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(Th. 7.84). It is the counterpoint to the glorious departure of the fleet in Book 6. Nicias had just addressed them in their despair, in a speech that notes good fortune arising from belief in the gods and invokes
hope in the future, two appeals we last heard from the desperate Melians –
hope in the gods being otherwise rare in Thucydides’ reality (Th. 7.77; cf. 5.104). Nicias ends with the cliché that, as the men are isolated here,
“you who are Athenians will raise up again, fallen as it is, the great
power of the city; men are the city, not walls and ships without men”
(Th. 7.77). There is only pathos in this reassurance, reminding readers of the mighty power of the past and ignoring the Thucydidean formula
that power must be derived from walls, ships, and material resources
(especially at Th. 1.1–19; see Kallet‐Marx 1993 and Kallet 2001). Yet
the comment seems not to belittle the appeal to pious hope, but rather
to sympathize with Nicias’ admirable and rare, yet ultimately pernicious, adherence to a traditional code of values in the face of the realities of force. Perhaps the difference here is that Nicias’ self‐representation
comes essentially to bring a modicum of merciful comfort to his men,
and it does not cloud crucial decision making. Nicias’ religious scruples, as noted earlier, were only partly to blame for an undue delay in action (Th. 7.50). At the end, after his death, in a quasi‐obituary, Thucydides empathizes with Nicias as a tragic hero of sorts, concluding: “he
died, although of all the Hellenes, at least in my time, certainly the least deserving to reach this level of misfortune because of a way of life directed entirely toward virtue” (Th. 7.86). The “virtue” ( arete ̄) admired here is civic excellence and altruistic generosity, in other words Nicias had not misused his wealth to bribe his way to safety; and he had told Gylippus, when surrendering, “to do as he pleased with him but
stop the massacre of the rest of the soldiers” (Th. 7.85). The chapter
ends with a dismal summary of seven thousand Athenians and allies
dying while ill‐fed and working in the hot, deep and narrow quarries of Syracuse: “this Hellenic event turned out to be the greatest connected
with this war and, at least in my opinion, of Hellenic events we have heard of, the most splendid for those who won and the most wretched for those who were ruined”; he names it “total destruction” ( pano ̄ lethria) – a term that, as mentioned above, recalls the destruction of Troy (Th. 7.87).
It has been pointed out that Book 7, unlike any in Thucydides, is reso-
nant with both the Iliad and the Odyssey in invoking a homecoming that never happens (Allison 1997a).
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Book 8
The epic defeat in Sicily seems to signal a tragic closure to the war, but the history of the war is a massive and tantalizing fragment; the account ends abruptly in 411 bc, but what the narrative ending would have been is only hinted at by Thucydides in the obituary for Pericles: “And after they had failed in Sicily … and now had a revolutionary situation in the city, they nevertheless still held out against both their previous enemies … and
they did not give in until, coming to grief through individual disputes, they brought about their own overthrow” (Th. 2.65). In essence, then,
this book shifts to a new story of the internal dissolution of the city owing to its inability to unite against external danger.
The narrative is complex, as were the events, and this requires a virtually new, punchy, episodic style, whose unity is less obvious than in Books 6 and 7, yet whose coherence is present through variations on several
motifs: the playing of the “Persian card” by both sides, the constant self-centered intrigues of Alcibiades, the resilience of Athens against external foes and yet its endless internal convulsions, and the Peloponnesians’ triumph and demoralization (Dewald 2005: 152–4). The themes continue
to include human ambition and greed and a lack of civic mindedness,
difficult now to preserve even as a formal pretense. How these are woven more tightly into the “end game” of the war, the final books Thucydides might have written, we can only guess, but the threads indicate coherence of the new pattern, which continues in Xenophon’s less impressive but
somewhat similar narrative of Books 1 and 2 of the Hellenica.
We offer only a brief overview of this book’s discursive story. Initial despair at the loss of Sicily turns into a determination not to give in; the fear of an allied revolt and the concern about Sicilian finances are shown to be overstated (Th. 8.9, 8.26). The Spartans continue to attack Athens from Decelea, and numerous revolts of former allies break out. But one
major change is the collaboration of Sparta with Persia for the sake of financial favors from the “barbarians,” while the Persians are actually manipulating Greek politics to prevent the emergence of any strong
Hellenic state that might threaten them, a ruse that continues long past the end of this war. Treaty documents remarkably verify the freedom of
other Greeks that Sparta was willing to “sell out” for its own ends, despite many earlier claims of “liberating Greece” from Athens (Th. 8.84).
