thucydidean epistemology: between philosophy and …

THUCYDIDEAN EPISTEMOLOGYBETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY

This essay investigates several aspects of Thucydidesrsquo intel-lectual conception of history in order to further our understandingof its philosophical basis and its essential qualities1 I shall look atthe following three features of Thucydidesrsquo History his statedpreference in major passages for general qualitative analysis hislanguage of proof much of it drawn from logical and legal reason-ing his complex conception of ldquothe truthrdquo These three elements

1) Several scholars have claimed that Thucydides invented a particularly in-tellectual form of history though it is important to note that they have somewhatdifferent ideas in mind when they use this or a related term Romilly for exampledemonstrated that in Thucydidesrsquo work reasoning controls facts with an almostmathematical rigor Moved by a strong tendency to seek intellectual unity amongdiscrete events Thucydides creates historiographical coherence by means of closeverbal ties which Romilly calls ldquofils conducteursrdquo and ldquoenchaicircnementsrdquo See Ro-milly 1956 passim but especially 32ndash33 38ndash39 46 48 52 81

Adam Parry (1981 169) claimed that ldquo the whole History is in large partconcerned with the relation of the intellect to the worldrdquo ldquoLike Pindar Thucy-dides is here concerned not with the details but with the meaning of the action ofthe men he is writing aboutrdquo Put another way ldquo Thucydides is concerned withgiving significance to the events which he records he enforces an intellectual inter-pretation of what he narratesrdquo (1981 6ndash7) Further ldquoThucydidesrsquo History is a stu-dy of manrsquos attempt to master the world by the intellect as seen in one great actionof history of which Thucydides himself was a witness The work is thus neither philosophy ndash for it is much too concerned with what actually happened ndash nor his -tory in the usual sense but a special sort of intellectual historyrdquo (1981 181) Parryargued that the λγος ργον duality constitutes the wellspring of Thucydidesrsquo his -tory

Loraux spoke of Thucydidesrsquo ldquointellectual authorityrdquo ldquoAn intellect whichwould give itself over to the pure exercise of thought with no object but thoughtoriented primarily towards itself such is Thucydidean intellectuality rdquo (1986140 154)

And Shanske (in Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History) ar-gued that Thucydides created a Wittgensteinian ldquofly-bottlerdquo a self-contained worldof intellectual coherence from which many natural features are rigorously excludedBy formulating general types across specific instances ldquo Thucydides is allowingthe wise to see kinds in connection with one another and in so doing is creating aworldrdquo (2007 179)

RhM 153 (2010) 247ndash290

are fundamental to Thucydidesrsquo epistemology hence to his inven-tion of an intellectualized history

Thucydidesrsquo predilection for qualitative analysis

A good means of seeing Thucydidesrsquo intellectual inquiry atwork is to study his methodological introductions to major ana-lytical passages In several of these introductions he explicitlyprefers qualitative analysis of events to conventional Greek rhetor-ical and scientific practices I begin with a well-known examplefrom the opening of the plague passage 2483

λεγτω μν ον περ ατο ς καστος γιγνσκει κα ατρς καδιτης φ του εκς ν γενσθαι ατ κα τς ατ(ας )στιναςνομ(ζει τοσα+της μεταβολς κανς ε0ναι δ+ναμιν 1ς τ μεταστσαισχε3ν 1γ5 δ ο6ν τε 1γ(γνετο λξω κα φ 8ν 9ν τις σκοπν ε ποτεκα αθις 1πιπσοι μltλιστ =ν χοι τι προειδ5ς μgt γνοε3ν ταταδηλσω ατς τε νοσσας κα ατς δ5ν 9λλους πltσχοντας

Here Thucydides disdains the common Hippocratic practice ofseeking the origins and causes of major diseases2 He does so in lan-guage that as we shall see in other cases is standard in Thucy-didean proof-making he uses the third person imperative to pro-pose a method of examination ldquoLet each physician and laypersonthink about (λεγτω as ldquoconsiderrdquo ldquoponderrdquo)3 the plague as he de-termines from whatever source it was likely to arise and the caus-es that he believes are sufficient to bring about so great a change rdquo He then introduces his own method by asserting that he willwrite a qualitative description of the plague which by its naturewill have heuristic value ldquoI shall point out what kind of thing(ο6ον)4 it was and the characteristics by which (φ 8ν 9ν) a future

248 Hunter R Rawl ings I I I

2) Thomas 2000 especially in chapter 6 ldquoArgument and the language of proofrdquo argues that Herodotus often uses the ldquoproof languagerdquo of Ionian scienceparticularly Hippocratic medicine Here Thucydides clearly eschews this practiceand implies strongly that his own approach is superior

3) For a useful discussion of this verbrsquos several senses see Luraghi 2001 147particularly n 26 In Herodotus and Thucydides as Luraghi demonstrates it oftenrefers to what an historical source (usually a collective source) ldquoholds for truerdquo

4) See Hornblower 1991 321 for different views of the meaning and signifi-cance of ο6ον here Stroud 1987 379 shows that it means ldquowhat kind of thingrdquoStroud following Sheppard and Evans also cites another near-quotation of Thucy-

inquirer if it should ever befall anyone again might have a basis forrecognizing it namely some prior knowledge of it I shall reveal(δηλσω) these things on the basis of having suffered the diseasemyself and of having personally seen others afflicted by itrdquo5

Thucydides claims that his method produces general replic -able information It is therefore epistemologically valuable forthose who will want to study his results Immediately followingthis introduction in 2483 Thucydides begins his account of theplague Note that this famous passage begins with a close descrip-tion of the lsquonormalrsquo course of the physical disease then moves toits social and moral consequences There are no proper names nodates no individual events The analysis becomes gradually moreabstract as it moves from the physical to the social to the moral do-main and it depends upon general conceptual forms (ε0δος in 5011π πAν τgtν δέαν in 511) It explicitly omits specific data that areatypical (πολλ κα 9λλα παραλιπντι τοπ(ας ς CκltστD1τ+γχαν τι διαφερντως CτρD πρς τερον γιγνμενον in 511)Thucydides is thus interested in uncovering what O Lendle hascalled the ldquointernal regularityrdquo governing the plague6 The plaguepassage eschews individual facts and events (τερα) in favor of gen-eral qualitative description (ο6ον) It is thus not a purely empiricalstudy of physical events and properties but a set of qualitative de-

249Thucydidean Epistemology Between Philosophy and History

didesrsquo words in Procopius Bell Pers 2225 Just as the entire plague passage wasclearly well known in antiquity so was Thucydidesrsquo methodological introductionto it

5) Cf Pliny the Elder Natural History 1128 on Insects denique existima-tio sua cuique sit nobis propositum est naturas rerum manifestas indicare non cau-sas indagare dubias ldquoIn short let each person think about this as he wishes my pur-pose is to point out the manifest properties of objects not to search for dubious cau-sesrdquo Pliny in a virtual quotation of the Thucydidean passage uses the same thirdperson singular imperative to set aside the intellectual approaches taken by othersthen stipulates that his (more scientific) method is to identify the visible propertiesof things He renders the phrases ο6ον and φ 8ν 9ν with naturas manifestas re -rum and δηλσω with indicare The goal is qualitative description enabling futurelearning

6) ldquo die Krankheit einer inneren Gesetzmaumlssigkeit unterworfen istrdquo Lend-le 1990 234 Lendle (234 n 8) argues that Thucydides found this same kind of re-gularity in the political ldquosymptomsrdquo he detected in the runup to the PeloponnesianWar By identifying such symptoms in these instances Thucydides believed that hishistory could be concretely useful in the sense that readers understanding the pat-terns he described could thereby distinguish such sequences of symptoms in dis -eases and wars of their own day

scriptions based upon close observation and what we might call so-cial psychological reasoning and analysis7 It carries emotionalpower through its rhetorical intensity its striking verbs and itsportrayal of widespread suffering8 The passage is a conceptual andrhetorical masterpiece a distillation of thousands of specific eventsinto an intellectual and emotional exposition

A second example of explicit preference for qualitative analy-sis over previous Greek practice comes in a speech Periclesrsquo Funeral Oration After a traditional opening a recusatio followedby a brief praise of the Atheniansrsquo ancestors Pericles expressly de-clines to do the next conventional thing in an epitaphios to recountthe battles of the past two generations ldquoby which each possessionwas acquiredrdquo ο6ς καστα 1κτήθη (2364) He does not wish toldquogo on at length in front of those who already know these thingsrdquoInstead he reveals (δηλώσας the same verb as in 2483) the essen-tial nature of Athenian culture

Ο6ος appears self-consciously three times in this sentence inconsecutive prepositional phrases9 The three nouns 1πιτήδευσιςπολιτεία and τρόποι furnish the program for the next five para-graphs of the Funeral Oration At their conclusion Pericles sum-marizes by saying ldquoThe reason for my going on at length about thecity is to give a lessonrdquo (διδασκαλία in 2421) It is clear from itsintroduction and conclusion that this section stands out as arhetorical innovation ldquoI will not go on at length about battles Ihave gone on at length about the essential character of the Athen-ian polisrdquo Pericles eschews battle narratives in favor of qualitativeanalysis As J Rusten points out Periclesrsquo Funeral Oration ldquode-parts from the traditional pattern of the epitaphios to concentratealmost entirely on the glorification of contemporary Athensrdquo10 Iwould add based on what we have seen here that the self-con-sciously marked departure is the replacement of individual battlenarratives with the abstract analysis of Athenian character This


7) Note that Romilly (1990 66) emphasizes the general nature of Thucydi-desrsquo description of the plague

8) Parry 1969 106ndash1189) Stroud (1987 381) notes that 2484 and 2364 are the only two senten-

ces in Thucydides containing this τε κα( construction with ο6ον This similarityin addition to the dismissal of conventional approaches and the repeated use ofδηλoacuteω links these two passages tightly

10) Rusten 1989 19

five-paragraph section gains its fame from its deep and rhetorical-ly powerful dissection of Athenian values and traits

In the same way the famous Corinthian portrayal of Athen-ian character features a ο6ος statement (1696ndash701)

κα μηδες Jμν 1π χθρK τ πλον L ατ(K νομ(σM τltδε λγεσθαιατ(α μν γρ φ(λων νδρν 1στν Nμαρτανντων κατηγορ(α δ1χθρν δικησltντων (1701) κα )μα επερ τινς κα 9λλοι 9ξιοινομ(ζομεν ε0ναι το3ς πλας ψγον 1πενεγκε3ν 9λλως τε κα μεγltλωντν διαφερντων καθεσττων περ 8ν οκ ασθltνεσθαι Pμ3ν γεδοκε3τε οδ 1κλογ(σασθαι πποτε πρς οQους Jμ3ν Rθηνα(ους Sνταςκα σον Jμν κα ς πAν διαφροντας T γ5ν σται

The Corinthians begin with a self-conscious non-apology then in-troduce their final argument with κα )μα11 The now-familiarcontrast between old and new ways of seeing and thinking followsldquoDonrsquot think we say these things out of enmity We say them as aremonstrance which men use for friends who have made errorsnot as a criminal accusation which men use for enemies who havewronged them But most of all if anyone can claim the right toprotest to you we can since you Spartans seem to us not to per-ceive the great differences between the two national characters norto reflect upon just what sort (οQους) of people the Athenians arehow strikingly and completely different they will be as adver-sariesrdquo In the next sentence the Corinthians launch into their un-forgettable comparison of Athenian and Spartan national charac-teristics and conclude it by dropping the Spartans entirely in theirintense focus upon Athenian πολυπραγμοσ+νη The final picture ofthe Athenians (709) is memorable ldquoIn summary if someone saidthat it is in their nature (πεφυκέναι) to take no rest and not to al-low other human beings to take any he would be rightrdquo This pas-sage in the Corinthiansrsquo speech provides the reader with a syn-chronic description of the Atheniansrsquo essential nature Ο6ος intro-duces the qualitative analysis πεφυκέναι concludes it Both words


11) See Van de Maele 1990 341ndash346 when κα )μα introduces the last in aseries of arguments or rationales it is the most true and often the most hidden orsecret argument In such cases it heralds the most important and revealing argumentin the sequence This is clearly the case here where the Corinthians unveil their dramatic and clinching revelation to the Spartans Note that the Athenians use κα)μα a couple of pages further along (1731) to the same effect their third motivefor speaking is the most important ndash see Van de Maele 1990 343

signal the essential nature of the Athenians as conceived by theCorinthians (that is by Thucydides)

Note that this ο6ος passage recalls and extends the commentsthe Corinthians made near the beginning of their speech In 682the Corinthians emphasized that they had often warned the Spar-tans about Athenian aggression but ldquoyou were not learning oneach occasion what we were teachingrdquo ο περ 8ν 1διδltσκομενCκltστοτε τgtν μltθησιν 1ποιε3σθε The word Cκltστοτε functionshere as do its cognates in the passages examined above It refers tothe individual warnings given repeatedly to Sparta in the past Sincethose warnings about specific acts of aggression did not succeed inconvincing the Spartans to act the Corinthians decide instead tooffer (in chapter 70) a general synchronic description of Athenianπολυπραγμοσ+νη as a means of persuasion These two passages arelinked by διδάσκω and μάθησις in 682 and ασθltνεσθαι and1κλογ(σασθαι in 701 the Corinthiansrsquo concern is to teach theSpartans who are in the Corinthiansrsquo view slow to learn and un-able to perceive or to reflect Hence a new method is required ananalytical description of the Atheniansrsquo character rather than spe-cific instruction in the midst of individual episodes of aggression12

The Pentekontaetia furnishes us with another example of thetype different in form because it is explicitly a digression from themain narrative but with a similar purpose and a self-consciousopening like that of the plague passage Thucydides begins the Pentekontaetia in 1891 Ο γρ Rθηνα3οι τρπD τοιVδε λθον 1πτ πρltγματα 1ν ο6ς ηξθησαν ΤρπD τοιVδε is the key phrase ldquointhis sort of wayrdquo At the end of the first segment of the Pentekon-taetia Thucydides sums up the Athenian assumption of hegemonywith το+τD τV τρπD in 961 this is a qualitative expression to in-troduce the ldquoway in whichrdquo Athenian power developed Τρόπος re-curs at the end of 1972 the second and more formal introductionto the Pentekontaetia


