INFORMATION TO USERS ‘This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming, While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted, The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or “target” for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is “Missing Page(s)”. If it was possible to obtain the page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages to assure you of complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark it is an indication that the film inspector noticed either blurred copy because of movement during exposure, or duplicate copy. Unless we meant to delete copyrighted materials that should not have been filmed, you will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. If copyrighted materials were deleted you will find a target note listing the pages in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., is part of the material being photo- graphed the photographer has followed a definite method in “sectioning” the material. It is customary to begin filming at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. If necessary, sectioning is continued again—beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4, For any illustrations that cannot be reproduced satisfactorily by xerography, Photographic prints can be purchased at additional cost and tipped into your xerographic copy. Requests can be made to our Dissertations Customer Services Department. ‘5. Some pages in any document may have indistinct print. In all cases we have filmed the best available copy. A SOON, ZEB RD., ANN ARBOR, Mi 481088204030 PALMER, MICHAEL JOSEPH ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY, EMPIRE, AND THE PROBLEM OF TYRANNY: ‘A STUDY OF THUCYDIDES Boston College PHD. 1981 University Microfilms International soow 2c noas, ann arbor, 48105 Copyright 1980 by Palmer, Michael Joseph All Rights ReservedBOSTON COLLEGE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY, EMPIRE, AND THE PROBLEM OF TYRANNY: A STUDY OF THUCYDIDES by MICHAEL JOSEPH PALMER A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BOSTON COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE CHESTNUT HILL, MASSACHUSETTS DECEMBER 1980ee, BOSTON COLLEGE GRADUATE SCHOOL The thesis of MICHAEL JOSEPH PALMER entitled Thucydides begins his book with the words: Thucydides an Athenian wrote the war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, how they warred against each other, having begun at the very outset, in the belief that it would be a great one and most noteworthy, above all that had gone before, inferring this from the fact that both sides were at their best in prepared- ness in every way, and seeing the rest of thé Hellenes taking one side or the other, sone inmediately, others intending to do so. For this was certainly the createst motion that had ever happened among the Hellenes, extending also to some of the barbarians and, as one may say, even to most of mankind. 26cra Thucydides never calls his book a "history," never calls himself a "historian," and, indeed, the Greck word “historia” never appears in his writing.” chucydides is 2 writer. That much is clear. He is a writer and the subject of his writing is a war, a great war, a war so great that the category “war" cannot adequately describe it--it was a great, the greatest in fact, “motion” that had ever affected mankind. The greatest issue in politics is the question of war and peace. Perhaps the greatest theme of political philosophy is that of war and peace, neither of which can be adequately understood without an adequate under- standing of the other. Tt is not surprising, then, that the greatest student of Thucydides, certainly the most renowned and influential, ‘Thomas Hobbes, found most remarkable not the historical or dramatic aspects of Thucydides' writing, but the political. "hucyaides," Hobbes writes, "is one who, though he never digress to read a lecture, moral or political, upon his own text, nor enter into men's hearts further than the acts themselves evidently guide him: is yet accounted the most politic historiographer that ever writ.""8 wnat is ie that makes Thucydides' writing "most politic"? Hobbes continues: He filleth his narrations with that choice of matter, and ordereth them with that judgement, and with such perspicuity and efficacy expresseth himself, that, as Plutarch saith, he maketh his auditor a spectator . ... . So that look how much a man of understanding might have added to his experience, if he had then lived a beholder of their proceedings, and familiar with the men and business of the time: so mich almost may he profit now, by attentive reading of the same here written. He may from the narrations draw out lessons to himself, and of himself be able to trace the drifts and counsels of the actors in their seat.29 In another place, Hobbes writes: “Digressions for instruction's cause, and other such open conveyances of precepts, (which is the philosopher's12 part), he never useth," rather, "the narration itself doth secretly instruct the reader, and more effectually than can possibly be done by precept."°° thucyides' narrations instruct the reader; Thucydides is a teacher, Thucydides is a writer whose purpose is to teach his readers what he knows about man and politics and whose method of instruction is to present his reader with narrations about the great political upheaval of his day. Thucydides presents his political thought as a narrative and teaches through the narrative. The reticence of Thucydides to comment, on his own text and in general to make judgments in his own name is so widely acknowledged as to require no references to scholarly opinion (although, for a writer with his reputation, Thucydides makes a number of significant and very clear statements of his own judgment, e.g., 4.28.5, 7.30.3, 7.86.5, 8.73.3, and 8.97.5). ‘There is, however, as Hobbes suggests, one way in which Thucydides speaks to his readers directly on every page of his writing, i.e., by which events he chooses to present to the reader and in what order he chooses to present them. Together with explicit statements made in his own name, especially revealing of Thucydides’ own thought would be those passages where he inserts so-called "digressions" into his text. In this dissertation, I proceed by taking Hobbes' view of how Thucydides wrote his book as the starting point for determining how to read his book. O£ course, the question of how Thucydides wrote his book, what I call the question of Thucydidean “historiography” as opposed to the “composition” question, has been the focus of much excellent contemporary Scholarship. I am distinguishing the "composition" question from the "historiography" question in this way: although both deal with the13 question “How dié Thucydides write his book?", the former focuses on the question of when Thucydides wrote a certain passage as the key to understanding it while the latter emphasizes, as Virginia Hunter says, that "when Thucydides composed the passage is not so important as why. The "composition" question, inspired by a generation of German scholar- ship, plagued Thucydides scholars for over half a century.°? until quite recently, what Hunter said was true: "As surely as rivers find their way to the sea, so Thucydidean scholars inevitably end by subordinating their researches to the ‘composition question.'"°? Hunter had in mind in particular Jacqueline de Romilly's Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, in which Mime. de Romilly makes the sensible statement that "the problem of the way in which Thucydides wrote is of interest only in so far as it helps us to understand his work,"*4 put who still felt the necessity of struggling with the "composition" question. However, at about the same time that vine. de Romilly was still wrestling with the elaborate arguments about the many drafts and stages of the composition of the book, John Finley was rejecting then outright. Finley first presented his arguments in his "The Unity of Thucydides’ History," one of three articles published in Harvard studies in Classical Philology, written in preparation for his Thucydides, and later republished as Three Essays on Thucydides. In his Thucydides, Finley summarizes: “Suffice it to say that the main reason for believing that the History was composed not at widely scattered times but essentially at one time after 404 when the outcome of events had become clear, is to be found in its tight, organic development, not only "35 Referring of certain leading ideas but of many minor themes as well." to her own book some twenty years after its initial publication, de Romilly wrote:14 + + + Thad tried to show that, although written at different times, Thucydides' work showed a great unity of thought. 1 could not, therefore, be either shocked or sorry to see this much vexed problem of composition now cast aside--or even to see that various Scholars, impressed by that same unity of thought, inferred from it the conclusion that there had also been unity of composition. ‘That all the work had been written at the same time was the view brilliantly advocated by Finley . . . .36 In a second book on Thucydides, Histoire et Raison chez Thucydide, de Romilly turned from the question of composition to the question of “historiography.” W.P. Wallace has best summarized her conclusions: ‘The intent, the plan, the purpose of every series of events and this is equally true whether the events in question compose a skirmish, a battle, or the war itself--the underlying idea is suggested beforehand in a speech, in a remark about what naturally would or usually does happen under such circumstances, in some aside about how men always act. The reader has thus been prepared beforehand, the probable explanation has been suggested to him. . . . And in case he has forgotten, in case his attention has lagged, the key words of the previous explana- tion, the very phrases which were used before, are quietly repeated in the exposition of events so carefully selected and so subtly coloured... . The effect depends to a considerable extent upon what one may almost call subliminal persuasion, upon careful repetitions and echoes of words and phrases. It is probable that most of this does not reach the level of any reader's conscious~ ness, but analysis of the text reveals the method. . . .37 Virginia Hunter, who acknowledges her own debt to Finley and de Romilly, is fond of quoting these words of Wallace: "Thucydides himself makes hardly any comments, and yet the reader feels deeply convinced at every stage that he understands exactly what is happening, that, Like the spectators of a great drana, he sees events rushing to their only possible conclusion; he feels that he knows, where those who took part in the events could only guess."°" wallace well describes the feeling that virtually every reader of Thucydides experiences: "The story is so absorbing that the reader is carried along with no thought for what is happening, fascinated by the way in which the fate of Athens seens,15. incredibly, to have been avoidable at every stage and necessary fron the beginning."°? Lowell Edmunds, in a brilliant recent study of Thucydides" historiography, has put his finger on precisely what it is in Thucydides’ writing that creates this effect: “Indeed, it is just this difference between the actor in history, facing the unknown future, and the historian, looking back on the better known past, on which the History is constructed. Thucydides remains true to both perspectives by narrating events from the actor's point of view, which is often artic~ ulated in speeches, while expressing his own point of view in the design 40 of the narrative and in the relation of narrative and speeches."*° r do not mean to detract from the achievement of this generation of scholar- ship on Thucydidean historiography when I say that, although they would appear to be unaware of it, the work of these scholars was substantially anticipated by Hobbes' view of how Thucy@ides wrote his book, that Hobbes! view, combined with “attentive reading,"“! has always been sufficient to reveal Thucydides' method, ‘and that it is unfortunate that it required a scholarly reaction against a half-century of German-inspired struggling with the "composition" question to get us back to where we should have been from the beginning. It is the intention of my own study not only to share Hobbes’ view of how Thucydides wrote his book as the key to understanding how to read it, but to share also Hobbes overriding concern in reading Thucydides, viz., the desire to achieve greater clarity about the fundamental questions of political philosophy. XI. Outline of the Dissertation. This dissertation examines Thucydides’ presentation of the relation of the Athenian democracy to the Athenian empire and the problem16 of tyranny which arises from that relationship. What is the Athenians’ understanding of their regime as Thucydides presents it and what is ‘Thucydides’ own understanding? What is the Athenians' understanding of the relation of their regime at home to their empire, or as Pericles and others call it, their tyranny abroad? What is Thucydides’ own understanding? In the Eirst book of his work, Thucydides tells us that the greatest Athenian misunderstanding is their misunderstanding of their own tyranny (1.20). (This means, in effect, that the Athenians misunder— stand the foundation of the Athenian democracy, the regime that was established upon the expulsion of their tyrants.) Thucydides himself possess the true understanding. However, it is not primarily in the first, but rather in the sixth book, in the context of narrating the fateful events that surround the recall of Alcibiades from the Silician expedition to Athens to be put to death on the charge of impiety and plotting to overthrow the democracy, and Alcibiades’ consequent defection to Sparta, that Thucydides chooses to correct adequately the common Athenian understanding. There is, it seems, a connection in Thucydides’ mind between the Athenians’ misunderstanding of their own tyranny, the foundation of the democracy and the relation of the democracy to the empire, and the recall of Alcibiades with its disastrous consequences for both the democracy and the empire. The Athenians are the tyrant city of Greece and the city whose citizens most fear tyranny (cf. 1.122.3, 124.3, 2.63.2, 3.37.2, and 6.53.3). The Athenians seem to be aware, perhaps only dimly for most of them, that the principles that justify their regime contradict the principles that inform their actions vis- a-vis all the other Greek cities and the barbarians, and that adherenceu7 to the latter in their foreign policy somehow undermines the principles of, and somehow poses a threat to, their domestic life. What exactly are the principles that inform Athenian foreign policy, and what kind of threat, if any, do they pose to the Athenian regime? To investigate these thenes, it will be necessary to examine carefully many of the outstanding passages of Thucydides’ work. I will begin, in my first chapter, “Pericles and Athenian Democracy," with an interpretation of the speeches and deeds of Pericles as presented by Thucydides. Tt emerges clearly from the middle of nis first speech (1.140-44), in which he argues that the impending war against the Peloponnesians is necessary and just, that Pericles’ war strategy relies decisively on the importance of the empire. Shortly after this, Thucydides gives us a report of a second speech of Pericles (2.13) and a glimpse of Athens on the verge of war (2.14-17). We see that many of the Athenians live in an old-fashioned manner in Attica and that Pericles' war strategy, which disrupts these old-fashioned ways in the name of pre~ servation of the empire, is sounding the death knell for any remnants of the old Athenian way of lige. ‘These chapters serve as an excellent introduction to Pericles' great funeral oration (2.35-46) which begins with an attack on the ancestral, praises the generation of Athenians which is fighting to preserve the empire, and implies praise of a new genezation of Athenians who will carry on in the newer Athenian way, that of pursuing ever greater glory from an ever greater empire. The funeral oration elaborates a general view of the fundamental political problen, the tension between the private and the public, and Pericles' attempt to solve that problem by reconciling the highest good of the individual and the good of the city. This reconciliation is to be effected by meansqe of love of glory. The last speech of Pericles (2.60-64) confirms that the glory of Athens rests on the glory of the empire which in turn rests on the fact that it consists in ruling over fellow Grecks, the best of men. In this chapter, I will also glance at Thucydides’ account of the plague at Athens (2.47-54) as a gloss on the funeral oration and at Thucydides' eulogy of Pericles (2.65), indicating some of the questions it raises. The most important questions to arise from this chapter will be: Can the Periclean solution endure? What is the relation between the Periclean understanding of the Athenian regine and the empire, and the tragedy of Athens, the decline of Athenian politics? If glory is the great motivation to empire and the greatest tyrant city wins the greatest Glory, what about tyranny for the greatest individual? My second chapter, "Athenian Denocracy and the Athenian Empire,” will be an examination of the Athenians’ own understanding and defense of their empire. will begin with the first conference at Sparta where, in the speech of the Corinthians (1.6761), an indictment is made of the Athenian empire and an explicit comparison is made between the Athenian character and the Spartan character. As the Corinthians speak about “Athenians” in general, the Athenians who speak at the congress are appropriately anonymous citizens who happen to be at Sparta on other business. A comparison of the account of the genesis of the empixe given in the speech and Thucy@ides' own account (1-89-18), especially of the founding of the empire by Themistocles, will be necessary. In the Melian dialogue (5.84-113), the Athenians’ understanding of their empire is challenged in speech. The Athenians at Melos provide the clearest elaboration of the principles that inform the imperial conduct of Athens. The examination of this dialogue, along with the19 Corinthian and Athenian speeches at Sparta, will constitute the lion's share of the chapter. I will also look at the Mytilenean debate (3.36-48). Part of this debate between Cleon and Diodotus concerning the appropriate punish- iment of the Mytileneans is very relevant to our concerns, for each presents a view of how the Athenians ought to rule their empire. The exchange between Hermocrates and Euphemus in the debate at Camarina (6.75.3-88.2) also casts light on the themes of this study. The third and final chapter, "Alcibiades and the Problem of Tyranny," brings the dissertation to its climax and its denouement. This will be primarily an examination of Thucydides’ presentation of the career of Alcibiades and his problematic relations with the Athenian democracy. The career of Alcibiades, the problem of tyranny, brings into question most forcefully Pericles proposed solution to the political problem. I will examine Thucydides' introduction of Alcibiades--his role in the Athenian-Argive alliance--and his speeches on the Sicilian expedi- tion (6.16-18) (with waich we can begin our comparison of Nicias, the Athenian remarkable for his “law-bred" virtue, and Alcibiades, the Athenian whose whole manner of living appears, to his fellow citizens, “lawless") and at Sparta (6.89-92). A careful study of Thucydides* account of the defiling of the Hermae (6.27-32) and the so-called "digression" on the Athenian tyrants, which interrupts Thucydides’ account of the recall of Alcibiades from Sicily to Athens to be put to death, is