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The Thucydidean Tragic View: The Moral Implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Michael C. Mittelstadt
Michael C. Mittelstadt*
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Binghamton
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Extract

No Greek of any calibre, at least in the fifth century, could remain intellectually or spiritually altogether unconditioned by a conscious feeling for, or awareness of, the tragic in human affairs. His poetry and his art, indeed his history, were saturated with the idea of the tragic. Thucydides is certainly no exception, and the most uninformed reader of his History will come away from the work with a keen sense of the immediately perceptible tragic coloration with which it is permeated. Interpreted from any leading, unifying thematic idea the explanation of Thucydides' work must include as central and dominant the tragic deterioration of Athens from the Periclean ideals so well expressed in the Funeral Oration, through the nadir of cynicism and moral decline of the Melian Dialogue, to the utter demoralization expressed through the catastrophe of the Sicilian campaign and its aftermath.

One has merely to examine the obvious and purposefully wrought antitheses throughout the History to determine the dramatic nature of Thucydides' work. The drastic metamorphosis in Athenian character that occurs between Books One and Five, for instance, points up such a tragic contrast. The Athenians of the first assembly at Sparta claim that they more than any others were the saviors of Hellas (1.74.2), fearless and self-sacrificing in the common cause of all allies, that they acted with sagacity of judgement (1.75.1), that the empire had not been acquired by force (1.75.2) but by necessity of circumstances, that they had been more observant of justice than actually required, the overwhelming balance of power being in their favor (1.76.3), that in the courts in Athens suits of allies are judged under the same laws (1.77.1). If we compare these same Athenians with the Athenians of the Melian Dialogue it becomes abundantly clear that a deterioration of character and moral standards has taken place and that Thucydides has linked the moral with the tragic. The earlier Athenians, in spite of their desire for imperial expansion, were at least concerned with a minimum of justice and fair play in their international dealings. The Athenians of the Melian Dialogue do not even make a pretence of upholding the commonly accepted nomoi which had from time immemorial been established among men to protect the weaker. Thucydides' strong editorial statements on the effects of anomia (‘lawlessness’) during and following the plague (2.52-53), and during the stasis on Corcyra (3.81ff.) also make firm the link between the moral and the tragic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 59 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1985

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References

Notes

1. Any of these theories implies and admits the gradual disintegration of Athenian power caused through behavior deviating from normally acceptable standards of morality. But any reader of Thucydides cannot fail to see immediately the dramatic structure in Thucydides which is obvious. As one scholar remarks, ‘I think that too little attention has been paid to Cornford's view that Thucydides has selected and arranged his facts to present what every reader recognizes as the Tragedy of Athens’ (Wallace, W.P., ‘Thucydides’, Phoenix 17 [1964], 259Google Scholar).

2. For a succinct yet highly informative survey of the meanings of nomos see Ostwald, Martin, Nomos and the Beginnings of Athenian Democracy (Oxford 1969), 21–54Google Scholar. See also Herrmann, J., ‘Nomos bei Herodot und Thukydides’, Gedächtnisschr. Hans Peters (Berlin, 1957) 116–24Google Scholar.

3. Poet. 1451b 5-7. One of the best studies of this problem is that of Walbank, F. W., ‘History and Tragedy’, Historia 9 (1960), 216ffGoogle Scholar. He comments p. 229, ‘History and tragedy are thus linked together in their common origin in epic in their use of comparable and often identical material, and in their moral purpose [italics mine].

4. For the diagnostic and prognostic method in Thucydides see esp. Cochrane, C., Thucydides and the Science of History (Oxford 1929Google Scholar), and Weidauer, K., Thukydides und die Hippokratischen Schriften (Heidelberg 1954Google Scholar).

5. A good analysis of Thucydides' style is to be found in the introductory chapters of E. C. Marchant's text (London 1905), esp. Book 1. Any reader of Thucydides can easily be led to believe that the conclusions he forms, at least as he reads him for the first time, are his own. As a matter of fact, however, de Romilly, Jacqueline, Histoire et raison chez Thucydide (Paris 1957Google Scholar), quite some time ago showed us Thucydides' true method. The purpose of every series of events, the plan, the event, ‘the underlying idea [are] suggested beforehand in a speech, in a remark about what naturally would or usually does happen under such circumstances, in some aside how men always act. The reader has thus been prepared beforehand, the probable explanation has been suggested to him … The effect depends to a considerable extent upon what one may almost call subliminal persuasion, upon careful repetitions and echoes of words and phrases' (Wallace [n.l above] 258). See also Hunter, Virginia J., Thucydides: The Artful Reporter (Toronto 1973Google Scholar).