12) Note more Periclean language in 1683 Κα ε μν φανε3ς που SντεςYδ(κουν τgtν Zλλltδα διδασκαλ(ας =ν ς οκ εδσι προσδει νν δ τ( δε3μακρηγορε3ν (cf 2364 and 421) In their exasperation the Corinthians com-plain that they would have to offer instruction to unknowing allies if the Athenianswere committing aggression in the dark but ask why they should go on at lengthnow when Athenian actions have been so blatant and visible to all Pericles usesmany of the same words to make a similar point to his fellow Athenians since youalready know all of this I have no need to go on at length

γραψα δ ατ κα τgtν 1κβολgtν το λγου 1ποιησltμην δι τδε τιτο3ς πρ 1μο )πασιν 1κλιπς τοτο ν τ χωρ(ον κα L τ πρ τνΜηδικν Zλληνικ ξυνετ(θεσαν L ατ τ Μηδικlt το+των δ σπερκα ψατο 1ν τ] Rττικ] ξυγγραφ] Zλλltνικος βραχως τε κα το3ςχρνοις οκ κριβς 1πεμνσθη )μα δ κα τς ρχς πδειξιν χειτς τν Rθηνα(ων 1ν οQD τρπD κατστη

Thucydidesrsquo rationale for including this excursus is tripartite ex-pressed in ascending order of significance previous writers omit-ted this period of history the one writer who did treat it was briefand inaccurate in chronology and principally this excursus con-tains an explanation of the general manner in which (1ν οQD τρπD)the Athenians acquired their empire As Van de Maele has demon-strated Thucydides almost always uses the phrase )μα δ and itsvariants to introduce an additional item in a list with the goal of jus-tifying an action or mode of reasoning13

On the usage of )μα δ κα in 1972 Van de Maele says ldquoLecontexte prouve hors de tout doute que crsquoeacutetait bien la vraie raisonde cette narrationrdquo14 Given the need to explain to his readers whyhe is going on at such length with this digression Thucydides ex-cuses himself with two lsquoexternalrsquo rationales then presents the pri-mary purpose of the digression within his own work it constitutesa demonstration of the way in which the Athenians developed theirempire L Edmunds takes our understanding of this passage fur-ther ldquoThere are two references to Thucydidesrsquo writing here Thefirst uses the aorist tense (lsquoI wrotersquo) Thucydides thus seems to bespeaking of his work in an important procedural passage in thepast tense and in the first person singular But note the second ref-erence Here he uses the present tense (lsquothese things providersquo) Heconceives of the Pentekontaetia as a presentation (Note also theunexpected Herodotean πδειξις too) The proposed excursus isthus brought into a temporal foreground The actions of writingand of making an excursus designated by the secondary tenses inthe first sentence thus become operations that are subsumed in thegesture of presentation or display lsquoI wrote it and here it isrsquo rdquo15 Just


13) Van de Maele 1990 342 ldquoDans presque tous ces cas il y a un eacuteleacutement quiajoute quelque chose dans le but de justifier une action ou un raisonnement ou biende preacutesenter un argument plus important mais tenu secretrdquo

14) Van de Maele 1990 34415) Edmunds 1993 839 referring to 197 It is instructive to compare a simi-

larly self-conscious passage in Herodotus that also announces inquiry into ldquothe way

as in the plague passage Thucydides explicitly tells the reader thatldquoI shall point out what sort of thing (ο6ον) it wasrdquo so here he self-consciously announces to the reader that he will present the gen-eral manner in which (1ν οQD τρπD) the Athenians developed theirempire

But in this case Thucydides uses a diachronic narrative ofAthenian military actions to furnish a qualitative portrayal ofAthenian character and energy The narrative serves as a demon-stration (πδειξις) by means of rigorous distillation Thucydidestells us that he will include specific historical material directly rel-evant to his primary point (1971) ldquo they (sc the Athenians)went through the following actions (τοσάδε 1πλθον) in war andin the administration of affairs between this war and the PersianWars actions against the barbarian and against their own allies inrevolt and against those of the Peloponnesians who repeatedly(αεί) came into contact with them in each instance (1ν CκάστD)rdquoThis is not general qualitative description like the passages abovebut narration of selected individual events over time The Atheni-ans aggressively used the new league to further their ambitionsstriking everywhere in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean andeventually overreaching in Egypt Thucydides designs the Pen-tekontaetia not as a full account of the years 480 to 431 but as ademonstration of the nature of Athenian imperialism just as the


in whichrdquo an empire was achieved In 1951 Herodotus says ldquoMy logos now in-quires additionally into Cyrus who it was who brought down the empire of Croe-sus and into the Persians in what way they gained control over Asia As those ofthe Persians report who do not wish to exaggerate their account of Cyrus but rat-her to tell the truth in this way I shall write it although I know how to tell threeother variants of the storyrdquo Note the resemblances to Thucydidesrsquo introduction ofthe Pentekontaetia authorial interruption to introduce the causative history of em-pire-building ldquoin what wayrdquo it happened mention of earlier inferior versions em-phasis upon the superior accuracy of his own version self-conscious use of the nounλγος and the verb γρltφω Fornara finds the Herodotean passage fundamentallysignificant for Greek historiography the ldquotruly historical principlerdquo contained inthe phrase ldquothe means by which the Persians took control of Asia (I95)rdquo is a newdiscovery ldquo Herodotusrsquo Persica implies the utilization of a thematic conceptionof history The material which is the subject of narration is coerced into an histo ric -al pattern This is a new element in lsquohistoricalrsquo writing of decisive importance tothe development of that genrerdquo (Fornara 1971 26) It is my argument that Thucy-dides ldquocoercedrdquo the events between 480 and 431 into just such an historical patternthat the Pentekontaetia is in Fornararsquos terms ldquoteleological not antiquarian in fo-cusrdquo

Corinthians depicted it in a synchronic description This digres-sion then is highly selective and employs a few discrete events topaint a general picture of Athenian energy and aggressiveness16

We have reviewed four well-known passages in Thucydidesand found that they betray a common pattern Thucydides and hisspeakers reject a traditional way of observing and interpretingevents in favor of an explicitly new means of analysis one that de-pends upon the distillation of individual events or characteristicsinto general types These general types have epistemological valuefor those future readers who want to learn important lessons fromthe past That is why Pericles calls his five-paragraph section onAthenian traits a διδασκαλία it is why the Corinthians candidlytell the Spartans they are lecturing them about how different theAthenian character is from their own it is why Thucydides expli -citly claims to be improving upon Hellanicus and other predeces-sors in introducing the Pentekontaetia and it is why he claims para digmatic value for his description of the plague The word ο6οςis chosen in each case to introduce these passages It announces thequalitative value of these expositions In each example Thucydides(or his speakers) expressly breaks the narrative to introduce a pas-sage that explains the nature of a set of events or a people17

Thucydides uses the same intellectual technique without aο6ος introduction in other well-known passages particularly hisaccount of stasis and his ldquoArchaeologyrdquo After narrating the eventsof the Corcyrean civil war in 370ndash81 Thucydides dilates on thenature of stasis itself in chapters 82 through [84] Again the methodis qualitative and the findings are abstract and generalized Thucy-dides introduces this section with another claim to qualitative andpermanent understanding (3822)

κα 1ππεσε πολλ κα χαλεπ κατ στltσιν τα3ς πλεσι γιγνμενα μνκα αε 1σμενα ως =ν P ατgt φ+σις νθρπων ^ μAλλον δ καPσυχα(τερα κα το3ς εδεσι διηλλαγμνα ς =ν κασται α μεταβολατν ξυντυχιν 1φιστνται


16) Rawlings 1981 86ndash87 Connor 1984 42 with n 48 Stadter 1993 35ndash7217) For more remarks about Thucydidesrsquo tendency to resort to general ana-

lysis see Romilly 1990 chapter 2 ldquoLa monteacutee par lrsquoabstrait Les reacuteflexions genera-lesrdquo 61ndash104 She notes for example his frequent use of τοιοτος to introduce gen -eralizing passages

Note εδος in 822 and πAσα δέα in 815 where Thucydidesfirst begins to generalize and πAσα δέα again in 831 As in theplague passage Thucydides emphasizes the form of civil war notthe individual details which he specifically eschews μAλλον δ καPσυχα(τερα κα το3ς εδεσι διηλλαγμνα ς =ν κασται α μετα -βολα τν ξυντυχιν 1φιστνται This disclosure of the nature ofstasis is the reason why the passage has had such an impact upongenerations of readers Again the passage increases in abstractionas it proceeds from semantic to political to moral analysis each do-main undergoes degradation inversion and eventual corruptionjust as did the physical social and moral regimes in the plague Thepower of the stasis passage stems from the depth of its intellectualanalysis the distillation of the essence of stasis from its multiple oc-currences in the Greek world (`στερν γε κα πAν ς επε3ν τZλληνικν 1κινθη in 821)

The most historiographically sophisticated example of thistype is Thucydidesrsquo Archaeology a reconstruction of the distantGreek past by ldquopure reasoningrdquo18 Using only a few pieces of in-formation transmitted by oral tradition he paints a general pictureof Greek history that readers can rely upon even if he cannot getevery detail right because the available evidence does not allow thatlevel of accuracy (Τ μν ον παλαι τοιατα ηaρον χαλεπ Sνταπαντ Cξς τεκμηρ(D πιστεσαι in 1201) Here again Thucydidesis proud of his method which he claims enables enormous im-provement over the findings of his predecessors the poets and lo-gographers who sacrifice accuracy for entertainment Chapters 20and 21 are a polemic against the common Greek method of recov-ering history through oral transmission and a boast that his ownapproach is vastly superior Rather than tell amusing stories or ex-aggerate past military feats Thucydides has found a way to discloseand elucidate what he considers the principal pattern underlyingGreek history namely the rise of walled cities with navies andtheir fundamental role in developing true power This paradigmowes its salience and indeed its creation to the contempo ra -ry Athenian Empire the present shapes the past Thucydidesrsquo Archaeology is a reasoning backwards an intellectual construct atheory designed to provide coherence to the few data provided bythe record It answers the questions were early Greek cities as


18) Romilly 1956 297

powerful as Athens and Sparta now are why were they weakwhat was the nature of their power As Romilly said in this open-ing section Thucydides founded a critical method The historianwill use the same techniques in other sections of his work but thisone is the most ldquopurerdquo example of the method because historicalevidence is so scant that he must find a coherent pattern by rea-soning from a minimum of ldquofactsrdquo19

The method we have been describing that of abstracting es-sential properties from sensory data somewhat resembles the onePlato stipulates for example in the Phaedrus (249B) δε3 γρ9νθρωπον συνιέναι κατrsquo ε0δος λεγόμενον 1κ πολλν ν ασ -θήσεων ες bν λογισμV συναιρούμενον ldquoOne must understandwhat is said according to the form going from many sense percep-tions to one coherent unity formed by reasoningrdquo In Plato it is amatter of remembering the Ideas in Thucydides it is a matter ofseeing (or creating) patterns or paradigms in history In both casesthe results are general and permanent though Thucydides issues aqualification ldquoas long as the nature of man remains the samerdquo20

Thucydides has a strong tendency to see unity coherencepattern under the surface of history It is in his view paradigmsthat make learning from history possible In these same passagesThucydides openly disavows any search for contingent or individ-ual facts In describing the plague he explicitly leaves aside manyoutlying cases as they affected each individual (2511 ς CκltστD1τ+γχαν τι διαφερντως CτρD πρς τερον γιγνμενον) In the


19) Romilly 1956 245 See also Finley 1971 19 the Archaeology is ldquoa gene-ral sociological theory a theory about power and progress applied retrospectivelyto the past and applied one must add with caution and hesitation for as Thucy-dides explains at the outset one cannot achieve certainty about ancient times onecan merely say that this is what all the lsquosignsrsquo point tordquo Note Nicolai 2001 276ndash277 who emphasizes that ldquo the Archaeology is not modern objective recon-struction but is selective and biasedrdquo It proceeds by identifying ldquoarchetypesrdquo ldquotyp -ologies of eventsrdquo ldquothe importance and paradigmatic value of the most outstandingevents of the past with respect to those of the presentrdquo See also J Marincola 1997119 Thucydides ldquohad lsquotamedrsquo myth in the Archaeologyrdquo Connor 1984 21ndash32 em-phasizes the multiple purposes of the Archaeology

20) Edmunds 1975 160 ldquoIn all the places just cited Thucydides rejects per-spectival limitation (ς) the individual (καστος) the discrete (τις τι) the contin-gent (τυγχάνω etc) Thucydides wishes to pass from lsquothe changes of the contin-gentrsquo (α μεταβολα τν ξυντυχιν 3822) to the idea (2511) A comparison withPlato suggests itself rdquo Note also the useful chart of methodological passages inEdmunds 159

Funeral Oration Pericles declines to address how ldquoeach possessionwas acquiredrdquo (2364 ο6ς καστα 1κτήθη) In their speech in BookI the Corinthians complain that the Spartans failed to learn fromthem each time (Cκltστοτε) they gave them a lesson In the stasispassage Thucydides says that the sufferings caused by civil war oc-cur in milder or more severe form depending upon individual cir-cumstances (ς =ν κασται α μεταβολα( in 3822) And in hissummary of the Archaeology Thucydides says that his account ofearly history is approximately right though it is difficult to trustevery single piece of evidence (1201 παντ Cξς τεκμηρ(D)dκαστος and its cognates denote in each case the incidental indi-vidual facts that are not the principal object of inquiry in the ο6οςpassage21 In these important indeed famous chapters of his his -tory Thucydides specifically denies interest in individual casesHis focus is entirely on disclosing general patterns22

Thucydidesrsquo proof language instructing readers in intellectual method

When we turn to another aspect of Thucydidean epistemol -ogy that exhibited in his standard language of proof we find whatinitially appears to be a different Thucydides one who i s interest-ed in discovering specific details in achieving historical precision

Most of these passages have two markers of method τις to re-fer to the ldquoideal readerrdquo of Thucydidesrsquo work23 and the third per-son imperative to propose or reject a method of inquiry In 520Thucydides insists upon precision in dating historical events Hedoes so in what we will find to be formulaic proof language(5202ndash3)


