¹ For iv 108.4, which is closely linked with iv 81.2–3, see below, p. 73. The date to which vi 15.4 refers has in fact been disputed: see below, p. 74, n. 10.

² Thucydide et l'impérialisme athénien (Paris, 1947), Introduction.

³ Pp. 166–7.

⁴ ἠσυχάƷοντας is, by itself, an unexpected word in this context. Not only was τὸ ἠσυχάƷειν the quality of which the Athenians were least capable and which Perikles, two chapters back, had so scornfully rejected for Athens; but no general, however cautious, ever thought that a war could be won by it—neither Perikles, to judge by his policy in 433–2, and 431–0 and in earlier wars, nor Fabius. We can see what Thucydides means—a cautious policy generally especially on land; but I cannot help feeling that perhaps he wrote

⁵ The implication, or one implication, is that in spite of the shortcomings of Kleon, Nikias, Alkibiades, and the rest, it would at least have been better for Athens if any one of them had been influential enough to dominate policy for a length of time. Kleon was not a wise man, but his continued leadership might have been an improvement on alternating policies of Kleon and Nikias.

⁶ E.g., such comments as iv 12.3 may have been inserted later. I do not forget either that ii 65.7 repeats the advice attributed to Perikles in i 144.1, and that Perikles (in my view) certainly gave that advice, nearly 30 years before this comment was written. I am not here attempting the whole problem of the composition of the History; but I may draw attention to this also—the contrast between the cautious, almost Nikian tone of 65.7 and the magniloquence and adventurous spirit of the last words given to Perikles, 63–64: ‘action and yet more action, and we gain a glorious name even if we fail’. I do not, that is, feel that we can be content to say with Mme de Romilly, p. 130–1: ‘l'éloge (ii 65. 5–12) et le discours (ii 60–64) forment un tout parfaitement cohérent: l'éloge est la conclusion normale du discours, et le discours lui même se présente, comme nous l'avons vu, sous la forme d'un tout parfaitement cohérent.’ I am not clear what Mme de Romilly means when she says (p. 275); ‘quand, à propos de l'issue de la guerre, il oppose Périclès à ses successeurs, ce n'est pas sur son attitude en matière de politique extérieure qu'il insiste, mais uniquement sur ses rapports avec le peuple’; which seems to ignore the sentence She adds in a footnote: ‘d'une façon générale, de même que la sagesse grecque repose essentiellement sur l'opposition de la raison aux passions, l'action du bon chef dans une démocratie est considérée comme avant tout négative et modératrice.’ But cc. 63–64, and the Epitaphios, should cause a considerable modification of this; so indeed should to which we may add Phormion's words, ii 89 and 90.

⁷ There is a difficulty here. The phrase should mean, ‘Sparta was in a state of excitement, or enthusiasm, or eagerness’, όργᾶν being a vigorous word, and in this sense not common in prose. The statement would be remarkable enough in any event, of a people not prone to excitement (i 84.3, 85.1), and is now immediately contradicted by § 7, which tells us that, from various motives, Sparta was not at all enthusiastic for Brasidas to proceed further. (We cannot, with Classen, take ἔμελλον to mean, ‘it was to be expected that they would find Sparta enthusiastic’, an expectation shown to be disappointed in § 7.) What we want is ‘their first experience of Lacedaemonians in a state of enthusiasm’; for this might well be said of Brasidas and his men. In 413, after the Athenian defeat in Sicily, Sparta is described as confident (ἐθάρσει), even optimistic (εὐέλπδες); but it is the subject cities of Athens, Ionians and islanders and what not, who were ready (viii 2.2–4: note that said of the same cities in iv 108.6, is closely paralleled in viii 2.2).

⁸ Ullrich points out in a different context, that writers of the first half of the fourth century (Lysias and others) tend to forget the Archidamian war altogether, so great was the impression made by the ‘Dekeleian’ and ‘Ionian’ wars: Beiträge (1846), 9–13. We are not in such danger; for we did not live through the terrible last years, and we have Thucydides' narrative and Aristophanes to prevent it.

⁹ So iv 74.4, on the constitution of Megara, with de Romilly's note, p. 163, n. 3, and her general conclusion about bk. iv, p. 165.

