Thucydides - good translation

Greek Learning Greek
21

Perhaps Thucydides became uncomfortable with making up speeches by the time he reached Book 8. The speeches in prior books serve the function of bringing the reader into the midst of events, presenting the issues as they would have appeared to the participants – in Thucydides’ own view. However, they are not authentic and maybe this troubled Thucydides, as it does many readers.

All ancient historians that I’m aware of made up speeches, and this is partly because ancient readers, whose education included a large component of rhetoric, enjoyed reading them. But the contrived speeches are a feature that make many modern readers queasy.

22

As for rational decision-making, Thucydides is critical of some decisions – the decision to recall Alcibiades from the Sicilian expedition (he might have turned it into a success), Kleon generally (despite his astonishing success at Sphacteria), the decision of the Melians not to yield in the face of Athens’ superior might (Th. seems to think it’s their own fault they were slaughtered by the Athenians when, as a small island-polis, they tried to preserve their neutrality), as examples – and certainly the failure of many parties to take into account the role of chance in the course of events. But I don’t see a sustained argument in favor of rational decision making, and for me at least the only principle that emerges from the whole narrative is the grimly realistic principle that might makes right. An eye-opener for those who don’t already see that.

23

In view of the discussions above, I’m attaching a link to a review of a recent book on Book VIII:

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2018/2018-02-12.html

The author of the book apparently fits the narratives of Book VIII into the narrative patterns of the previous books and argues that the absence of speeches is a deliberate choice to avoid interrupting the momentum of the narration.

24

Perhaps Thucydides became uncomfortable with making up speeches by the time he reached Book 8. The speeches in prior books serve the function of bringing the reader into the midst of events, presenting the issues as they would have appeared to the participants – in Thucydides’ own view. However, they are not authentic and maybe this troubled Thucydides, as it does many readers.

But how likely is it that after writing so many scrolls, replete with speeches (“bk.5” apart), Thucydides suddenly became troubled by the thought that the speeches were “not authentic” and gave up the practice on that account? There’s no indication that either he or anyone else had anything against “made-up” speeches, or that he took it into his head to abruptly and belatedly disavow the policy he’d explained (however unsatisfactorily, from our point of view) at the outset of his work. The idea might—might—be defensible if bk.8 were complete, but since it’s patently not …

And the fact that it was left unfinished necessarily compromises the thesis of the new book you mention, and many others. I know it’s a bit old-fashioned of me, but I’d rather take it as a clue to Thuc’s compositional practice. In over-simple terms: narrative first, speeches subsequent.

On another point, I’m not so sure that Thuc means to blame the Melians for the Athenians’ slaughter of them. “Join us or we’ll wipe you out—and you’ll have only yourselves to blame.” Did Thucydides really agree with that view? And as for might making right, I don’t think Thuc believed that for a moment, any more than Plato did, or the tragedians, or Homer. The distinction between using the threat of force to make others do what you want them to do and the “rightness” of such behavior may be elided in modern politics, at least by nations in a position of power (the US above all), but not among the ancient Greeks, where το συμφερον is rarely conflated with το δικαιον. The Melian dialogue underlines the difference between the two.

25

I was expecting comeback, but since none came, I’ll push further. You say that by the last book it’s

as if Thucydides was overwhelmed with sadness and had simply given up trying to make sense of events out of exhaustion and despair.

This is an enticingly romantic explanation of its non-ending, very Florylike. But speeches or no speeches, bk.8 shows no loss of vitality. No, what actually happened is that in his eagerness to get to the end he broke the nib of his pen, went out to buy another and in his haste tripped over a curbstone and split his skull. His dying words were αλλ’ ω Ζευ ουπω το τελος! (A less credible account gives them as καλαμον ζητων ηυρον θανατον, riffing on Sophoclean anapests.) No, that’s too tragic. He simply had a heart attack before being able to complete and revise.
In short, there’s just no knowing why the text stops in midsentence. But that he was just too sad to carry on has no plausibility in my mind. I’ll settle for a heart attack, or the flu. Or loss of the final sheets.

Thucydides’ story is simply one of people senselessly and stupidly killing one another and getting killed.

But speechifying first. No difference at all between Thucydides and Homer, then, or any account of any war? Seriously, I think this is reductive. Thucydides is first and foremost a historian who saw potential value in exploring human nature and motivations for actions in war. I’m rather with John W. on this. He was also an Athenian general, who may not have thought his attempt to reclaim an Athenian colony for Athens was senseless and stupid.

On the vexed question of the “authenticity” of the speeches I have trouble thinking that Pericles did not actually utter κἄγω μεν αὑτος ειμι κοὐκ εξισταμαι (a self-contained iambic trimeter) in the speech reported at 2.61-64, and I take this as indicating at least some degree of authenticity in certain speeches.

26

I was waiting to collect my thoughts to respond.

With regard to the Melian Dialogue, I think Thucydides was nothing if not a hard-headed realist about human behavior. “We’re not talking about justice, we’re talking about what is possible, and what is possible is what those who are on top do and what the weak yield to.” Those are, more or less, the words he puts into the Athenian envoys’ mouths, and I think that reflects Thucydides’ own realism about war and politics, even if his views of what is just are wholly at odds with this. I feel that the matter-of-fact way he relates the outcome, with no rhetoric, just the slaughter and enslavement, conveys his view of the atrocious injustice of the Athenians’ actions more powerfully than any more elaborate discussion of justice and injustice could.

