IDS 118           INTRO TO GREEK LITERATURE

THUCYDIDES: Some introductory remarks

Thucydides was born about 455BCE of a noble Athenian family, probably related to that of the aristocrat Cimon.  Little is known about his life.  He suffered from the plague.  He was general in 424 BCE and was exiled for failing to prevent Brasidas from taking the strategic city of Amphipolis.  We know that he had an estate in Thrace, upon which he mined gold, which provided him a valuable source of income.  He returned to Athens in 404 BCE after the end of the war and died there about 400 BCE.  One item that should be noted at the very beginning is that Thucydides devoted most of his adult life to chronicling the Peloponnesian War.  We would know nothing about this conflict if it were not for his efforts.  On account of the vastness of his investigations, no other history of this war exist from antiquity.  Thucydides strove for precision into the causes of this conflict.  He was not satisfied with recording the first version of any account he was given.  Instead, he sought all of the available evidence, as we shall see below, and was one of the first historians who used written documents as well as eye-witness reports to construct his account.  On another matter, although his style of writing is very dense, and even though he is often derided for his heavy reliance on speeches, one comes away from reading Thucydides with an understanding of the motivations, almost the psychological thought processes, of the people his account includes.  Let us first compare Thucydides’ method with that of Herodotus as a point of departure.

If we compare the stated methods used by Herodotus and Thucydides, we notice something striking.  As Herodotus says, in his introduction to the Histories:

Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds - some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians - may not be without their glory; and especially to show why the two peoples fought with each other. (Herodotus.  Histories. Book 1: 1. [trans. De Sélincourt.])

Thucydides, on the other hand, tells us:

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote up the war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians as they fought against each other.  He began to write as soon as the war was afoot, with the expectation that it would turn out to be a great one and that, more than all earlier wars, this one would deserve to be recorded.  He made this prediction because both sides were at their peak in every sort of preparation for war, and also because he saw the rest of the Greek world taking one side or the other, some right away, others planning to do so.  This was certainly the greatest upheaval there had been among the Greeks.  It also reached many foreigners - indeed, one might say that it affected most people everywhere.  Because of the great passage of time it is impossible to discover clearly what happened long ago or even just before these events; still, I have looked into the evidence as far as can be done, and I am confident that nothing great happened in or out of war before this.  (Thucydides.  History of the Peloponnesian War. Book 1. [trans. Woodruff.])

After having read the Herodotus and the Homer texts, one might find this last sentence of the introduction to Thucydides reading to be rather striking.  Thucydides tells us that he began his investigations as soon as the war started, and thought that this war, unlike those before it, was a turning point in history because all of the Greek world was polarized between Sparta and Athens.  Also, one may infer from what he has written that Thucydides is looking at eye witnesses to these events, and not relying on testimony as the sole source of his investigations.  The last sentence, however, seems to be the most striking of all.  Of course, there were other wars.  We have read about them.  The question remains that, how will Thucydides justify his statement that this war, the Peloponnesian war, was the real turning point in history?  Unlike Herodotus, Thucydides will address both the Trojan war and the Persian wars in the first part of his investigations.  What we should focus on is the evidence he offers to support his views.  Notice that, unlike Herodotus, Thucydides attempts to provide justification for his claims.  Herodotus relied on testimony and records of other peoples to denounce Homer’s claims.  Book 2: 112 - 121 records the evidence Herodotus relied on to call into question the story of the war at Troy.  Herodotus tells us, “I questioned the priests about the story of Helen, and they told me . . .”(Book 2: 113.)  Further, Herodotus says, “This is the account I had from the priests about the arrival of Helen at Proteus’ court.  I think Homer was familiar with the story; for though he rejected it as less suitable for epic poetry than the one he actually used, he left indications that it was not unknown to him.” (Book 2: 116).  Herodotus, also, tells us why he accepts this account over what Homer says. 

