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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2017
The prominence of the island city of Corcyra in Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War presents a puzzle. It appears in the opening of the work in a conflict with its mother city Corinth (1.24–31), after which representatives of both Corinth and Corcyra deliver speeches at Athens (1.32–44). Further conflict between the two cities follows, with Athens supporting Corcyra (1.45–55). Later on, Thucydides depicts two unusually graphic episodes of stasis at Corcyra (3.70–85, 4.46–8). This prominence is surprising, given that the historian himself explicitly states that the initial set of events involving the island does not in fact represent the beginning of the war (1.66.1), and that the Corcyrean stasis is not the first in the war, and that, as has been often observed, it is not even particularly remarkable or influential in it. In what follows, I seek to clarify Thucydides’ use of the island first by exploring ancient views of Corcyra's ‘predecessor’, Homer's Phaeacia, and by arguing that perceptions of the mythical place mirror and reinforce beliefs about its successor Corcyra. An interpretation of Phaeacia as a representative of excess luxury, weakness and friendlessness requires an aggressive reading of Homer. As Rose and others have made clear, however, this position is defensible even if not all readers may choose to accede to it. A significant strand of ancient opinion seems to have adopted a similar attitude as well, perhaps projecting a fifth-century prejudice identified by Rusten back onto Corcyra's Homeric forerunner. In the second part of this paper, I argue that this background influences Thucydides’ presentation of Corcyra, and that the historian emphasizes the story of the island in order to illustrate a pattern of extravagant wealth followed by civic collapse that would have been readily recognizable to an ancient audience. The fact that Thucydides’ Corcyra-story traces all the stages of this process, from a nod to Homeric opulence through pre-war selfishness to wartime collapse, effectively explains his conspicuous use of the city.
I am very grateful to John Dillery, J.E. Lendon and A.J. Woodman for generously reading multiple drafts of this paper and offering helpful comments and encouragement. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers, as well as the Classical Association audience in Exeter, England.
1 Many critics, beginning with Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Thuc. 10), have noted that Corcyra is not the obvious setting for a stasis narrative. This was not the first stasis to occur in the war; indeed, the clash at Corcyra is set off by a long-running stasis in the Corcyraean colony of Epidamnus (Thuc. 1.24.4. See e.g. H.D.F. Kitto, Poiesis [Berkeley, 1966], 279; Price, J., Thucydides and Internal War [Cambridge, 2001], 9 n. 4 and 276)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Thucydides’ awkward phrasing to describe Corcyra's stasis, ἐν τοῖς πρώτη ἐγένετο (3.82.1), which scholars struggle to translate in light of the facts related (e.g. Smyth 1089, Gomme, A.W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides [Oxford, 1956 2], 372Google Scholar, Price [this note], 9 n. 4 and Cogan, M., ‘Mytilene, Plataea, and Corcyra: ideology and policy in Thucydides, Book Three,’ Phoenix 35 [1981], 1–21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 1 n. 1), seems to acknowledge this fact. Corcyra also did not experience the worst stasis in the war, since Thucydides explicitly tells the reader that such staseis became more violent over time (3.82.3) at the same time that he notes that Corcyra was an early instance (e.g. Hornblower, S., A Commentary on Thucydides [Oxford, 1991], 479Google Scholar). Nor did the stasis at Corcyra influence the larger course of the war to any great extent (e.g. Gomme [this note], 385).
2 Rusten, J.S., ‘Four ways to hate Corcyra’, in Rechenauer, G. and Pothou, V. (edd.), Thucydides: A Violent Teacher? (Göttingen, 2011), 99–113 Google Scholar demonstrates that the ancient world seems bent on hating Corcyra, showing that a variety of ancient authors interpret events involving the island in aggressively negative ways, much as others do with Phaeacia.
3 Later examples include Apollodorus (1.9), Strabo (6.269), Pausanias (2.5.2) and the Homeric scholia (e.g. ΣE Od. 5.34, ΣB 7.79, 13.130). As with other features of Phaeacia, the identification of Phaeacia and Corcyra appears to have been a matter of debate, and was denied by some (e.g. Σe Od. 5.35, ΣPT Od. 6.204).
4 Mackie, C.J., ‘Homer and Thucydides: Corcyra and Sicily’, CQ 46 (1996), 103–13, at 104CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘folktale references like this are few and far between in the History, and their inclusion … tends to be directly linked to the narrative.’
