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Thucydides, Isocrates, and the Athenian Empire1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
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Thucydides was, inter alia, a political thinker of rare insight, Isocrates an avowed propagandist. Their works present several passages of apparent congruity in their assessments of the Athenian Empire; but all such appearances are illusory. For by the nature of their personalities they view their subject from entirely different standpoints, and, in citing the same facts, only underline the differences that exist between them.
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page 54 note 2 Mikkola, E., Isokrates (Helsinki, 1954), 116.Google Scholar Isocrates regularly uses ήγεμονία in this connexion, aware of the disagreeable associations that ἄρχη by now carried (see Levi, M. A., Isocrate [Varese, 1959], 83).Google Scholar Thucydides observed a similar distinction when writing of the Athenian Empire—ἡγεμονία at i. 96. I (ἑκόντων ῶτν ξυμμάχων), ἄρχη—or some still more emotive word—elsewhere.
page 54 note 3 The dates refer to the publication of the pamphlets (Isocrates did not deliver them as speeches); extensive preparation beforehand is both obvious and attested. The date of the Helen is disputed; I follow Jaeger, W., Paideia (Oxford, 1939), iii. 67Google Scholar (English translation) in associating it with the Panegyricos.
page 54 note 4 Isoc. viii. 142; cf. viii. 24.
page 55 note 1 Milton, , Sonnet X, To the Lady Margaret LeyGoogle Scholar, lines 6–8; derived from Dion. Hal. Isoc. 2Google Scholar and [Plut.] Vit. X Orat., 837 E.Google Scholar The tradition would have to be discarded if one accepted as genuine Isocrates' Third Letter, To Philip; but that is now generally regarded as spurious.
page 55 note 2 See especially Isoc. iv. 21 ff.; xii. 35 ff.; and his boast at xv. 166.
page 55 note 3 Plato, , MenexenosGoogle Scholar and the Epitaphioi of Lysias (Speech ii—? spurious), Pseudo-Demosthenes (Speech Ix) and Hypereides (Speech vi).
page 55 note 4 That Isocrates quite consciously borrowed from Thucydides was firmly main tained by Mathieu, , e.g. in RPh xlii (1918), 122–9.Google Scholar Apparent ‘borrowings’ have been the subject of repeated studies, e.g. by Fuhr, , Rhein. Mus. xxxiii (1878), 592 f.Google Scholar, and Bodin, , Mélanges Glotz (Paris, 1932), i. 93–103.Google Scholar
page 56 note 1 Autochthony, —Thuc. i. 2. 5.Google Scholar; ἡγεμονία—i. 96. i; Athenians at Sparta in 432— i. 72–78.
page 56 note 2 Funeral Speech—Thuc. ii. 35–45. Epitaph—Anth. Pal. vii. 45Google Scholar (= OBGV no. 408), with which cf. Isoc. xv. 299Google Scholar; xvi. 27.
page 56 note 3 Isoc. ii. 35.
page 56 note 4 Indeed Jaeger, (op. cit. 101)Google Scholar writes: ‘Here (i.e. in the Nicocles orations) for the first time historical writing begins to influence political thought and the general culture of the era.’ This judgement perhaps rather overrates the part played by studies of what Lord Snow would call ‘the scientific culture’ in the curriculum envisaged by Isocrates’ contemporary, Plato.
page 56 note 5 Ephoros and Theopompos are described respectively by Gomme, A. W., Greek Attitude to Poetry and History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1954), 166Google Scholar, as ‘flat and childish’ and ‘learned, shallow and rhetorical’. In view of their teacher, these characteristics should not surprise us.
page 57 note 1 Tac. Ann. iii. 65.Google Scholar Professor Dudley (see the Listener, 6 Aug. 1964, p. 193) thinks that Thucydides would also have agreed with Tacitus—no passage is cited in corroboration.
page 57 note 2 Isoc. vi. 36.