This, then is the version the Egyptian priests gave me of the story of Helen, and I am inclined to accept it for the following reasons: had Helen really been in Troy, she would have been handed over to the Greeks with or without Paris’ consent; for I cannot believe that either Priam or any other kinsman of his was mad enough to be willing to risk his own and his children’s lives and the safety of the city, simply to let Paris continue to live with Helen.  If, moreover, that had been their feeling when the troubles began, surely later on, when the Trojans had suffered heavy losses in every battle they fought, and there was never an engagement (if we may believe the epic poems) in which Priam himself did not lose two of his sons, or three, over even more: surely, I repeat, in such circumstances as these, there can be little doubt that, even if Helen had been the wife of Priam the king, he would have given her back to the Greeks, if to do so offered a chance of relief from the suffering which the war had caused.  Again, Paris was not heir to the throne, and so could not have been acting as regent for his aged father; for it was Hector, his elder brother and a better man than he, who was to have succeeded on Priam’ s death, and it was not likely that Hector would put up with his brother’s lawless behavior, especially as it was the cause of much distress both to himself and to every other Trojan besides.  The fact is, they did not give Helen up because they had not got her; what they told the Greeks was the truth, and I do not hesitate to declare that the refusal of the Greeks to believe it came of divine volition in order that their utter destruction might plainly prove to mankind that great offences meet with great punishments at the hands of God.  This, then, is my own interpretation.  (Herodotus.  Histories.  Book 2: 120 [trans. De Sélincourt])      

This passage is a good example of how Herodotus uses testimony and the accounts he was provided by other people to call into question the veracity of Homer.  Whereas Herodotus relies on an examination of the customs and laws of other people, and, in turn, speculation about the motives on the basis of these customs to challenge Homer, at its heart, though, Herodotus does not completely reject Homer’s story.  Notice in the end of this passage, Herodotus suggests that if, indeed Homer is to be believed, it must have been the case that divine volition explains why the war occurred.  The utter destruction of Troy, and the Greek heroes, was a great punishment meted out by the hand of God for great offenses.  What one wonders about, with this last statement, is, what were the great offenses?  Homer tells us that it was the breaking of the guest-friend custom and the abduction of Helen that was at the root of the conflict.  Notice, Herodotus, elsewhere, addresses this.  Again, a similar theme we have seen throughout the Histories, these seemingly small events cause the massive disasters that follow.  What can be seen from the Herodotus passage quoted above is that Herodotus calls into question the veracity of other stories by appeal to differing versions of the same story, then speculates whether the original story can be the case.  Rather than rejecting the differing stories, he attempts to account for these differences on the basis of divine retribution or the workings of some or other god. 

What we will see in Thucydides is a noticeable lack of this type of explanation.  What we should pay attention to, especially in the earlier portions of the work, is what Thucydides offers as evidence for the claims that he makes.  Notice that he too uses rational explanations of the causes of these seemingly mythical times.  But the nature of the evidence is different that what Herodotus offers.  What we find with Thucydides is a presentation of what the empirical evidence shows us, then a rational explanation of the causes of later events worked out in terms of what could be reasonably expected on the basis of that evidence.  Woodruff calls this Thucydides eikos, or what could be reasonably expected in the circumstance.  We find a good statement of Thucydides’ method of inquiry at Book 1:20: 2 - 22.

Other Greeks have wrong opinions about many subjects that are current and not forgotten in the passage of time, for example, that the Lacedaemonian Kings have two votes each, instead of one, and that they have a military unit there called “Pitanate”, which never existed.  That shows how much the search for truth strains the patience of most people, who would rather believe the first things that come to hand.  But if the evidence cited leads a reader to think that things were mostly as I have described them, he would not go wrong, as he would if he believed what the poets have sung about them, which they have much embellished, or what the prose-writers have strung together, which aims more to delight the ear than to be true.  Their accounts cannot be tested, you see, and many are not credible, as they have achieved the status of myth over time.  But the reader should believe that I have investigated these matters adequately, considering their antiquity, using the best evidence available.  People always think the greatest war is the one they are fighting at the moment, and when that is over they are more impressed with wars of antiquity; but even so, this war will prove, to all who look at the facts, that it was greater than the others.  What particular people said in their speeches, either just before or during the war, was hard to recall exactly, whether they were speeches heard by myself or those that were reported to me at second hand.  I have made each speaker say what I thought the situation demanded, keeping as near as possible to the general sense of what was actually said.  And as for the real action of the war, I did not think it right to set down either what I heard from people I happened to meet or what I merely believed to be true.  Even for events at which I was present myself, I tracked down detailed information from other sources as far as I could.  Is was hard work to find out what happened, because those who were present at each event gave different reports, depending on which side they favored and how well they remembered.  This history may not be the most delightful to hear, since there is no mythology in it.  But those who want to look into the truth of what was done in the past - which, given the human condition, will recur in the future, either in the same fashion or nearly so - those readers will find this History valuable enough, as this was composed to be a lasting possession and not to be heard for a prize at the moment of a contest.