5 Marks, J., Zeus in the Odyssey (Cambridge, MA, 2008), 58–9Google Scholar argues that tension between Corcyra and Corinth may have caused Corcyra to embrace an alternative Phaeacian identity (‘Thus the Phaiakes may have formed part of an ongoing discourse about Corcyraean identity that developed soon after the foundation of their polis, probably in the late eighth century.’).
6 Flower, M.A. and Marincola, J. (edd.), Herodotus: Histories Book 9 (Cambridge, 2002), 314Google Scholar describe this sentiment as ‘common in H. and in the Greek thought of his time’.
7 Bernhardt, R., Luxuskritik und Aufwandsbeschränkungen in der griechischen Welt (Eurasburg, 2003), 191Google Scholar discusses excessively fruitful lands in general. Schmidt, P.B., Studien zu griechischen Ktisissagen (Fribourg, 1948), 188Google Scholar points to Pl. Leg. 704–5 and 919b for the dangers of excessively fruitful lands and the luxurious lifestyle they produce; for another example of the dangers of wealth, see Thgn. 605. Amphis, fr. 39 K.–A. connects selfish behaviour at feasts to cowardice in battle.
8 For Corcyra as Phaeacia, see U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die Ilias und Homer (Berlin, 1916), 501–5 and Marks (n. 5), 57. At least in the time of Eustathius, physical features of Corcyra were taken to correspond to Homer's description of Phaeacia ( Howie, J.G., ‘The Phaeacians in the Odyssey: fable and territorial claim’, Shadow 6 [1989], 25–34 Google Scholar = reprinted in Howie, J.G., Exemplum and Myth, Criticism and Creation [Prenton, England, 2012], 90–101, at 99–100)Google Scholar.
9 Most editions have Zeus respond to Poseidon's threat to bury the city in a mountain by agreeing to it. Aristarchus, however, emended the text to have Zeus forbid the plan (ΣH Od. 13.152 or 13.158, reading μηδέ σφιν instead of μέγα δέ σφιν). Marks (n. 5), 59 argues that performers may have adjusted the song to fit their audience's loyalties.
10 See Olson, S.D., Broken Laughter (Oxford, 2007), 158–63Google Scholar on this fragment.
11 Cf. Il. 20.32 δίχα θυμὸν ἔχοντες (Olson [n. 10], 161). Thucydides describes the natural division between Ionians and Dorians as δίχα πέφυκε (4.61.3). The phrase δίχα θυμόν and its variants appear to reflect division on a variety of levels: see also Od. 16.73, 19.524, Thgn. 909 (a divided heart within an individual); Hes. Op. 13 (the fundamental distinction between the two types of Eris); Ar. fr. 473 (setting aside one's own feelings).
12 The word γλαφυρός usually appears in epic and lyric and is one of Homer's favourite adjectives for ships (e.g. Od. 3.287, 4.513, 9.99, 10.23, 12.82, 13.71, 15.456).
13 Shipping in itself could be seen as suspect. When a new colony is imagined in Plato, the Athenian warns that a state that is overly involved in sea trade is likely to become faithless within itself and friendless toward other men owing to being filled full of business and commerce, the same attributes and trajectory that Thucydides’ Corcyraean narrative emphasizes (Leg. 705a). Cf. e.g. Hes. Op. 235–6, Arist. Pol. 1328b40.
14 Rusten (n. 2), 106 observes that the fragment could refer to multiple historical moments.
15 Rusten (n. 2), 108.
16 Foster, E., Thucydides, Pericles and Periclean Imperialism (Cambridge, 2010), 59–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 43 argues that the speech by Thucydides’ Corcyraeans before the Athenians is highly reminiscent of the imagined speech by Herodotus’ Corcyraeans to Xerxes, suggesting that Thucydides saw their behaviour in his war as consistent with their previous actions.
17 For more on the scholiasts’ response to the Phaeacians, see Reece, S., The Stranger's Welcome (Ann Arbor, 1993), 107–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In one example of a positive reading, Plutarch calls Alcinous φιλοξενώτατον (De Exilio 603d). For the argument that Phaeacia is indeed a friendly paradise, see e.g. ΣEV Od. 7.32, which observes that some authorities tried to argue that Homer presents the Phaeacians as φιλοξενώτατοι, and ΣHQ 8.31. Such positive readings of Phaeacia imply the existence of negative ones by entering into polemic against them.