21) Edmunds 1975 160 commented upon the idiom ς καστος in Thucydi-des ldquoThucydides often uses this idiom to express the lsquochanges of the contingentrsquo asopposed to what was generally the caserdquo

22) This kind of ldquodisclosurerdquo is what Shanske following Wittgenstein callsldquoaspect seeingrdquo ldquo aspect seeing tends to be an experience of seeing objects aswholes that is as the kinds of things that they arerdquo (2007 179)

23) See Loraux 1986 157 159 and 1985 18ndash19 Loraux argues that Thucy-dides by covertly asserting his authority as author compels this reader whom shecalls the ldquoideal readerrdquo (as seen from Thucydidesrsquo point of view) to ldquoassentrdquo to hisnarrative to his version of history (1986 150)

σκοπε(τω δ τις κατ τοeς χρνους κα μgt τν Cκασταχο L ρχντωνL π τιμς τινς 1ς τ προγεγενημνα σημαινντων τgtν παρ(θμησιντν fνομltτων πιστε+σας μAλλον ο γρ κριβς 1στιν ο6ς καρχομνοις κα μεσοσι κα πως τυχ τD 1πεγνετ τι κατ θρη δκα χειμνας ριθμν gσπερ γγραπται εJρσει 1ξ Pμισε(αςCκατρου το 1νιαυτο τgtν δ+ναμιν χοντος δκα μν θρη σους δχειμνας τV πρτD πολμD τVδε γεγενημνους24

The third person imperative stipulates the method ldquoone (the read-er) must examine by seasons and not trust in the enumeration ofarchons or public officials For that is not precise since eventshappen at the beginning or in the middle or at any time in theirtenure But counting by summers and winters just as [this] hasbeen written with each having the value of half a year he will dis-cover rdquo Here Thucydides criticizes those who date by archonyears and other such offices and points out the benefits of his sea-sonal methodology This passage argues for chronological preci-sion (κριβς) and seeks specificity (Cκατρου) The goal then isthe opposite of the goal of those passages we examined abovewhere specificity was expressly eschewed in favor of general typeor form Note that σκοπε(τω is intransitive and refers more to anintellectual than to a sensory process ldquoto considerrdquo ldquoto examinerdquoIt is reiterated by ριθμν ldquoto countrdquo these two verbs are fol-lowed by nearly identical prepositional phrases and refer to simi-lar processes of calculation and ratiocination25

At the beginning of Book VI the historian dismisses le -gendary accounts of the early inhabitants of Sicily (621)

παλα(τατοι μν λγονται 1ν μρει τιν τς χρας Κ+κλωπες καΛαιστρυγνες οκσαι 8ν 1γ5 οiτε γνος χω επε3ν οiτε Tπθεν


24) This sentence presents notorious difficulties in syntax and ordering(Hornblower 1996 490ndash493) Lendlersquos (1960) attempt to resolve these problems bymeans of two conjectures is clever and it results in additional emphasis upon Hel-lanicus as the target of Thucydidesrsquo methodological strictures Lendle argues for thefollowing text σκοπείτω δέ τις κατ τοeς χρόνους κα μgt τν Cκασταχο Lρχόντων L π τιμς τινς τ] παριθμσει τν fνματα 1ς τ προγεγενημένασημαινόντων πιστεύσας μAλλον

25) Loraux 1986 154 emphasizes Thucydidesrsquo use of intransitive σκοπε3ν toindicate the capacity of the intellect to have ldquono other object than itselfrdquo ldquo la viseacuteede lrsquointellect pourrait bien ecirctre de nrsquoavoir pas drsquoautre objet que soi Si lrsquoacte drsquoeacutecri-ture se veut tout entier transitif voici que la reacuteflexion qui le preacutecegravede et le produit estpure intransitiviteacute pure viseacutee de son propre fonctionnement ndash et il faut peut-ecirctre ajouter pure exaltation de son propre pouvoirrdquo

1σλθον L ποι πεχρησαν ρκε(τω δ ς ποιητα3ς τε ερηται κα ςκαστς πM γιγνσκει περ ατν Σικανο δ μετ ατοeς πρτοιφα(νονται 1νοικισltμενοι ς μν ατο( φασι κα πρτεροι δι τατχθονες ε0ναι ς δ P λθεια εJρ(σκεται kΙβηρες Sντες

Thucydides strongly implies the superiority of his own account tothose of the poets and of any other credulous Greeks his approachis more accurate and reliable Rather than pass on legendary sto-ries Thucydides begins his account of Sicilian history with what heconsiders to be the first solid information obtainable This passageat the beginning of Book VI bears a close resemblance to the in-troduction to the plague third person imperative followed by ςclauses the subjects of which are poets and καστς πM γιγνσκειin the former and καστος γιγνσκει κα ατρς κα διτης in thelatter

In 526 his so-called ldquosecond introductionrdquo Thucydides usesanother third person imperative to prove his case that the Pelo-ponnesian War was a single 27-year-long war not two distinct warsseparated by a seven-year peace (5261ndash3)

Γγραφε δ κα τατα T ατς Θουκυδ(δης Rθηνα3ος Cξς ς καστα1γνετο κατ θρη κα χειμνας μχρι οa τν τε ρχgtν κατπαυσαντν Rθηνα(ων Λακεδαιμνιοι κα ο ξ+μμαχοι κα τ μακρ τε(χη κατν ΠειραιA κατλαβον τη δ 1ς τοτο τ ξ+μπαντα 1γνετο τVπολμD Cπτ κα εκοσι κα τgtν δι μσου ξ+μβασιν ε τις μgt ξισειπλεμον νομ(ζειν οκ fρθς δικαισει το3ς [τε] γρ ργοις ς διrρη -ται θρε(τω κα εJρσει οκ εκς sν ερνην ατgtν κριθναι 1ν tοiτε πδοσαν πltντα οiτ πεδξαντο u ξυνθεντο ξω τε το+τωνπρς τν Μαντινικν κα vπιδα+ριον πλεμον κα 1ς 9λλα μφοτροιςNμαρτματα 1γνοντο κα ο 1π Θρwκης ξ+μμαχοι οδν xσσονπολμιοι σαν Βοιωτο( τε 1κεχειρ(αν δεχμερον γον gστε ξeν τVπρτD πολμD τV δεκτει κα τ] μετ ατν JππτD νοκωχ] κα τV`στερον 1ξ ατς πολμD εJρσει τις τοσατα τη λογιζμενος καττοeς χρνους κα Pμρας ο πολλς παρενεγκο+σας κα το3ς πχρησμν τι σχυρισαμνοις μνον δgt τοτο 1χυρς ξυμβltν

This is a more elaborate proof than the earlier passages because itis for Thucydides one of the most significant contentions of hisentire work that ldquohis warrdquo lasted thrice nine years as oracles hadpredicted and that it contained two ldquoHomeric warsrdquo26 Thucy-dides goes to some length to make his case and he uses many of thekey ldquoproof wordsrdquo at his disposal Again the third person impera-


26) See Rawlings 1981 8ndash13

tive probably referring to the reader marks the proof in the sameway as before

This kind of proof is drawn from Attic dialectical and legalreasoning not from Ionian science or medicine It depends uponldquolooking atrdquo the facts from a particular viewpoint assessing themcritically and using probability to draw conclusions27 Thucydideshighlights the mistaken methods employed by others through hisuse of ldquoelaborate negativesrdquo and emphasizes the need to thinkthrough the intellectual thicket by his use of ldquosix different verbs formental siftingrdquo28 This passage does not strictly speaking aim atprecision or accuracy Its goal is to establish proper (to Thucydides)definitions and an overall point of view It is a polemic an argumentfor looking at the Peloponnesian War in a particular way It is nomore ldquoaccuraterdquo than other methods of evaluating and dividing thisperiod of history Some in antiquity and in modern times refer to aldquoFirst Peloponnesian Warrdquo in the 440rsquos Some argue that what wenow call the Peloponnesian War began with the conflict at Corcyrain 433 Or that it ended with the Peace of Nicias in 42129 All arereasonable ways to divide and label historical events For reasons ofhis own Thucydides conceives of ldquohis warrdquo as a single conflict withtwo periods of ldquocontinuous warrdquo and a middle period of ldquouneasytrucerdquo marked by suspicion failure to fulfill agreements temporaryarmistices open hostility and even conflict by some combatantsThe longer and more elaborate this passage becomes the more ap-parent are its polemical nature and its special pleading The carefulreader has the distinct impression that Thucydides here arrangesthe chronological facts in order to suit his purposes30


27) The Tetralogies of Antiphon furnish us with the best example of such rea-soning because they constitute exercises designed to demonstrate how one can takeeither side of a case by using arguments based upon a priori probabilities Note inparticular Tetralogy A 2 for ingenious uses of arguments from probability The (hy-pothetical) facts matter little it is the demonstration of clever logic and design ofproofs that made the Tetralogies potentially valuable to Athenians seeking help inthe courtroom See Plant 1999 62ndash73 Note also Loraux 1985 15 n 32 and 17 n 40

28) See Cook 1988 4829) See Marincola 1997 134 n 25 ldquoThucydides is emphatic because his no-

tion went against the general consensus of his time which saw the Archidamian Waras distinct see G E M de Ste Croix The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1972)294ndash5rdquo

30) This impression is fortified by Thucydidesrsquo unusual mention of an oraclethat is consistent with his interpretation (notably introduced by ldquoI myself have of-

In other sections on method Thucydides also uses τις con-structions In 6551 his lengthy polemical argument that Hip-pias was the oldest of the sons of Peisistratus he begins his proofthis way ldquoI insist that as the oldest Hippias held the rule Iknow a more accurate oral tradition than others do and one (τις)would also know it from the followingrdquo Rather than employ thethird person imperative here Thucydides uses a strong verbσχυ ρί ζομαι to underline his conviction In 7441 the beginningof Thucydidesrsquo description of the night battle at Syracuse hepauses to contrast what can be learned about battles by daywhere information is ldquoclearerrdquo (σαφέστερα) but still difficult toascertain with what one can learn about a battle at night πς 9ντις σαφς τι zδει ldquohow could anyone learn anything clearlyrdquoIn this passage the rhetorical question conveys the authorrsquos in-tensity Thucydides has a strong predilection for ldquoτις construc-tionsrdquo whenever he addresses his reader on the subject ofmethod particularly when information is scarce and unreliable


ten recalled from the beginning of the war to its conclusion rdquo) Even thoughThucydides in this passage casts aspersions upon ldquothose who make arguments onthe basis of oracular pronouncementsrdquo he avers that ldquothis one alone was securelyin agreement with the factsrdquo See Thorburn 1999 439ndash444 for a detailed scrutiny ofthis passage Thorburn argues that Thucydides regards the consistency between hisinterpretation and the oracular one as ldquosheer coincidencerdquo since those who put theirtrust in oracles are clearly using an inferior method of determining the facts but onewonders why Thucydides mentions this oracle at all He uses a particularly strongadverb here and emphasizes the uniqueness of oracular accuracy in this case Thispassage reminds me of 123 where Thucydides appends to the catalogue of humanmisery in the Peloponnesian War a list of extraordinary physical phenomena thatoccurred during its course (τατα γρ πltντα μετ τοδε το πολμου )μα ξυνεπ -θετο in 233) Both passages begin with γltρ and )μα ξυνεπθετο has a similar for-ce to 1χυρς ξυμβάν Though Thucydides does not claim that natural phenomenaare causally linked to the war he clearly wants the reader to be impressed by thecoincidence I suspect that both passages have this rhetorical purpose The oraclethen helps to bolster Thucydidesrsquo case which he well knew had detractors See Ma-rincola 1997 134 n 25 ldquoThe argument of the length of the war (v 262ndash3) leads tothe evidence of the oracle (263 ad fin) which is then validated by the historianrsquosrecollection (αε γρ γωγε μέμνημαι 264) and the fact that he lived through it all(265)rdquo See also Keyser 2006 323ndash351 for Thucydidesrsquo tendency to artificially syn-chronize natural events for rhetorical effect Note in particular (page 345) ldquo whatmatters is Thucydidesrsquo manner of work and outlook Numbers more often serve asdescriptive evaluative or even evocative adjectives much like those of color or sizeThucydides characteristically omits figures required for analysis but provides thosewhich serve to express the extraordinary or unexpectedrdquo

or when he is engaging in polemics against other interpretationsof the evidence

We find this same τις used in multiple ldquoproofsrdquo in the Archaeology In 166 Thucydides says ldquosomeone (τις) might pointout (ποδείξειε) many other respects in which ancient Greek cus-toms were similar in nature to contemporary barbarian customsrdquoIn 1101 he claims that ldquo one (τις) would be using an inaccurateindicator (οκ κριβε3 σημείD) if he doubted that the expeditionwas as great as the poets have said and as the tradition maintainsrdquoIn 1105 τις is implied in the participle of σκοπε3ν ldquofor one whoexamines (σκοποντι) the mean between the greatest and smallestships those who came will appear few in number given that theywere sent out from all of Greece in a common enterpriserdquo

In 1212 we find a similar construction employed in apolemic π ατν τν ργων σκοποσι δηλσει μως με(ζωνγεγενημνος ατν ldquofor those readers who examine on the basis ofthe facts themselves [this war] will reveal that it was greater thanthose [earlier ones]rdquo Thucydidesrsquo war is the subject of the sen-tence the readers who study Thucydidesrsquo war are the indirect ob-ject of the warrsquos demonstration It will be important to recall thisuse of σκοπε3ν when we look at the force of that verb when it re-curs in 1224 where it again refers to the ldquostudyingrdquo performed byThucydidesrsquo readers

The reason τισι can be implied here is that the argument goesback to 1211 where Thucydides began this final section of the Archaeology with another τις ldquothe reader who believes that ancientevents were roughly (μάλιστα) of such a kind (τοιατα resumingΤ μν παλαι τοιατα of 1201) as I described would not bemistaken rdquo Note that τοιατα in these instances particularly asmodified by μάλιστα denotes the same kind of approximation sig-nified by χαλεπ Sντα παντ Cξς τεκμηρ(D in 1201 Thucydidesdoes not vouch for each piece of information in the Archaeologybut rather acknowledges approximation and a gene ral kind of ac-curacy As an historical reconstruction based primarily upon rea-soning from a few pieces of evidence the Archaeology requiresmany arguments that make use of logical constructs pro babilityanalogy extension conjecture verisimilitude Hence the frequentuse of ldquoτις proofsrdquo which Thucydides calls into play when evi-dence is lacking or weak As Edmunds notes ldquoThe Archaeology adisplay of reasoning from evidence and probability rejects not


only the poetsrsquo account but also their traditional authority name-ly memoryrdquo31 In place of memory which passively accepts andtransmits stories Thucydides substitutes logical reasoning