This is a statement of Thucydides condemnation of both Homer and Herodotus.  Thucydides rejects myth and rejects taking down the first story told to him.  Instead, he attempted to track down as many versions of an event from people who were actually there, and then sought the causes of these events.  Although the Greek Thucydides uses is Ionic, partly because of Herodotus use of Ionic for his composition, it is particularly some of the most difficult Greek to understand.  From the passage referred to above, it might seem that the style of the composition is plodding.  On the contrary, it is a tour de force of extremely complex sentences.  Thucydides piles subordinate clause upon subordinate clause upon subordinate clause.  It is no surprise that half of the commentary on Thucydides focuses on trying to determine precisely what he means in any given sentence.  His style is austere, strong, moving, and has almost an archaic flavor about it.  He favored forms of words that were almost 100 years out of date in comparison with the language found in Herodotus.  Our translator, Paul Woodruff, has done us a small disservice by ironing out these archaisms in the translation.  

On the other hand, what we do see in Thucydides is an innovation in the use of empirical data.  As with most Greek sciences of the time, investigators and philosophers were attempting to provide accounts of the working of natural phenomena.  Most philosophical schools at this time were providing rational accounts, that is, accounts based in reasoning out the natural causes of visible change.  Many of these schools, then, speculated as to the cause or mechanism of change in order to offer some explanation of it.  Without going into great detail about the various schools, and looking at the vast different types of explanations offered, what we can see as a common thread in this type of investigation was that so long as the account was coherent, and self-contained, many of these did not have to be extremely detailed.  On the other hand, looking at the accounts of historical conflict, we either could approach the subject matter on the model provided by Herodotus.  In this model, if some event could not be explained, say something happening from chance, then it was proper to invoke some supernatural explanation to account for this.  We have seen this a number of times with respect to Herodotus.  The explanations, then, turn out to be rather two-dimensional.  As long as we are able to recognize the act of hybris that accounts for the latter nemesis of the people or character in question, then we have the account that explains what is taking place through the unfolding of history.  Thucydides, as we have seen from the passage referred to above, rejects that type of explanation.  Instead, he looks at the actual events, examines the constraints and options available to the people in question, then looks at the consequences of these events in order to speculate as to the causes of the initial event.  In other words, Thucydides is using scientific, inductive method to construct his theory of history.  This is a huge leap forward with respect to inquiry.  In the realm of history, we will not see this initiative continue, and it is not taken up again as the model for doing historical investigation again until the 13^th century.  Where this mode of inquiry is taken up again, in philosophy, for example, is in the work of Aristotle.  The particular becomes as important as the theory being constructed.  One thing to notice then for Thucydides is that this means his notions of human nature, for example, are always open to revision as soon as contrary evidence is presented.  That means, Thucydides doesn’t necessarily reject his previous explanation of thing.  Instead, he must expand his explanation of things in order to include this new information.  Either he can account for these new seemingly contrary bits of evidence without radically changing his position or he must revise what he takes to be the case in light of this new evidence.  This makes him very modern with respect to his method.

As I noted earlier, a bulk of Thucydides’ History is devoted to speeches.  These speeches have been a bone of contention with scholars.  It is clear that Thucydides wrote all of these speeches.  Stylistically, they all come from his hand.  Thucydides, himself, tells his reader that he wrote these speeches, and either reported them as he heard them or paraphrased them.  One is left wondering how it was possible that he was able to collect all of these speeches, and the impact they must have had on his reader.  One must remember that the Greeks were accustomed to hearing long speeches, and that the oral word still had its impact on the ordinary Greek.  If you were to propose some course of action at the Assembly or at the Counsel, this was done by means of a speech.  If you were in the Courts at this time, there were no attorneys hireable for counsel.  You had to defend yourself in light of the accusations.  Hence, the need to be good at oral performance was an extremely valuable skill.  Given Thucydides position in society, it is plain that he would have developed this skill as a matter of survival.  More than this, he elevated his speeches, at least as we find them in the course of his work, to providing deep psychological insight into the motivations and thought processes of the characters he is reporting.  One extremely famous speech we will encounter is Pericles Funeral Oration.  This became the model for many too many later speeches, and was very well known in antiquity.

Rather than continuing to spell out the complexities and deep insights this author promises, I will waive the further comment, and allow you the chance to discover this for yourself.

*Wagrag Productions 2003