essential for understanding Thucydides’ judgment of Alcibiades and the problem of tyranny. It will also be necessary to examine the account of the Athenians’ destruction in Sicily, especially the extent to which that destruction can be understood to have resulted from the20 disintegration of the congruence of Nicias' interest and the interest of the city of Athens. This account, taken together with Thucydides’ remarkable eulogy of Nicias at the end of the account, raises important questions for our study. ‘Throughout the dissertation, in order to keep the discussion within reasonable limits, I will try to emulate Thucy@ides by entering into his heart no further than the text itself evidently guides me, i.e., my thoughts will follow where compulsion leads, not where honor or interest may suggest.CHAPTER ONE PERICLES AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY In this chapter I will discuss the speeches and deeds of Pericles as presented by Thucydides, which is to say that I will present an inter~ pretation of the speeches which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles. In Thucydides, Pericles appears primarily as a speaker, not an actor. With the outbreak of the twenty-seven year var of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians we are in the final years of the period of over three decades during which Pericles was pre-eminent in Athenian politics. In the first two years of this war, before his death, his most important deeds are speeches. While we tend to distinguish speaking and doing, as Thucydides does (1.22), we mist not forget that a speech is a deed. Thucydides records what are perhaps the most important deeds of Pericles before the war in his digression (exbol@n, 1.97.2) that shows how the Athenian hegenony which emerged at the end of the Persian war was transformed into the Athenian empire (the so-called "Pentecontaetia") : his supression of the revolt of Euboea (1-114, of immense importance to the Athenian empize; cf. 8.96.1-2), and his part in the conquest of Samos six years later (1.115-17), which preceeded by a few years the incidents that occasioned the war (118.1). ‘The importance of Pericles' presence in Athens at the beginning of the war is established by Thucyaides in the following manner. Once the spartans have deciced to war against the Athenians (1-87-88) and have formally gained the concurrence of their allies (125), they wish a22 to have the greatest pretext possible (megist® prophasis, 126.1) so they demand that the Athenians drive out a curse they had incurred some two centuries earlier by expelling from their city any descendants of the accursed persons who were still present; Thucydides says in his own nane that the Spartans did this on the pretense of avenging the honor of the gods but in fact because Pericles was a descendant of the accursed and they believed it would be easier to extract concessions from the Athenians if he were banished, and that, although they did not expect this to happen, they hoped at least to discredit him and undermine sone~ what his influence in Athens as he was the most powerful man and leader in the city, was most opposed to them, and kept urging the Athenians to war (127). This prepares us for Pericles’ first speech. I. Pericles! first speech. The Athenians, after demands from and counter-denands to the Spartans, are met with the final Spartan demand that the price of peace is their giving back to the Greek cities their autonomy. They decide to hold an assembly to settle the whole question once and for all (1.139. 3). The only speech Thucydides gives us is that of Pericles (140-44). ‘Thucydides reiterates that Pericles was the foremost man of the Athenians fat that time and most powerful at both speaking and doing (138.4). His speech confirms the Spartans’ belief that his presence in Athens is the biggest stumbling-block to their interests. Pericles begins his speech by distinguishing himself from his fellow Athenians, indeed, his fellow hunan beings, as regards the con- sistency of his own judgment versus the changeableness of theirs. He23 holds to the same judgment (gnOn8)? as always, not to yield to the Peloponnesians, but he is concerned about the judgment of his fellows, and his concern points to a fundamental problem of denocratic politics. A policy recommendation becones the effective policy of the city only if the assembly adopts the recommendation of the speaker, but if the policy does not work out well, who is held responsible for it? Not the assembly, but the speaker. Pericles knows that human beings are not moved by the same passions when embarking on war as when once they are engaged in it, and he wants the Athenians to acknowledge that should his policy mis~ carry, they mst share responsibility for having adopted it, or else abjure all claim to credit should it prosper. Pericles says that when events turn out contrary to the calculations and plans of human beings, they commonly blame fortune (tyché). But Pericles’ real concern would appear to be not that, should his policy, adopted by the Athenians, miscarry, they will lay it to chance, but that they will blame him. of course, in the event, when things do occur beyond calculation and the Athenians do change their minds and are no longer satisfied with Periclean policy, they do blame him, not fortune, and he, as he says at the beginning of his last speech (2.60.1), is not surprised. this would appear, at first glance, clearly to indicate a failing of the Athenian demos, but upon reflection it is perhaps not so clear. This analysis of a major difficulty of democratic politics raises a question that will loom large for us throughout our discussion of Pericles and Athenian democracy and beyond. To what extent ought Pericles be held responsible for what happens in Athens consequent to the adoption of his.palicies? More generally, what is the relation between the Periclean understanding of the Athenian regime and the empire, and the decline of Athenian politics,24 the tragedy of Athens? (The above paragraph is based on 1.140.1.) (to prepare the ground for further discussion, in this chapter we will have to note many things and pose some questions the full significance of which may come to light only later in the study.) Having prefaced his speech with this discussion of the problem atic nature of policy-making in a democratic regime, Pericles turns to the specific point of policy at issue. The question is whether or not ‘the Athenians should submit to the Spartans’ demands or accept the consequence of refusing to submit--war. Pericles presents the Spartans as the aggressors against the Athenians. Whereas their treaty clearly stipulates that disputes will be settled by arbitration, the Spartans come to the Athenians aot with proposals of arbitration, but with ultimatuns, indeed, they have rejected Athenian proposals of arbitration, a sure sign that they are plotting against the Athenians and prefer war to a negotiated settle~ ment of their grievances (140.3).? And the Athenians must not think that they are going to war over sone trifle if they refuse to accede to Spartan demands, e.g-, to rescind the Megarian decrees. There is a weighty principle at stake, no matter how light the demand may be. Once the Athenians have acceded to any Spartan demand, as though from fear of spartan superiority, other, greater demands will follow, while refusal to accede will clearly demonstrate that the Spartans must treat the Athenians as their equals (140.4-5). The principle at stake is no less than that of freedom or slavery (141.1), the same high principle for which the Athenians fought the Persian war and thereby acquired their eat reputation.25 The bulk of the speech is concerned with the subject to which Pericles now turns, the question of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian league, and, as Pericles Genonstrates, answering the Corinthians’ second speech at Sparta (1.120- 24) point by point, any advantages in the impending struggle will all be enjoyed by the Athenians.4 The Peloponnesians are farmers possessing neither private nor public wealth, with experience of neither long nor naval wars (141.3). Their poverty and the Athenians’ comand of the sea will prevent them from manning ships and gaining any sea experience, which is hard to acquire at the best of times (141.4, 142.6-9). Accuma~ lated wealth (periousia), which the Athenians have and the Peloponnesians lack, is what sustains wars, especially long ones such as this may prove (241.5). The Peloponnesians are organized as a league with no single general assembly to direct their policy, a big disadvantage in conducting a war against a power not so organized (141.6-7), especially as regards collecting money (142.1). Sheulé the Peloponnesians succeed in planting a fort in Attica, the Athenians will sail to the Peloponnese and plant forts, oz make reprisals with their navy, the true source of their strength (142.2-4, 143.4). Experience on sea is superior to that on land for those who must deal with both elements (142.5); and the Pelo- ponnesians will not be able to buy experience by bribing the Athenians mercenary sailors with whatever money they might appropriate from Olympia or Delphi (143.1-2). The average Athenian may not be as confident of the superiority of sea power over land power as Thenistocles was, or Pericles is, so Pericles drives the point home by bidding then graphically to imagine26 their city an island: the only point at which the Athenians are vulnerable to attack from the Peloponnesians is their territory in Attica but Pericles is so convinced of the unimportance of this territory that if he thought he could persuade them to it, he would have the Athenians lay it waste ‘themselves to show the Peloponnesians of how Little import it is to them. On no account must the Athenians fight the Peloponnesians to defend their territory in Attica. The true source of their strength lies in the Athenian navy, which is to say, in the allies (cf. 142.4: héper ischyomen, and 143.5: hothen ischyomen). The key to Athenian success in the impending war is the empire. Pericles is confident that the Athenians will prevail so long as they do not attempt to expand their empire during the war and do not voluntarily bring upon themselves unnecessary dangers; he is more afraid of the Athenians’ mistakes than of the Peloponneasians' plans (144.1). He formulates for the Athenians an answer to the Peloponnesians' demands that is both just and fitting (144.2), bids them realize that it is necessary for them to see that the war is necessary, and reminds then that from facing the greatest dangers, the greatest honors accrue, both to cities and to private men (144.3). Pericles concludes his speech with an explicit reference to the Persian war, comparing withstanding the Peloponnesians now to withstanding the barbarians then (as had been implicit earlier in the speech; cf. 141.1) and exhorting the Athenians not to fall short of the example of their ancestors by failing to hand down what they have intact to their descendants (144.4). As Pericles presents it, the coming war is both necessary and just. ‘The alternative is to submit to the Spartan demands, i-e., to27 abandon the empire, which is tantanount to slavery, or to fight in defense of what they possess. ‘Thut the empire is the key to Athenian invulnerability to the Spartan aggressors, who intend to deprive the Athenians of that empire, is revealed in the middle of the speech. At the beginning and end of the speech, Pericles does not so much as allude to the empire. When speaking of principles to show that the war is just, he ignores the empire; when speaking of the necessity of resisting the Spartans, and the strategy of resistance, the importance of the empire is emphasized. This enables Pericles to present the Athenian cause in the war as morally unambiguous at the beginning and end of the speech where it will be most effective, rhetorically. He must judge this to be a concern of his audience. Pericles' strategic advice is essentially that the Athenians should sit tight, holed up in Athens, living off their empire, and taking no risks by attempting to expand their empire during the war. It must be renarked that Pericles’ advice is not, "Do not expand your empire," but "Do not expand your empire during the war." Pericles" advice is limited only by tactical considerations.° ‘The soundness of Pericles! strategic advice may be questioned. If the city is secure and the empire is the key to Athens’ strength, why permit the Spartans to dictate how long the Athenians will have to stay holed up in their city? why not, rather, use the empire to gain a decisive advantage over the Peloponnesians? Perhaps a case could be made for launching the Sicilian expedition under the leadership of Pericles which, no doubt, would have assured its success. But these purely strategic questions are not imnediately germane to our concerns. The28 more important question for us is whether what Pericles’ strategy of sitting tight, holed up in Athens, demands of the Athenians is something of which they are incapable, something that goes against the very temper of a city at war, but especially against the Athenian tenper.° at the beginning of his speech, with regara to his gndn8, Pericles had presented himself as an island of rest amidst Athenian motion, and how he asks of the Athenians that they xemain at rest when the Spartans are in motion. But motion is the key to the Athenian character, and rest to the Spartan (see the fixst Corinthian speech at Sparta, especially 1.70). will the Athenians be able to remain at rest in Athens for the duration of what Pericles himself admits may be (and his policy insures will be) a long war? Almost immediately, the city of Athens becomes a hotbed of dis~ content which Pericles alone is able, and only just, to keep under control. what would become of Athens without Pericles at the heln? Would even Pericles have been able to keep the 1id on the pressure-cooker that Athens would scon become? We are entitled to wonder whether the Periclean strategy for this long war has adequately foreseen and taken account of these difficulties. Similar questions will recur in our discussion of Pericles and Athenian democracy, and beyond. ‘he Athenians accept the advice of Pericles and no more embassies are sent out by Sparta (1.145). II. Pericles' second speech. We need say little about Pericles' second speech (2.13), which is reported in indirect discourse. As Thucydides says (13.2), it reiterates what Pericles had said in his first speech about how the29 Athenians should wage the war. The speech is like an accountant's report of Athens' resources for waging war, expressed in words instead of tables and ledgers. Westlake describes it as having "the air of a Government White Paper."” The speech is remarkable in this respect: it contains the only reference to a god in any speech of Pericles.® in addition to their other financial resources, including the gold and silver represented by the sacred vessels and the other treasures to be found in the temples, the statue of Athena in the Parthenon is overlaid with a large number of removable gold plates. In Pericles’ view, an impious transformation of the traditional, pious view, the goddess of Athens will certainly assist Athens in the war: her statue is laden with gold. In his first speech, Pericles had presented the Spartans assaulting the city of Athens in a light similar to that in which Thucydides had cast the Greeks assaulting the city of Troy-~they are disunitea farmers who lack money (ef. 1.141.3-7, 142.1, and 1.11.1)-- ‘the Athenians, like the Trojans, should sit tight and wait out the siege. The statue of the goddess of Troy had assured the safety of roy; the value of the gold on the statue of Athena will assure the safety of Athens. Needless to say, allusions to Athens as the new Troy, put into Pericles’ mouth by Thucydides, do not bode well for the Athenians. III. Athens on the verge of war- Immediately after the reported speech of Pericles, Thucydides presents us with a picture of Athens on the verge of war (2.14-17). ‘The Athenians living in Attica must bring their households into the city.30 ‘Thucydides says that the abandoning of the countryside (which is necessi~ tated by Pericles' war strategy) was a very difficult thing for the Athenians since most of them had always been accustomed to living there (14.2). The Athenians had lived this way from the earliest times more than other Greeks (15.1). It was Theseus, powerful and intelligent, who had compelled the disparate inhabitants of Attica, while continuing to occupy their land as before, to acknowledge the city of Athens as their sole capital, which is how the city became great (15.2). Thucydides says that before the union of Attica under Theseus, the acropolis was the city; ‘the main proof he offers rests on his observations regarding the locations of the temples an@ other sacred monuments in the city (15.3-5). Thucydides repeats that even after political union, most of the Athenians continued to live in the countryside where they had been born and that they now bore having to change their way of life, having to leave their homes and temples, relics of their ancient mode of living, with great difficulty (as). ‘There are, it appears, two sides to Athens. ‘There is the new, daring, innovative side, described by the Corinthians at Sparta and revealed by Thucydides in the speech of the Athenians at Sparta (1.73-78) and in the Pentecontaetia (see next chapter), whose principle is motion, and there is the old-fashioned, rural, conservative Athens whose principle, we might say, is rest. These two major elements make Athens at one and ‘the same time the oldest and the newest of cities. We must consider Pericles' war strategy in light of this. In the name of his strategic policy, which is designed to enable Athens to hold on to her empire (which is what makes Attica dispensible in Pericles’ view) and even to expand it after the war, the soil in which the old, conservative element of Athens31 is rooted, Attica, will be sacrificed. (Perhaps the most terrible ‘consequence of this policy is that the pious, old Athenian element is compelled to inhabit cursed ground: 2.17.) Pericles appears to be sac~ righ ng the old Athens to the new Athens. whether he can do so, and whether he should, may have significant consequences for the Athenians' Prosecution of the war.? what is truly remarkable about Pericles' war strategy is this: while it appears to sacrifice the old Athens to the new, for the end of preserving the achievenents of the new, it rests neither upon the old nor the new Athens. Tt is an inglorious, prosaic strategy that requires the old element of Athens to abandon its hearths, its temples, and its sacred monuments to move into the city, and the new element to suppress its daring, its inclination for motion, to remain at rest. These observations serve as a fitting introduction to Pericles* great funeral oration. IV. The funeral oration. Thucydides tells us that in holding the public funeral ceremony for those who had fallen in the first year of the war, the Athenians were following a custom of their ancestors (2.34.1), i.e., it is a custom belonging to "old" athens, and he describes the customary ceremony.