page 57 note 3 See, for instance, Isoc. iv. 28 ff.; xi. 24 ff.; xii. 321. Mikkola, , op. cit. 124Google Scholar, talks of the ‘verhältnissmassig negativen Grundlagen’ of Isocrates' theology.
page 57 note 4 Philip and Heracles—Isoc. v. 109 ff., in contradiction to Letter 9Google Scholar, To Archidamos, 3Google Scholar; Athens and the gods—iv. 28 ff.; xii. 126 ff.
page 57 note 5 Philip and Isocrates—v. 150–1; for Isocrates, see further xii. 321–2. The Athenian demos—Speech vii, passim.
page 58 note 1 For Thrasymachos and Callicles, see Plat. Rep. 336Google Scholar b I ff. and Gorg. 482Google Scholar c 3 ff.; and for differences in the views of the two, see Plato, , Gorgias ed. Dodds, E. R. (Oxford, 1959), 14 ff.Google Scholar For Isocrates' answer, 8. 31 ff. and elsewhere.
page 58 note 2 Isoc. vii. 5.
page 58 note 3 Isoc. xiv. 39 ff. One might compare the remarks made by Isocrates' fellow demesman, Xenophon, at H.G. v. 4. i.Google Scholar
page 58 note 4 Theseus—x. 29 ff.; xii. 126 ff.; Mikkola, , op. cit. 220Google Scholar; Heracles, —loc. cit. on p. 57Google Scholar n. 4. For Cleisthenes, etc., see esp. xv. 306 ff.; for Theramenes—tactfully not mentioned by name— Levi, , op. cit. 9 ff.Google Scholar and the story (dubious) at [Plut.] Vit. X Orat., 837Google Scholar A. For Timotheos, see Isoc. xv. 101 ff. and Jones, A. H. M., Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1957), 30Google Scholar and Jaeger, , op. cit. 139.Google Scholar
page 58 note 5 Isoc. iv. 7–8 and xii. 246 (it is characteristic that he had started this latter work by deploring ψευδολογία).
page 58 note 6 Isoc. xvi. 5 ff. (cf. 5. 58–61!); Cloché, P., Isocrate et son temps (Paris, 1963), II.Google Scholar On p. 93, Cloché remarks with some restraint, ‘Il se peut, en effet, qu'I. ne soit pas toujours bien sincère dans l'expression de ses admirations et de ses blâmes.’
page 59 note 1 Adrastos, — iv. 54–60Google Scholar; xii. 168–171 (followed by acknowledgement of discrepancies with earlier version). Melos, etc.–iv. 102 and xii. 64 ff.; viii. 30, 75ff., 91 ff.
page 59 note 2 For Isocrates' changing views towards Sparta and Thebes, see Cloché, in REA xxxv (1933), 131 ff.Google Scholar and RH 193 (1942–1943), 277–96Google Scholar; Peace of Antalcidas, — iv. 115 ff.Google Scholar and viii. 16, 20 and elsewhere; Dionysios, —iv. 126, 169Google Scholar and Letter One, To Dionysios.
page 59 note 3 Thuc. iii. 82–83.
page 60 note 1 ii. 48. 3; i. 22. 4.
page 60 note 2 i. 22. I. Sir Ronald Syme has some misgivings about this remark of Thucydides, , Proc. BA xlviii (1960), 45.Google Scholar
page 60 note 3 Sthenelaidas, —i. 86. 5Google Scholar, Pagondas, —iv. 92. 7Google Scholar; both have firmly resolved on their policies before seeking divine assistance. Melos, —v. 103. 2–105. 2.Google ScholarNicias, —vii. 86. 5Google Scholar (cf. what Nicias himself had said at vii. 77. 4!).
page 60 note 4 The Athenians—v. 89 (οὔτε… μετ' ὀνομάτων καλῶν); vi. 83. 2 (οὐ καλλιεпούμεθα ὄτι…)—cf. i. 86. i. The Plataeans—iii. 53–59, 68. i.
