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Thucydides in the first book of his history, before enumerating the different αἰτίαι which were the prelude to the outbreak of hostilities, says: ‘but the true reason (ἰληθεστάτη πρόφασις), though it was never mentioned, was Sparta's fear of Athens' growth to power.’ The statement is repeated in other parts of this book, and we must assume that when it was written it represented Thucydides' considered judgement. These passages belong to the latest stratum of his work, and date from the time when he had formed a unified conception of what had previously seemed to him isolated events, namely the Archidamian War, the Sicilian Expedition, and the Decelean War. As he looked back after 404 they seemed parts of a whole, a Peloponnesian War, and what gave them unity was a single purpose behind them, the Spartan determination to remove from Greece the dangerous power of Athens, which she regarded as a threat to her own security. Judgements as to causes when the results are complete may in human affairs be as dangerous as illuminating, since reason insists on arranging things according to a pattern; it is our duty therefore to inquire whether Thucydides' interpretation corresponds with the facts, whether the unity which he has given to these three events is real or imaginary.
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References
page 23 note 1 πρόφασις is a medical term, meaning ‘exciting cause’, taken over by Thucydides. Cf. Cochrane, , Thucydides and the Science of History, p. 17.Google Scholar
page 23 note 2 i. 23. 6.
page 23 note 3 e.g. i. 33. 3; 88.
page 23 note 4 i. 24 ff.
page 23 note 5 i. 67; 119. 3.
page 24 note 1 Pericles may have calculated that Sparta would never proceed to extreme lengths, that having tried all that bluff could accomplish, she would cave in, since her interests were not threatened. In that case he miscalculated.
page 25 note 1 For Pericles' relations with the West, cf. C.A.H. v, pp. 162–3.
page 26 note 1 iv. 15 ff.; 41. 3–4; 117–19 (with the approval of the moderates in Athens).
page 26 note 2 The readiness with which the Spartans handed over their fleet, 16.1, is an indication how little concerned they were to challenge Athenian naval supremacy.
page 26 note 3 Though it is interesting to note that there was growing in Sparta a body of opinion which was in favour of energetic action against Athens, and that party grows in strength with Spartan successes; as at Athens, so at Sparta the war gave birth to new ambitions.
page 28 note 1 The suggestion that Nicias too encouraged the Sicilian Expedition was first made by Momigliano, , in Rivista di Filologia, 1929, pp. 371 ff.Google Scholar, and elaborated by the eminent historian, De Sanctis, on pp. 433 ff. of the same journal, and maintained in his Storia dei Greci, ii, 1939, pp. 307–8Google Scholar. This interpretation resolves for me a difficulty which I used always to feel and never had the courage to elucidate until I first read De Sanctis's article; namely the fact that although Nicias is portrayed in the conference of the generals as advocating a limited plan, confined strictly to helping Segesta and then withdrawing, yet, when Alcibiades is recalled, Nicias, who was then the undisputed leader, proceeds to put Alcibiades' plan into effect, although at that time they were not committed to anything. He could quite easily at that stage have helped Segesta and then gone home. The fact that he carried on with Alcibiades' plan shows that he approved of it and was no less responsible for it than Alcibiades. De Sanctis has pointed out that in other places Thucydides has not given the full facts, but selected some part of them as artistically significant; in bk. i there must have been other meetings of the Assembly before the one in which Pericles makes his important speech i. 140; likewise all the speeches for and against the Sicilian Expedition (vi. 8 ff.) are inserted in the second meeting. And in both cases the result is to lessen Pericles' and Nicias' responsibilities. I suggest that the conference of generals falls into the same category; that they conferred is obvious; but they had a clearer idea of their intentions than this meeting implies. It is another device, artistically sound if one is not giving every fact and detail, but adapted here again to emphasize Nicias' innocence.
page 29 note 1 Until the arrival of Gylippus Syracuse's days seemed numbered.
page 29 note 2 The embodiment of that spirit whose birth we noticed at the Peace of Nicias, p. 168, n. 3.
page 30 note 1 The similar interpretation of British intentions by Germans after the Great War is analogous.
page 31 note 1 ii. 65. 7.
page 31 note 2 Cf. i. 140. 3 ff.
page 31 note 3 i. 140. 2 ff.; ii. 61. 1.
page 31 note 4 ii. 65. 6 ff.
page 32 note 1 Thucydides' insistence on the inevitability of the war is proof enough, if proof was needed, that Pericles was criticized for having involved Athens in a war which ended so disastrously. Modern analogies are painful but obvious.