*° The fallen are always buried in a particular suburb of the city, although this rule was broken for those who fell at Marathon, who were buried on the battleground where they fell on account of their outstanding virtue (34.5). From this we might infer a depreciation of the virtue of those now being buried; certain it is that no military engagement worthy of note has been the occasion of their deaths. The man of outstanding32 intelligence and reputation who was chosen to deliver the funeral oration on this occasion was Pericles (34.6-8). The first thing Pericles does in his speech is consciously break the tradition of those who have delivered the oration in the past of commending the law-giver who added the oration to the funeral ceremony: Pericles blames him (35.1). Archidamus, who was “reputed intelligent” at Sparta (1.79.2), praised the wisdom of the ancestors and the ancestral laws; Pericles, “reputed intelligent" at Athens, calls into question the wisdom of the ancestors and the ancestral laws. This is characteris- tic of the model Spartan and the model Athenian. (Pericles attitude toward this old Athenian tradition of the funeral oration may be but a particular example of his attitude toward “old” Athens altogether.) Pericles regards himself as wiser than the laws and the ancestors who made the laws. Nevertheless, he will render obedience to the law and endeavor to the best of his ability to satisfy the wishes and opinions of every- one in his audience. But why does Pericles question the wisdom of the law requiring the funeral oration? Precisely because of the extreme difficulty of achieving what he must endeavor to achieve--to satisfy the wishes and opinions of everyone in his audience--because of whom his audience consists. Pericles’ audience divides into two basic groups: the relatives and friends of the fallen who are well disposed to hear ‘them praised and who will likely feel that Pericles does not praise them enough, and all the others who, hearing of deeds which may be beyond their own natures, will likely feel that Pericles praises them too much, which will incite in them envy and disblief (35.3). Tt seems that Pericles must offend one or the other group in his audience. If he33 praises the dead too little, their kindred and friends will become angry with him; if he praises them too much, the others, the majority of his audience will become angry with him. How can Pericles win in what clearly appears to be a no-win situation? Pericles" solution to the dilemma is, since he cannot win by praising the dead, to praise the Living. ‘The funeral oration becomes a praise of Athens and of Athenians in general, his audience being living examples, those whose funeral ceremony occasions the speech, dead ones. Pericles’ solution to the problem of risking the anger of his audience by flattering, too little or too much, the fallen, is to flatter, not the fallen, but his audience (and, we might add, a little too much). The general political problem that Pericles' dilemma points to is the problem posed by envy and the anger it arouses in the city."! one of the tasks of this speech is to elaborate a general view of this fundamental political problem as Pericles understands it, and to propose a solution. We noted earlier that Pericles’ most important deeds in Thucydides were speeches. The funeral oration is the only important speech in the work that does not exhort its audience to any particular political action: rather, it exhorts its audience to raise itself to a particular political understanding. Consequently, the importance of the funeral oration is not to be found in a particular political action that results from it, but in the understanding of political action that emerges from it. This is not, of course, to ignore the fact that a particular political understanding will finally determine what particular political actions may be guided by it. The second paragraph of Pericles' speech begins as follows: "I will begin first with ancestors, for it is just and at the same time34 fitting on an occasion such as this that they be given the place of honor in remenbrance" (36.1). "I will begin," says Pericles, "with the ancestors," but with what aid Pericles in fact begin his speech? With blame of the ancestors! That this reference to the ancestors is sonewhat ironic can be gathered also fron what follows. ‘The generation before the fathers deserves praise for the virtue with which they handed dom a free city, but the generation of the fathers deserves still more praise for adding to what they received, i.e., for acquiring the empire; the generation of the sons, the present generation, has enlarged the empixe and provided the city with such resources that it is self-sufficient for both war and peace (36.23). What does this sequence imply about the praise deserved by the present generation, that of Pericles, himself? (Nore important, what Goes it imply mist be the task of the next generation if it does not want to fall short of the generation of its fathers as regards praise- worthiness?) Pericles says it is just and fitting to praise the ancestors Elrst and goes on to praise the generations in ascending order: the ancestors were less praiseworthy than the fathers who were in turn less praiseworthy than the present, Periclean generation of Athenians.!? Pericles will not recount the deeds of war that brought the city to such greatness, rather he will relate by means of what institutions and way of life this greatness was achieved, then he will descend to a praise of the fallen (36.4). Pericles speaks of the Athenian politeia. He says that while it is called a denocracy because it is administered with regard to the multi tude, not the few, and in private disputes before the law all are treated equally, men are honored in the city in direct proportion to the virtue35 they display, and by that standard alone (37.1). ‘The Athenian regime is presented as one in which complete equality of opportunity operates: every man can rise in the city as far as his natural virtue will take him; Athens is praiseworthy in Pericles view because it recognizes the natural inequality of men and accordingly grants honors unequally. ‘The best men rule at Athens, and because they are best. While this praise of Athenian democracy as wise democracy is no doubt flattering to the Athenian demos, it must not escape our notice how much of an element of self-praise there is in Pericles’ words,** and are we not entitled to wonder where the fundamental problem of envy fits into this picture? Must Pericles flatter the Athenians for being above envy precisely because they are envious? Is Pericles able to refer to his own position of pre-eminence in the city only in the context of flattering the Athenians for having the good sense to grant him that position? ‘The Athenians are liberal not only in public, but in private life, also, they are free of suspicion. ‘They are permissive with their fellows but at the same time they are not lawless (ou paranomoumen), this from a healthy fear of authority (37.2-3). Pericles speaks of the multitude of relaxations from toil at Athens: games and sacrifices and private homes (38.1). It is significant that these things are presented as relaxations from labors--these things are not to be taken seriously next to deeds in the service of the city-- part of a general depreciation of the private versus the public realm which looms large in the speech. Athens is so great, too, that all the feuits of the earth are brought in to her so that Athenians may enjoy the good things of every land (38.2). (and, as we shall see, some of the bad.)36 In training for war, and in education generally, the athenians are superior to their opponents (39). For the Athenians are lovers of the kalon, but without ostentation, and they philosophize, but without softness; wealth they use merely as a means to action (40.1). Athenians are interested in both private and public affairs and are informed politically; they alone, rather than judging public men busibodies, judge private men do-nothings (40.2). The Athenians decide matters for themselves and, unlike most men, consider deliberation a requisite, not a hindrance, to action; whereas for others, ignorance breeds daring, calculation Aiffidence, the Athenians’ extraordinary daring is most impressive pre- cisely because they alone face dangers not in ignorance but with a full appreciation of the risks (0.3). ‘The Athenians are pre-eminent as regards virtue, for they gain friends by conferring, not receiving, benefits, and are therefore fimer friends--the benefactor is a nore reliable friend that he who is benefited, for the latter is listless in bestowing favors in return, knowing it will be appreciated not as a gift but as repayment of a debt (40.4), and what honor is there in repaying Gebts compared to bestowing benefits? According to Pericles, then, benefactors are more resented (envy again) then loved (which may be Pericles' way of hinting at an explanation for why the Athenians are so resented by their allies). Athens is the school of Greece and every Athenian individual is virtually self-sufficient (41.1). The proof that this is the case is the very power of the city, acquired by means of this manner of living (41.2). Athens alone, when tested, proves more powerful in fact than in report, so that being defeated by Athens brings no shame, since you have been37 beaten by the best, and ruled by her, at least you can’t complain about the unworthiness of your masters (41.3). (The self-sufficiency of every Athenian is obviously an exaggeration; however, as with many of the exaggerations in this speech, it performs the role of an ideal and, as such, calls for the narrowing of the gap between the ideal and the real.) So many are the proofs of Athens’ power that Athens will need no Homer to praise her. Poets present things delightfully but not truly, sonething of which Athens, having planted everlasting menorials of bad and good in every sea and land, has no need. According to Pericles, poets make things more beautiful than they really are, but since Athens is the most beautiful city that can be imagined, unlike all other cities, it needs no poet to beautify it. Athens! accomplishments, bad and good, will win her immortality; at least the menory of her will be everlasting. In light of the considerable exaggeration involved in Pericles' saying that the Athenians have compelled every sea and land to grant access to theix daring, we might say that Athens needs no Homer to beautify her because Pericles’ funeral oration, as put into his mouth by Thucyaides, does the job. Pericles' exaggeration of the universality of the Athenian empize, which is, of course, what he is talking about, follows his exag- geration of the self-sufficiency of every Athenian. What plausibility the speech has presupposes a universal empire, which means a war-Like city, a city always in motion because the achievenent of motion--power-- is the ground of the glory that serves as the proof of the virtue of the individual citizen. In this light, expansion of the non-universal empire becones virtually an end in itself. Another problematic aspect of this ideal: the advent of a powerful Athenian whose private goal is real self-sufficiency and whose public goal is the real universality of the38 Athenian empire, will constitute a threat to the politeia Pericles is praising. (The above paragraph is based on 41.4.) this concludes Pericles’ portrait of the city in the service of which those being buried came to their end; he saye it ie fitting that aii those resaining should be prepared to face the sane end (41.5). re is the greatness of Athens that justifies the sacrifices for her (42.1). oes this moan that a city less great than Athens cannot call for the ultinate sacrifice from ite citizens? Is this the ground of Pericles* beautification of athens, that Athens cannot justify eslling for the uitinate sacrifice fron ite citizens unless it Ss the ultinate city? Eerlier, Pericies praised the Athenians for being free of envy, which he had to do, it was suggested, precisely because they are not free of envy. Tsn't what Pericles has just done similar? what could be @ nore flattering thing to say to 2 Greek city than that it is so magnifi- cent 1 needs no Honer to magnify ite greatness? We must not forget, throughout, that the mere fact that a funeral oration is called for in the city already indicates that there is something inherently problenatic in a city's calling upon its citizens to sacrifice their lives for se. This 1s one of the great problens Pericles addresses in this speech, and to which he proposes a solution. ttaving completed his praise of Athens and her regine, Pericles turns his and his audience's attention, at long last, to the fallen, atthough he prefaces his renarks by saying that the greatest part of their praise has already been spoken in his praise of the eity (42.2). the first thing Pericles says in honor of the fallen is that for sone, this was the only thing they ever Gid that manifested any virtue, that they39 were, in life, good-for-nothings, but that the public good they did in the end makes up for the harm they did earlier (42.3), i.e., nothing became them in life so much as their leaving it. How pleased their grieving friends and relatives must be to hear these words! But then, as we noted earlier, a far larger proportion of Pericles’ audience is neither kindred nor friend of any of the (very few) fallen. And among them, surely, is many a good-for-nothing. Pericles’ words serve at once to assuage the vanity and thereby leave dormant the envy of most of his audience, while establishing that public deeds carry more weight than private, thereby holding forth to the good-for-nothings in his audience the incentive to save their reputations by henceforth devoting themselves to the public good. and if, per chance, his left-handed praise of the dead should nevertheless stir up some envy in the good-for-nothings, the road to travel for the envious who wish to have their vanity similarly flattered is quite clear--to die for Athens! Pericles praises the dead for the following reason. They pre- ferred avenging themselves upon the eneny, risking death but admittedly hoping to survive, to assuring themselves the safety to preserve or acquire their fortunes by behaving shamefully. This they considered the most glorious danger and when the brief moment of death did come, their lives ended, not at the acme of their fear, but of their glory, as they hopefully anticipated victory (42.4). (Pericles uses the word for death, explicitly, only once in the oration, and it is coupled with “unfelt"; at 43.6, he says “anaisthStos thanatos," literally, “anesthetic death.") According to Pericles, the fallen preferred honor, or at least avoiding shame, to wealth, real or prospective. what was required for40 their ow honor and what was required for the honor of Athens was iden- tical--that they stand firm, risking their lives, in the service of the city. Pericles’ next sentence admits that dying in battle is unfortunate-- ‘those who venain in Athens, while they must be prepared to face the same danger for the city, may pray for a safer outcome--but is this consistent with Pericles’ presentation? Isn't he really trying to say that dying in battle for the city is not a loss but a gain because one thereby wins the greatest glory and glory is a greater good than wealth and safety? This contradiction points again to the inherent difficulties Pericles confronts in this oration and his attempt to solve them by denying that the tension between the private and the public is indissoluble. The key to his attempt to dissolve the tension is Pericles’ exhortation to his fellow Athenians that they gaze upon the power of Athens and become her lovers (erastas, 43.1), i.e., the most private thing--eros-is to be given full due but its object is to be the most public thing--the city. But can Pericles really dissolve the tension between the private and the public in this manner? Can the attachment of the citizens to the city be erotic? Certainly, Pericles cannot proceed along a low road in this speech, e.g., one can hardly be asked to sacrifice one's life for the city understood as a mere means to collective self-preservation. The high road Pericles takes is the view that glory is the greatest good for a human being and that the city is the citizens’ means, not to collective self-preservation, but to immortal and universal glory (43.23). (Pericles is faced with the difficulty of not wanting to admit the sacrificial character of dying for the city, yet having to, somehow, since this is related to its being deemed worthy of glory.) Pericles" solution to thea1 classic dilemma of having to choose between the private and the public good is to obviate the problem by identifying them. If glory is the greatest good of the individual, the individual, by sacrificing all, including his life, for the city has made a net gain, not a net sacrifice, Af the greatest glory is thereby achieved. the pillars on which the Periclean solution stands or falls are (1) glory is the greatest good for the individual, and (2) the means to the greatest glory for the individual is the greatest devotion to the common good. But is the connection between glory and public-spiritedness solid? Pericles maintains that one can count on the glory from dying in battle more than on pros perity and happiness in this life, but does one really win universal, immortal glory from dying in battle? Pericles tries to maintain that every Athenjan will gain as much glory as is humanly possible, will be remembered everywhere and always. Now, this is something not even Poricles will achieve, but the crowning irony is this: these fallen, we are told, by having died for Athens, will gain eternal life through eternal glory, yet Thucydides, in the speech he puts into the mouth of Pericles in his "possession for all time," does not even mention their names. These heroes renain anonymous. It may be true that most Athenians are interested in winning glory, but as individuals, not as anonymous menbers of the city, i.e., they want to win the kind of glory Pericles wins. Will the average Athenian really acquire as mich glory from devoting hinself to the city as Pericles will win from devoting hinself to the city? Of course not. (tlot wanting to draw attention to this problem, Pericles never distinguishes himself from his fellow Athenians in this speech as he does so emphatically in his other two quoted speeches.)42 Pericles’ response might be that the average Athenian will, however, gain more glory through public-spiritedness than he ever could other- wise. That is the point of every Athenian's loving Athens, contemplating her power. Perhaps power in itself is not loveable, but Athens’ pover is meant to be loveable, not in itself, but as the proof of the great virtue of the average Athenian, on which Athens’ great achievements depend, and for which Athens deserves its great reputation. Defending the achievements of Athens is the only way the average Athenian can preserve the power of Athens which is, in turn, the great testimony to the virtue of the average Athenian. ‘This solution may work for the average Athenian. But will it be sufficient to satisfy all men of the stature of a Pericles, or a Themistocles, when the critical moment comes? Pericles presents most of mankind as very unfortunate because they do not live in the supremely glorious city--Athens--so do not bask in the glory of simply being an Athenian, But even, or especially, in Athens, won't the logic of glory lead some men to want more than others? To have a glory equal to all others' is to have no glory. For the many, Pericles tries to solve the problem by presenting devotion to the common good of Athens as the means to increasing their own collective glory--the more glorious Athens, the more glorious they, vis-a-vis all other human beings. This may work for the common man, who will never win much glory under any circumstances, and it may mitigate the envy of the many toward the great man in the city, But it will only work for the few powerful men if the assumption that one's glory cannot be anything but enhanced by sacrificing everything to Athens is true. Will an Alcibiades be persuaded at the critical moment? Should he be? Pericles exaggerated the self-sufficiency43 of every Athenian, and the universal reach of the empire, as he has the fame of every