A most revealing use of this Thucydidean practice occurs atthe end of the method section 1235

διτι δ λυσαν τς ατ(ας προ+γραψα πρτον κα τς διαφορltς τομ τινα ζητσα( ποτε 1ξ του τοσοτος πλεμος το3ς dλλησι κατστη

The word τινα here refers once more to the reader but in this caseThucydides does not tell the reader what to do but rather what heshould never do namely seek the causes of Thucydidesrsquo war WhyBecause Thucydides has already found them Loraux has empha-sized the arrogance and finality of this claim ldquoEn un mot lrsquohistoirede la guerre est faite et il nrsquoy a plus agrave srsquointerroger il est mecircme inter-dit de rouvrir la recherche apregraves Thucydiderdquo Noting the odd re-dundancy of προ+γραψα πρτον she gives a strong sense to the verbldquo lsquojrsquoai pris les devants pour eacutecrire jrsquoai eacutecrit le premierrsquo Jrsquoai pris les de-vants pour que personne nrsquoaille remonter du reacute cit de la guerre agravela recherche de ses causesrdquo32 Whether or not one accepts this inter-pretation of the verb as ldquopreemptedrdquo Thucydides firmly states in1235 ldquoI have correctly identified the causes of my war and I pre-sent them here so that no reader will ever have to seek them againrdquoThis is a bold claim of authority one that looks particularly hollownow that so many books have been written disputing Thucydidesrsquoanalysis of the causes of the Peloponnesian War

Another telling case of Thucydidean reader-instruction ariseswhen the historian must deal with the secrecy practiced by theSpartan state In 568 Thucydides explains in now-familiar lan-guage the difficulties one confronts in determining the size of theforces arrayed at the Battle of Mantinea It is a memorable demon-stration of methodology (5681ndash2)

Τltξις μν δε κα παρασκευgt μφοτρων ν τ δ στρατπεδον τνΛακεδαιμον(ων με3ζον 1φltνη ριθμν δ γρltψαι L καθ CκltστουςCκατρων L ξ+μπαντας οκ =ν 1δυνltμην κριβς τ μν γρΛακεδαιμον(ων πλθος δι τς πολιτε(ας τ κρυπτν Yγνοε3το τν δα δι τ νθρπειον κομπδες 1ς τ οκε3α πλθη Yπιστε3το 1κμντοι τοιοδε λογισμο ξεστ( τD σκοπε3ν τ Λακεδαιμον(ων ττεπαραγενμενον πλθος


31) Edmunds 1993 85132) Loraux 1986 159

Although strict accuracy is out of the question it is possible forsomeone to use reasoning to investigate (σκοπε3ν here transitive) thesize of that Lakedaimonian force Thucydides demonstrates to thereader the method to be employed he lists the components of theSpartan army and the approximate numbers in each component Thereader is supposed to do the multiplication Thucydides will not doit for him Why not It is probably impossible to know but this is ex-actly the method pursued in 110 where Thucydides gives the read-er a means of estimating the size of the Greek force at Troy by pos-tulating that Homerrsquos poetry allows one to discover an average-sizedcontingent for each ship But as in 568 Thucydides does not carryout the multiplication The result in both cases is endless debateamong scholars today about the proper results of these calculationswith widely varying answers Romilly correctly concludes ldquo lameacutethode est ici plus originale que son reacutesultatrdquo and Hornblowercalls this an ldquoover-rational argumentrdquo a judgment that applies equal-ly well to several of the other proof passages we have just reviewed33

In most of these passages Thucydides uses what he considers to belogical reasoning to arrive at approximations of the truth not at spe-cific answers He clearly places more emphasis upon the intellectualmethod itself than he does upon the results gained therefrom Thecareful reader gains the impression that Thucydides is not so muchinterested in historical precision as he is in fulfilling two rhetoricalpurposes making a strong case for his own point of view anddemonstrating the superiority of his historiographical method

In this regard note also the ldquoaveraging methodrdquo Thucydidesdescribes in 3202ndash4

1ς δ 9νδρας διακοσ(ους κα εκοσι μltλιστα 1νμειναν τ] 1ξδD1θελοντα τρπD τοιVδε κλ(μακας 1ποισαντο σας τV τε(χει τνπολεμ(ων ξυνεμετρσαντο δ τα3ς 1πιβολα3ς τν πλ(νθων t τυχεπρς σφAς οκ 1ξαληλιμμνον τ τε3χος ατν Yριθμοντο δ πολλο)μα τς 1πιβολltς κα μελλον ο μν τινες Nμαρτσεσθαι ο δπλε(ους τε+ξεσθαι το ληθος λογισμο 9λλως τε κα πολλltκιςριθμοντες κα )μα ο πολe πχοντες λλ Kδ(ως καθορωμνου1ς ~ 1βο+λοντο το τε(χους τgtν μν ον ξυμμτρησιν τν κλιμltκωνο`τως λαβον 1κ το πltχους τς πλ(νθου εκltσαντες τ μτρον

Thucydides never tells us how high the wall was Rather heevinces intense interest in the methods employed successfully by


33) Romilly 1956 248 Hornblower 1991 35

the Plataeans to overcome individual error and to arrive at a cal-culation of the wallrsquos actual height Note his emphasis upon thecounts carried out by a number of different Plataeans his mentionof the multiple counts conducted by each Plataean his use ofμελλον with future infinitives to indicate the probable nature ofthe exercise and his use of εκάσαντες in section 4 to describe thePlataeansrsquo estimation of the thickness of each brick All of theseclauses highlight method not results34

The proof passages we have reviewed demonstrate Thucy-didesrsquo characteristic pride in the originality of his method of dis-covery a method based upon logical reasoning Romillyrsquos ldquola rai-sonrdquo as distinguished from ldquolrsquointelligencerdquo35 Keep in mind that ingeneral these passages do not attempt to discover specific facts orto produce precision and they are not ldquoobjectiverdquo They seek ap-proximation or rational coherence or artificial unity or general per-spective and they are polemical in tone arguments for a particularpoint of view They instruct the reader in intellectual method oras Loraux puts it they are ldquoquelque chose comme lrsquoinstructiondrsquoun procegraves meneacutee par un juge que nous devons bien supposer in-tegravegre et qui apregraves coup et une fois pour toutes reacutevegravele les grandeslignes de sa meacutethode dans une langue ougrave le vocabulaire judiciaireest recurrentrdquo36 We are certainly in a rhetorical judicial settingand Thucydides has positioned himself as judge but he is in real -ity an advocate at the bar of history with a case to plead His caseis that he has discovered new means of recovering and reporting thepast and that these new methods enable intellectually superior re-sults to those obtained by poets logographers and the Greek oraltradition in general Objectivity a desirable characteristic in mod-ern professional historiography is not the aim of these passagesTheir goal is persuasion37


34) See Edmunds 1975 162ndash163 Since accuracy is in this case crucial ap-proximation must be close not rough

35) Romilly 1956 52 Note on page 244 her emphatic statement on the de-gree to which Thucydides employed such ldquoreasoningrdquo ldquoLes proceacutedeacutes par lesquelsThucydide entend eacutetablir la veacuteriteacute impliquent agrave tous les degreacutes lrsquoactiviteacute de la rai-son Et cela est si eacutevident si constant si fortement traduit dans lrsquoexpression elle-mecircme qursquoagrave certains eacutegards le texte eacuteclate comme un veacuteritable manifesterdquo

36) Loraux 1986 152 with n 2237) Nicolai 2001 282ndash283 makes similar points about the method Thucydi-

des employs in reconstructing the tyrannicide in 654ndash60 ldquoThe forensic nature of

We have now examined two kinds of passages that Thucy-dides introduces as original and superior to conventional ap-proaches those containing deep and lengthy qualitative analysisoften introduced with ο6ος statements and those exhibiting strongproof language drawn from Attic dialectical reasoning Both typesof passage are heavily ldquomarkedrdquo they promise improvement overprior methods employed by doctors earlier orators (in Periclesrsquocase) poets logographers including Hellanicus explicitly andHerodotus implicitly and indeed by most Greeks making use oforal evidence38 The alleged improvement is both substantive andprocedural that is it produces better results by using bettermethod Thucydides insists repeatedly that his method is intellec-tually superior As Loraux emphasized Thucydidesrsquo aim is to con-vince his readers that they can and should rely upon his account ofthe war that he is an absolute authority They will never be able toproduce a better history of the Peloponnesian War because he hasattained the greatest accuracy possible it is h i s war39 Edmundswho cites Lorauxrsquos article as an inspiration for his own speaks ofldquothe assertion of the historianrsquos (sc Thucydidesrsquo) authority and theeffacement of the historian in his workrdquo and argues that Thucy-dides uses as his principal strategy for asserting that authority whatEdmunds calls ldquoveridicalityrdquo ldquoAccording to Thucydides he pre-sents the truthrdquo Furthermore Thucydides believes that in repro-ducing the war in book form he has achieved ldquoabsolute mime-sisrdquo40


this section ndash so to speak ndash is confirmed by the use of inscriptions as evidence(6546ndash552) and by the hypothetical argumentatio set out in 6543rdquo ldquoThucydidesbehaves like an orator at a trial he collects evidence and develops his argumentswith the subtle dialectic characteristic of judicial oratoryrdquo

38) See Marincola 1997 21 n 100 ldquoThucydides in 1203ndash211 is clearlyattacking Herodotus other prose writers encomiastic orators and poetswriting historical epics such as Simonides rdquo

39) Loraux 1986 140ndash141 147 149ndash150 and especially 159 See also Ed-munds 1993 831ndash852

40) Edmunds 1993 842 846 841 respectively

Thucydidesrsquo conception of ldquothe truthrdquo

If Loraux and Edmunds are correct in their strong interpreta-tion of Thucydidesrsquo truth claims and I believe they are we con-front these questions What i s Thucydidesrsquo understanding of his-torical truth What kind of truth does he seek What does he meanby ldquothe truthrdquo How and how much can one learn about historyThese questions are historiographical and epistemological and aneffort to answer them requires examination of several other keypassages in particular Thucydidesrsquo much-studied methodology

The best way to understand and appreciate the case made in120ndash22 is to see it for what it is a unit a single statement ofmethodology going back via ring composition41 to the introduc-tion of the Archaeology with the same structure and vocabularyThucydides employed in the methodological passages we exam-ined above Like those passages it contains τις constructionsκαστα statements ldquodiscoveryrdquo (εJρίσκω) language and a ο6οςclaim In order to follow the logic of this argument closely andwithout interruption I shall remove from the text any examplesThucydides includes as well as his remarks about speeches Thereare good reasons to (temporarily) remove these sections of text andto place the resulting passages together in a sequence chapter 120resumes precisely where 113 left off the δέ in chapter 1211 iscorrelative with the μέν in 1201 and as we shall see 1221 thesection on speeches while not exactly parenthetical intrudes intoa tightly logical argument42 Here is the resulting continuous argu-ment (113 1201 first sentence 121 1222ndash4)

τ γρ πρ ατν κα τ τι παλα(τερα σαφς μν εJρε3ν δι χρνουπλθος δ+νατα ν 1κ δ τεκμηρ(ων 8ν 1π μακρτατον σκοποντ( μοιπιστεσαι ξυμβα(νει ο μεγltλα νομ(ζω γενσθαι οiτε κατ τοeςπολμους οiτε 1ς τ 9λλα


41) Connor 1984 30 n 2942) Lendle 1990 232 with nn 4 and 5 demonstrates that τ ργα in 1222

(rather than the work as a whole including both narrative and speeches) continuesto be the controlling subject in 223 and 4 and is thus the object of Thucydidesrsquo at-tention in his remarks on methodology Thucydidesrsquo comments in 1221 on how hecomposed the speeches are then secondary in this passage and do not contributeto the argument he makes about the value of his work to readers That value de-pends upon the fact that events in the future will follow the patterns he identifies inthe events of the Peloponnesian War

Τ μν ον παλαι τοιατα ηaρον χαλεπ Sντα παντ Cξς τεκμηρ(Dπιστεσαι

1κ δ τν ερημνων τεκμηρ(ων μως τοιατα 9ν τις νομ(ζων μltλισταu διλθον οχ Nμαρτltνοι κα οiτε ς ποιητα Jμνκασι περ ατν1π τ με3ζον κοσμοντες μAλλον πιστε+ων οiτε ς λογογρltφοιξυνθεσαν 1π τ προσαγωγτερον τ] κροltσει L ληθστερον Sντανεξλεγκτα κα τ πολλ Jπ χρνου ατν π(στως 1π τ μυθδες1κνενικηκτα ηJρσθαι δ Pγησltμενος 1κ τν 1πιφανεστltτωνσημε(ων ς παλαι ε0ναι ποχρντως κα T πλεμος οaτος κα(περ τννθρπων 1ν μν =ν πολεμσι τν παρντα αε μγιστον κρινντωνπαυσαμνων δ τ ρχα3α μAλλον θαυμαζντων π ατν τν ργωνσκοποσι δηλσει μως με(ζων γεγενημνος ατν

τ δ ργα τν πραχθντων 1ν τV πολμD οκ 1κ το παρατυχντοςπυνθανμενος Yξ(ωσα γρltφειν οδ ς 1μο 1δκει λλ ο6ς τε ατςπαρν κα ⟨τ⟩ παρ τν 9λλων σον δυνατν κριβε(K περ Cκltστου1πεξελθν 1πιπνως δ ηJρ(σκετο διτι ο παρντες το3ς ργοιςCκltστοις ο τατ περ τν ατν λεγον λλ ς Cκατρων τιςενο(ας L μνμης χοι κα 1ς μν κρασιν σως τ μgt μυθδες ατντερπστερον φανε3ται σοι δ βουλσονται τν τε γενομνων τσαφς σκοπε3ν κα τν μελλντων ποτ αθις κατ τ νθρπινοντοιο+των κα παραπλησ(ων σεσθαι φλιμα κρ(νειν ατ ρκο+ντωςξει κτμlt τε 1ς αε μAλλον L γνισμα 1ς τ παραχρμα κο+εινξ+γκειται43