18 The frequent variations on ἁβρός in these discussions are particularly unflattering. Bernhardt (n. 7), 19 argues that ἁβροσύνη is a word ‘das sich auf Luxus, Üppigkeit, Weichheit und Annehmlichkeit orientalischer Provenienz bezog’. Hall, E., Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy (Oxford, 1989), 81–3Google Scholar notes that it is associated with barbarians or women, while Kurke, L., ‘The politics of ἁβροσύνη in archaic Greece’, ClAnt 11 (1992), 91–120 Google Scholar traces the evolution of the word from primarily positive to derogatory after the Persian Wars.
19 Rose, G.P., ‘The unfriendly Phaeacians’, TAPhA 100 (1969), 387–406 Google Scholar, building partly on the more limited discussion in Fraser, A.D., ‘Scheria and the Phaeacians’, TAPhA 60 (1929), 155–78Google Scholar, at 171, was among the first modern scholars to advocate strongly for reading Phaeacia as fundamentally troubled. Other scholarship on this question includes de Vries, G.J., ‘Phaeacian manners’, Mnemosyne 30 (1977), 113–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dickie, M., ‘Phaeacian athletes’, PLLS 4 (1983), 237–76Google Scholar; Most, G.W. ‘The structure and function of Odysseus' apologoi’, TAPhA 119 (1989), 15–30 Google Scholar, at 27–30; Reece (n. 17), 101–21; Karp, A., ‘The need for boundaries: Homer's critique of the Phaeakian utopia in the Odyssey ’, Utopian Studies 6 (1995), 25–34 Google Scholar, at 32; Ahl, F. and Roisman, H.M., The Odyssey Re-Formed (Ithaca, NY, 1996), 43–91 Google Scholar; Broeniman, C., ‘Demodocus, Odysseus, and the Trojan War in Odyssey 8’, CW 90 (1996), 3–13 Google Scholar, at 7–8; Mackie (n. 4), 103–13; Redfield, J., ‘The economic man’, in Doherty, L.E. (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Homer's Odyssey (Oxford, 2009), 265–87Google Scholar, at 283–7. For a positive view of Scheria, especially as opposed to Calypso's isolated island in which action is suspended, see Segal, C.P., ‘The Phaeacians and the symbolism of Odysseus' return’, Arion 1 (1962), 17–64 Google Scholar, at 21–2, although he concludes that the Phaeacians’ lack of exposure to suffering renders them fundamentally different from Odysseus.
20 Howie (n. 8), 92–3. For the significance of capability in war, see e.g. de Romilly, J., ‘Guerre et paix entre cités’, in Vernant, J.-P. (ed.), Problèmes de la guerre en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1968), 207–20Google Scholar, at 208; Havelock, E.A., ‘War as a way of life in classical culture’, in Gareau, E. (ed.), Classical Values and the Modern World (Ottawa, 1972), 19–78 Google Scholar, at 75; Dover, K.J., Greek Popular Morality (Oxford, 1974), 314Google Scholar; Price (n. 1), 68. See Moles, J., ‘Herodotus warns the Athenians’, in Cairns, F. and Heath, M. (edd.), Roman Poetry and Prose, Greek Poetry, Etymology, Historiography (Leeds, 1996), 259–84Google Scholar, at 265–6 for the argument that structural similarities between the Odyssey narrative and Herodotus’ story of Solon's visit to Croesus suggest that the Lydians share the Phaeacians’ softness.
21 Dickie (n. 19), 237–40.
22 Rose (n. 19), 390–1.
23 Rose (n. 19), 394. On the Phaeacians’ questionable guest-friendship, see also Most (n. 19), 26–8.
24 Redfield (n. 19), 277.
25 Karp (n. 19), 32.
26 Rundin, J., ‘A politics of eating: feasting in early Greek society’, AJPh 117 (1996), 179–215 Google ScholarPubMed, at 192–3.
27 Reece (n. 17), 106.
28 Ahl and Roisman (n. 19), 103.
29 Fraser (n. 19), 171.
30 Howie (n. 8), 94.
31 This fleet, along with its past and possible future success, is a major factor in the negotiations, as the Corcyraeans return to it repeatedly (1.32.5, 1.33.2, 1.35.5, 1.36.2–3). But the Corcyraeans are neither loyal nor effective sailors. In one instance, despite Athenian advice to deploy the fleet en masse (3.77.1), the Corcyraeans dispatch them individually. This strategy is not seen elsewhere in Thucydides, and—unsurprisingly—proves disastrous. Later on, the Corcyraeans fight among themselves on-board rather than facing the enemy (3.77.2). Gomme (n. 1), 362 observes that there may be irony in Hermippus’ description of the ships as γλαφυραῖς, which might mean ‘elegant, neat, skilful’, while the Corcyraean fighting style will be decidedly otherwise. Cf. Cogan (n. 1), 4: ‘During the original ἐπιμαχία Corcyrean help was minimal; following the stasis, despite, as it were, a new debt owed Athens, Corcyrean help was, it seems, still minimal.’