Athenian. But Alcibiades vill want real self-sufficiency, will want to make the Athenian empire really universal, will desire to be xenembered really everywhere and always, and his desire for glory may, in fact, conflict with sacrificing everything to Athens. The Peri- clean solution will work only 4£ the powerful are certain that one really does win the greatest ¢lory possible in a democractic city by being wholly public-spirited, and that glory cannot be won by changing the regime if devotion to glory and devotion to the city appear to conflict. Pericles' position must be that while the great man's devotion to the common good is not a sufficient condition for his acquiring the greatest possible glory, it is a necessary condition. Is he right? Will the Periclean solution endure? In his address to the relatives of the fallen, Pericles persists in his refusal to grant that a private loss has been suffered; he will emphasize only the public glory. Pericles presents the fallen as now free of the vicissitudes of life--had they lived they may have suffered worse fates--to die as these did, winning glory, is in fact a good fortune (44.1). ‘Those parents who are still capable, Pericles says, should bear up in the hope of other children yet to be born. ‘This will help them to forget these (never to be forgotten!) children who are being buried, and the city, too, will benefit (44.3), i.e., the stock of young men on whom it can call to die for it will be replenished. This to comfort parents! As for those who are no longer capable of bearing children, Pericles prefaces his words to them with the remark that those who have no children to lose cannot offer the city fair and just counsel, then4a says that they may live out the remaining years of their lives sharing the glory of their dead sons, and taking comfort from the fact that those remaining years are few (44.4). Pericles is sympathetic to the problen facing the brothers and sons of the fallen (as opposed to the parents). since the dead are always much praised, the brothers and sons, no matter what their degree of virtue, will not be considered the equals of ‘those who have died in the service of Athens. Way? Because of envy of the living virtuous nen by their fellows, who will cease to envy and will give the full measure of honor to the virtuous only after the virtuous are no longer among then (45.1). (Presumably, this is because it is clear that the dead are not enviable, i.e., that death is a great evil.) The implied solution for those virtuous who are impatient for the full measure of Glory is cbvious--die in battle like your brothers and fathers before you! Pericles would rather not address the women in his audience of ti only he says that is it "necessary" (dei). I£ the widows cannot participate in Pericles’ solution to the problem of the tension between the private and the public, cannot, like the fallen and the brothers and sons of the fallen, achieve the greatest glory by dying for the city (nor, it seems, share, as do parents, brothers, and children, in the dead musband's glory), what can Pericles offer then? Speaking of “nature” and "virtue," he says that for a woman, the greatest glory is to be totally obscure and anonymous, to be talked of least among men, either for good or bad (45.2). what Pericles can mean by "glory" here, isa mystery. Of course, he makes no mention of his conspicuous relation- ship with the celebrated Aspasia.45 Pericles concludes his oration by reminding his audience that the children of the fallen will be raised at public expense, "for where the prizes offered for virtue are greatest, the best men are citizens" (46). ‘The Athenians at Sparta (1-73-78) claimed that cities are moved by three compulsions: honor, profit, and fear. What is the consequence for domestic politics? A successful regime must take account of these compulsions. All regimes are based to a considerable extent on fear-- mutual self-preservation does bind men to a regime, which is devotion, if at a low level, to the common good--but if a regime is not based on something more than self-preservation, how can it solve the problem addressed by Pericles' funeral oration--the fundamental tension between the private and the public-~how can it ask its citizens to sacrifice their lives for it? Pericles' solution is to emphasize the importance of glory, along with its negative component, disgrace. If men really can care more about honor, or avoiding disgrace, than about safety or profit, that is, if men really can think glory a greater gain than wealth and can fear disgrace more than death, the Periclean solution could work. In Pericles’ view, glory is capable of being a greater compulsion than fear or profit. Athens is presented by Pericles as the absolute peak, the city at its acme; the best human being and the best Athenian citizen are one; devotion to the private and the public are one; no sacrifice to the city is required of its citizens because all that ie required is total devotion to their own good at its highest, which is glory, and nothing can confer greater glory than total devotion to the perfect city. However, to the extent that men recognize that glory is ultimately a private good, a problem arises for the Periclean46 solution which depends on the assumption that private glory and the public good are wholly compatible, that the man who is wholly devoted to the pursuit of glory will be wholly devoted to the city of Athens: ‘this assumption may not be true. Vv. The funeral oration and the account of the plaque. "Im a sense," writes Cochrane, speaking of Pericles’ presenta~ tion of Athens, "the whole sequel of Thucydides’ work is a criticism of the claim that a stable society can be erected on the plan of the great denceratic architect. The first disillusionment came with the plague, as @ consequence of which moral anarchy xan riot in athens.""* his is the view we will be investigating. ‘Thucydides separates his account of the funeral ceremony and his famous account of the plague in Athens by one sentence. ‘The first reaction of virtually every reader of Thucydides must be that from the heady heights of the funeral oration he has suddenly crashed violently to the ground. Dizzy in the head from swallowing Pericles’ words, ‘Thucy- Aides’ account of the plague is the medicine we need to regain our equilibrium. As opposed to the handful of dead over whom the oration is spoken, literally thousands die from the plague, and in striking contrast, these dead, go unburied, or at least without the proper funeral rites, certainly without a glorious oration spoken over then. We might say that, having presented Pericles’ funeral oration, in his account of the plague, Thucydides, in a sense, presents his own. Thucydides says that neither that of doctors nor any other human art could prevail against the disease, nor were non-human, i.e., divine,a agencies of any use (47-4). He says he will speak only of the manner of the disease and leave it to others to speculate as to its causes (aitias, 48.3). But inmediately before, he suggested, if not a cause of the plague, an explanation of how it arrived in Athens (48.1-2). Whereas Pericles had spoken of how all the products of the earth flow into Athens 50 that Athenians can enjoy all the good things of every land (38.2), Thucydides suggests that Athens’ having compelled every sea and land to accede to her daring (41.4) may not be so unambiguously good. The plague, which has compelled many a sea and land to grant it access, is never granted access to Sparta (54.5). ‘There is no need to repeat the craphic details of Thucydides’ description of the effects of the plague on the human body (49). Suffice it to say, as Thucydides does, that it surpassed what human nature (enthrdpeian physin) could bear (50). What we mist remark is the simple fact of Thucydides’ concentration on the body. This is in marked con- trast to Pericles’ oration which abstracted as much as possible from the body, ice., the private. These deaths are the very opposite of the “anesthetic deaths" described by Pericles. What was treated most euphemistically and incompletely in the funeral oration--death-is the graphically described central fact of the plague. This emphasizes how fundamental Pericles* abstraction from the body, the private, is for understanding his speech. Thucydides says that the most terrible thing (deinotaton) of all was the dejection (athymia) that overcame those who were sick--as s00n as the disease struck they gave up hope--and how people died in droves from tending to one another (51.4). This was especially true of48 those who pretended to virtue, those Periclean men who cared more about honor than safety or gain, since they held it shameful not to visit their sick friends (51.5). (ote that not all Athenians are of this Periclean type.) Thucyaides remarks that the crowding of the city was a further hardship and that the new arrivals especially were affected (52.1). No houses were available for them (52.2) and the temples were full of corpses (52.3). Burial customs were thrown into confusion and abandoned (52.4). We might say that what Pericles oration and policy does to “old” Athens prepares the way for what the plague does to it. Thucydides charts the other respects in which the plague first introduced greater lawlessness (anomias) into the city. What men formerly had been ashamed to do publicly, but aid privately, they now id publicly (53.1), for no one (oudeis) was eager to trouble hinself about what was considered noble; rather, the pleasant, the profitable, and the noble were identified (53.3). The terror of the plague had the effect of something like a Gyges ring on most men--they no longer feared men or gods--with the result that both the human and the divine laws broke down, men thinking piety and impiety were alike in their consequences-~ horrible death (53.4). Without the hope that there are rewards in this Life for piety, and the fear that there are punishments in this life from the gods for impiety, men abandoned piety. There is a link, it appears, between hope, or fear, and piety: men are pious in the hope that the gods will protect them from what they most fear. ‘The obverse is that men are not impious when they fear the gods. When they have no hopes from, nor fears of, the gods, men no longer have need of the gods and they abandon49 piety. But how loathe men are to abandoning the hopes of piety is revealed in the sequel, in Thucydides' renarks about the Athenians’ dispute whether a verse had said, long before, that with a Dorian war would come a plague, or a famine, loimos Or Limes (54.2-3), and his renarks about their view of the oracle given to the Spartans at the beginning of the war (54.4-5; cf. 1,118.3). If the Athenians believe that “plague” has now been proven the correct reading of the old verse and that the coming of the plague verifies the oracle to the Spartans that the god would assist then, they have preferred to understand their horrible suffering as some kind of divine punishnent, i.e., as sonehow intelligible. If the plague is a divine punishment, the Athenians may hope that once they have been ade~ quately punished, the plague will cease. On the other hand, if the plague is unintelligible, the Athenians' suffering simply without meaning, there may be no end in sight--a thought too horrible to bear, at least for most Athenians. For his ow part, Thucydides says that the Athenians’ recollections of the verse conformed to their sufferings, and had a famine come, they would have read the verse as predicting a famine (54.4). We must recall, too, that he will leave it to others to speculate what the causes of the plague were--he cannot say. Pericles will go farther. In his last speech, even though he mentions the demonic (daimonia; 64-2), he denies that the plague is any kind of divine punishment; it is merely the kind of chance misfortune beyond calculation that we see the Athenians are so loathe to admit it is (61.3). This leads us to recall, in turn, that in his funeral oration Pericles was strikingly silent about the gods. Homer said of the plague that raged through the Greek camp before Troy that it was sent by Apollo, the god of plagues, which is precisely the view the Athenians want to take of their own plague.50 Pericles says that the Athenian plague is a chance misfortune and that Athens alone of all cities needs no Homer to embellish her greatness. According to Pericles, Athens has no need of Homer because Athens, as Pericles would have the Athenians understand her greatness (ané then- selves), has no need of gods, i.e., Pericles’ understanding of the solu- tion to the fundamental political problem requires no gods. But it is this contention, more than anything, that Thucydides" account of the plague at Athens calls into question. Pericles exhorts the Athenians to gaze upon Athens in all her greatness and fall in love with her. In his account of the plague, Thucydides shows us Athens at her ugliest, forcing us to look beyond Athens to the limits of political greatness. At the same time, he shows us, by xevealing the horror of a human society lacking then, what are the requisites of decent human society. Fear of the gods, obedience to laws, human and divine, awareness of and respect for men's nobler sentiments, and the moderation and stability that permit these to flourish--these are the requisites for civil society. Thucydides shows us how fragile these foundations of decent political life are--the plague utterly destroys then in Athens. Thucydides' account of the plague takes Pericles’ dreamlike vision of Athens and turns it into a nightmare. The funeral oration and the account of the plague present two extremes: an ideal solution to the political problem and the complete breakdown of political life. The proposed Periclean solution suggests that love of Glory may be the foundation of a regime that will reconcile what is highest in the city and what is highest in the individual. The account of the plague suggests that fear, especially fear of the gods, and the hopes from the gods that are related to that fear, is the ground of thatSL moderation and stability required for all decent political life. It may be that Pericles has not reflected sufficiently on what things bind a conmunity together, which things, as Thucydides shows, are extrenely fragile. Perhaps Pericles’ proposed solution to the political problen— a very high proposal--takes too much for granted certain lower things; Pericles does not acknowledge sufficiently the contribution fear of punishment makes to Athenian civility, i.e., he takes too high a view of the Athenian character. Thucydides himself, suggests that if there is no compulsion to care about the common good, men will not, and that fear may be the only compulsion strong enough to act as the ground of political moderation. Thucydides’ whole presentation calls into question the Periclean contention that love of glory can be the fundamental compulsion in political life. we said the most important question to emerge from Poricles' funeral oration is: Can the Periclean solution endure? In the immediate sequel, in his own "funeral oration," Thucydides raises grave doubts. VI. Pericles last speech. Pericles' last speech is delivered under very different circum stances than the funeral oration, consequently the tone of the speech-- very sober--is markedly different. Succumbing to the hardships of the plague and the second invasion of Attica, the Athenians have changed ‘theix minds (tas gn6mas) about the war (59-1), and they blame Pericles as the cause of their sufferings for having persuaded them to it; they even send envoys, in vain, to the Spartans, and are at their wits’ end (59.2). Pericles, who has expected these things,52 calls an assembly; he wants to encourage the Athenians and assuage their anger, to bring their minds (ts gndnés) to a calmer and more confident condition. Pericles says he has been expecting their anger--he knows its causes (tas aitias); his purpose in calling the assembly is both to remind the Athenians of certain things and to reprove then (60.1). In the funeral oration, he attempted to reconcile what the city denands from its citizens with their own private interests, albeit, understood at a very high level--love of honor; here, he moves to lower (but more solid?) ground: private interest in the form of love of gain dictates that one be a good citizen. Pericles states his views as follows: For in my judgment a city confers a greater benefit upon its private citizens when as a whole it is successful, than when it Prospers as regards the individual but fails as a community. For even though a man flourishes in his private affairs, yet if the city goes to ruin he perishes with her all the same; but if he is in bad fortune and the city in good fortune, he is far more likely to come through safely (60.2-3).25 In the funeral oration, safety was at best a secondary concern as compared with acquiring glory. Pericles reproves the Athenians for blaming him for advocating, and themselves for adopting, his war strategy (60.4). The he speaks of himself, of his own superiority, distinguishing himself from his fellow Athenians as he had done in his first speech, emphatically, but had refrained from doing in the funeral oration. The latter speech had required that Perictes depreciate his own importance and reputation in the city, but in the present circumstances of serious discontent with him--an atmosphere almost of mob rule--he cannot afford to do so. He must put the Athenians in their place, i.e., he must remind them of his53 own importance and reputation in the city. Grene speaks of "the calm arrogance of the speech"’® but Pericles does not simply lord it over the Athenians. He speaks not only of his own virtues but of their opinion of his virtues. Pericles describes himself as second to none in deter- mining what must be done (ta deonta) and expounding these things, in being a patriot and above being bribed (60.5). This would seem to outline what constitutes a great political leader according to Pericles. He argues that to possess any cuubination of these virtues without possessing all, ranges from useless to dangerous for the city (60.6). But he, himself, possesses all, and reminds the Athenians that this was their own opinion of him when they accepted his advice so that he should not be accused of injustice now (60.7). Pericles now admits it is folly to go to war except from necessity (61.1) and, as he did in his first speech, he contrasts the consistency of his own stand with the inconsistency of the Athenians’. Now that they are suffering, they no longer believe Pericles’ gndn& was correct; feeling the pain while the gain is not evident, they have had a change of heart (61.2). For the spirit is enslaved to what is sudden, unexpected, and beyond all calculation (pleistoi paralogoi), which is what the Athenians have suffered especially as regards the plague (61.3). Pericles has asserted that it is madness to war except from necessity--low but solid ground as compared with the tone of the funeral oration--men should go to war only if it is necessary to prevent subjection. But now he begins to introduce glory into the picture, at first only in its negative manifestation, disgrace. The Athenians have such a reputation for greatness that it would be shameful not to suffer any misfortune beforefailing to live up to ity they must forget about their private sufferings and attend only to the conmon safety (61.4). in the present circum stances, living up to the Athenian reputation for greatness means acting according to the dictates of fear and interest and being concerned with only one thing--conmon safety. The common safety is all that matters now, but it should be noted that Pericles has not appealed only to the Athen ians' concern for safety--it would presently be shameful for them not to act only with regard