43) I offer a literal translation of this passage because of its significance formy argument and its many controversial elements I take the phrase 1κ τοπαρατυχντος adverbially and κρίβεια as the subject of ηJρ(σκετο followingEgermann 1972 and 1983 whose interpretation of the entire passage on speechesand narrative has much to recommend it See Erbse 1989 particularly 132ndash134 Ialso accept Ullrichrsquos conjecture of ⟨τ⟩ before παρ τν 9λλων

lsquoFor it was impossible because of the passage of so much time to discover withcertainty the events before this and the ones still more ancient But based upon theevidence I could trust after the deepest investigation I do not believe they weregreat either in war or in other domains

I discovered ancient events to have been along these lines though it is diffi-cult to trust each piece of evidence in sequence

On the basis of the stated evidence the reader who believes that events werealong the lines I have described would not be mistaken he should not trust whatthe poets sang about them embellishing them with exaggerations nor what thelogographers stitched together attending more to what is pleasing to the ear than toits truthfulness the events of the past cannot be critically tested and many of themhave won their way to the untrustworthy status of legend because of their age Thereader should regard my discoveries made on the basis of the most conspicuous evi-dence as sufficient given the age of the events And although men tend to judgewhatever war they are currently fighting to be in each case the greatest but when itis over to revere more the old wars this war will reveal itself nonetheless as greaterthan those based upon an examination of the facts themselves

Thucydides believed that he could learn something about the his-tory of Greece before his own time but not enough for an accountaccurate in its details He introduces the Archaeology in 113 bysaying ldquoit was impossible because of the passage of so much timeto discover with certainty the events before this (sc the Pelopon-nesian War) and the ones still more ancient But based upon the evidence I could trust after the deepest investigation rdquo This sen-tence has caused embarrassment to commentators Gomme for ex-ample says ldquothere is a difficulty here well discussed by Steup It could not be said of the period from 510 to 435 B C that itσαφς μν εJρε3ν δι χρνου πλθος δ+νατα ν nor doesThucydides in his excursus on the Pentekontaetia (i89ndash118esp 972) suggest that it was and there is therefore much to besaid for Steuprsquos suggestion that a clause saying something aboutthe period 510ndash435 has dropped out after τ γρ πρ ατνrdquo44

Gomme engages in more textual speculation of this sort in his com-mentary on 1201 where he is again bothered by the fact that τπαλαιlt seems to include the Persian Wars and the Pentekonta -etia45

But before we insert arbitrary clauses into the text we shouldfirst take the manuscript reading seriously Thucydides is empha-sizing that one cannot recover history before onersquos own time evenrecent history ldquoclearlyrdquo that is with certainty As we shall see theadverb σαφς and the noun σαφές carry great epistemologicalweight for Thucydides they designate information that can beknown with complete confidence such confidence that it can servenot only to recover the past but to detect patterns that help expli-


I did not think it right to base my account of the actual events of this warupon the things I learned by chance nor even upon how they appeared to me In-stead I went through the evidence for each event as carefully as possible for accu-racy for both those events at which I was myself present and those I heard aboutfrom others Accuracy was achieved laboriously since those present at each eventdid not give the same reports about them but each reported as his bias or memorydetermined For listeners (readers) perhaps the dearth of legendary stories in myaccount will appear rather unappealing But it will be sufficient for my purposes ifwhoever will want in the future to examine the clear and certain truth of what hap-pened and will happen again given the human condition in similar and relatedways judges my account useful It is composed as a book for many readings ratherthan as a competition-piece for immediate listening pleasurersquo

44) Gomme 1959 91 9245) Gomme 1959 135ndash136

cate the future J Marincola has this right ldquoI think Thucydideswants to say that it was difficult to lsquoknow preciselyrsquo not merelylsquoknowrsquo the events of the past What he means by lsquopreciselyrsquo is clearfrom 1224 where τ σαφές means the way he has been able towrite a contemporary history In other words it is impossible towrite of ancient events a history of the sort he will write for thePeloponnesian Warrdquo46 And again with respect to Thucydidesrsquo re-mark on evidence in 1201 Marincola says ldquoIn Thucydides 1201τ παλαιά refers to what occurred before the Peloponnesian Warincluding the Persian Wars as his mention of them in the preced-ing chapter showsrdquo47

Thucydides introduces the Archaeology then by stipulatingthat the history of all events before onersquos own time cannot be ful-ly and reliably recovered He next presents what he considers to bea superior interpretation of Greek history down to his own timesbased as we have seen upon careful reasoning from the fragmen-tary evidence mostly poetic that has survived At the end of thishistorical reconstruction he again issues a disclaimer it is difficultto trust every piece of evidence he has adduced and even his dis-coveries have limitations48

As noted earlier it is important to see that the δέ in 211 re-sponds to the μέν of 201 These two sentences are correlative a factnearly hidden by Thucydidesrsquo lengthy examples in 201ndash3 But weshould read 211 directly after we read 201 in order to understand


46) Marincola 1997 96 n 166 See also Parmeggiani 2003 235ndash283 particu-larly pages 268ndash272 Parmeggiani shows that Thucydides believed that it was pos-sible to reconstruct the history of early Greece but not ldquoclearlyrdquo that is by meansof critical research of the kind he could employ in composing contemporary history

47) Marincola 1997 70 n 33 Patzer 1968 101ndash102 first demonstrated thiscase in 1940 by showing that Thucydidesrsquo polemic in 1211 is just as strong againstthe logographers writing about the fifth century as it is against the poets singing ofthe ancient past in fact the polemic holds even for contemporary history as Thucy-dides makes clear in 1203 (Patzer 1968 103) The dividing line between ldquothe eventsbefore thisrdquo and ldquothe still earlier eventsrdquo is the Trojan War and its aftermath Notealso Erbse 1970 48

48) Some have seen a discrepancy between Thucydidesrsquo claims in 113 and1201 impossible in the former merely difficult in the latter (Marincola 1997 96ndash97 Connor 1984 27) But the referents are different in the two cases discoveringearlier events with certainty is impossible trusting every single piece of evidence is difficult In other words some bits of evidence are trustworthy but even withthose in hand finding and reconstructing the events with perfect clarity is impos -sible

precisely the argument Thucydides is making he asserts that hisversion of Greek history is more reliable than those of the poetsand logographers but acknowledges that it is still imperfect It isessentially a theory constructed from the most conspicuous evi-dence transmitted through oral memory (παντ Cξς τεκμηρ(Dπιστεσαι in 201 1κ τν 1πιφανεστltτων σημε(ων in 211) It isonly roughly accurate (τοιατα in 201 τοιατα μltλιστα in211) Thucydides identifies in 211 the problems that prevent solid recovery of historical events they cannot be critically tested(Sντα νεξλεγκτα) and many have ldquowon their way to the un-trustworthy status of legend because of their agerdquo (τ πολλ Jπχρνου ατν π(στως 1π τ μυθδες 1κνενικηκτα) Translatorsand commentators often take these clauses with only the precedingclauses on the poets and logographers as though these commentsapply only to their accounts of history but that interpretation mis-construes the sentence These strictures must apply as well to theearlier clauses describing Thucydidesrsquo own account τοιατα 9ν τιςνομ(ζων μltλιστα u διλθον It is the events themselves that areuntestable and for the most part unrecoverable not the (poetsrsquoand logographersrsquo) accounts of the events49

Throughout chapters 20 and 21 Thucydides directly address-es the reader the ldquoideal readerrdquo we have seen before chapter 20 ex-plains to this reader the flagrant mistakes made by misuse of theGreek oral tradition even in the transmission of current practicesit is the same reader who is to ldquoconsiderrdquo the facts Thucydides hasldquogone throughrdquo as generally accurate (211) and it is this readeragain who ldquostudiesrdquo (σκοποσι) Thucydidesrsquo war by means of thefacts themselves (212) Thucydides is not like ldquothe manyrdquo whoturn to what is at hand and take no trouble in their search for thetruth (203) He does not like the poets exaggerate nor like thelogographers give higher priority to listening pleasure than to thetruth50


49) Meyer 2008 27 ldquoIn 121 and 122 Thucydides tells his readers that theyshould believe what he has told them about ancient times from the proofs he hasgiven ndash that he has proceeded lsquofrom the most apparent signsrsquo even though somuch of what he has shown is in a past so distant that it has been transformed intostories 1π τ μυθδες (1211)rdquo

50) Lendle 1990 233 n 6 believes that in referencing ldquothe poetsrdquo and ldquothelogographersrdquo in 1211 Thucydides in fact has only Homer and Herodotus re -spectively in mind In this entire section 120ndash23 Thucydidesrsquo primary target is

Thucydides has used the best evidence and where the datawere scant and unreliable he has built the best case he could by con-structing a theory using analogy logical extension probability andverisimilitude These are all methods used in the Attic lawcourtsThey are difficult and painstaking but they are the most one can dowith earlier history51 Following this explanation of his reconstruc-tion of the past Thucydides turns to the present war In 212 hisring composition requires him to cap the argument he began in112ndash3 the lead-in to the Archaeology this war was the biggestκ(νησις in Greek even human history But before Thucydides com-pletes this argument which resumes in chapter 23 he inserts moreremarks about methodology in 22 The first two sentences of thischapter (221 and 2) concern the practices he followed in compos-ing the speeches and narrative of ldquohis warrdquo Rather than becomingembroiled in the controversies about the precise meaning of thesesentences particularly of the remarks on speeches let us note thatthey are nearly mirror images These two sections are neatly self-contained and parallel to each other as many commentators havenoted Every phrase in 222 has a counterpart in 221 The contrasts


Herodotus At the end of 203 after detailing Herodotusrsquo two mistakes Thucydi-des emphasizes that misusers of oral stories ldquoturn to what is easily at handrdquo (1π τCτο3μα μAλλον τρπονται) He gives his own method of using oral evidence in 222ldquoI thought it appropriate to write the events of the war not by hear ing themrandomly rdquo (οκ 1κ το παρατυχντος πυνθανμενος) This last is another digat Herodotus as Gomme (1959 141) hesitantly noted But there is no need for hesi -tancy the parallelism between 1κ το παρατυχντος and 1π τ Cτο3μα makes thepoint clear Thucydides condemns Herodotus as an exemplar of most menrsquos care -lessness in using oral evidence and emphasizes that the superiority of his own ap-proach results from its critical treatment of multiple sources Hornblower is rightto say ldquoIt remains true that Thrsquos polemic is harsh and bad-tempered but that wasa usual feature of intellectual debate at this time rdquo (1991 58) Note that Thucydi-des again has Herodotus specifically in mind a few lines later in 1224 when he op-poses his own permanent work to a ldquocompetition piece intended for an immediateaudience of listenersrdquo a reference to Herodotusrsquo Histories Fornara 1971 60 makesthis point absolutely clear as does Lendle 1990 231 (citing A Lesky) Finally in1231 Thucydides dismisses Herodotusrsquo war with a snarl it comprised only twobattles by sea and two by land

51) Marincola 1997 97 ldquoThe method in the Archaeology relies on legal andlogical terminology impersonally presented probability (εκός) evidence (σημε3ονμαρτύριον) reasoning (εκάζειν) and examination (σκοπε3ν)rdquo Note also Nicolai2001 271 n 18 ldquo Thucydidesrsquo position is however more complex as in many cases a poetic text is only a starting-point for his own reasoningrdquo See also Romilly1956 chapter 4 on the Archaeology and Connor 1984 28

in historiographical aims could not be sharper Thucydidesrsquo goal inconstructing speeches is to express each speakerrsquos political views asThucydides believes they might have been applied to given situ -ations52 His goal in composing the narrative of events is accuracy ineach instance (κριβε(K περ Cκltστου) which can only be attainedby critical research (πυνθανμενος Yξ(ωσα γρltφειν 1πεξελθν)The words πυνθανμενος Yξ(ωσα γρltφειν refer to Thucydidesrsquo re-search and judgment about which events to include 1πεξελθνrefers to his pursuit of evidence 1πεξέρχομαι is a term used in At-tic lawcourts to describe the role of prosecutors53

With this understanding of 221 and 2 we can turn to 223ndash4which Thucydides makes neatly parallel to chapters 20 and 21Note the correspondences

1 ο`τως ταλαίπωρος 1πιπόνως2 τις σοι These are as we have seen standard Thucydidean

terms for his readers3 ηJρσθαι ηJρίσκετο4 τ προσαγωγτερον τ] κροltσει 1ς μν κρασιν

τερπστερον5 1π τ μυθδες τ μgt μυθδες6 Sντα νεξλεγκτα κα τ πολλ Jπ χρνου ατν π(στως 1π

τ μυθδες 1κνενικηκτα τν τε γενομνων τ σαφς7 σκοποσι σκοπε3ν8 τοιατα 9ν τις νομ(ζων μltλιστα u διλθον οχ Nμαρτltνοι

φέλιμα κρίνειν9 ς παλαι ε0ναι ποχρντως ρκο+ντως ξει

10 ξυνθεσαν ξ+γκειται

Thucydidesrsquo use of τις and σοι reminds us of the other methodo -logical passages in his work that we have already reviewed in all


52) See Egermann 1972 577ndash582 Erbse 1989 132ndash133 Thucydidesrsquo ap-proach to constructing speeches bears some resemblance to his approach to recon-structing early Greek history For the latter he acknowledges that he has achievedonly approximation τοιατα (201) and τοιατα 9ν τις νομ(ζων μltλιστα (211) Forthe speeches Thucydides cites approximation as his goal τι 1γγ+τατα τς ξυμπltσηςγνμης ldquoin 221 note alsordquo χαλεπ Sντα παντ Cξς τεκμηρ(D πιστεσαι in 201 andχαλεπν τgtν κρ(βειαν ατgtν τν λεχθντων διαμνημονεσαι in 221