When I wrote that “Thucydides’ story is simply one of people senselessly and stupidly killing one another and getting killed,” I didn’t mean to say that Thucydides isn’t interested in exploring human nature and motivations. He certainly was interested in exploring human nature, as much as Homer and the tragedians were, and that’s what in my view gives his narrative its enduring interest and relevance. And it forced me to think about many things in a different way (though it didn’t fill me with optimism).

But the cumulative effect of his narrative of the war for me was profoundly depressing. I found nothing uplifting, unlike the Iliad and many grim tragedies.

And while Thucydides criticizes some decisions, I don’t see the primary thrust of his history, as John W. does, as advocacy for rational decision-making, though I agree with John that he emphasizes that the failure to take chance into account in war often results in disaster.

On the vexed question of the “authenticity” of the speeches I have trouble thinking that Pericles did not actually utter κἄγω μεν αὑτος ειμι κοὐκ εξισταμαι (a self-contained iambic trimeter) in the speech reported at 2.61-64, and I take this as indicating at least some degree of authenticity in certain speeches.

Agreed.

But that he was just too sad to carry on has no plausibility in my mind. I’ll settle for a heart attack, or the flu. Or loss of the final sheets.

The story is that he was murdered on his way back to Athens after having been recalled from exile. So maybe that’s the answer. Then again, maybe not.

I have to concede that my view of Book 8 is probably reflective of the way I felt as the narrative came to an end.

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Thanks Bill. I’m not going to argue. I think we’re more or less on the same page.
And thanks to John for leading us through Thucydides’ stupendous work!
Michael

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While I’ve been reading this thread, I’ve been reminded of the disappointment that I felt when I found out that William Manchester’s (very hagiographic) biography of Winston Churchill would not be completed. His wife died and he suffered two strokes. He made some progress on the last volume before giving up.

‘‘Language for me came as easily as breathing for 50 years, and I can’t do it anymore,’’ he said, seated on the couch in his den. ‘‘The feeling is indescribable.’’

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I’ve been reminded of the disappointment that I felt when I found out that William Manchester’s (very hagiographic) biography of Winston Churchill would not be completed

I’m also reminded, in the non-literary realm, of Bach’s unfinished The Art of the Fugue, and the many theories about it. I’ll never forget the emotion I felt at Helmut Walcha’s organ recording, terminating abruptly mid-sentence, so to speak.

30

αλλ’ ω Ζευ ουπω το τελος

How Wagnerian of him.

Wotan in die Walküre: Das eine nur will ich noch — das Ende.

31

However, I should have added, in John W.'s defense, that Thucydides does insist in his opening chapters that his history will be useful to future generations engaged in warfare.

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Having just received my copy of the first volume of Alberti (from amazon.it), I went back to this thread for some advice on commentaries and translations, and I have to say, wow. It’s got everything: so much useful information and advice (for now I’m going for the index card approach to cutting the pages, which is the only thing I’ll be doing with the book for a while, though I was kind of looking forward to shopping for an ornamental penknife); humor (Michael’s theories of why Thucydides didn’t finish Book 8 have me laughing my ass off all over again); and more soberly, the heartfelt interpretations of and reactions to Thucydides’ view of the world.

For a dose of civilization in this cruel world, I sometimes go to the Friday ‘tea & talk’ given by the classics department at nearby Bryn Mawr College. A few weeks ago a young man named Benjamin Earley, associated with the Freie Universität in Berlin and I think with a college in Jerusalem, spoke on “The Thucydidean Turn: (Re)interpreting Thucydides’ Political Thought before, during, and after the Great War”. He’s been studying the explosion of interest in Thucydides among English politicians (and ordinary citizens) during and after the obscenity of World War I and from there the dominance of Thucydides in the academic discipline of international relations, still today, in the English-speaking world, both British and American. Many of these scholars seek and get a voice in government policy making. The speaker gave the recent example, in the Trump administration, of Graham Allison (whose book, as far as the speaker is concerned, is a lot of crap). He also told an anecdote about Steve Bannon, while cleaning off his White House desk in preparation for exile, retrieving a copy of Thucydides from under his desk blotter. (See this.) Thucydides - America, 2016-2018. Ah, there’s so much we could say!

κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί. Indeed.

33

By coincidence last night I read Diodorus Siculus’s account of the Sicilian expedition and the meeting of Syracusans on how to deal with the Athenian captives. (Peter Green’s translation, Book 13 20-33). I was quite moved by two speeches, one by Nicolaus, whose two sons died in the war, pleading for mercy, and a rebuttal by Gylippus, general of the Spartans. Green notes that the historian Philistus recorded the exchange and almost certainly witnessed it. These are apparently the longest speeches in Diodorus’s extant work.

According to Diodorus (or Philistus), the Syracusans were persuaded by Nicolaus’s plea for mercy, but Gylippus’s speech changed their minds. Gylippus argues that the Athenian people are to blame, not just Alcibiades, because advisers hew closely to the wishes of their audience. Gylippus reminds the Syracusans of Athenians’ treatment of the Mytlilenaeans, the Melians and the Scioneans. “It is not the Scythians who did such things either, but the people who vaunt themselves as being preeminent in their humanity.”

Randy links to an article which notes that Thucydides is a favorite, not only of Steve Bannon, but also H.R. McMaster and James Mattis. I think these two speeches from Diodorus should be bound together with the Melian Dialogue.

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I don’t like to say so, but that pair of speeches is boilerplate rhetoric, and it leaves me cold.

35

I have to admit that when I read the speeches in Diodorus and felt “Aha, here is the response to the policy expressed in the Melian dialogue”, I realized that what was new to me might well be well known to others. The observation that there was a gulf between the Athenian’s perceptions of themselves and their actions towards others can hardly have escaped notice.