to safety. Shame, or honor, is still, in this speech, what Pericles appeals to in his Athenians, or at least he sees that they are such than an appeal to their concern for safety that is presented as grounded also in their concern for honor will be more effectual with them than one that is not. With the Athenians, it is questionable whether love of honor can ever be left out of the picture. Pericles now tries to encourage the Athenians about their pros- pects. As he did in the middle of his first speech, here in the middle of his last speech, he does so by speaking of the empire. He bids them recall for themselves his previous arguments about their chances of suffering defeat; he intends to reveal something to them regarding the greatness of their empire of which they have never before thought and he has never before spoken--would not speak now were the Athenians not s0 utterly dejected (62.1): You think it is only over your allies that your empire extends, but I declare that of the two divisions of the world which lie open to man's use, the land and the sea, you hold the absolute mastery over the whole of one, not only to the extent to which you now exercise it, but also to whatever fuller extent you may choose; and there is no one, neither the King nor any other nation presently in existence that can prevent your sailing [anywhere you choose] with your present naval resources (62.2).55 compared to this power, the loss of houses and land in Attica is nothing, for this power, which preserves Athens’ liberty, will easily recover these things (62.3). As Pericles presents it, the only way the Athenians can assure recovery of the private losses incurred in fighting for the preservation of the empire is to continue fighting for the preservation of the empire. as Mme. de Romilly remarks, ". . it is noteworthy that the aim of the speech is to show that Athens* empire is at the sane time the best means of winning the war and the principal reason why it should be fought.""7 once again, private interest and the public interest dictate the same thing. It is worth remarking that Pericles fails to address himself to the question of the justice of the Athenians' ruling the sea, just as he was silent about the question of the justice of ruling the empire in his funeral oration. And immediately upon laying bare the vast power of their fleet, Pericles accuses the Athenians of being about to show thenselves doubly inferior to their ancestors. The ancestors both acquired and preserved the empire for their descendants; the present generation is about to show itself incapable even of preserving what. has been handed down to it. What would the present generation of Athen- jans have to do to show itself not at all inferior, perhaps even superior, to the ancestors? (Cf. Pericles' presentation of the generations in the funeral oration.) Pericles’ next sentence bids the Athenians to bolster their courage with contempt for their enemies, a contempt based on the sound gnémé that they are in fact superior to them (62.4-5). We are entitled to wonder whether Pericles' dramatic way of encouraging ‘the Athenians may not have dramatic effects. Might not some Athenians56 wonder whether Pericles' boasts and blandishments don't suggest a shift in his sit-tight war strategy? Might not Pericles’ words be understood as condoning endeavors such as the Sicilian expedition? This may prove crucial. Nne. ds Romilly writes, ". . . Pericles is expressing a new idea. It would nevertheless be wrong to assume that he thereby wants to 18 put whether he encourage the Athenians to undertake new conquests." “wants to" is not precisely the point, as she acknowledges in another weiting: "Of course he means the possibility of sailing wherever one wants rather than the possibility of conquering, but one may quite easily lead to another.*?9 Previously, Pericles had appealed to the Athenians' sense of shame; now he appeals outright to their sense of honor. If they want the honor of ruling an empire they must accept the burdens. Barlier he had made arguments based on safety and gain, fear and profit, while subtly bolstering them with appeals to the Athenians’ sense of honor; now he explicitly appeals to their sense of honor but immediately and emphatically speaks of the dangers facing them, appealing to their sense of fear alone. They are not fighting simply over the issue of slavery or freedom (cf. the first speech)--loss of the empire involves the danger of suffering the consequences of the hatred their imperial rule has generated (63.1). Even if the Athenians wanted to lay down their imperial it is too late~-their empire is a tyranny, rule, they cannot any longer which it seens unjust to have taken up, but is dangerous to put down (63.2). Any whe would play the honest man in such circumstances would lead the city to destruction. But Pericles goes farther: such men would ruin any city, for the life of peace and quiet is impossible except in37 a city that Lives safely in slavery (63.3). Pericles' teaching to the Athenians seons to be that slavery or freedom is always the question for any city, that a city must either rule or be ruled, that they them selves now rule as tyrants over the subject allies, and that either to lay down that rule voluntarily or to lose it would bring ruin upon then in the form of slavery or destruction. ?° As for the question of the justice of having taken up this tyranny, all Pericles will say is that “it seems unjust" (adikon dokei einai), Tt appears to be Pericles’ view that to have a free city really means to rule others rather than be ruled. Can a city remain free without being willing to conquer its neighbors? Can the Athenian empire be justified on the ground of fear alone? What kind of freedom has a city won if it is compelled always to ead an active, war-like Life and cannot possibly, in its "freedom," lead a quiet one? Has such a city any more freedom than an enslaved city? We will return to these questions, which emerge fron Pericles’ Presentation, in the next chapter, our discussion of the Athenians* justification of their empire. Pericles bids the Athenians quit their anger with him, reminds then that they as well as he voted for war, and that they are not suffering anything unexpected as a result. They are suffering from true--but that is something unexpected because it is beyond the plague: expectation (64.1). Although he ranks the plague among things that come from heaven (ta dainonia), Pericles refuses to grant that the plague is iv ine punishment for Athenian injustice. It is something that was simply beyond all expectation and mst be borne, exactly like the blows of the enemy. and again Pericles appeals to the ancestral (64.2).58 Pericles says that Athens has the createst name arongst all man kind because she has never yielded to adversity and has the greatest power because of the lives and labors she has lavished on war, then makes a very paradoxical statement: the empire itself may not last forever-- it ds the nature of all things (panta) to decay--but the memory of the empire will last forever. But if it is the nature of all things to decay, will not the menozy, too, decay? Pericles is trying to ease the pain the Athenians are suffering. He presents the glory the Athenians will win from their empire as a consolation for their troubles. Previously, the empire was a means to glory; now glory has become a consolation for the burdens of empire. Pericles must exaggerate the immortality of the glory just as his purpose in the funeral oration led him to exaggerate the universality of the empire. But if the empire is simply a tyranny, in vhat consists the honor and glory? It is, according to Pericles, that the Athenians have ruled more Greeks than any other Greek city, have withstood them, singly or united, in the greatest wars, and have inhabited the wealthiest and greatest city (64.3). It is in their having won and preserved rule over their fellow Greeks--the best kind of men-~ jothing sort that the honor and glory of the empire consists. The do~ of man (ho apragndn) would find fault with these things, but those who wish to accomplish anything will emulate the Athenians, and those who do not achieve what the Athenians have, will be envious (64.4). But anyone which include ruling over others as who aspires to the greatest things perhaps the greatest thing--will accept the envy and hatred, for these last not long, while the glory will last forever (64.5). This explains why the Athenians are reputed tyrants by their subject allies--anger59 grounded in envy--and suggests another reason why Pericles will only say that it seems unjust to acquire an empire. (Is this qualification not necessary to the view that the empire is glorious?) ‘fe do these sentences raise a question about Pericles, too, that we have not yet considered? Does Pericles simply use this argument to ease the pain of his fellow Athenians, as was suggested above, or is a belief in the immortality of glory, though contradicted by his own assertion that all things decay, a belief to which Pericles himself must adhere to give meaning to his ow activity? Inmortal glory might be a vision that permits a great man to lock beyond worldly goods, but will mortal glory serve equally weil??? Pericles concludes his last speech by assuring the Athenians that they will win thie immortal glory of which he speaks by not behaving disgracefully now. They must cease making overtures to the Spartans and in no way let the Spartans know they are feeling their suffering, which is the best policy for both cities and private individuals. VII. Thucydides’ "eulogy" of Pericles (2.65). whe Athenians are disturbed especially because they have war instead of peace. Fericles' last speech has assuaged their anger sufficiently that they follow his advice to persevere, but not suffi- ciently that they do not vent whatever excess remains by imposing a fine on him. Soon, however, they become less sensitive to their private losses, re-elect him strategos, and again entrust him with all their public affairs, a capacity in which, Thucydides says, they deemed him most worthy (65.1-4). This implies praise of the Athenian demos,60 supporting Pericles! claim in the funeral oration that at Athens the best rule and because they are beat. But is this true in Athens generally, for is the phenomenon of Pericles an aberration? Thucydides says explicitly of Pericles that in peacetine he pursued a "neasured" policy (metrils), that he kept the city safe, and that in his time it reached the peak of its greatness; and after the war began he appears (phainetai) to have made a correct prognosis of what her power could do (65.5). We must mark Thucydides" words care fully. For example, he says Pericles’ policy was “measured” (netrios) , not “moderate” (sSphrosyn8)*? and furthermore, he says this only of Pericles’ leadership during peactine. This leaves open the possibility that Thucydides did not think Pericles’ policy during wartime was measured. (And Thucydides avoids praising Pericles for his contribution to the decision to go to war.) In addition, it is said that once the war is undervay Pericles seens to have made a correct prognosis of Athenian power. ‘his may mean that Pericles' correct prognosis of Athenian power is contained more in the speeches following the first speech than in the first speech, which was delivered before the war was underway. In any case, the prognosis that is most recent in the reader's mind is that of 2.62.2, the prognosis that the Athenians had never before thought of and of which Pericles had never before spoken. We are told that Pericles died two and a half years after the war began (65.6). Thucydides gives us no funeral for Pericles nor any funeral oration spoken over him at Athens (cf, 2.35.1). He does, in the renainder of this chapter, give us something like a eulogy of Pericles. After his death, Thucydides tells us, Pericles' foresight6 (pronoia) was even more recognized (65-6). He told them they would pre~ vail if they followed his three-point "sit-tight" war strategy: they should renain quiet in the city, i.e., no fighting the Spartans who invade Attica to ravage the territory; they should depend on their navy; they should not try to extend their empire during the war (65.7). The strong implication, of course, is that Thucydides’ view is that had the Athenians followed this advice they would have prevailed. But this does not mean that Thucydides! own view is that this was the only strategy that could have won the war for Athens. That a “sit-tight" policy would have successfully preserved the Athenian empire does not mean that no other policy could have. Furthermore, the sequel raises doubts about whether such a “sit-tight" policy was politically possible for athens, even if it was sound from the military point of view. The Athenians dia act contrary to Pericles' advice after his death, but we have seen that there was trouble already in Athens before his death. Pericles’ war policy tried to impose rest on the restless Athenians for the duration of a war which he, himself, saw would be long and inconclusive, ané both he and that policy are in trouble as early as the second year of the war. It is real discontent in Athens that Pericles is compelled to confront in his last speech. Could even Pericles have kept the restless Athenians at rest for very much longer? It is precisely in his last speech that Pericles teaches, if not the impossibility, the inferiority of the quiet Life compared to the active life necessary for the preservation of freedom, and at the same time opens up a realm for Athenian ambition (on which his policy, to succeed, must keep a tight 11a) unknown to the Athenians before Pericles’ revelation of it. There is some question,62 ‘then, whether Pericles’ war strategy could have been imposed on the Athenians for the duration of the war even with him at the helm, of which he has once already been deprived, albeit temporarily, on account of Athenian anger after only one year of war. Without Pericles at the helm, the domestic success of such a policy in Athens becomes unthinkable. This may imply praise of Pericles for his outstanding leadership abilities, but is it not, equally, tantamount to questioning whether Pericles, in formulating and espousing his war strategy, nonetheless overestimated his own ability to manipulate the Athenian demos, and failed altogether to appreciate the importance of his own unigue position for the viability of the strategy? Did Pericles count too much on his own survival??> After his death, the Athenians not only abandoned his war strategy, they (i.e., not only the leading men) were led by private ambition and gain to adopt policies that reaped private benefits if successful but public dangers if not (65.7). Is there no relation between Periclean Athens and this precipitous decline in Athenian politics? Pericles owed his influence in Athens to his powerful conbination of high rank, ability, and being above money; this enabled nim to lead the Athenians rather than be led by then, even to the point that he could oppose their anger; Athens was, as Thucydides says, "in speech a democracy, but in deed rule of the first man" (65.8-9). The whole presentation is of Athens as a monarchy, not a democracy.”4 Pericles is presented as having had no rivals for the position of pre-eminence in the city; this was manifestly not the case for any of his successors, which is crucial, for it explains why Pericles was able to oppose himself to the people when the situation required it and also why his successors, living in a democracy, could63 not oppose thenselves to the people: being more on an equal footing, one to another, yet each striving to be first, none could succeed politically without courting the demos (65.10). (this would be true of decent as well as corrupt politicians.) As a result, Thucydides tells us, there were blunders, in particular, the Sicilian expedition, which Thucydides says in his own name was not so much an exror of judgment (gndm3) as of execution. For those at home who had sent out the expedi- tion, rather than attending to giving it the necessary and proper support, fell into private quarrels over who would hold sway over the demos, which both mitigated the vigor of the expedition and embroiled Athens in civil discord (65.11).7° Not the fact of launching it, but the failure to properly execute it was the blunder involved in the Sicilian expedition. the impression is that after Pericles, Athenian political leaders were not public-spirited, but the picture is really not so clear--the example of Pericles proves that one may strive to be first in the city and yet be public-spirited. However, circumstances Were such for Pericles' successors that, to succeed, each had to court the demos, i.e., give the people what they wanted. What begins as a praise of Pericles and shifts to a blane of his successors, seems to end up a critique of denocracy, the rule of the demos. But again we must ack what is the relation between Periclean Athens and this decline in Athenian politics? Given that Pericles held sway and set the tone and content of Athenian politics for more than thres decades before his death and that Athenian political life deteriorated so quickly after his death, may he not be held at least partly responsible for what followed his rule? Had Pericles set the Athenians on an imperial course which64 could not be successfully charted without him at the helm? what is more, Pericles" speeches and deeds were an important part of the political education of all the Athenians, the few and the many alike. Could it be that the decline of Athenian political life had its roots in defi- ciencies in that education?”