53) See Antiphon 11 and 16 Cf Connor 1984 27ndash28 with n 23 and Plant1999 70 with n 42

of them Thucydides tells his readers how they are to ldquolook atrdquo hiswork It is clear from the long list of verbal correspondences be-tween 120ndash21 and 1223ndash4 that Thucydides is drawing his read-ersrsquo attention to major contrasts between the past and ldquohis warrdquoThe most telling points are the following While even I with mypainstaking effort and superior method could gain only a generalpicture of earlier times I have been able to compose a detailed andreliable account of the Peloponnesian War whereas poets and lo-gographers have aimed at oral entertainment and immediate pleas -ure and prizes I have sought permanent usefulness in a writtenwork that has no alluring or unreliable stories my book is for thosefew readers who will want to study a completely intelligible ac-count of the Peloponnesian War and to compare it with what arebound to be given the human condition similar and parallel eventsin their own times Epistemologically Thucydides claims that fargreater accuracy is possible for contemporary history than for thehistory of any earlier period Methodologically he claims that he ismuch more rigorous and critical in collecting evaluating and se-lecting evidence than the poets and logographers particularlyHerodotus Philosophically he claims to approach history withgreater seriousness of purpose than do his rivals he has aimed atand produced the clear truth for readers who will actively studyhis text Such study will enable his readers to make comparisonsbetween the events of Thucydidesrsquo war and the events of their owntime54

But what is the ldquoclear truthrdquo to Thucydides Is it the specificfacts he has painstakingly unearthed from his critical weighing ofempirical evidence Is he in other words an historian in the mod-ern sense That appears to be the kind of claim he makes particu-larly in 1222ndash3 with its emphasis upon strict accuracy in discov-ering the details of history But we should be cautious about sucha conclusion Chapter 122 is a ldquoproof passagerdquo containing thesame terms and claims as other such passages in Thucydides As wehave seen these passages are polemical in tone and seek rational coherence or unity rather than specificity and precision They in-struct the reader in intellectual method using as Loraux put it ldquoju-dicial vocabularyrdquo


54) See Parmeggiani 2003 272ndash277

Book I chapters 20ndash23 constitutes a major polemic that be-gins with criticism of everyone elsersquos (ο 9νθρωποι in 201 το3ςπολλο3ς in 203) misuse of oral tradition and ends with the asser-tion that Thucydidesrsquo war is vastly more significant than that ofHerodotus which concluded after a mere four battles Thucydidesclaims to have produced ldquothe clear truthrdquo (τ σαφές) and he wantsreaders who will ldquostudyrdquo it (σκοπε3ν) What precisely do theseterms mean The best passages for understanding the force of τσαφές in authors before and contemporary with Thucydides areXenophanes fragment 34 DK and On Ancient Medicine 11955 Webegin with the former

κα τ μν ον σαφς οiτις νgtρ δεν οδέ τις σταιεδ5ς μφ θεν τε κα )σσα λέγω περ πάντωνmiddotε γρ κα τ μάλιστα τύχοι τετελεσμένον επώνατς μως οκ ο0δεmiddot δόκος δrsquo 1π πAσι τέτυκται

Here is Lesherrsquos translation of τ σαφές in line 1 of the fragmentldquo I would argue that lsquothe certain truthrsquo or lsquothe clear and certaintruthrsquo is the best choice here in fragment 34rdquo56 It is likely that theoriginal force of the term was ldquoreliablerdquo or ldquosurerdquo informationOver time it came also to denote information that was ldquoaccuraterdquoldquoclearrdquo57 There is much disagreement on the philosophical inter-pretation of fragment 34 some of it of course related to the mean-ing of τ σαφές Indeed Lesher reviews six philosophical approach-es to the fragment His conclusion is helpful ldquoThe thesis presentedin lines 1 and 2 is therefore best taken to mean that statements concerning the non-evident realm of the divine as well as the far-reaching generalizations of natural sciences cannot be known as tosaphes that is they cannot be directly observed or confirmed astrue hence they cannot be reliably known or known with certain-ty (see note 2 above on to saphes)rdquo58 In this important usage theterm conveys the idea of clear confirmed truth


55) On the former see Lesher 1992 155ndash169 and Heitsch 1983 on the latterSchiefsky 2005 139ndash143

56) Lesher 1992 156 n 257) For this kind of development in ldquotruthrdquo terms see Cole 1983 7ndash2858) Lesher 1992 168 See also Heitsch 1983 173ndash176 who translates τ

σαφές as ldquogenauesrdquo or ldquosicheres Wissenrdquo

On Ancient Medicine 119 lines 7ndash11 provide more evidencefor the precise meaning of τ σαφές

u ε τις λέγοι κα γινώσκοι ς χει οiτrsquo =ν ατV τV λέγοντι οiτε το3σινκούουσι δλα =ν εη ετε ληθέα 1στιν ετε μήmiddot ο γάρ 1στι πρς τιχρgt 1πανενέγκαντα εδέναι τ σαφές

In his commentary on this passage Schiefsky refers to fragment 34of Xenophanes as a means of understanding τ σαφές here Hetranslates the passage this way ldquoIf anyone should recognize andstate how these things are it would be clear neither to the speakerhimself nor to his listeners whether what he says is true or not forthere is nothing by referring to which one would necessarily attainclear knowledgerdquo59 Clear knowledge requires criteria upon whichto base onersquos understanding as the participle 1πανενέγκαντα indi-cates Such knowledge can be gained only by an appeal to evidence

Given this important background it is no surprise thatThucydides after making proud claims in 122 about his criticallysuperior handling of evidence refers to his account of the Pelo-ponnesian War as τ σαφές ldquothe clear and certain truthrdquo His workis not the result of speculation or hypothesis it depends upon crit-ical examination of evidence and is therefore reliable and accurateBut we can go further in understanding the full meaning of τσαφές in this passage by examining it in conjunction with the verbσκοπε3ν of which it is the object A number of scholars have ad-vanced our understanding of the meaning of these words in 122and a loose scholarly consensus has begun to emerge though it hasnot generally been noted by the scholars themselves Serious analy-sis of 1224 started with H Patzer in 1937 Patzer first demon-strated that ldquoΣκοπε3ν hat soweit ich sehe im Griechischen uumlber-haupt weniger den Sinn des zerlegenden vereinzelnden Einblicksuchenden Ins-Auge-fassens als den des umfassenden Uumlber-schauensrdquo60 ldquoDas Wort σκοπε3ν bezeichnet bei Thukydides sonstnirgends die Pruumlfung der Tatsachen auf ihre Gewaumlhr hin hingegenhat es bei ihm gerade in methodologischem Zusammenhang diefeste Bedeutung Beziehungen herstellendes Zusammenschauenfuumlr das die Tatsachen nur Grundlage sindrdquo61 Σκοπε3ν then means


59) Schiefsky 2005 7560) Patzer 1937 76 n 17361) Patzer 1937 74

ldquoto look at comprehensivelyrdquo ldquoto view broadlyrdquo ldquoto contem-platerdquo ldquoto considerrdquo62

Patzer bolsters this interpretation by noting that Thucydidesuses σκοπε3ν or another similar verb in other methodological pas-sages in this same sense see particularly 1212 and 5202 In theformer Thucydidesrsquo readers by ldquoreflectingrdquo on the facts them-selves will conclude that his war is greater than any of its prede-cessors In the latter as we have already seen readers are to ldquolookatrdquo historical time by seasons not by magistracy years In 5262we have the same idea this time with a synonymous verb read-ers are to ldquolook atrdquo or ldquoconsiderrdquo (θρείτω) the facts themselvesas they are separately defined and come to Thucydidesrsquo conclu-sion regarding what constitutes war or peace Patzer calls this ldquoeinTatsachen uumlbergreifendes Verstehen geschichtlicher Epochenrdquo63

Note also 2483 where the reader is to ldquolook atrdquo Thucydidesrsquo de-scription of the nature of the plague and be able to recognize it ifit should strike again and 5682 where Thucydides claims that itis possible through reasoning for someone to ldquocalculaterdquo thenumber of Lakedaimonians present These are all passages wehave reviewed earlier in this article as crucial to grasping Thucy-didesrsquo method In them σκοπε3ν is the verb Thucydides applies tohis readersrsquo intellectual consideration of historiographical ques-tions or problems which war is greatest how should one dividean historical period chronologically how should one define warand peace what is the nature of the plague and how can one un-derstand it in the future how should one calculate an unknownnumber of troops In Patzerrsquos formulation σκοπε3ν often has anelement of ldquocomparisonrdquo inherent in it ldquoBeziehungen herstellen-des Zusammenschauenrdquo ldquocomparisons that produce relation-shipsrdquo Note that in 1212 the reader is comparing Thucydidesrsquowar to its predecessors in 5202ndash3 the reader is comparing dif-ferent ways of dividing time in 5262 the reader is consideringdifferent ways of dividing historical periods in 248 the reader is


62) Edmunds appears to be the only scholar to take note of Patzerrsquos contri-bution ldquoThis conclusion is corroborated by the meaning of σκοπε3ν which refersnot to the perception of individual facts but to a purview Patzer Das Problempp 74ndash76 and n 173rdquo (Edmunds 1975 158 n 20)

63) Patzer 1937 75

to compare Thucydidesrsquo plague with ones that occur in his owntime64

On this basis Patzer concludes that strict factual accuracy (Pκρίβεια) is not the final goal of Thucydidesrsquo methodology65 Pκρίβεια is the means of obtaining τ σαφές but not τ σαφές it-self ldquoDamit aumlndert sich mit einem Schlage das was Sinnerkenntnisder Vergangenheit (τν γενομνων τ σαφς σκοπε3ν) bedeutensoll die Vergangenheit stellt sich dem Blick der die verworreneVielfalt der kritisch gesicherten ργα zu uumlberschauen sucht in ihrerSinneinheit dar indem sie sich ihm in ihrer Wiederholbarkeit imZukuumlnftigen darstelltrdquo66 Τ σαφές is not then ldquocorrespondencetruthrdquo that is a replica of the sheer facts but an intellectual or ldquoco-herence truthrdquo that has been formed by a mind seeking and seeingstructure in history the patterns to be found in sequences of eventsconsidered comprehensively67 Such pattern-forming does not viti -


64) From a different starting point Loraux has come to a similar conclusionabout Thucydidesrsquo use of σκοπε3ν to refer to a process of ratiocination See Loraux1986 154 where she shows that in Thucydides intransitive σκοπε3ν indicates thecapacity of the intellect to have ldquono other object than itselfrdquo ldquoThe reflection whichprecedes writing and its product is pure intransitivityrdquo ldquoIn its most marked usesσκοπε3ν in Thucydides has no objectrdquo For a similar use of this verb in contempor-ary Greek literature note Sophocles OT 68 πολλς δrsquo Tδοeς 1λθόντα φροντίδοςπλάνοις ν δrsquo ε σκοπν η`ρισκον ασιν μόνην ταύτην πραξαmiddot ldquoreviewing(comparing) carefully all these paths of thought I could discover only one cure andI took this onerdquo Here as in Thucydides σκοπε3ν clearly means ldquoconducting anoverviewrdquo ldquolooking comprehensivelyrdquo ldquocomparingrdquo

65) Patzer 1937 77ndash78 ldquoAus all dem ergibt sich dass der Schwerpunkt desMethodenkapitels nicht in der Tatsachenkritik zu suchen ist sondern in dem be-sonderen Ziel das der noch naumlher zu interpretierende sect4 umschreibt Dieses Zielduumlrfte das eigentlich Bestimmende sein zu dem die Ermittlung der reinen Tatsaumlch-lichkeit nur Voraussetzung istrdquo

66) Patzer 1937 90 I give a rendering of this important but difficult Ger-man ldquo to an eye seeking an overview of the confused multiplicity of critically as-certained ργα the past is revealed in its intellectual unity by being revealed to it inits future reproducibilityrdquo

67) Edmunds 1975 155 158 (drawing upon Patzer) ldquoIt is obvious fromThucydidesrsquo statements that he wished to secure factual accuracy But this factualaccuracy is not the sufficient condition for history in the Thucydidean sense butonly the necessary condition for τ σαφές with which Thucydides associates theimmortality of his work T σαφές emerges from the facts the contingent particu-lars rdquo ldquoThis contrast between κρίβεια and τ σαφές and the transcendence ofthe former by the latter is at the heart of Thucydidesrsquo method This contrast appearsin all of Thucydidesrsquo methodological statements in language so similar in each placein some respects that it could almost be called formulaic These similarities make

ate the accuracy of Thucydidesrsquo account The historian was in general painstaking in his search for the facts as many scholarshave noted and he was careful in his presentation of them He alsofrequently provides us with details that allow us to question hisown judgments as commentators have also pointed out There isno necessary contradiction between a focus upon the particularand a tendency to delineate general paradigms or types One canachieve accuracy in detail and still compose general propositions68

But I do agree with Edmunds that for Thucydides accuracy (Pκρίβεια) was in the service of and subordinated to ldquothe clear andcertain truthrdquo (τ σαφές)69

In summary Thucydides has an explicitly complex view ofhistorical ldquotruthrdquo and a hierarchy of terms with which to define it


it clear that Thucydidesrsquo purpose was to liberate himself from the individual per-spective and from the particular factsrdquo

68) Several scholars have emphasized Thucydidesrsquo remarkable joining of theparticular and the general Thibaudet maintained that ldquoLrsquohistoire telle que la pro-pose Thucydide unit et fait servir lrsquoun agrave lrsquoautre deux caractegraveres qui semble-t-ilsrsquoexcluent la plus grande exactitude materielle et la plus grande generaliteacute Drsquoail-leurs quand on croit qursquoelles srsquoexcluent crsquoest qursquoon ne pense pas agrave lrsquoart qui les im-plique au contraire toutes deux et emploie lrsquoune agrave la perfection de lrsquoautrerdquo (1922 49)Gomme 1954 138ndash140 quotes this passage of Thibaudet approvingly and makes simi lar points Cook 1988 chapter 3 ldquoParticular and General in Thucydidesrdquo arri-ves at the same conclusion Note for example (page 49) ldquoIn the case of Thucydi-des these details sometimes stun through similarity particulars worked on by a co-ordinating intellection evolve into generalityrdquo

