Characterization and Politics in Thucydides by Drew C. Stimson A dissertation submitted in partial

295 Pages·2017·1.93 MB·English

by  Drew Stimson

Characterization and Politics in Thucydides

by

Drew C. Stimson

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Classical Studies)
in The University of Michigan
2018

Doctoral Committee:

Professor Sara L. Forsdyke, Chair
Associate Professor Ian S. Moyer
Professor Arlene W. Saxonhouse
Professor Arthur M. F. W. Verhoogt
Drew C. Stimson

[email protected]

ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8532-376X

© Drew C. Stimson 2018
For my family

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my family for their unwavering love and support as I worked on this
project, as well my wife Jacqueline for her patience and understanding, as well as her untiring
efforts in directly aiding my writing process. Without the support of my family I never would
have completed this project, and I owe them my undying gratitude for making it possible for me
to reach this step in my career.
I would also like to thank the Rackham Graduate School and the Department of Classical
Studies at the Unviersity of Michigan, both of which treated me exceptionally well, and in the
process made my life easier by removing external worries so that I could focus on research. I
would especially like to extend my gratitude to the professors in my department, who in their
approach to teaching and mentoring found that perfect balance of support and rigor that
consistently challenged to improve, but never make me feel as though I did not belong.
Finally, I would like to thank the members of my committee—and especially my chair
Prof. Sara Forsdyke—for their tireless efforts in reading and commenting on this work as it was
in progress. Their feedback has proven truly invaluable both to the completion of this
dissertation, and more generally to my development as a scholar. I stand forever in their debt.

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Table of Contents
Dedication ………………………………………………………………….. ii
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………... iii
Abstract …………………………………………………………………….. v
Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 1
CHAPTER I. Athens and Sparta ………………………………………….. 15
CHAPTER II. Thucydides on Effective Leadership ……………………… 72
CHAPTER III. Thucydides on Ineffective Leadership …………………. 121
CHAPTER IV. Alcibiades: The Form of the Athenian? ………………… 228
CHAPTER V. Conclusions and Political Thought ……………………… 261
Works Cited ………………………………………………………………281

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Abstract
This dissertation focuses on Thucydides’ deployment of characterization (both of cities
and of individuals) to problematize the political systems of his time. I argue that Thucydides’
narrative guides readers to the conclusion that both the Athenian and Spartan political systems
are flawed (each in its own, particular way), and that each therefore requires the intervention of
leaders capable of moderating its weaknesses and excesses. At the same time, however, by
presenting the vast majority of Athenian and Spartan leaders as failing to meet these standards,
Thucydides makes clear that the emergence of such individuals cannot actually be relied upon.
Readers, therefore, are presented with an untenable situation: Athens and Sparta need great
leaders, but cannot expect them. This incongruity leaves one looking for a middle way: a system
of government that does not require the intervention of exceptional individuals, but is instead
capable of self-moderation. Such a system, I argue, he briefly proposes in his praise of the
government of the Five Thousand at Athens (8.97.2), which he depicts as a moderate alternative
to the bipolar model of democracy or oligarchy. I then conclude by discussing the relationship
between Thucydides’ political thought and that of other ancient Greek authors, demonstrating
that there are a number of similarities between his conception of governmental moderation and
later, more systematic discussions of the “mixed constitution.”
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Introduction
When I first came to Thucydides’ text, I was, as many other students before me, looking
to it primarily as a source of historical information on the Peloponnesian War. Upon reading his
work, however, I was immediately struck by its artistry.1 Numerous episodes left me feeling
invested in the action of the text, hoping for a particular outcome or dreading the result of a
decision that seemed poorly made. I found myself in deep suspense after the Mytilenean debate
as one Athenian ship chased another to save the Mytileneans from total destruction,2 alternately
horrified and fascinated by the arguments made in the Melian Dialogue, and feeling sorrow at the
pitiable fate of the Athenian forces—and of Demosthenes and Nicias in particular—at the end of
the Sicilian Expedition.
The more I became aware of this artistry, the more interested I became in both the work,
and in Thucydides as an author. Indeed, Thucydides’ text offers something for everyone, and the
body of scholarship on Thucydides reflects this fact: it has value to both ancient historians and
classical philologists, as well as to political scientists and students of international relations
theory (where he is often viewed as the father of Realism).
The interests of such scholars have, however, not been stagnant. Indeed, recognition of
and research into Thucydides’ literary artistry is a relatively recent development in modern
scholarship. I thus turn briefly to an examination of the history of Thucydidean scholarship in the
modern era, and the trends that have, over time, come to dominate.

1 It must be noted, however, that Thucydides never calls his work a history (ἱστορία), and thus, as Hornblower
argues, “we have no easy clue as to the kind of enterprise he thought he was engaged in” (1987: 7–8).
2 Grant (1974: 86) argues this account likely exaggerates the drama and danger of the situation.
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History of Scholarship, Position of this Dissertation3
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, two discussions dominated Thucydidean scholarship
(with the notable exception of Cornford and his book Thucydides Mythistoricus, to which I will
return later). The first went hand in hand with attempts to define the broader field of history as a
precise and scientific discipline, along the lines of von Ranke’s call for history to be written “wie
es eigentlich gewesen.” In looking back at the origins of their field, many scholars of this school
identified Thucydides as the progenitor of such “objective” history (Connor 1977: 289; Forsdyke
2017: 19), and thus often described him as an unbiased historian who was, to the exclusion of
literary ornament, recording facts accurately for posterity.
The second discussion of this period centered on what is now often referred to as the
“Thucydidean Question,” which concerns the stages of composition of the work. Indeed, the
incompleteness of several of the books (certainly Book 8, and many argue book 5 as well), as
well as the presence of his famous “second introduction” at 5.26, have led multiple scholars to
posit that Thucydides wrote and revised various sections of the text at different times (Hunter
1977: 269–70). Based on these observations, a great and lively debate developed between the
“Analysts” (or “Separatists,” according to Connor 1984b: 10) such as Ullrich (1846) and
Schwartz (1919), who ran with this idea but proposed competing models for the stages of the
work’s composition, and “Unitarians” such as Meyer (1899: 269–436), who maintained the
overall unity of the work.
This debate reached a critical point by the mid-20th century, as an abundance of answers
to this “Thucydidean Question” were proposed, but none was accepted as the consensus solution.
It was at this time that unitarian scholars such as de Romilly and Finley acquired the upper hand

