This work, very well organized by titled chapters and sections, is available as a physical book (pricey, and not particularly easy to find in libraries in my area) and in an online version where each chapter is helpfully preceded by an abstract. I will therefore dispense with a systematic summary, and rather focus on some of the features and details I find most valuable. In the introduction and throughout the book, a survey of the criticisms and rewritings of Thucydides’ prose by Dionysius of Halicarnassus is both useful and very enjoyable to read (I will make Dionysius a required assignment in my seminar). It brings vividly to the fore the shocking oddities of the style of certain parts of the historian’s work, and in particular his insistent use of nominal constructions that emphasize process over agency and leave deliberately unclear who is performing the actions. These problematic periphrases, defined and illustrated with numerous quotations, occur disproportionally in the parts that Joho calls ‘excursus’ (not a felicitous term, in my opinion), as opposed to the ‘narrative’, which rather tends to conform to the more common features of Greek prose style, including personal or concrete subjects, active constructions and sthenic verbs (verbs with a specific semantic content). Joho devotes special attention to the style of Thucydides’ analysis of stasis (‘excursus’) in comparison to the plain register of his report of the events of the revolution in Corcyra. Without regard to the specific context, let’s take as an example among many the following excerpt in the helpful literal translation offered by Joho: ‘the events that came later, through realization, I suppose, of what had happened before, carried the extravagance in the invention of new schemes still much further’ (3.82.3). Here a disastrous and broad cultural change (the exacerbation of violence in Greece resulting from the combination of civil struggle and war) is envisioned as just happening, independently from the initiatives of the individuals or collectivities that participated in it. Similarly, Thucydides’ Archaeology (discussed in Chapter 3) privileges the semantics of process over those of action by the frequent use of the asthenic verbs γίγνομαι (‘to happen’) and ἵστημι (‘to establish’) and compounds, the impersonal subject ‘Greece’, abstract nouns like δύναμις (‘power’) and other general expressions, nominalized neuter adjectives and participles, and passive forms (for example, 1.7, 8.2, 13.1, pages 82–83). The emphasis on settled conditions resulting in predictable reactions is also conspicuous in the style of those speeches (for example, 1.75.3, 4, pages 90–93) that most seem to agree with the analyses provided by Thucydides in his own voice such as his representation in the Pentecontaetia of the almost involuntary growth of the Athenians’ power after the Persian Wars thanks to the impersonal forces represented by ships, money and walls (93–97).
If Joho’s analysis sometimes runs the risk of being excessively subtle, it nevertheless always raises interesting questions about Thucydides’ stylistic choices (for example, 97–99: what is the function of the added subject αὐτοί, ‘they themselves’, at 1.118.2?). According to Joho, Thucydides’ representation of the Athenians’ dynamism after the Persian Wars reveals the city’s goal of consolidating power, not a conscious plot to reduce their Greek allies to subjection. Imperial domination rather resulted from developments that were largely not subject to Athenian control, given the impossible choice of ‘ruling or being ruled’ (100–01). Seeking power and wealth, escaping poverty and enslavement, the arrogance of an almost personified hope, these are all natural impulses that drive people to undertake bold actions, commit transgressions and (as argued in Diodotus’ speech and the Melian Dialogue, discussed on 121–25, 156–57) even risk self-destruction.
According to Joho, Dionysius’ analysis of Thucydides’ prose already bears strong indications that his abstract style (his tendency to treat persons as things and things as persons) is not just designed to produce an elevated form of discourse, but is strictly related to content; that is to say, related to the meaning that Thucydides wishes to ascribe to the events that he reports. The question then arising from this preliminary assumption is this: does Thucydides represent human behaviour as determined by events and changes (rather than the other way around) and regulated by the permanent essence of the human condition? Joho provides a lucid and detailed survey of previous scholarly opinions on this much-debated question. He shows the ways in which a combination of compelling factors, not clearly distinguishable between external and internal, play a substantial role in Thucydides’ discourse on causation. Objective circumstances, psychological, cultural or universally innate impulses such as represented by the famous triad of honour, fear and advantage, or eternally valid natural dispositions expressed by the terms ϕύω/ϕύομαι (‘to grow/be by nature’) even resemble daemonic forces that replace what other authors represent as more or less personalized divine agents controlling human affairs (especially in Euripides; although I do not understand the author’s claim that the Hippolytos alludes to Ariadne’s ‘betrayal of Dionysus’ (131)). At the same time, Joho argues that although outcomes are ‘compulsory’ and to some extent predictable, they are not inevitable in an absolute sense. Impersonal constraints leave enough room for individuals or states to exercise free choice based on morality, foresight or pragmatism. The most important example of the power of γνώμη (defined as mental activity, intelligence, planning and resolve, 282) to confront irrational emotions or unexpected circumstances is Pericles, even while his rhetorical style, like Thucydides’ own, demonstrates a sharp awareness of the extent to which natural necessities challenge human deliberation.
Joho gives credit to several earlier scholars who have analysed Thucydides’ prose, both explaining their positions in some detail and engaging with them in agreement or disagreement. Having these scattered opinions re-examined all together is in itself helpful. On the whole, this is a valuable and granular analysis of one of the most arduous texts that students and scholars of Greece are likely to encounter.