32 S. Hornblower, Thucydides (Baltimore, 1987), 116 argues that the phrase Ἐπίδαμνός ἐστι πόλις (1.24.1) may echo Homer. This conclusion is not accepted by all, however, and Rhodes, P.J., ‘Epidamnus is a city: on not overinterpreting Thucydides’, Histos 2 (1998), 64–71 Google Scholar argues that Hornblower reads too much into these words.
33 1.118, 1.120, 1.123, 1.133, 1.135, 1.138, 1.161, 1.163, 1.167, 1.185, 1.276, 1.356, 1.507.
34 Gomme, A.W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford, 1945 1)Google Scholar, 1.160 also observes that it is poetic, and Mackie (n. 4), 103 n. 3 that it reinforces the Homeric connection in the passage.
35 For kleos as a Homeric concept, see e.g. Nagy, G., The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore, 1979), 16–22 Google Scholar.
36 The unpalatable nature of the Corcyraean brand of morality is particularly clear, because most readers agree with Macleod, C.W., ‘Form and meaning in the Melian Dialogue’, Historia 23 (1974), 385–400 Google Scholar, at 388 that the Corinthian speech seems to be grounded in justice.
37 θεραπεία is rarely positive in Thucydides’ work, e.g. 3.82.8 τὰ μὲν κοινὰ λόγῳ θεραπεύοντες.
38 Ar. Ach. 33–6 has Dicaeopolis longing for his farm that produced everything. Arist. Pol. 1252b32–1253a1 presents a limited kind of autarky as the condition of a completely developed city-state (ἤδη πάσης ἔχουσα πέρας τῆς αὐταρκείας ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν).
39 Scanlon, T.F., ‘Echoes of Herodotus in Thucydides: self-sufficiency, admiration and law’, Historia 43 (1994), 143–76Google Scholar, esp. 160. See also von Reden, S., Exchange in Ancient Greece (London, 1995), 135–42Google Scholar. Aristotle says that men must form bonds among themselves because they cannot be self-sufficient (Eth. Eud. 1242a διὰ γὰρ τὸ μὴ αὐταρκεῖν). See also Adkins, A.W.H., ‘“Friendship” and “self-sufficiency” in Homer and Aristotle’, CQ 13 (1963), 30–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 44–5.
40 Macleod, C.W., ‘Thucydides and tragedy’, in Taplin, O. (ed.), The Collected Essays of Colin Macleod (Oxford, 1983), 140–58Google Scholar, at 151. He also observes that Thucydides engages with Herodotus 1.32.8–9, in which Solon informs Croesus that no man can be independent. The echo is also discussed by Allison, J.W., ‘Pericles’ policy and the plague’, Historia 32 (1983), 14–23 Google Scholar; Rusten, J.S. (ed.), Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War Book II (Cambridge, 1989), 159Google Scholar; and Scanlon (n. 39), 148.
41 Redfield (n. 19), 275: Phaeacia's autarky is in fact one of its most troubling aspects, because in the Odyssey there is ‘a persistent tension between the aspiration to household self-sufficiency and the recognition that security and happiness are only possible in the context of a wider community’.
42 Xen. Mem. 2.1.18–34 presents self-sufficiency as a great good, but contrasts it with ἐκ τοῦ παραχρῆμα ἡδοναί (2.1.20). Arist. Pol. 1253a29 ‘For he who is not able to take part in community or is needing nothing through his self-sufficiency is no part of a city, such as either a beast or a god. For indeed the urge for such community is in everyone by nature.’
43 Fraser's description of Phaeacia would fit both: they ‘are alone and isolated, and have nothing to do with the rest of mankind. Of what service, then, are those ships that are said to visit all shores?’ ([n. 19], 176).
