4: his view before the final debacle is that he would rather die in Sicily, taking the Athenian army with him, than unjustly suffer at the hands of the Athenian dēmos for having abandoned Sicily. Nicias commits a kind of treason rather than return to Athens to an unjust trial on the charge of treason. The congruence of Nicias' interest and the Athenians' interest has broken down, just as it did with Alcibiades. By contrast, Demosthenes appears to be thinking only of the public good at this crucial juncture (7.47.3–4: and whose arguments is he echoing? Compare 6.9.3, 10.1, 11.1, and 12.1). Compare Edmunds, Chance and Intelligence, 86–88, and Westlake, Individuals, 198.

³⁷ This simplifies the situation in a way that may be misleading, for it must be acknowledged that it was Alcibiades who initiated the movement against the democracy, even though those who completed it were his political enemies. His enemies knew that Alcibiades really cared no more for oligarchy than for democracy (8.48.4, 63.4).

³⁸ In the Loeb edition, the words “hoperkai ēn” at 8.48.4 are left untranslated, although they appear in the Greek.

³⁹ Compare Woodhead, Nature of Power, 87.

⁴⁰ Compare 1.36.2, 44.3, 3.86.4, 115.4, 4.2.2, 59 and 6.76; Thucydides introduces Alcibiades at 5.43.2; the question for Thucydides is not whether the Athenians will go to Sicily, but who will lead them there. What must be remarked about the Sicilian expedition is not that it failed, but how close it came to succeeding, even without Alcibiades. That the presence of a man like Alcibiades in Athens facilitated the launching of the expedition is not to be denied. Compare Finley, Thucydides, 220, and Grene, Greek Political Theory, 47.

⁴¹ The civil wars at Corcyra are characterized precisely by the abandonment of all the traditional constraints of piety (3.70–84). It is in this context that Thucydides tells us that war is a “violent teacher” (82.2). The harshest teaching of that harsh teacher is the revelation of how precarious are the supports that permit civilization, in Thucydidean terms, “Greekness” occasionally to emerge from barbarism. Com pare his account of the moral effects of the plague at Athens, which follows immediately upon his presentation of Pericles' funeral oration, which is strikingly silent about the gods. See my “Love of Glory and the Common Good”; Strauss, City and Man, 146–48; and Saxonhouse, “Nature and Convention,” 470–73.

⁴² Bury, Greek Historians, 119–20, maintains that Thucydides is being ironic here. This is better than taking the statement at face value, but to leave it at that is to fail to go far enough. For other interpretations of the ecomium, see Cochrane, C. N., Thucydides and the Science of History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929), 136;Google Scholar Edmunds, Chance and Intelligence, 140–42; and Westlake, Individuals, 209–11. Compare also Hobbes, Works, xv and n. 1, where it is asserted by Hobbes's nineteenth century editor that 7.86 was corrected by Bekker by deleting “es to theion.” If Bekker was correct in deleting these words, whoever added them to Thucydides' text was certainly on the right track.

⁴³ Strauss, City and Man, 195–209. Pondered in the context of Thucydides' presentation as a whole, does the fact that we can understand eclipses of the moon as “natural” phenomena render the eclipse in Sicily (7.50.4) at that particular time and place—a seemingly “chance” event with such monumental consequences—any less “miraculous”? Could an avenger god have meted out any more appropriate punishment to the hubristic Athenians?

⁴⁴ There is an indication (not in Thucydides, but in Plutarch, Alcibiades, 34, and Xenophon, Hellenica, 1.4.20) that Alcibiades may have learned a lesson from his experience at Athens: ever since the occupation of Decelea, for which he was so responsible, the annual sacred procession by land from Athens to the Eleusian shrine had had to be suspended and the trip made by sea. After his return to Athens, the procession marched out under his auspices, in the customary fashion, Alcibiades protecting it with an escort of troops. It was over the Eleusian Mysteries that he had gotten into trouble originally. Compare Bury, History, 500. Does Thucydides teach that piety is essential for successful politics merely in some Machiavellian sense, or in a more genuine sense? I find no clear answer, that is, no definitive text, in Thucydides. But see also my note 43 above and Strauss, Leo, “Preliminary Observations on the Gods in Thucydides' Work,” Interpretation 4 (1974), 1–16.Google Scholar