© for example, if the greatest good for a human being is glory, and glory comes from ruling, especially ruling over the best kind of men, regardless of the fact that acquiring that rule seems to be unjust, wouldn't the most important thing for the individual Athenian who aspires to real greatness be to rule the Athenians, the very best of men? Doesn't Pericles’ whole life attest to the fact that he believed this? His last words in Thucydides say that be believes that what is best for cities is also best for private individuals. ‘hucy@ides concludes his so-called eulogy of Pericles by empha~ sizing the abundant grounds Pericles had for forecasting that the Athen~ dans might have won the war (65.13). For even after the debacle in sicily, the loss of their army, and most of their fleet, with discord at home, and with the ranks of their enemies always burgeoning--with the addition of the Sicilians, most of their allies, and, later, Cyrus-- yet they held on for a long time, and finally brought ruin upon thenselves with their private quarrels (65.12). Did the Athenians lose the war because they launched the Sicilian expedition? No. It was not the Sicilian expedition but faction at home that destroyed the Athenians. Did Thucyaides disapprove of the Sicilian expedition? Probably not. ‘That the Sicilian expedition ended in disaster no more proves that ‘Thucydides disapproved of it, or thought it could not have been success- ful, than the failure of Alcibiades’ Argive policy proves that Thucydidesdisapproved of that policy. It may be that Pericles! "sit-tight" policy would have been successful had it been followed, but then so would have the Sicilian expedition had it the right leadership and proper support at home once it was sent out. Wouldn't the Sicilian expedition have succeeded if Pericles had led it? We have already wondered whether Pericles’ policy, though sound militarily, may not have been sound politically. Does Thucydides imply that Pericles should have launched the Sicilian expedition, that this would have been sound politically and militarily? Certainly it would not have imposed rest on the restless Athenians. Pericles' strategy was a stalemate policy. To sit tight is to permit the Spartans to war at will, which is to say to keep the Athenians pent up in the city, ripe for donestic discord, which is what eventually ruins them, The first stage of the war does end, after ten years, in a stalemate, Does Thucydides imply that had Pericles launched the Sicilian expedition at the outset Athens would have gained the advantage necessary to humble Spartan power once and for all and estab~ lish Athenian leadership of a united Greece? what began as a praise of Pericles and shifted to a blame of his successors and Athenian aemo- cracy, may end up a critique of Periclean policy. Suffice it to say ‘that Thucydides" praise of Pericles is by no means as clear and unmitigated as it appears at first reading. We learned from reflecting on the juxtaposition of Pericles’ funeral oration and Thucydides’ account of the plague that fear of the gods, obedience to human and divine laws, and the moderation and stab- lity that are required for these to flourish, are the foundations of civil political life. We learned also how fragile are these foundations~66 the coming of the plague at Athens utterly destroys then--and we questioned whether Pericles’ treatment of the political problem in his speeches took too mich for granted, whether he had reflected sufficiently on what beliefs are necessary for keeping a community together, bound in some kind of harmony. In short, we have questioned what the relation is between Periclean Athens the political education of the city of Athens by Pericles--and the progressive decay of Athenian political life during cana the war. What we have done, in effect, is ask this questio: public teaching about politics destroy the foundations of decent political Life just as the coming of the plague did? in the next chapter of this study, we will pursue this question from a different perspective as we examine the Athenians’ attempts to justify their empire. How does the Athenian democracy understand its empire, or as Pericles almost calls it, tyranny abroad? can a democratic regime provide a principled defense of empire? what is the relation between the public teaching about democracy at home and the teaching about empire abroad?CHAPTER THO ‘ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY AND THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE In this chapter I will examine the Athenians’ understanding and defense of their empire. The lion's share of the chapter will be taken up with discussion of the exchange of speeches between the Corinthians and the Athenians at the first conference at Sparta and the dialogue between the Melians and the Athenians before the destruction of Melos. These are the two occasions on which the Athenians give the most compre- hensive accounts of their empire. Tt will also be important to consider Thucydides" own account of the founding of the Athenian empire--how the Athenians achieved hegemony over their allies and how that hegemony was in his presentation of the events that transformed into an empire: occurred between the Persian war and the coming of this war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians (the so-called "Pentecontaetia"), In these passages Thucydides provides some of the evidence necessary for judging whether or not the Athenians present the foundation and genesis of their empire truthgurly.> Elements of the debate between Cleon and Diodotus concerning the fate of the Hytileneans are also of interest, for Cleon and Didotus each presents a different view of how the Athenians should rule their empire given the fact that they find themselves in an imperial position. Euphemus' exchange with Hermocrates before the Camarinians in Sicily is instructive also, although the circumstances under which Euphemus must speak, more than those at Sparta and much more than those at Melos, militate strongly against a true account of the Athenian empire being attempted. er68 - The Corinthian speech at Sparta. ‘The Corinthians and the Athenians are at odds over Potidaea, a colony of Corinth but a tributary ally of Athens. ‘The Corinthians are encouraging the Potidaeans to revolt from Athens, which is what the Athenians are trying to forestall, fearing that such a revolt would induce the other allies in the direction of Thrace to follow suit. The Potidaeans seek assistance from Sparta and when the Spartans promise to invade Attica if the Athenians make any moves against them, the Potidaeans revolt. Both the Corinthians and the Athenians immediately send forces into the area. A battle ensues with the result that Aristeus, the Corinthian commander, is shut up in Potidaea with his troops. Thucydides, describing the plight of Aristeus, makes a telling remark: Aristeus “had no hope of saving Potidaea unless help should come from the Pelo~ ponnese or something else should happen beyond reason (para logon)" (1.65.1), Indeed, during the time between the revolt of the Potidacans and the first congress at Sparta, the Athenians outfit and send three forces to Potidaea; the Spartan promise to invade Attica should the Athenians send such forces issues in nothing. The Athenians had refused, earlier, to go against Corinth offensively, making only a defensive alliance with Corcyra, in order to avoid breaking the thirty years truce; the Spartans readily agree to go against the Athenians, to invade Attica, in blatant violation of the treaty. These observations serve as a fitting introduction to the first congress at Sparta, in particular, the speech of the Corinthians, which contains an explicit comparison of the Spartan character and the Athenian character and the purpose of which is to persuade the Spartans that the Athenians have broken the treaty6 and committed injustice. (The above paragraph is based on 1.56-67.) ‘The Corinthians have instigated the summoning of the Peloponnesian allies to a congress at Sparta where, after the Spartans have been stirred up by many charges of injustice against the Athenians, they give the premier speech, which begins: The trust (pistos) 0 Lacedaemonians, which you have in your regime and your relations with one another, renders you more nistrustful if we say anything against others, and from this you have moderation (sdphrosyné) but betray ignorance (amathia) with regard to foreign affairs (68.1). Inmediately, a theme that runs throughout Thucydides' presentation of the Spartans comes to our attention: they do seen to possess admirable qualities, like trust or confidence, but these are not unproblematic; in particular, there is a marked contrast between the qualities that characterize their relations among themselves-~trust and moderation—- land those that characterize their relations with others-~mistrust and ignorance--and there is a connection between them. In this case, the Spartans are likely to mistrust their friends, the Corinthians, when they accuse the Athenians, as speaking from their on private interest (68.2; of. 66, end) and they seem to be ignorant of Athenian injustice even though, according to the Corinthians, these injustices have been connitted in broad daylight: some have already been enslaved and others are being plotted against; at Corcyra and Potidaea the Athenians have already acquired what could have been the largest fleet for the Pelo- ponnesiars and a stronghold for operations in Thrace (68.2-4). For all this, the Corinthians blame the Spartans. ‘They are responsible for the Athenian injustices because they permitted the Athenians to strengthen their city and to build their walls after the70 Persian war, which the Spartans, especially, ought to have prevented since they bear the reputation for virtue of being the liberators of Greece (69.1). If the Spartans persist in their acquiesence after this congress, they will be even more blameworthy (69.2-3). The Corinthians say that the Spartans alone of the Greeks characteristically remain quiet, or at rest (hésychazete) and that through they have a reputation for being trustworthy (asphaleis: this might rather mean "safe"), the repute tion surpasses the facts (69.4). ‘The Corinthians imply that this is also true of the Spartans' reputation as liberators of Greece, for in the next breath they mention how long it took before the Spartans opposed even the Mede, i.e., it took until the Persians were at the Spartans’ own door step. (If asphaleis in 69.4 meant "safe," the point is that the Spartans, far from being “safe/cautious," waited until almost too late.) The Corinthians liken the Athenian threat to Greece to the Persian and claim that the Barbarian failed more because of his own errors than anything else, and that this is how they, thenselves, have thus far pre~ vailed against the Athenians, i.e., without any help from the Spartans; indeed, ‘ere this, some have been ruined because of hopes and trust placed in the Spartans--a serious charge to put to the Spartans (69.5). As if sensing they may have gone too far, the Corinthians inmediately offer an apologia (69.6). ‘The Corinthians turn to an explicit comparison of the Athenian character and the Spartan character, although at a certain point they cease speaking of both, perhaps from a kind of prudence if not delicacy, Leaving their audience, and us, to complete the comparisons for ourselves he Spartans, they claim, are ignorant of what sort of men they will haveoe to contend with, how utterly different the Athenians are from then (70.1). The Athenians are innovative, quick to make plans and to execute them, while the Spartans tend merely to preserve what they have, to make no new plans, and in action to fall short of what is necessary (70.2). (We have seen evidence of the validity of these claims in the affair at Potidaea.) The Athenians are daring beyond their power, adventurous beyond their judgnent and sanguine (euelpides) in the face of danger the Spartans' actions are heneath their power, they do not trust even what their judgnent assures, and when in danger think there is no deliver- ance (70.3). ‘The Athenians are decisive and fond of going away from home, for they expect thereby to gain sonething; the Spartans are dilatory and fond of staying at hone lest by leaving they endanger what they already have (70.4). The Athenians pursue the advantages of victory the most and fall back the least in defeat (70.5). (So, the Spartans do not pursue victories and fall back more than the Athenians in defeat? It is here ‘that the Corinthians have ceased Grawing the comparisons and speak only of the Athenians.) The Athenians use their bodies unsparingly and are of theix own minds, i.e., resouzcesful and able to think for themselves in the service of their city. (the Spartans are not unsparing of then selves--lthat about Thermopolae?--nor individually resourceful in their service of their city? 70.6). Unexecuted plans seem to the Athenians, losses; achieved gains, a mere taste of what is to come; failed attempts are immediately supplanted by fresh hopes; for the Athenians alone, hoping and attaining are the same thing, so quickly do they executé plans (70.7). ‘The Athenians bear burdens and face dangers their whole Lives long, scarcely able to enjoy what they have since they are always72 after more; they greatly prefer toilsome activity to untroubled rest (aesychia: 70.8). The Corinthians conclude their portrait of the Athenians: "so that if anyone should sum up and say that they were brought forth neither to have rest (hSsychia) thenselves nor to let other men have it, he would speak correctly" (70.9). The Corinthians return to their critique of Spartan policy, although they have never really left it, their deepest criticism of Sparta being precisely their comparison of the Spartan and the Athenian charac~ ter. It is not surprising then, that their next argument is that the spartans, whom they have characterized as loving rest, misunderstand what truly conduces to rest, or peace (hSsychia). Only those who make it their business to act justly and to resist unjust actions of others can really enjoy peace, not those Like the Spartans who strictly mind theix own business on the ground of neither giving nor suffering offense (71.1). the Spartan ways are old-fashioned compared to the Athenian (71.2), But it is necessary (gnank8), say the Corinthians, that, as in the arts, the new always prevails; for a city at rest, unchanged (or motionless: akingta) institutions are best; for those who take on many tasks many innovations are necessary, which explains why the Athenians! ways have undergone more innovations than have the Spartan (71.3). ‘The Corinthians conclude their speech with an exhortation and a threat: the Spartans must come to their aid by invading Attica as they have promised (cf. 58.1), or their friends will have to seek assistance elseuhere, i.e., from the Persian King (71-4). This would not be unjust, they insist; nevertheless, the Corinthians would prefer to retain their alliance with the Spartans so long as the Spartans will do what is necessary to secure its strength (71.5-6).73 It is truly a remarkable picture the Corinthians draw of the Athenians in this speech. The city of Athens, perpetually in motion (wnile the Spartans are always at rest), is presented as a constant aggressor against all other cities, an enduring threat to the liberty of all the Greeks. Yet the reader cannot help but sense that the Corinthians, begrudgingly to be sure, admire the Athenians. Their key purpose in this speech is to infuse their ostensible leaders, the rest-loving Spartans, with some Athenian-like motion, to get the Spartans to abandon their habitual ways and rather to adopt the remarkable Athenian ways. Does this not suggest the superiority of the Athenian ways? Tt is true that this exhortation to emulation could be interpreted without acknow edging any element of admiration. ‘The Corinthians could merely be pointing to the perennial problem faced by all good men who are compelled to defend themselves against bad mon, viz., that often they must adopt the means of the bad men to defeat the bad men, must fight fire with fire, and there need be no element of admiration for the bad men in so doing. This view might find support in the fact that the Athenians are presented by the Corinthians as the people for war, the Spartans as the people for peace, and that they speak of compulsion in this context (71.3). But is it clear that a peace-loving is inherently more admirable than a warlike posture for a city? There are contrary indications in the Corinthians’ speech. The Athenians appear to be the good citizens par ‘they are presented almost as if they have no excellence of their cit: bodies of their own; certainly they do not spare them in the service of their city; their minds are said to be their own, but this seems to mean nothing so much as that they are able to think for themselves and whatis emphasized is the extraordinarily public-spirited uses to which they put their native intelligence. At this point in their comparison of the Athenian and Spartan character, the Corinthians have fallen silent about the Spartans, ‘This silence may indicate even stronger censure of the Spartans than those cviticisms which they felt they could say to the Spartans’ faces. This movement in the speech from utterable to unutterable criticisms of the Spartans finds a parallel in the gradually less flattering account of Spartan "rest" that develops in the speech. At the beginning, the impression is given that this characteristic Spartan policy is the result of that confidence they have in their regime, but in the body of the speech it emerges, from the comparison of theiz's with the Athenians’ character and from the unflattering remarks about Spartan conduct both during and after the Persian war (69.5 and 69.1), ‘that the real ground of Spartan "rest" is a combination of habitual diffidence (68,1 and 70.3) and a narrow concern for self-interest. It is the Athenians, not the Spartans, who appear to be supremely confident. We may at least say that while both possess confidence, for some reason Spartan confidence conduces to motionless rest while Athenian confidence conduces to restless motion. The key to Athenian confidence is a kind of hopefulness, which is explicitly discussed by the Corinthians (70.3 and 7). We say "a kind of hopefulness" because there appears to be more than one kind. The single Corinthian mention of "hopes" in relation to the Spartans is to say that some have already been ruined by hopes and trust they placed in the Spartans (69.5). But clearly Athenian hope- fulness is salutary, not pernicious to them. Are there, then, different ways of having hopes? A characteristically Athenian and characteristically Peloponnesian way? The former would appear to be the hopefulness that75 accompanies vigorous action on one's own behalf, akin to confidence, the latter, a kind of hopefulness that militates against taking vigorous action on one's own behalf, akin to diffidence. This is suggested by the above-mentioned remark about hopes placed in the Spartans and by Thucydides’ own remark about Aristeus at Potidaea, viz., that he realized he had "no hope" of salvation unless it should come from the Peloponnese or something else should happen beyond reasonable expectation (65.1), i.e., to have "no hope" seems to mean for Aristeus that he must act for himself and not be ruined by placing his hopes in others, especially the Spartans. ‘There also appears to be a difference in effects resulting from Spartan versus Athenian devotion to the common good. Genuine admization is expressed for the fine way in which the Spartans conduct affairs amongst themselves, while doubt is cast upon their devotion to a pan- Hellenic common good, and the two are related. Similarly with the Athenians, a domestic excellence has unfortunate consequences for the Pan-Hellenic common good. For is it not the case that were the Athenians less devoted to the common good of their city, less willing to sacrifice their bodies and concentrate their minds in such a remarkably public- spirited fashion, the city of Athens would be less of a threat to the Liberty of the other Greek cities? The blame accruing to the Athenians, as presented by the Corinthians, as the enslavers of Greece, and the blame accruing to the Spartans for failing sufficiently to live up to their reputation as the liberators of Greece, is in each case related to a domestic excellence (cf. 68-9). We see that certain domestic excellences of regimes may be viewed as good or bad from the perspective of what is16 good for the city itself or what is good for relations among the various cities. Which is more important and/or urgent? What looms here is the spectre of the permanent political problem of the tension between the private and the public good (here understood as applicable among as well as within cities), a problem which preoccupies Thucydides throughout his writing. In particular, we have here an indication of the problems inherent in devotion to a defective, because partial view of the common good. As far as relations between cities are concerned, of course, this problem is relevant only if there is such a thing as a comprehensive common good for all cities, which is by no means clear. Is universal reconciliation possible for human beings? Is there a comprehensive common good for all human beings? These are, I believe, among the questions raised by these difficulties in the Corinthians’ speech. ‘The Athenians are portrayed as the people of confidence, the Spartans as the people of diffidence. There are indications in the speech of a relation between diffidence and justice, and between hope- fulness, at least of the confident Athenian variety, and injustice. No matter what else the Corinthians may say about the Spartans, they never accuse them of injustice, and no matter how much they may admire, grudgingly, the Athenians, they never consider the possibility that the Athenians may not be committing injustice. Finally, we must ask ourselves honestly what our reaction is to ‘this remarkable protrait of Athens, and we must honestly account for that reaction. For despite the fact that the purpose of the Corinthians’ portrait is to convince us that the Athenians are unjust, do we not rather find them admirable? Lord has remarked, "The Peloponnesian War7 is the most heartbreaking war in history. The sympathies of all mankind are with Athens in spite of her tyrannical treatment of her allies."