69) Thomas Scanlon has come to a similar conclusion (apparently withoutknowledge of Patzerrsquos or Edmundsrsquo work) ldquoτ σαφές is an expression of a re-liably clear certainty about human actions based on a careful analysis of particularevents but offering general paradigms of use for the futurerdquo (Scanlon 2002 131)Note also page 147 ldquoRκρίβεια is then the tool by which the author arrives at theproduct of τ σαφέςrdquo ldquoΤ σαφές is not simply another synonym for precision oraccuracy This phrase and other terms in its semantic sphere are concerned with butnot restricted to specific data they also concern a more abstract general and yetcertain truth with relevance for the futurerdquo We should also note Romilly 1956 52ldquoCette veriteacute signifiante est agrave la fois veriteacute et clarteacute elle est ce que Thucydide appelleτ σαφές Ce lsquoclairrsquo est le fruit drsquoune intelligence active et perspicace La voie quesuit Thucydide est tout autre ce nrsquoest pas tellement celle de lrsquointelligence que cellede la raisonrdquo The contrast Patzer and Romilly and Edmunds and Scanlon draw isbetween specific observation and abstract reasoning between the collection and cri-tique of data on the one hand and the ordering of them into patterns by means oflogical reasoning The latter is what gives Thucydidesrsquo text its coherence and mean -ing (Romilly 1956 46) ldquoCette tendence agrave lrsquouniteacute est evidemment ce que confegravere aureacutecit de Thucydide son caractegravere drsquointelligibiliteacuterdquo

His method of discovering the truth is above all an intellectualone He hears reports from others and witnesses some events him-self He subjects the information thus obtained to critical testing inorder to attain accuracy On that basis he deems some informationworth committing to writing Much of that information is then or-ganized into patterns designed by logical reasoning For early his-tory Thucydides has limited means he scrutinizes the scant anduntrustworthy evidence available and arrives at broad conclusionsconclusions based upon a theory of sea power that is in turn basedheavily upon the model of the contemporary Athenian EmpireSuch ldquodiscoveriesrdquo are only broadly credible for ancient historybut that is sufficient for his purpose to prove that his war is thegreatest in history Contemporary h i s tory has been ldquodiscov-eredrdquo painstakingly with critical standards applied to oral evidencebecause of its vulnerability to poor memory and bias (1223)Thucydides emphasizes his personal involvement in and commit-ment to collecting and analyzing evidence with great care ταταδηλσω ατς τε νοσσας κα ατς δ5ν 9λλους πltσχοντας in thecase of the Plague and in the ldquoSecond Introductionrdquo 1πεβ(ων δδι παντς ατο ασθανμενς τε τ] Pλικ(K κα προσχων τgtνγνμην πως κριβς τι εσομαι κα ξυνβη μοι φε+γειν τgtν1μαυτο τη εκοσι μετ τgtν 1ς Rμφ(πολιν στρατηγ(αν καγενομνD παρ μφοτροις το3ς πρltγμασι κα οχ xσσον το3ςΠελοποννησ(ων δι τgtν φυγν καθ Pσυχ(αν τι ατν μAλλονασθσθαι (5265) In this self-conscious passage Thucydides em-phasizes his ability to observe events dispassionately and the ap-plication of his own mind to the understanding of those eventsThe account of the war produced by these methods is completelyaccurate and ldquotruerdquo and therefore generalizable Thucydidesrsquoldquoclear and certain truthrdquo is in great part a human constructformed by both inductive and deductive methods70

Phormiorsquos sea battles (283ndash92) furnish a good example of thekind of truth Thucydides created by these methods The firstspeech in this episode (287) is said to be delivered by ldquoCnemus and


70) Scanlon 2002 139 ldquo I will simply state that in my view Thucydidescombines aspects of the inductive method with broader philosophical constructionsof the human condition his text weaves together both the empirical or specific andthe philosophical or universal in ways which elude tracing a primary intellectualdebt definitely to one genre or discipline or anotherrdquo

Brasidas and the other generals of the Peloponnesiansrdquo it is clear-ly an amalgamation of onshore exhortations given separately tocontingents of troops small enough to hear a generalrsquos voice Butthis is only the first of several examples in this passage of Thucy-didesrsquo eschewing of verisimilitude The ldquospeechrdquo in 287 is a high-ly abstract argument about the comparative value of bravery andexperience in battle with the admixture of considerable psycholo-gizing It is not the kind of language likely to have been used to inspire troops before a battle particularly in its emphasis upon nega tive points such as the Peloponnesiansrsquo recent naval defeat andtheir inexperience at sea Even more strikingly each argument is rebutted and in the same terms by Phormio in his address to theAthenians across the Gulf in 289 Phormio manages to turn the ab-stract reasonings of the Lakedaimonian commanders on theirheads in an even more abstract and sophisticated lesson on psych -ology71

Finally as Romilly has demonstrated72 the naval battle thatfollows the speeches bears out in exquisite detail the verbal dialec-tic that precedes it in Thucydidesrsquo text Romilly has characterizedthe entire passage 285ndash92 as ldquoune theacuteorierdquo ldquoun systegraveme raison-neacuterdquo73 Her analysis reveals how Thucydides turned this episode ofthe Peloponnesian War into an historical paradigm primarily byconstructing a ldquoduel dialectiquerdquo74 that would enable the reader tocomprehend the events of the actual physical battle as they tran-spired in Thucydidesrsquo narrative The passage constitutes a sophis-ticated demonstration of the nature of Athenian naval τχνη and ofits superiority to Peloponnesian naval practice In this regard notethe Spartansrsquo bafflement at their first defeat in 2852 (παρltλογος)and the immediate suicide of one of their commanders in responseto the shocking second defeat in 2923 Thucydidesrsquo Spartans are


71) Hornblower 1991 368 calls Phormiorsquos speech ldquoa notably implausible setof responsionsrdquo Note in this regard Erbsersquos fine remarks (1989 133) on the natureof historical reality conveyed by Thucydidesrsquo speeches ldquoDie Reden gehoumlren eineridealen Wirklichkeit an naumlmlich dem vom Historiker konstruierten Wirkungs -zusammenhang Damit ist die Deutung der Geschehnisse durch den Darstellendengemeint Diese seine Interpretation kann dem was wirklich geschah nie genau ent-sprechen sondern sie kann dieses nur mit Hilfe der Sprache in einer ganz be-stimmten Hinsicht abbildenrdquo

72) Romilly 1956 139ndash14973) Romilly 1956 144 14874) Romilly 1956 139

intellectually confounded by their early naval reverses Thucy-didesrsquo readers on the other hand have been given the analyticaltools for understanding the precise nature of the Spartansrsquo problemat sea In this extended passage Thucydides subordinated cor -respondence truth and sacrificed verisimilitude to achieve a con-ceptual portrait of Athenian naval skill The drive for intellectualcoherence governs such passages in Thucydidesrsquo text75

What kind of reader does Thucydides expect

Thucydides consciously arranged empirically-derived evidenceinto carefully conceived and wrought patterns and paradigms Histendency towards the general the universal was unusually strongldquoAussi nrsquoest-on pas surpris de [les reacuteflexions geacutenerales] retrouveren tregraves grand nombre dans lrsquoœuvre de Thucydide Ils im-pliquent qursquoagrave tout moment il cherche agrave decrire les eacutevenements par-ticuliers du passeacute sous la forme la plus universelle possiblerdquo76

What then is the reader to do with Thucydidesrsquo account He is tostudy its truth with great care κτμα 1ς αε( emphasizes the per-manence of Thucydidesrsquo written text and σοι δ βουλσονται τντε γενομνων τ σαφς σκοπε3ν expresses the need for close read-ing of that text By studying τ σαφς readers will be able to rec-ognize ldquothe truthrdquo in the events of their own time that is the un-derlying structure and meaning of those events Thucydides hasprovided many clues to help the reader ldquoseerdquo the general patternsof history as Romilly in particular demonstrated by revealing the


75) To enumerate or study such passages is beyond the scope of this paperbut I should mention two other instances in which this kind of intellectual (and mo-ral) analysis takes over Thucydidesrsquo presentation of events the Melian Dialogue aset piece introduced with conspicuous self-consciousness (cf Hornblower 2008219) and conducted at an unrealistically abstract level and the tyrannicide digres -sion in 654ndash61 a demonstration of how one should study history In the latterThucydides goes so far as to draw the comparison between past model (the tyran-nicide and its aftermath) and present event (the prosecution of Alcibiades and in -vestigation of the Herms and the Mysteries) himself rather than leaving it for hisreaders to make (Meyer 2008 19ndash26) Furthermore he shows how the Athenian de-mos blundered when they extracted precisely the wrong conclusions from theirmisreading of history (6533 6601 6611) The digression thus serves as a wor-king model for Thucydidesrsquo readers

76) Romilly 1990 65

ldquofils conducteursrdquo in the narrative And we have noted in this papernumerous passages in which Thucydides gives the reader an intel-lectual method for conducting the kind of logical reasoning he hascarried out in his historiographical work Furthermore throughThucydidesrsquo remarkable rhetorical skills the reader is invited to enter into the drama the moral dilemmas the political decisions ofthe War and to learn from this kind of reading as Connor has soably revealed in his book Thucydides77

In all these respects Thucydides is a great teacher of his read-ers On the other hand the reader is no t invited to question or todoubt Thucydidesrsquo picture of the Peloponnesian War It is the clearand certain truth Its authority is unchallengeable its judgment final Thucydides provides almost no sources for the reader to con-sult no alternative viewpoints or interpretations for the reader toconsider no questionable facts for the reader to query The accountproceeds without interruption or doubt the author disappearsfrom view at the outset the reader must accept and submit to thework As Loraux puts it ldquopour lire Thucydide il faut drsquoabord ad-heacutererrdquo78 Connor agrees that the text of Thucydides constitutes aformidable authority but he suggests that Thucydides may haveexpected the astute reader to critique his account ldquoHis work com-mands assent As we investigate the relation between author andreader however his authority comes to seem less intimidatingThis is not to say that he is to be dismissed as partisan or self-seek-ing but simply to remember that he demands a reader of indepen-dent judgment We can even suspect that Thucydides was some-times inviting challenge and reassessment a historical rereading ofhis text in which details and reactions postponed or minimized inhis narrative are given a second look and then seen in a new rela-tionship with a new weightingrdquo79 This last ldquosuspicionrdquo does notseem likely to me I think Loraux and Edmunds have it right whenthey emphasize the imperious finality of Thucydidesrsquo text and its


77) And see Meyer 2008 34 note 100 ldquoSo the most lsquousefulrsquo thing Thucydi-des could do was lay out τ σαφές for that reader the reader would then have to dis cover λθεια for him- or herself even if Thucydides already knew what it wasrdquoThe past rightly understood furnishes a model for understanding the present Foruseful remarks on how Thucydides wanted his speeches to be read see Yunis 2003especially 200ndash204

78) Loraux 1986 15779) Connor 1984 233

refusal to allow much less to invite alternative readings As CharlesFornara has well stated ldquoThinking of future generations more thanof his immediate audience his task as he defined it was to create ahistory of the Peloponnesian War that would be self-explanatoryno special knowledge beyond his own history would be requiredto secure perfect comprehension of the important and relevant is-suesrdquo80

It is possible that for Thucydides P λήθεια is yet a third di-mension of ldquothe truthrdquo in addition to those represented by Pκρίβεια and τ σαφές81 It is difficult to be certain about such dis-tinctions given the relatively small number of occurrences of truthterms in Thucydides but I cannot find telling evidence that Thucy-dides meant by P λήθεια anything different from what he meantby τ σαφές The much-discussed passage in Book VII describingNiciasrsquo letter to the Athenians suggests otherwise82 It also offersseveral clues to Thucydidesrsquo view of what one should do when heis presented with an opportunity to plan on the basis of ldquothe truthrdquo

Four times in seven paragraphs Thucydides has Nicias say es-sentially the same thing to the Athenians about the need to maketheir plans on the basis of his disclosure of the true situation thearmy confronts at Syracuse

782 μαθόντας τοeς Rθηναίους βουλεύσασθαι περ τς ληθείας7111 νν δ καιρς οχ xσσον μαθόντας JμAς 1ν 1σμνβουλεύσασθαι7144 ε δε3 σαφς εδότας τ 1νθάδε βουλεύσασθαι7144 σφαλέστερον Pγησάμην τ ληθς δηλσαι

In these closely aligned clauses Nicias (Thucydides) clearlyseems to use τς ληθείας 1ν 1σμέν σαφς εδότας and τληθές as synonyms It would I think be perverse to argue other wise In each case Nicias tells the Athenians that having


80) Fornara 1971 5981) Allison 1997 207ndash23782) So do other passages such as 6602 where Thucydides appears to use τ

σαφές and τ Sντα synonymously Allison (1997 210) and Scanlon (2002 145ndash146)attempt to distinguish between these two terms but have a difficult time doing soOne problem among several is that τ σαφές can be used in a narrow sense to em-phasize the c e r t a in ty of knowledge or in a broader sense to emphasize its cer-tainty and its accuracy as Scanlon himself recognizes (page 141) he distinguishesbetween uses of τ σαφές for ldquovery specific situationsrdquo and those for ldquogeneral his -torical truthsrdquo

learned the truth about the current situation in Sicily from himthey should make their military plans They should put what isldquousefulrdquo above what is ldquopleasantrdquo even though they are prone bynature to prefer to hear what is ldquomost pleasantrdquo These clausesremind us inevitably of Thucydidesrsquo methodological passage inBook I especially when we remember that he places great weightupon the w r i t t e n nature of his own History and of Niciasrsquo ad-vice In 1224 κτμα 1ς αε( clearly refers to and underlinesthe permanent written form of Thucydidesrsquo text and in 782Thucydides strongly emphasizes the significance of a writtendocument (γραψεν 1πιστολήν)83

The import of the two passages is the same it is essential toconsider plan upon the basis of the clear and certain truth thattruth may not be pleasant or attractive but it is potentially usefulespecially if composed in writing through which it can be con-veyed reliably and considered carefully over time if the reader hearer reflects upon it intelligently he can learn and possibly makegood decisions That ldquoifrdquo is of course a large one the Athenians donot make the best use of Niciasrsquo ldquoclear truthrdquo any more than theydid early in Book VI when they ignored Niciasrsquo accurate picture ofthe Atheniansrsquo enemies in Greece the Sicilian Greeksrsquo untrust-worthiness as allies and their potentially formidable military power Nicias does not convince the Athenians in either case buthis description of the situation faced by Athens is in each case correct Thucydides implies in both 68ndash26 and 78ndash16 that Niciasgave an accurate account of the dangers confronting the Atheniansin Sicily The fact that Nicias is as usual unpersuasive does notnegate this point nor does the fact that the Athenians as often inThucydides failed to ldquoplan wellrdquo upon the advice and thereforemade bad decisions84