page 60 note 5 i. 32. i; elsewhere especially iv. 62. 3–4; vi. 85. i.
page 61 note 1 σωφροσύνη—i. 68. I; viii. 96. 5; for the right use of the quality, Hermocrates’ speech, iv. 59–64. For пολυпραγμοσύνη, see ii. 63. 2–3; the most astute of Athens' enemies extols her restless vigour, iv. 60. i. (On the apparently contradictory passage, viii. 24. 4–5, see Gomme, A. W., More Essays in Greek History and Literature [Oxford, 1962], 163–4.)Google Scholar Compare the view of пολυпραγμοσύνη in Isocrates, Speech viii. Absence of εὔδοκιμία—ii. 63. 1–2; iii. 37. 2; vi. 85. i. For Sphacteria, see especially iv. 17–20 and de Romilly, J., Thucydide et l'impérialisme athénien (Paris, 1947), 150 ff.Google Scholar
page 61 note 2 ii. 60. 5, 62. 5. Cf. i. 138. 3 (Themistocles) and viii. 68. i (Antiphon).
page 61 note 3 Syme, , op. cit. 49Google Scholar; Hammond, , CQ, xxxiv (1940), 151.Google Scholar
page 61 note 4 Isoc. v. 61; viii. 101, and elsewhere.
page 62 note 1 1. i. 8. 3; i. 76. 2; v. 105. 2. Cf. Isoc. viii. 69.
2 v. 91; and Cleon at iii. 40. 4, a point that his opponent Diodotos does not attempt to answer.
3 iv. 61. 5; v. 92; viii. 48. 5.
4 iii. 40. 3. Agamemnon—i. 9. 3; Isoc. xii. 76 ff., viii. 22.
5 See especially the speech of the Athenian Euphemos at vi. 80–87.
page 62 note 2 Thuc. i. 20. 3; i. 97. 2. The more rigorous approach of Thucydides, as compared with his predecessors, did not commend itself to Dionysios of Halicarnassos—see his letter ad Pomp. 3. 11 ff.Google Scholar
page 62 note 3 Histoire et Raison chez Thucydide (Paris, 1956), 275.Google Scholar
page 62 note 4 Thuc. ii. 65. ii; Gomme, A. W., Historical Commentary on Thucydides, ad loc.Google Scholar
page 62 note 5 The seminal work here is de Ste. Croix, , Historia iii (1954), i ff.Google Scholar; the latest is Quinn, , Historia xiii (1964), 257 ff.Google Scholar
page 62 note 6 See Woodhead, , Mnemosyne, ser. iv, 13 (1960), 289 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 62 note 7 Thucydides' father was called Oloros, as was the father-in-law of Miltiades, the victor of Marathon. Cimon was the son of Miltiades, and, perhaps as an indication of his political sympathies, called his own son Lacedaimonios. Thucydides' references to Cimon, all in Book i, are confined to genitives of the sort Κιμῶνος στρατηγοῦντος.
page 63 note 1 The Peisistratids—Thuc. vi. 54. 5; Hermocrates, —vi. 72. 2Google Scholar; Pericles and Themistocles, —locc. cit. on p. 61Google Scholar, n. 2. For the less admirable side of Themistocles, see, for instance, his letter to Artaxerxes at Nepos, , Themistocles, 9. 2 ff.Google Scholar
page 63 note 2 Cf. Jaeger, , op. cit. i. 393Google Scholar, on Thucydides' account of the causes of the Peloponnesian War—‘The problem (has) been fully objectified, by being taken out of the sphere of moral law.’ But Gomme is severely critical of this view—see Hist. Comm. i. 152Google Scholar, n. i, and op. cit. on p. 56, n. 5, 156–7.
page 63 note 3 Thuc. i. 22. 4; Beloch, J., Griechische Geschichte (Berlin, 1922–1923), iii. I. 356.Google Scholar Beloch is actually referring to the style of the works, but the same could be said of their content as well.