? Should our admiration for the Athenian character color our attitude toward the Athenian empire? Of course, the more we see of that empire, the better we will be able to judge the soundness of the Corinthian Presentation of the Athenians. And we must not forget that the Corin- thians have a specific purpose in mind--to persuade the Spartans to declare ‘and that much is at stake for them: they have 4 war on the Athenians: every incentive to exaggerate and lie.’ Certain it is, however, that this picture of a daring, resourceful, and ambitious people contains very large elements of the truth about the Athenians, as we shall see immedi- ately as we turn our attention to the Athenians' response to the Corin- thians' speech. II. The Athenian speech at Sparta. ‘Thucydides tells us that there was at, Sparta an embassy of the Athenians that happened to be there on other business and that when they heard the speeches being made they thought it best, themselves, to make a speech to the Spartans (72.1). As the Corinthians spoke about Athenians in general, these Athenians are appropriately anonymous. Is it not likely that Thucydides knew their names? If 60, he has chosen not to distinguish then in any way from any other group of Athenians. ‘The impression is that this could have been any Athenian embassy. But this embassy is outstanding in Thucydides' pages in at least this respect: this is the only example in his writing of a speech delivered by a group of citizens outside their city in defense of their city when they were not sent out78 as ambassadors of their city to give such a speech. Thucydides thus shows us immediately how justified was the Corinthian claim about the Athenians, viz., that they are of their own minds, being able to think for themselves resourcefully in the service of their city. The speech of the Athenians is also one of the few speeches where Thucydides tells us in his om name what the purpose of the speakers was. He says that they were not intending to make an apology in the face of the complaints of the various cities against them, but rather to show regarding the whole matter that the Spartans should not cone to a decision quickly but should take more time. At the same time, they wished to show how great was the power of their city, to remind the older men of what they knew and to relate to the younger what they were unacquainted with, believing that their words would incline the Spartans to remain at rest (hésychazein), rather than to go to war (72.1). The Athenians begin by stating the purpose of their speaking, and the first thing that strikes us is that they speak differently to the Spartans of their intentions than Thucydides himself aid to us. They point out that they cane to Sparta on other business, not to dispute with Sparta's allies, but that perceiving the great outcry being made against Athens, they have cone forward, not to answer the complaints of the cities, as if the Spartans were sitting as judges of a trial, but to prevent the Spartans from being easily persuaded by their allies concerning matters of great importance. This statement of their first purpose con- forms with Thucydides’ own, but their statenent of their second purpose does not. Whereas Thucydides said they wished to show how great was the power of their city, the Athenians themselves say they wish to show that19 they possess what they have acquired not unreasonably/unfairly (apeikot3s) and that their city is worthy of consideration (axia logou) (73.1). We must reserve judgment as to what the significance of this apparent dis~ parity may be until we have outlined the argument of the speech. The Athenians say that it is necessary for them to speak (ananké Legein) of their role in the war against the Mede, even though it is irk- some for them alvays to be doing so. They risked dangers for the connon benefit, in which the Spartans shared, so they ought not to be deprived of whatever benefits may be derived from having run those risks, i.e, Glory and the gratitude of the Greeks (73.2). They will speak of their role against the Hede to show the Spartans with what sort of city they will have to contend if they do not take good counsel (73.3). They point out that they alone bore the brunt of the Barbarian's attack and that when he came the second time they took to their chips, abandoning their city, and fought at Salamis, without which action the Peloponnesians would have been ravaged city by city (73.4). That this battle was decisive, the Mede himself provided the greatest testimony, for when his fleet was defeated he retreated immediately with the greater part of his army (73.5). Salamis was the salvation of the Greeks, and to that victory it was the Athenians who contributed the three most helpful things (triata OphelinBtata), viz., the most ships, the most intelligent general (Themistocles, who was most responsible for the battle being fought in the strait, the key to the Greek victory, for which the Spartans themselves honored him more than any other stranger ever), and the most unfaltering zeal (74.1). With this zeal, the Athenians displayed the utmost daring; they had no one to help them on land (i.e., they learned80 early that for Sparta to be one's only hope meant that one had little hope), and all before them were enslaved, so they abandoned their city and their possessions, but even then did not abandon the common cause of the remaining Greek cities and were not angry because these others had not come to their aid (74.2). Because of this, the Athenians claim, ‘they conferred no less a benefit than they received; they also call into question whether the Spartans really ran the risks they did for the common cause of the Greeks (as the Athenians did) or merely from fear for themselves since they did not fight until after the Athenians had lost their city and goods and they, themselves, were next on the Barbarian's List (74.3; cf. 69.1 and 5), Had the Athenians acted as had others, going over to the Mede earlier, or afterwards not daring to board their ships, believing they were already ruined (cf. 70.3), this would have meant the destruction of the Peloponnesians and matters would have pro- ceeded just as the Mede wished, quietly (kath' h@sychian) (74.4). The Athenians question, considering the zeal and intelligence they displayed, whether they deserve the excessive envy of the Greeks on account of their rule, or empire (arch8) (75.1). They dia not take it by force, they assert, but only after the Spartans themselves left off pursuing the fight against the Barbarian (cf. 69.1) and the allies implored the Athenians to take up the leadership (h@gemonas) (75.2). The Athenians say they were from this compelled (katenankasthémen) to advance it to its present state, compelled mostly by fear, next by honor, and lastly by interest or advantage (nalista men hypo deous, epeita kai tings, hysteron kai Sphelias) (75.3). After this, once they had incurred the hatred of most of the allies, and had subjected those that had revolted,BL and the Spartans were no longer friendly, but suspicious, it no longer seemed safe to the Athenians to run the risk of giving it up, for the revolts would have been to the Spartans (75.4). And no one is begrudgea, the Athenians aver, securing his on advantage (ta xympheronta) in the face of the greatest dangers (75.5). The Athenians remark how the Spartans settle to their oun advantage cities over which they have hegenony in the Peloponnese, and that if they had held on to the Greek hegemony after the Persian war and thereby had become unpopular they, too, would have been compelled (anankazein) to rule unyieléingly or be, then selves, in danger (76.1). Thus, the Athenians claim, they have done nothing either to be marvelled at or contrary to the ways of human beings (tou anthrBpeiou tropou) by accepting ruling when it is offered then and not giving it up, being conquered by the three greatest things, viz, honor, fear, and advantage (tims kai deous kai Sphelias); nor were they the first, for it has always been an established thing that the weaker is kept dom by the stronger; and at the same time, the Athenians deemed themselves worthy, as did the Spartans until they fell to calculating their own advantage (ta xympheronta; cf. 75.5) and resorted to the argument from justice, to which no one who has the strength to acquire something ever resorts to his own disadvantage (76.2). To rule over others is nothing but to act according to human nature (t8 anthrSpeia physei); and they deserve praise, whoever, while yielding to human nature, rule more justly than they need according to their power (76.3). According to the Athenians, what would most of all denonstrate that they rule with some moderation, i.e., within measure (metrizein), would be if someone else should get their power; yet, for the Athenians, this fairness hasaz brought obloquy rather than commendation (76.4). What has happened is that the Athenians--unlike others, who rule in a less measured fashion, paying no heed to right when they have might--have maintained a degree of legality in their relations with their allies, so that whoever of the allies loses a dispute, whether by a court judgment or not, and feels the Gecision should have gone their own way, being accustomed to associating with the Athenians for the most part as equals before the courts, rather than being grateful for not being deprived of the greater part of their goods, bears it worse than if the Athenians had from the beginning simply laid aside all law and openly taken utter advantage of them. Had they Gone so, the Athenians maintain, even the allies who are now complaining would not deny the necessity of the weaker yielding to the stronger (77.1- 3). ‘The Athenians conclude from this that men are more angered by being treated unjustly than by being forced violently because in the former case they seem to be being taken advantage of by an equal whereas in the latter case they are being compelled by a superior in strength (77.4). Certain it is that the allies suffered vorse things at the hands of the Mede, yet the Athenian rule seens too hard for them to bear; but this is only reasonable, the Athenians admit, for their present condition is always a heavy burden to subjects (77.5). The Athenians remark, prophetically, that should the Spartans subdue them and obtain their rule they would quickly lose the good-will they have gained through fear of the Athenians, especially if they should display the same temper they did during the short time that they had the hegemony against the Mede, an obvious allusion to the conduct of Pausanias (cf. 130). For, not only are the Spartans' usages among themselves unlike those of others, but where any83 of them is abroad he conforms neither to these nor to those in which the rest of Greece believes, i.e., he acts according to his own arbitrary will and nothing else (77.6). ‘The Athenians draw their speech to its conclusion by exhorting the spartans to deliberate slowly about such important matters and not to be influenced by the opinions and complaints of others to bring troubles upon themselves (78.1). The chances of miscalculation in war are great and when protracted, the cutcone is a matter of chance in which both sides mist run risks (78.2). The Athenians aver that men tend to go to war first and after having exhausted that avenue, turn to words, when it should be the other way around (78.3) and they implore the Spartans, since neither has yet made this mistake and good counsel is still open to them, not to break the treaty and their oaths, but to settle their @ifferences by arbitration (78.4). Otherwise, invoking the gods to whom the oaths were sworn as witnesses, the Athenians will attempt to revenge themselves on those whe began the war (78.5). Thus they conclude. it was suggested earlier that there is an apparent disparity between what Thucydides tells us the purposes of the Athenians’ speech are and what the Athenians tell the Spartans. Both Thucydides and the Athenians say that their purpose was not to make an apology but to persuade the Spartans to deliberate slowly and carefully. But Thucydides said that the Athenians’ second purpose was to show how great was the power of their city, believing this would incline the Spartans to remain at rest rather than co go to war; the Athenians say that their second purpose was to show that they possess what they have acquired not unfairly or unreasonably and that their city is worthy of consideration. What is24 the significance of this apparent disparity?® I believe it is mainly that we learn from comparing these two statements and the content of the speech, what Thucydides believed vas the best way the Athenians could show the power of their city, for, in fact, there is no real disparity between these two statements. We must renenber what Thucydides tells us his procedure was in composing the speeches (1.22.1): he says that while maintaining the gist of what was actually said, he records the speeches as he himself thinks they should have been delivered in each circumstance, i.e., how he himself would have spoken had he had to present each position in each circumstance, i.e., as persuasively as Thucydides himself could have presented the speaker's actual position, taking that position, and the situation of the speaker as given. Thucydides speaks directly to us in all the speeches, then, at least to this extent: he reveals to us how, in his opinion, each position could have best been articulated. In this instance, it appears that Thucydides believes the best way the Athenians could show how great was the power of their city would be for them to speak as they do, not explicitly of the power of their city, but of their holding what they do not unfairly, speaking calmly and cooly of this here before the Spartans, the accusing Corinthians, and the other Peloponnesians. ‘The Athenians’ speech is indeed renarkable for its boldness and frankness. ‘he Athenians display the pover of their city by the very boldness and frankness of their speaking; they do not need to mention it explicitly. Given certain circumstances (such as those in which the Athenians find themselves), there are things (such as those that Thucydides puts into the mouths of these Athenians) which only men of extraordinary power, or who were extraordinarily foolish, would dare to utter. Such is the85 character of what the Athenians utter in this speech, and T do not believe ‘that Thucydides means us to think that these Athenians of his are extrs ordinarily foolish. (After all, their speech has the desired effect at least on King Archidamus, who is reputed intelligent and moderate at Sparta: 79.27 cf. 60-85.2.) What is the puzpose of the Athenians' account of the role their city played in Greece during and after the Persian war? Ostensibly, it is to show that the Athenians hola what they hold not unreasonably or unfairly, that they have toiled for what they have acquired, and they emphasize the debt owed them by all of Greece for their toils, in parti- cular by the Spartans and the other Peloponnesians. The Corinthians had drawn a portrait of Athenian daring and resourcefulness in order to move the Spartans to war against then; the Athenians confirm that portrait, but to a different point: it is precisely because of their daring and resourcefulness that the Spartans and the rest of Greece owe a debt of gratitude to the Athenians for services rendered against the Mede. This is consistent with their statement of their intention to show that they do not hold what they hold unfairly, Tt is also consistent with Thucydides’ statement of their intention to show the greatness of the power of their city, for in recounting theix exploits in the Persian war they bring hone to the Spartans what kind of enemy they will prove to be to them should they make the mistake of beginning a war and, not so incidentally, remind the Spartans that in the last great struggle it was the sea power that prevailed against the land power (a point not lost especially on Archidamus). The Athenians maintain, then, that a debt is owed them by all of Greece-~ and not a debt of envy and hatred--because of the crucial role Athensa6 played in preventing their enslavement by the Mede. ‘They present then~ selves as the true liberators of Greece. As for the hegemony, they did not take it by force but accepted it, voluntarily proffered by the other cities when the Spartans failed to persevere in liberating those Greeks still under the Persian yoke. But this self-portrait as liberators of Greece is problenatic, for it is in the next breath that the Athenians plead that having accepted the hegenony as they did, they were compelled to advance it to its present state, i.e., to transform their hegemony into an empize. As the Athenians thenselves present it, liberation at their hands seems to lead to subjection at their hands by a kind of necessity. What is the nature of this necessity? The Athenians were compelled, they claim, to transform hegemony into empire by three things, viz., mostly by fear, next by honor, and lastly by advantage or profit. After this, having become hated by most of the allies and having sub- jected those that had revolted, they feared giving up the empire because the Spartans had grown suspicious of then, a circumstance the Athenians judged very dangerous for themselves. The Athenians present their initial move to empire and their subsequent refusal to surrender it as motivated mostly by fear. But they also speak of honor and profit. In what sense can the Athenians maintain that they were compelled by honor and profit? What do we think of this argunent? Are we willing to accept the con~ sequences for hunan life of acknowledging the desire for honor and profit as compulsions for human beings on a par with fear, so that each is a reasonable excuse for acting in a manner that would be otherwise repre~ hensible or unjust? Our 4ifficulties are compounded by the Athenians’ next statement, for in emphasizing that the Spartans, had they retainede7 their hegenony after the Persian war, would have becone as unpopular as the Athenians now find themselves, and would have been compelled to rule as the Athenians now do, they cannot help but call our attention to the fact that the Spartans did not retain their hegemony after the Persian war, apparently under no compulsion to do so. Is the Athenian thesis about compulsion applicable to Athenians but not to Spartans? But what kind of compulsion is that? If different human beings labor under different "compulsions," how is this any different from saying that some men are ambitious, others not, some lovers of gain, others not, some unjust, others just? Shortly after presenting their compulsion argument (75.3), the Athenians significantly revise it (76.2). Again they insist they were compelled to do what they dia, but in the initial formulation they emphasize fear first in their list of compulsions; in their reformulation of “the greatest things" by which they were "vanquished" (hypo trién t6n negistOn nikéthentes), honor has, so to speak, the position of honor, followed by fear and then profit. This altered emphasis from fear to honor further compromises the Athenians' defense of their deeds on the ground of compulsion.” ‘The Athenians refuse to accept the Corinthians’ characterization of them as innovators, asserting that they have done nothing marvelous