3 Many previous scholars have undertaken reviews of the scholarship on Thucydides. For more detailed
examinations of this topic, see de Ste. Croix (1972: 295–6) and Hunter (1977: 269–74).
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in this debate.4 In looking at the state of scholarly attempts to determine the stages of
composition of the work, these unitarians argued that researchers of Thucydides were faced with
a problem with no solution. Indeed, de Romilly stated that, “All that remained of so many efforts
was a confused tangle of all kinds of hypotheses, contested opinions and arguments twisted in
every conceivable sense” (1963: 6), and went on to argue that this project “does not necessarily
admit of an exact answer” (1963: 154). They instead proposed viewing the work as a unity
instead, with Finley, for example, writing an essay titled “The Unity of Thucydides’ History,”
and arguing that Thucydides worked in one, sustained period of composition (1967, esp. p. 121;
see Hunter 1977: 272–4).
The strength of these and other unitarian scholars’ arguments effectively ended
discussion of the compositional question, save for a few exceptions (Hunter 1977: 274).5 Two
related developments followed the resolution of this debate in Thucydidean scholarship: the
rejection of the idea of pure Thucydidean historical “objectivity,”6 and a new focus on the
literary aspects of Thucydides’ history,7 including, for example, his use of vividness and
emotionality to impart not just facts, but experiences to readers (Connor 1977: 289, 1984b: 6;
Greenwood 2006: 19–41; Grethlein 2010: 248–52; Forsdyke 2017: 20, 31).8 Observers of the

4 Hunter describes these scholars as follows: “If de Romilly can be described as a cautious and rather embarrassed
unitarian, Finley is a bold and assertive one” (1977: 274).
5 Connor also states that “it was clear by the 1950s that this effort had bogged down and was unlikely ever to fulfill
its promise,” and that it “seemed, if not dead, at least moribund” (1984b: 4).
6 “Few these days will regard Thucydides as a ‘scientific’ historian, …” (Gribble 1998: 70). See also Grethlein, who
states that, “… by and large, in the last decades interest has shifted from Thucydides historicus to Thucydides
narrator” (2013: 91).
7 Connor ties this questioning of authority among Anglophone scholars to the Vietnam War (1977: 289).
8 The ancient commentators appear to have been fully aware of many of the literary qualities of Thucydides’ history,
and found commenting on them totally unproblematic. For example, Dover (2009: 49) notes that Dionysius of
Halicarnassus questions Thucydides’ placement of the Pericles’ Funeral Oration in Book 2 (Th. 18), and appears not
to have considered the answer, “because that is when it occurred” satisfactory, and Grethlein (2013: 92) points out
that Plutarch directly refers to Thucydides’ “vividness” (ἐνάργειαν), as well as his desire to make the reader a
spectator (θεατὴν; De glor. Ath. 347a5–9).
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literary aspects of the work now recognize the influence these aspects of the work have on
readers’ interpretations (Connor 1984b: 7–8).9
This trend in scholarship led to many new and insightful works on Thucydides and his
historical method, with individuals such as Cornford (1907; obviously writing well before the
more literary approach to Thucydides had been widely accepted), Hunter (1973), Macleod
(1983), Connor (1984b), Rood (1998), and Greenwood (2006), to name only a few, offering new
perspectives on the various ways in which Thucydides’ use of selection, characterization, or
narrative shapes his history for his audience.10 In addition, his role in and contribution to political
or international relations theory has been readdressed by scholars such as Orwin (1994),
Ahrensdorf (1997), Lebow (2003), Balot (2006, 2017), Mara (2009), and Jaffe (2017a, 2017b).
This new and exciting research has certainly answered a number of lingering questions, but it has
likely introduced just as many new ones. It is within this relatively new scholarly tradition that
the current work places itself, and I turn now to a more specific discussion of my own approach
to the text.

Approach to the Text, Methodology
A useful place to begin in orienting myself within the body of scholarship is with
Thucydides’ statement concerning his methodology in recording speeches. Scholars’ arguments
concerning this passage have varied greatly, with some maintaining that he is claiming a much
higher level of fidelity and accuracy than others. I find that individual positions on this specific
issue often seem to reflect their larger approach to the text as a whole. To review, Thucydides
here states: καὶ ὅσα μὲν λόγῳ εἶπον ἕκαστοι ἢ μέλλοντες πολεμήσειν ἢ ἐν αὐτῷ ἤδη ὄντες,

9 See also Hunter, who argues that the reader of Thucydides experiences “subliminal persuasion” (1973: 115).
10 For a more thorough discussion of modern scholarly approaches to Thucydides, see Forsdyke 2017.
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