44 Herodotus (7.154.3) says that both Corcyra and Corinth assisted Syracuse in making peace with Hippocrates of Gela in 492 ( Graham, A.J., Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece [Manchester, 1964], 144Google Scholar). Herodotus’ Samians take a great risk for the Corcyraeans (3.48.1–4). Gomme (n. 34), 183 points out that the presence of a ‘considerable force’ of Zacynthians as allies to Corcyra early on in its conflict with Corinth in Thucydides (1.47.2) suggests that Zacynthus ‘may long have been friendly with Kerkyra’. And when the Corcyraean hostages taken in the initial encounter return home after their stay in Corinth, their fellow citizens vote ‘on the one hand to be allies of the Athenians in accord with their agreement, but on the other to be friends of the Peloponnesians as they had also been before’ (3.70.2).
45 Cf. the Corinthians’ statement ἄποικοι δ’ ὄντες ἀφεστᾶσί τε διὰ παντός (1.38.1). Herodotus 3.49 reports that νῦν δὲ αἰεὶ ἐπείτε ἔκτισαν τὴν νῆσον εἰσὶ ἀλλήλοισι διάφοροι ἐόντες ὅμαιμοι. The Phaeacians, in fact, have a similar quarrel with their own forefather Poseidon, who complains that ‘the mortals do not honour me a bit, the Phaeacians, although they are from my stock’ (13.129–30 με βροτοὶ οὔ τι τίουσι, | Φαίηκες, τοί πέρ τε ἐμῆς ἔξ εἰσι γενέθλης).
46 Burkert, W., Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA, 1985), 58Google Scholar: what sacrifice ‘means for men is always quite clear: community, koinonia’.
47 Gomme (n. 34), 174 calls this ‘an illogical point’. Crane, G., ‘Power, prestige, and the Corcyrean affair in Thucydides 1’, ClAnt 11 (1992), 1–27 Google Scholar, at 18: ‘The absence of bilateral exchanges of any kind means that a state cannot be trusted.’
48 Scholars who have studied the speeches—including Crane, G., Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity (Berkeley, 1998), 108–13Google Scholar; Missiou, A., The Subversive Oratory of Andokides: Politics, Ideology and Decision-Making in Democratic Athens (Cambridge, 1992), 121–6Google Scholar; and Rood, T., ‘Rhetoric, reciprocity and history: Thucydides' Corcyra debate’, in Scortsis, M. (ed.), III International Symposium on Thucydides: The Speeches (Athens, 2006), 65–73 Google Scholar—have identified a lack of reciprocity as a major element in them.
49 Calder, W.M., ‘The Corcyraean-Corinthian speeches in Thucydides I’, CJ 50 (1955), 179–80Google Scholar, at 179.
50 As Schmidt (n. 7), 185–6 notes, Phylarchus (FGrHist 81 F 66) says that the Colophonians were once formidable in battle, but τρυφή eventually rendered them soft, a story he takes from Xenophanes (11 B 3 DK; cf. Thgn. 1103). Demand, N.H., Urban Relocation in Archaic and Classical Greece (Norman, Oklahoma, 1990), 33Google Scholar observes the similarities in the stories of the Phaeacians and the Colophonians. Ephorus (FGrHist 70 F 183) claims that the Milesians triumphed over the Scythians as long as they avoided τρυφή, a story that allegedly produced the proverb that the Milesians ‘were once long ago brave men’ (Ar. Plut. 1002, 1075; Anac. PMG 426; Demon, FGrHist 327 F 16; cf. Arist. fr. 557 Rose).
51 E.g. Beloch, K.J., Griechische Geschichte (Berlin, 1924)Google Scholar 1.231–2 and Schaefer, H., ‘Eigenart und Wesenszüge der griechischen Kolonisation’, Heidelberger Jahrbücher 4 (1960), 77–93 Google Scholar, at 77–8. But see Demand (n. 50), 28–9, arguing that the Phaeacian story differs significantly from the normal process of colonization in that the entire community relocated.
52 Thucydides’ emphasis on the colonial relationships of Corcyra is in contrast to his treatment of other cities such as Thebes and Plataea, whose familial relationship goes unmentioned.
53 Hornblower (n. 32), 173, commenting on Thuc. 3.82.8, πάντων δ’ αὐτῶν αἴτιον ἀρχὴ ἡ διὰ πλεονεξίαν καὶ φιλοτιμίαν.
54 In related examples, Ar. Ran. 354–68, Lys. 18.17 and Arist. Pol. 1302b5–10 all attribute faction to greed.
55 Gomme, A.W., Andrewes, A., Dover, K.J., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford, 1981 5), 411Google Scholar.