or contrary to human nature in ruling over others when offered the opportunity and then not surrendering that rule without a fight. They have merely followed what has always been an established thing, ‘that the weaker are kept down by the stronger. No one has ever bowed to argunents from justice to his own disadvantage if he had the power to secure his advantage; the weak resort to arguments from justice because88 they have no other resort. Since the only others who ever do so are those who, like the Spartans now, find it in their self-interest to do s0, all arguments from justice, the Athenians insist, must be seen as the pretexts for self-interest that they truly are. ‘This view does not hold that argunents from justice are never relevant in disputes between cities, but it denies that justice in fact plays any role in deciding the outcome of disputes unless both sides are compelled to resort to justice because neither has the superiority in power simply to secure its own advantage. This means that justice is effective in disputes between cities only when there exists equality of power. It is important to note that the Athen- jans do not deny there is such a thing as justice. Rather, it is that no city considers justice enough to refrain from ruling if given the chance. ‘The Athenians do not claim that might makes right. Indeed, they go on to say that they are worthy of praise whoever, while yielding to human nature and ruling over others, rule with more justice than they need according to their power. ‘This does not make any sense if might makes right. This explains why the Athenians consider themselves worthy of commendation: they, like all others, following hunan nature, have accepted the opportunity to rule, but unlike all others, they rule ina measured fashion. According to the Athenians, no strong city has ever considered justice enough to abstain from empire, but they themselves rule their empire with as much justice as any others have ever shown in the past and as any others will likely show in the future, especially the Spartans. The Athenians make no pretense €6 being more just than they actually are, ¢.g., they do not claim that holding their empire is just, but they do seem to believe sincerely that no city behaves more89 justly than they do. In fact, it follows from what they have argued that only a strong, ruling city can possibly display its concern for justice since for all other cities calls for justice are conducive to their self- interest, hence suspect--strength is a requisite for the practise of virtue. It ig remarkable how much the Athenians self-portrait conforms to that drawn by the Corinthians. The latter presented the Athenians as a daring and resourceful people driven to empire, and the Athenians agree. But if both agree that the Athenians are driven to empire, does this not extenuate somewhat their acquisition of it? And aren't the Athenians right, then, in shifting the focus as regards their justice from the question of the fact of their ruling to the question of how they rule? the significance of this can scarcely be over-estimated. ‘The Athenians denied the Corinthian charge that they are innovators, but the nature of their denial refutes their denial. No other empire has ever tried to justify itself on the grounds the Athenians do. They make no claim of a right to rule, divine or otherwise. Nor do they deny that their empize is an empire, nor claim that their ruling benefits the ruled and is not primarily self-interested.© and, paradoxically, it may be precisely this lack of pretension to justice that enables the Athenians to inform their empire with a concern for justice that outstrips others: somehow their awareness that their holding their empire has no foundation in a doctrine of justice, i.e., does not conform to the standard of justice they would apply to domestic politics, is what has led them to conform more closely to that standara than other imperial powers. ‘The harshness of the rule is mitigated by their doubts about the justice of ruling.90 How? ‘The Corinthians must face the difficulty of arguing that the Athenians are driven to empire while wanting to refuse to concede that there are any extenuating circumstances to which the Athenians may apply to justify somewhat their acquisition of empire, but the Athenians must face the obverse difficult; Af honor, fear, and profit are compulsions under which human beings labor, according to the Athenian thesis, how can the Athenians be morally indignant if their allies, 1ike themselves, bowing to these compulsions, find themselves locked in a struggle against the Athenians for the limited goods that cannot be shared by all alike? But ‘the Athenian thesis does not do away with the possibility of moral indig- nation entizely. Although a city may not be condemned for practising imperialism, it may be condenned for practising it more harshly than it is compelled, which is precisely what the Athenians pride themselves on not doing. Thinking through the Athenian thesis ought to lead to the 2 abandonment of all types of “pious cruelty." It mst be seen that the Athenians are not cynical deprecators of justice; they care about justice; they aze even admirers of justice, if extraordinarily candid ones. And we mist ask ourselves this: Doesn't the fact that ruling has in the past and continues today to bring honor to men, when what is understood to be unjust is also understood to be dishonorable, indicate that there is truth in the Athenian thesis that no one really expects anyone to pass up the opportunity to rule when offered it? The Athenians simply tell it like it is--their empire is informed by no "ideclogy"--at least as they see it. If the way the Athenians see it and tell it is true, does this not imply high praise of the Athenians by Thucydides? But do the Athenians give a true account of the birth and growth of their empire?a And, if true, are there not grave consequences for political Life--in both domestic and foreign affairs--if we accept the desire for honor and profit, as well as fear, as compulsions under which cities labor? To the latter question we will recur later in this study. Light is shed on the former by Thucydides’ own account of the roughly fifty year period between the Persian war and the beginning of this war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians-~the so-called "Pentecontaetia" to which we now turn our attention. III. The genesis of the Athenian empire. After the fixst congress at Sparta, the Spartans vote that the Athenians have broken the treaty and they must go to war. They were persuaded, Thucydides tells us in his own name, not by what they heard in the speeches of their allies, but by fear of the Athenians becoming even more powerful, seeing for themselves that most of Greece was already subjected by them (88). Therefollowing, Thucydides presents his account in his own name of how the Athenians came to acquire the power they possessed on the eve of this war (89-118). Thucydides" account is actually divided into two parts: how the Athenians acquired hegemony in Greece (89-96); how the hegemony was transformed into the empixe (97-118). After the defeat of the Persians on land and sea, the Spartans withdgew from pursuing the enemy into Ionia, but the Athenians and the Tonian allies persisted in warring on the King (89.2). Meanwhile, the Athenian commons (to koinon) began to rebuild the city and its walls (89.3). The Athenians' building of their walls is a rebuilding of the92 walls destroyed by the Mede, whom they have just expelled fron their territory. But the Spartans oppose this rebuidling, partly because they preferred no walled cities in Greece, and partly because their allies were growing afraid of the Athenians on account both of the new size of the Athenian navy and the daring the Athenians ha shown against the Mede (90.1). The combination of Athenian walls, ships, and daring is something the Peloponnesians would rather not contemplate. Of course, why the Spartans, the strongest land power in Greece, would prefer that neither the Athenians nor anyone else should have walls can easily be surmised. As Hobbes remarks in a note on this, "The Lacedaenonians advise them to the contrary [not to build their walls] for their own ends, Pretending the common gooa."*° ‘The Spartans argue that all walls outside the Peloponnese should be razed as a safety precaution in case the Mede should ever cone again, so that next time he would find no strongholds to occupy; for the Greeks, the Peloponnese would serve as a sufficient stronghold; they said nothing, Thucydides informs us, of their real purpose or their suspicion of the Athenians (90.2). Themistocles steps into the Picture. On his advice, the Athenians do not bow to the Spartan request, but rather arrange to send an embassy to Sparta, led by him, to discuss the matter; this is actually a scheme to get Athens’ walls built to a defensible height as quickly as possible, before the Spartans can do anything about it (90.3). While they are rebuilding, Themistocles hin- self will take care of things at Sparta (90.4). To facilitate his scheme, Themistocles takes advantage of the friendship the Spartans feel toward him and uses their trust in their own against them, as well as to protect himself (90.5-91.3). He knows their character well. Once the walls are93 sufficiently rebuilt, Themistocles lays his cards on the tabli the Athenians can now defend themselves, he tells the Spartans, so from now on the Spartans had better negotiate with the Athenians as with men who can determine for thenselves what is in their own and the common interest as well as they (91.4). When the Athenians boldly abandoned their city to the Mede and took to their ships, they did not consult the Spartans, and in counsels with them, they had not shown thenselves inferior (91.5). Now it seemed best to them, both for their own and the common benefit, to have walls (91.6), for it is not possible, Themistocles argues, for uneguals in strength to have an equal say in the counsels of an alliance, s0 either all, including the Spartans, should demolish their walls, or the Athenians ought to be permitted theirs (91.7; cf. Pericles: 140.4- ui... The Spartans are anrgy; they do not show it openly--their feelings at the tine were at their friendliest tovard the Athenians on account of the latter's zeal against the Mede--but they harbor it (92). ‘Thucydides emphasizes the importance of Thenistocles: he per- suaded the Athenians also to complete the walls of the Peiraeus, the “natural harbors" of which he thought worth developing for a sea-faring people with a view to acquiring power (93.3); he was the first to tell ‘the Athenians to become seamen (cf. 14.3: the first mention of Thenis- tocles by Thucydides), and started them on their ascent to power (93.4); the Athenians did build the walls, but not to the height Themistocles wanted (93.5), his plan being to be able to repel attacks by the size of the walls alone, guarded by a few, so that all the rest could man the ships (93.6); he was devoted particuarly to the Athenian navy, believing,94 4 seems to Thucydides (h3s emoi dokes), that the King had attacked Athens more easily by sea than by land, and that the Peiraeus would be more useful to the Athenians than the city, that with it and their fleet ‘they could take on all comers (93.7; cf. Pericles: 143.5). ‘The tripod on which Athenian power stands consists of her walls, her navy, and her daring. ‘Thenistocles is the founder of Athenian power. He first advised the Athenians to take to their ships, and to rebuild their walls, and in his personally executed double-cross of the Spartans, he is the exemplar of Athenian daring. We have seen indications that Thenistocles' motives may have included fear--fear of Spartan domination of Athenian foreign policy (90.2, 91-4-7, 92, 93.7), which it is clear throughout Thucydides, is usually combined with domination of domestic policy (cf. 19). But the picture that emerges from Thucydides' presen- tation is of a man of extraordinary daring and ambition, not fear. The question ist To what extent were the Athenians avare of Themistocles' daring ambitions for Athenian power? To what extent may he have played on their fears to motivate then to execute his own plans, without himself sharing their motivation? ‘Thucydides! brief account of the disastrous leadership of Pausanias establishes two important points: 1) the allies did come under Athenian hegenony voluntarily, indeed, they requested it (95.1-2, 96.1); the Spartans did relinquish their hegemony voluntarily: they were weary of the Persian war and thought the Athenians both capable and acceptable leaders of the war effort as they were not hostile to Sparta; in addition, the Spartans feared any repetition of the Pausanias incident should they send out more of their generals (95.7).95 upon acguiring this hegemony, the Athenians first established the Hellenic treasury and first exacted tribute, stipulating which cities would furnish money and which ships toward the war effort (96). ‘Thucydides now introduces the digression (ekbolén) which serves as a showing forth (apodeixis) of how the Athenian hegemony was trans- formed into an empire (97). Thucydides' remarks about the first steps are of the greatest interest to us. The Athenians set about enslaving the cities in Ionia still held by the Mede. ‘Ten years later, when Naxos revolted from the Delian league, the Athenians warred against the Naxians and enslaved then--the first ally to be enslaved in violation of the established rule (viz., that the allies should be free); others soon suffer the same fate (98.4). Thucydides says the causes of the revolts were principally failure to furnish tribute or ships or military service, all of which the Athenians were not above using coercion to exact (99.1). The Athen ians were easily able to subdue their allies, Thucydides says, for which state of affairs, he adds significantly, the allies themselves were to blame (99.2). Why? Most of them, eager to avoid military service, preferred paying tribute to the Athenians to furnishing a navy of their comm for the alliance so that the Athenian navy became great while those who would revolt were without sufficient provisions or experience for waging war (99.3). ‘The allies voluntarily weakened themselves and strengthened the Athenians, so the fault for their eventual enslavement lies with them. This is the only blame we find in the pentecontactia. It is difficult to conclude from this account that the Athenians were motivated by fear throughout this pericd of expanding empire (unless we96 are to take the untenable position that the Athenians were so afraid during these years that they were compelled, e.g., twice to try to conquer Egypt; cf. 104.2, 109-10, 112.3), yet Thucydides never blames them for taking up their empire. Does this not imply Thucydides! agreement with the view expressed by the Athenians that no city is so just as to turn down ruling if it is given the choice? Throughout this period, the Athenians are always expanding, following up opportunities arising from victories and unaffected by defeats, living up to the Corinthians' description at Sparta, while the Spartans remain in their hone territory, preoccupied with wars against their helots (cf. 101.2-103.3) the importance of the helots for under~ standing Spartan affairs can scarcely be exaggerated). Te is clear from Thucydides’ account that fear may indeed have played a role in the foundation of the Athenian empire--at least some of the steps are ambiguous on this score--but it is equally clear that fear alone cannot account for the empire: elements of the Athenian character, so well described by the Corinthians, are of great importance, especially the character of outstanding men like Thomistocles. But ‘Thucydides shows also that the Athenians were handed their empire on a silver platter and does not gainsay their contention that no city is so considerate of justice that it will turn down such an opportunity. And the Athenians’ Corinthian accusers appear to agree, too: they blame the Spartans for permitting the Athenians to become so powerful, not the Athenians for attempting it, just as Thucydides blames Athens’ allies for weakening themselves vis-a-vis the Athenians, not the Athenians for taking advantage of that weakness, Tt was perfectly legitimate, then,97 for the Athenians at Sparta to have shifted the question of their justice from the issue of whether they rule an empire to the issue of how they rule it: Does their rule exhibit a concern for justice or does it not? The Athenians claim it does. This question, among other things, is adéressed again in the debate between Cleon and Diodotus on the fate of Mytilene. IV. the debate on the fate of uytilene. The Mytileneans tried unsuccessfully to revolt from the Athenian empire and the Athenians, moved by anger, issued a decree to execute all ‘the men and enslave the wonen and children (3.36-1-2). The following day, however, they had something of a change of heart, feeling the decree a savage thing, which resulted in the calling of an assenbly to reconsider ‘the question, at which Cleon and Diodotus were the principal speakers (36.3-5). We are told three things about Cleon before we hear him speak: 1) he had been the one who had most urged the death penalty the day before; 2) he was the most violent of the citizens; 3) he held the most sway with the Athenian demos (36.3). (After the death of Pericles, Cleon, it appears, came closest to attaining his position of pre-eminence in Athens, to being his successor.") Cleon begins his speech sounding like Pericles, distinguishing himself from his fellow Athenians (37.1, 38.1), as Pericles had Gone, and taking up Pericles' assertion that the empire is a tyranny (37.2). From the observation that the empire is a tyranny, Cleon concludes that the Athenians must rule harshly, a conclusion which Pericles apparently id not draw from the same observation, and contradicts the conclusion we have argued is the logical conclusion of the Athenians' defense of28 their empire at Sparta, viz., that they sould rule as gently as they can, consistent with ruling. But throughout Cleon's speech there is a fundamental contradiction: on the one hand, the Athenian empize is simply a tyranny and must be ruled th, free of the influence of the three most dangerous things for empire, viz., pity, delight in speeches, and lenity (40.2); on the other hand, it was unjust for the Mytileneans to revolt from tyranny. (Cleon does not hesitate to call the subjects of the tyrant city "allies," symmachoi: 38.1). Part of the time, Cleon wants the Athenians to think of themselves as tyrants ruling subjects and part of the time he wants them to think of themselves as heyenonists who treat their ungrateful allies with the utmost fairness. For instance, at one point Cleon admits that if the Melians had revolted because they were oppressed by Athens' rule or were compelled by Athens" enemies, he could make allowances, but denies that this was the case with the Mytileneans, who have therefore been most unjust, putting might before right (39.2-3). Cleon says it is in human nature to contemn those who Pay court to you but to admire those who do not yield to you (39.5). This is a version of the Athenian thesis that those who can rule, do, since it implies that any city that can rule you, will; if it does not, it is because it cannot; therefore, it may be held in contenpt.*? Cleon's argunent is that the demands of justice and the demands of expediency are wholly met in the execution and enslavement of the Mytileneans (40.4). But we see that each position is supported by a Gifferent, contradictory, understanding of the empire. why does Cleon insist on having it both ways in this speech, that the empire is a con- federacy so it is just to punish the Mytileneans, and that it is a