6. Cornford, F.M., Thucydides Mythistoricus (London 1907Google Scholar).

7. 2.65.6ff.

8. See Mittelstadt, M. C., ‘The Plague in Thucydides: an Extended Metaphor?’, RSC 16 (1968), 145–54Google Scholar; Page, D. L., ‘Thucydides' Description of the Great Plague at Athens’, CQ n.s. 3 (1953), 97–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Parry, A. M., ‘The Language of Thucydides' Description of the Plague’, BICS 16 (1969), 106–18Google Scholar.

9. Most prominent, of course, are the stories of Croesus and Adrastus, Astyages, Polycrates, and the entire campaign of Xerxes, which exemplifies the operation of this cycle. See Lesky, A., History of Greek Literature, tr. Willis, J. and de Heer, C., (New York 1966), 306–28Google Scholar. For the idea of predestination and other tragic concepts related to Herodotean theology see Pötscher, W., ‘Götter and Gottheit bei Herodot’, WS 71 (1958), 5–29Google Scholar.

10. Translation from Kirk, G. S. and Raven, J. E., The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Cambridge 1960), 105–7 (frag. 103AGoogle Scholar).

11. Cf. Kirk and Raven (n.10 above), 118ff.

12. Topitsch, E., ‘Anthrōpeia phusis und Ethik bei Thukydides’, WS 61-62 (1943–1947), 50–67Google Scholar. A good deal of my study following is adapted from Topitsch's essay.

13. Cf. Pearson, L., ‘Prophasis and Aitia’ TAPA 83 (1952), 205–23Google Scholar; also by the same author ‘Prophasis: a Clarification’, TAPA 103 (1972), 381–94Google Scholar.

14. Cf. Hogan, J. T., ‘The axidsis of Words at Thucydides 3.82.4’, GRBS 21 (1980), 139–49Google Scholar.

15. See Connor, W. R., Thucydides (Princeton 1984), 99Google Scholar.

16. Ibid. 101.

17. Ibid. 103.

18. Ibid. 154.

19. Topitsch (n.12 above), 54.

20. For a thorough analysis of orgē and related concepts in Thucydidean psychology see Huart, P., Le Vocabulaire de l'analyse psychologique dans l'oeuvre de Thucydide (Paris 1968), 56fGoogle Scholar. 156-62, 502. See also Mittelstadt, M. C., ‘Thucydidean Psychology and Moral Value Judgement in the History: Some Observations’, RSC (1977), 52–55Google Scholar; Müri, W., ‘Beitrag zum Verständnis des Thukydides’, MH 4 (1947), 251–75Google Scholar; and Meister, C., ‘Die Gnomik im Geschichtswerk des Thukydides’ (Diss. Basel 1955), 78ffGoogle Scholar.

21. Topitsch (n.12 above), 57.

22. For Nicias as a typical ‘warner’ in somewhat the Herodotean manner see Marinatos, N., ‘Nicias as a Wise Advisor and Tragic Warner in Thucydides’, Philologus 124 (1980), 305–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a thorough study of the ‘warner and advisor’ theme in Herodotus see Bischoff, H., Der Warner bei Herodot (Diss. Marburg 1932Google Scholar).

23. Topitsch (n.12 above), 60f.

24. Ibid. 64.

25. Cf. Huart (n. 20 above), 156 n.5, 159, 361 n.1.

26. Topitsch (n.12 above), 65. For further discussion of aretë in Thucydides see also Huart (n.20 above), esp. 447-51.

27. Topitsch (n.12 above). 65.

28. Meinecke, F., Die Idee der Staatsräson 3 (Munich and Berlin 1929), 20 (my translationGoogle Scholar).

29. Topitsch (n.12 above), 65.