¹⁰ Schwartz, , Geschichtswerk, 332–3Google Scholar, thought that the historian meant the disaster in Sicily. He was answered in part by Schadewaldt, , Geschichtschreibung, 12–14Google Scholar, and altogether by Wilamowitz quoted by Schadewaldt at the end of his book.

¹¹ It is perhaps worth noting that the spontaneous secession of so many allies from Athens, after 413, is not considered in ii 65.11 as an important factor in the Athenian defeat.

¹² This section was written before I had seen Ehrenberg's, interesting article on polypragmosyne in J.H.S. lxviiGoogle Scholar, with which it has obvious points of contact.

¹³ Aristophanes u.d. historische Kritik, pp. 393–6.

¹⁴ West, A. B., Class. Phil. xix (1924), 124–146, 201–228CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Romilly, pp. 156–8, 173, 180, al.

¹⁵ So de Romilly, pp. 124–5; but my thoughts run in a different direction. She writes: ‘épris de la puissance athénienne, résolu à l'affirmer contre Sparte, conscient des obligations qu'elle crée, et décidé à les accepter, Périclès apparaît comme le'dontmuateur de la tradition impérialiste et l'adversaire des άπράγμονες: on reconnaît là en lui l'ancien adversaire de Cimon (Aristote, , Const. d'Ath. 27.1Google Scholar; Plut. Pér., 28.4–7, et 10.4), et l'homme que les comiques n'ont cessé de vilipender.’ I think rather of the Perikies who, at this time, was the admirer of Kimon as one of who made the empire, οὐκ ἀπόνως (ii 37.2); and I would certainly exclude Aristophanes and Eupolis from the comedians who did not cease from slandering him.

¹⁶ Patzer, H., Das Problem d. Geschichtschreibung d. Thukydides, 1937, p. 14Google Scholar; Finley, J. H., Junr., in Athenian Studies (Harvard Stud., suppl. vol. i) p. 262.Google Scholar This latter is an excellent statement of the case for unity of composition after 404.

¹⁷ Finley, , Thucydides, p. 78Google Scholar, says: ‘Would an historian writing, for instance, of Napoleon and Napoleonic France in 1800 at the time of Marengo have seen in the subject exactly what he saw in 1815, after Waterloo? Similarly, could Thucydides, after the Peace of Nicias in 421, have written in such a way of the strength and weakness of Athens that what he wrote then would have tallied exactly with what he wrote seventeen years later? The answer gives the basic grounds for believing in the unity of the History.’ I would prefer to put it this way: would any Frenchman, in the shadow of 1815, have written of the glory of France in 1800 as Thucydides writes of Athens in 431? And the parallel is not exact: for, for France, the greatness of the revolutionary ideas and the military glory belong to the previous 25 years; whereas in the case of Athens most of the glory, political and military, belongs to the period before 431, not to the war itself.

¹⁸ Nikostratos is a good instance: all take him to have been a ‘moderate’, an associate of Nikias, a man of peace, and in consequence an enemy to Kleon, because of his conduct in Kerkyra (iii 75–8), his being a colleague of Nikias at Kythera and in Thrace (iv 53, 129–30), and his signing the armistice of 423 (iv 119.2). What then was he doing at Mantineia in 418?—the campaign which more than anything else broke the treaty of 421 and destroyed whatever hope of peace there was? He was a man of conspicuous intelligence and humanity, as well as daring and skilful in command; he was therefore quite unlike Kleon. But that does not tell us what his politics were.

¹⁹ It is perhaps worth noting what West, p. 215, adds to Thucydides: ‘so long as Kleon was in power the war was likely to go on with ever broadening aims (v 16).’

²⁰ de Romilly, p. 164.

²¹ Dr. Otto Luschnat of Berlin has pointed out to me that we should write καὶ ἀγαθῶν, not κἀγαῶν.

²² See my Commentary, I, 418–19.

²³ at Athens must soon after 421 have realised that not much had been gained by their being quit of Kleon.

²⁴ Mme de Romilly, pp. 143–5, doubts this intentional connexion in language between Perikles' and Kleon's speeches; and suggests that ἀνδραγαθία may have been a catch-phrase in party politics in Athens. Perhaps; but it is Thucydides we are discussing, and it is no catch-phrase in him, whether he is selecting from phrases Perikles and Kleon used, or attributing his own words to them (see the other instances of his use of it: ii 42.3, iii 57.1 and 64.4, v 101). The echo to my mind is unmistakable.