Alcibiades attempts to work his way back to a reconciliation with the
Athenians in Book 8 by promising to woo the Persians, through the satrap Tissaphernes, to side with Athens. The duplicitous, self‐serving psychology of both the Athenian and the Persian characters comes to the
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fore here, just as baser human motives had throughout the earlier work
(8.45–58). Alcibiades’ machinations are scuttled when the oligarchy of
the Four Hundred comes to power. On Samos there occurred an Athenian
antidemocratic revolt, then later a counterrevolution to restore democracy on the island, while Athens itself is split between pro‐ and anti‐oligarchs.
The Peloponnesians win a victory off Euboea, and that valuable island is lost to Athens, but the victors, due to their sluggish character in
Thucydides’ view, fail to exploit their advantage by taking the Piraeus.
The Athenians finally restore a mostly democratic regime and manage a
sea victory against the Peloponnesians at the Hellespont. The abrupt end comes with Tissaphernes trying to reconcile with the Peloponnesians in
411 bc, for his own self‐serving reasons.
Yet behind the external back‐and‐forth struggles there emerges a cru-
cial, newly invigorated political dimension, namely an internal strife to stabilize the government of Athens, culminating in the governments of
the Four Hundred and the oligarchic Five Thousand (Connor 1984:
214–15). The loss of political coherence in the city is its own greatest enemy. An Athenian democratic faction is empowered on Samos (Th.
8.76), an oligarchic one in Athens is further split into moderate and
extreme oligarchs (Th. 8.89).
Thucydides’ skepticism of both oligarchy and democracy controlling
Athens’ allies is reflected in a passage describing the revolt of Thasos: For the Athenian establishers of oligarchy, then, what happened was the opposite of what they wanted regarding Thasos, I suppose, among many of their other subjects as well. For after the cities had been given “moderate government” and freedom of action, they went on to outright independence, attaching no value to the sham of “law and order” under the Athenians.
(Th. 8.64)
The historian uncovers the hypocrisy of the oligarchs and how it affects external affairs, as it will continue to do for the rest of the war. The contrasting passion for and fear of the Athenian oligarchs recalls the force of human passions elsewhere in the work (Th. 8.66; cf. the fear after the
incidents of the Eleusinian Mysteries and herms before the Si
cilian
expedition, Th. 6.24; Connor 1984: 223). No single Athenian leader
dominates in this section, but men like the famously wily Phrynicus and the skilled orator Antiphon, part of the Four Hundred conspiracy, show
great talent, albeit wasted on self‐seeking manipulation of the government and people (Th. 8.68). The historian’s striking praise of the government of the Five Thousand (who succeeded the Four Hundred) has caused
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scholars to wonder how to square this with his praise of democracy
through Pericles in the funeral oration:
And not least – for the first time in my experience – the Athenians appear to have governed themselves well. For a balanced mixture of the few and the many came about, and this above all raised the city out of the difficulties that beset it. (Th. 8.97, Connor 1984: 228)
Had Thucydides changed his view of government forms? More likely, the
phrase “governed themselves well” applies to their conduct rather than to the form of government, and “balanced mixture” alludes to an appreciation of the moderation of the oligarchic and democratic forms to achieve stability in the city.
Conclusions
Thucydides was moved, intellectually and emotionally, to write about a
war through which he lived; he was stirred by a deeply personal experience, distinct from Herodotus’, as is evident throughout the Thucydidean narrative. While Thucydides, too, owes much to Homer and earlier poetic and ethical thought, his innovative perspective resonates with the style and thought of the later fifth century, with the expression of Presocratic philosophers and sophists, with Euripidean searching, and with Hippocratic concerns with the emerging life sciences. Thucydides does not endorse
any particular intellectual movement or political stance, but his work
reflects the highly turbulent atmosphere of the times and it presents the war to others as a case study in human interactions and reactions during the great challenge to Athenian rule.
His description of the dynamics of history in new terms – in speeches
of others, in his own digressions, and in his insights into the actions of the participants on all sides – is the essence of his contribution to the genre.
The greatest legacies of Thucydides are arguably his bold invention of a new prose language, his sharp focus on the human psyche, and his pressing determination to bring to light the truth behind the hypocrisy or the muddled reasoning of words and deeds that eroded Greek states from
within. Belief in divine manipulation or fate is replaced by a clear concept of human nature as the grand motivator in history. He is also determined to trace the failures and successes of states and persons in power, which he does with the insider’s sense of intense interest and insight. Xenophon and Polybius, among his heirs, also evidence an insider’s perspective and
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insight at times, but they lack his intensity and focus. Eternal glory is implied in Thucydides’ admiration of the power of Pericles’ Athens, but a more ordinary and lasting shame is described in the self‐serving impulses of those in civil strife at Corcyra and in Athens after the Sicilian disaster.
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