Christopher Pelling’s commentary on book 7 of Thucydides (a partner to his commentary on book 6, Cambridge 2022) is distinguished by its very high quality and Pelling’s sympathy and respect for the author, the historical actors he depicts and the reader (I am generously mentioned in the preface of this volume, along with numerous others. I assure the reader that my admiration for these volumes would be equally strong or stronger if I had no acquaintance with Professor Pelling). The commentary is admirable for its clear explanations and translations of Thucydides’ Greek and for its generous supporting materials, which include maps, a lengthy and detailed introduction, many shorter but very important introductions to individual sections of the text, the lemmata, a full bibliography and three indices: an index of people, places and concepts, another for stylistic and grammatical concepts and a final index for Greek words of interest. The Greek text is furnished with an apparatus criticus that indicates significant variations in the manuscripts, and also with a separate list, found at the end of the Introduction, of ‘Deviations from Alberti’, being fifty-one deviations from the latest established text of Thucydides, completed by G.-B. Alberti (Thucydides Historiae (Rome 2000)).
This commentary is primarily about reading Thucydides’ Greek, but would be an invaluable aid for a Greekless reader. The English is jargon-free, and Pelling’s detailed introduction, together with the persistent paragraph- or page-length essays on the successive narrative sections, constitute in themselves a guide for readers. I can imagine a Greekless reader deriving great profit from reading book 7 in translation together with Pelling’s accumulating essays.
The volume thus models combining the highest standards of classical scholarship with the greatest possible accessibility. Only a brief description can be offered here. The introduction begins with necessary background information about Athens’ doomed Sicilian expedition, and about Thucydides himself, writing in exile. It goes on to consider the audiences and performative aspect of ancient historiographical narratives. (Pelling remarks that the story of the Sicilian Expedition, if read aloud, would be ‘no longer than a Wagner opera or an uncut Hamlet’, 11.) Thucydides’ differing relations to Homer, Herodotus and tragedy, and the role of the Sicilian narrative in Thucydides’ narrative of the war are covered next. ‘Where Does It All Go Wrong’ (26–32) reminds us that readers must come to their own conclusions about the causes of Athens’ defeat in Sicily (26) and then reviews some of the factors that led to that defeat: more become apparent in the lemmata. ‘The Shadow of the Future’ (33–35) visits Athens’ final defeat in the war as a whole and the Mediterranean context of this event. To sum up, the introduction offers the reader a startling amount of preparation in a short amount of time.
The lemmata are a sure guide to reading. It is noteworthy that Pelling does not try to force Thucydides’ Greek sentences into comfortably grammatical English sentences when that is not possible. ‘The meaning is clearer than the syntax’, he remarks to 7.28.3, after a survey of the possible emendations, accepting that we cannot know what we cannot know. Many remarks in the lemmata have to do with awakening the reader to the emotional and moral intensity of Thucydides’ style. Some examples: 7.29.4, on Mycalessus: ‘the short cola tumble out, capturing the hectic fury of the slaughter with emphatic repetition’; 7.42.2, where he translates a short phrase from Thucydides’ description of the Syracusans’ return to fear after Athenian reinforcements arrive: ‘“if there was to be no end to the escaping from danger”: a beautifully expressed oxymoron, psychologically sharper than the more obvious “if there was to be no end to the dangers” themselves. It was the zigzagging of joyful release with renewed terror that was so hard to cope with, and what was endless was the claiming that the dangers were at an end’; 7.82.2, where he comments on the lack of space in the quarries where the Athenians are imprisoned: ‘στενοχωρία had blighted the Athenians’ chances both on land (44.2) and, especially, in the Great Harbour (49.2, 70.6; cf. 36.4 in the Corinthian Gulf). It is now even more dreadful and inescapable. This is a long way from Pericles’ vision of the whole world open to Athens (2.62.2)’.
Pelling notes on page 19 of the introduction that book 7 begins at a turning point: ‘Gylippus arrives just when Syracuse is in its greatest danger’. We might apply these words to his work: ‘Pelling’s commentaries on books 6 and 7 arrived just when the study of Thucydides was in the greatest danger’. Now seldom read intensively even in graduate school, the text of Thucydides is too often at the mercy of selective and partial readings. Pelling’s commentaries come to the rescue with an excellent foundation for entering Thucydides’ project.