83) See Doverrsquos note and his translation ldquohe composed a message in writingrdquo(1970 385) and note also Allison 1997 226ndash227 A number of scholars have sug-gested that Thucydides consciously exploited the special opportunities offered bya written text Cole 1983 27 n 49 Loraux 1986 passim Connor 1984 particularly11ndash19 Edmunds 1993 846ndash852 As Shanske 2007 15ndash18 emphasizes Thucydidesinvites readers to cross reference his text a point already suggested by Romillyrsquosanalysis of ldquofils conducteursrdquo in the text (1956 passim)

84) See Parry 1969 109 ldquoNicias assumes that the clear knowledge the un-varnished picture he is communicating to the Athenians will lead to good planning But Nicias in Thucydidesrsquo account is a prime example of a leader as incapable of

There is a closely parallel use of τ σαφές (bis) in 3292 onethat confirms the equivalence between that phrase and P λήθειαThis passage also solidifies the case that for Thucydides clear andcertain knowledge does not necessarily lead to good planning ThePeloponnesian fleet under Alcidas having heard for the first timeof the capture of Mytilene and ldquowishing to know the certain truthrdquo(βουλόμενοι δ τ σαφς εδέναι) sails to Embaton There ldquohav-ing learned the certain truth they began their deliberations basedupon the current situationrdquo (πυθόμενοι δ τ σαφς 1βουλεύοντο1κ τν παρόντων) Just as Nicias wanted the Athenians to base theirplanning upon the actual situation in Sicily the Peloponnesians be-gin to deliberate once they have established the certain truth of thecapture of Mytilene Clearly τ σαφές in the latter passage is syn-onymous with the phrases used by Nicias in the former passageThucydides goes to some length including ridicule in the passagein Book III to emphasize that the deliberators failed to form goodplans based upon their ldquocertain knowledgerdquo of the situation In acouncil Thucydides describes in some detail not only does Alcidasreject the advice of Teutiaplus who urges an immediate attackupon the Athenians at Mytilene but he also ignores the sugges-tions of some Ionians and Lesbians who advise him ldquosince he isafraid of this riskrdquo to occupy a base along the coast of Ionia wherehe can do serious harm to Athenian control over the area Alcidasldquodid not even take this advicerdquo but rather ldquofocused his attentionprimarily on getting back as fast as possible to the Peloponnesesince he was too late to save Mytilenerdquo He then arrests and puts todeath innocent Greeks who in ignorance approach his fleet alongthe coast until some Samians come to him and say he is not free-ing Greece very well by putting to death men who have not raiseda finger against him and who have been forced to become allies ofthe Athenians If he does not stop doing this they say he will makefew friends but rather many enemies of those who should befriends This is one of the few passages in his History whereThucydides allows himself not simply irony but deep sarcasmArmed with a full understanding of the truth and offered advice


good planning himself as he is of inducing it in othersrdquo Parry is in my view righton both counts Even a person with ldquoclear knowledgerdquo may not plan well accor-ding to Thucydidesrsquo reasoning

by several wise advisors Thucydidesrsquo Alcidas evinces remarkablybad judgment and is guilty of a cowardrsquos brutality

Thucydides says in 1224 that his audience will compriseldquothose who will want to study the clear and certain truthrdquo of theevents described in his History Reading his text will be an intel-lectual experience In fact he suggests his work will attract onlythose readers desirous of studying and capable of apprehendingits paradigms A deep knowledge of those patterns in history willin turn enable a better comprehension of each readerrsquos own timeThis understanding will be intellectual and perhaps moral It is notmeant in my view to be practical in the sense that it will teach pol -itical lessons to aspiring leaders85 Thucydidesrsquo History containsfar more human error and tragedy than positive models His audi-ence he knew would be smaller than those of the poets and lo-gographers but it would be select like Plato he believed that onlythe few could truly understand86

Bibliography

Allison J Word and Concept in Thucydides (Atlanta 1997)Cole T Archaic truth QUCC N S 13 (1983) 7ndash28Connor W R Thucydides (Princeton 1984)Cook A History Writing (Cambridge 1988)Edmunds L Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides (Cambridge MA 1975)Edmunds L and R Martin Thucydides 2658 ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΩΣ HSCPh 81 (1977)

187ndash193Edmunds L Thucydides in the Act of Writing Tradizione e innovazione nella cul-

tura greca da Omero allrsquoeta ellenistica Scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili vol 2(Rome 1993) 831ndash852


85) For the contrary view see for example Erbse 1989 134ndash177 originallypublished in Gymnasium 76 (1969) 393ndash416

86) Cf Lendle 1990 235 ldquoDer Nutzen aber den sein Werk stiftet ist dauer-haft Er vermittelt Erkenntnisse die ein Leben lang zur Verfuumlgung stehen als ein gei-stiger Schatz von Gesichtspunkten mit deren Hilfe der Leser das Herannahen undden Ablauf eines Krieges in den er vielleicht noch einmal verwickelt werden wirdschon vorab analysieren kannrdquo Note also 235 n 9 ldquoDer Begriff κτμα kann nichtauf die undifferenzierte Masse der Menschheit als solche sondern nur auf Einzel-personen bezogen werden wobei zusaumltzlich der Gesichtspunkt des aktiven Er-werbs der in Besitz uumlbergehenden Sache durch den jeweiligen Besitzer eine Rollespieltrdquo

Egermann F Thukydides uumlber die Art seiner Reden und die Darstellung derKriegsgeschehnisse Historia 21 (1972) 575ndash602

Egermann F Zu den Grundbegriffen der thukydideischen Geschichtsschreibungin Althistorische Studien H Bengtson zum 70 Geburtstag hg vonH Heinen (Wiesbaden 1983) (Historia Einzelschriften 40) 44ndash55

Erbse H Uumlber das Prooimion (11ndash23) des Thukydideischen GeschichtswerkesRhM 113 (1970) 43ndash69

Erbse H Thukydides-Interpretationen (Berlin 1989)Finley M I The Use and Abuse of History (London 1971)Finley J H Thucydides (Ann Arbor 1963)Fornara C W Herodotus An Interpretative Essay (Oxford 1971)Gomme A W A Andrewes and K J Dover Historical Commentary on Thucy-

dides (Oxford 1945ndash1981)Gomme A W The Greek Attitude to Poetry and History (Berkeley 1954)Heitsch E Xenophanes Die Fragmente (Munich 1983)Hornblower S A Commentary on Thucydides vol I (Oxford 1991) vol II (Ox-

ford 1996) vol III (Oxford 2008)Keyser P (Un)natural accounts in Herodotus and Thucydides Mouseion Series

III 6 (2006) 323ndash351Lendle O Zu Thukydides 5202 Hermes 88 (1960) 33ndash40Lendle O Κτμα 1ς αε( Thukydides und Herodot RhM 133 (1990) 231ndash242Lesher J H Xenophanes of Colophon Fragments A Text and Translation with a

Commentary (Toronto 1992)Loraux N Enquecircte sur la construction drsquoun meurtre en histoire Lrsquoeacutecrit du temps

10 (1985) 3ndash21Loraux N Thucydide a eacutecrit la guerre du Peacuteloponnegravese Meacutetis 1 (1986) 139ndash161Luraghi N Local Knowledge in Herodotusrsquo Histories in N Luraghi The Histor -

ianrsquos Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford 2001) 138ndash160Marincola J Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge

1997)Meyer E Thucydides on Harmodius and Aristogeiton Tyranny and History CQ

581 (2008) 13ndash34Nicolai R Thucydidesrsquo Archaeology Between Epic and Oral Traditions in

N Luraghi The Historianrsquos Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford 2001)263ndash285

Parmeggiani G LrsquoεJρε3ν senza σαφς Tucidide e la conoscenza del Passato An-cient Society 33 (2003) 235ndash283

Parry A The Language of Thucydidesrsquo Description of the Plague BICS 16 (1969)106ndash118

Parry A Logos and Ergon in Thucydides (Arno Press 1981)Patzer H Das Problem der Geschichtsschreibung des Thukydides und die thuky-

dideische Frage (Berlin 1937)Patzer H Rezension von Fritz Bizer Untersuchungen zur Archaumlologie des

Thukydides Diss Tuumlbingen 1937 Gnomon 16 (1940) 347ndash365 reprinted inThukydides ed H Herter (Darmstadt 1968) (Wege der Forschung 98) 90ndash113

Plant I M The influence of forensic oratory on Thucydidesrsquo principles of methodCQ 49 (1999) 62ndash73

Rawlings H The Structure of Thucydidesrsquo History (Princeton 1981)


de Romilly J Histoire et raison chez Thucydide (Paris 1956)de Romilly J La condamnation du plaisir dans lrsquoœuvre de Thucydide WS 79

(1966) 142ndash148de Romilly J La construction de la veriteacute chez Thucydide (Paris 1990)Rusten J (ed) The Peloponnesian War Book II (Cambridge Greek and Latin

Classics 1989)Scanlon T lsquoThe clear truthrsquo in Thucydides 1224 Historia 512 (2002) 131ndash148Schiefsky M J Hippocrates On Ancient Medicine Translated with Introduction

and Commentary (Boston 2005)Shanske D Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History (Cambridge

2007)Stadter P The Form and Content of Thucydidesrsquo Pentecontaeteia GRBS 34 (1993)

35ndash72Stroud R lsquoWie es eigentlich gewesenrsquo and Thucydides 2483 Hermes 115 (1987)

379ndash382Thibaudet A La Campagne avec Thucydide (Paris 1922)Thomas R Herodotus in Context Ethnography Science and the Art of Persua-

sion (Cambridge 2000)Thorburn J N Thucydides 5263ndash5 the verb σχυρίζεσθαι and a contrast in

methodology CQ 49 (1999) 439ndash444Van de Maele S μα δέ ou la lsquoraison veacuteritablersquo dans lrsquoœuvre de Thucydide Cahiers

des eacutetudes anciennes 24 (1990) 341ndash346Yunis Harvey Writing for Reading Thucydides Plato and the Emergence of the

Critical Reader in Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in AncientGreece edited by Harvey Yunis (Cambridge 2003) 189ndash212

Ithaca NY Hunter R Rawl ings I I I


are fundamental to Thucydidesrsquo epistemology hence to his inven-tion of an intellectualized history

Thucydidesrsquo predilection for qualitative analysis

A good means of seeing Thucydidesrsquo intellectual inquiry atwork is to study his methodological introductions to major ana-lytical passages In several of these introductions he explicitlyprefers qualitative analysis of events to conventional Greek rhetor-ical and scientific practices I begin with a well-known examplefrom the opening of the plague passage 2483

λεγτω μν ον περ ατο ς καστος γιγνσκει κα ατρς καδιτης φ του εκς ν γενσθαι ατ κα τς ατ(ας )στιναςνομ(ζει τοσα+της μεταβολς κανς ε0ναι δ+ναμιν 1ς τ μεταστσαισχε3ν 1γ5 δ ο6ν τε 1γ(γνετο λξω κα φ 8ν 9ν τις σκοπν ε ποτεκα αθις 1πιπσοι μltλιστ =ν χοι τι προειδ5ς μgt γνοε3ν ταταδηλσω ατς τε νοσσας κα ατς δ5ν 9λλους πltσχοντας

Here Thucydides disdains the common Hippocratic practice ofseeking the origins and causes of major diseases2 He does so in lan-guage that as we shall see in other cases is standard in Thucy-didean proof-making he uses the third person imperative to pro-pose a method of examination ldquoLet each physician and laypersonthink about (λεγτω as ldquoconsiderrdquo ldquoponderrdquo)3 the plague as he de-termines from whatever source it was likely to arise and the caus-es that he believes are sufficient to bring about so great a change rdquo He then introduces his own method by asserting that he willwrite a qualitative description of the plague which by its naturewill have heuristic value ldquoI shall point out what kind of thing(ο6ον)4 it was and the characteristics by which (φ 8ν 9ν) a future


2) Thomas 2000 especially in chapter 6 ldquoArgument and the language of proofrdquo argues that Herodotus often uses the ldquoproof languagerdquo of Ionian scienceparticularly Hippocratic medicine Here Thucydides clearly eschews this practiceand implies strongly that his own approach is superior

3) For a useful discussion of this verbrsquos several senses see Luraghi 2001 147particularly n 26 In Herodotus and Thucydides as Luraghi demonstrates it oftenrefers to what an historical source (usually a collective source) ldquoholds for truerdquo

4) See Hornblower 1991 321 for different views of the meaning and signifi-cance of ο6ον here Stroud 1987 379 shows that it means ldquowhat kind of thingrdquoStroud following Sheppard and Evans also cites another near-quotation of Thucy-














10) Rusten 1989 19

































18) Romilly 1956 297



















































31) Edmunds 1993 85132) Loraux 1986 159




























































































63) Patzer 1937 75






























76) Romilly 1990 65





78) Loraux 1986 15779) Connor 1984 233



















Bibliography






















































10) Rusten 1989 19

































18) Romilly 1956 297



















































31) Edmunds 1993 85132) Loraux 1986 159




























































































63) Patzer 1937 75






























76) Romilly 1990 65





78) Loraux 1986 15779) Connor 1984 233



















Bibliography









































































18) Romilly 1956 297



















































31) Edmunds 1993 85132) Loraux 1986 159




























































































63) Patzer 1937 75






























76) Romilly 1990 65





78) Loraux 1986 15779) Connor 1984 233



















Bibliography



























































































31) Edmunds 1993 85132) Loraux 1986 159




























































































63) Patzer 1937 75






























76) Romilly 1990 65





78) Loraux 1986 15779) Connor 1984 233



















Bibliography




































































































































63) Patzer 1937 75






























76) Romilly 1990 65





78) Loraux 1986 15779) Connor 1984 233



















Bibliography









































thucydidean epistemology: between philosophy and …

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