Our investigations have led us to conclusions that differ from those of Thucydides and the majority of modern scholars. That is a sobering thought, for perhaps it is only arrogance and a peculiar perversity that have led to such conclusions. A glance at the history of the question, however, may acquit us of these charges, for over the years Thucydides’ account of the causes of the war has been found unsatisfactory even by those who accept his explanation.
One of the keenest analyses of the problem was made by Eduard Meyer,1 who finally decided that Thucydides was correct. But his shrewd understanding of the actual events often led him to contradict parts of the Thucydidean interpretation and to explain others away. His final conclusion, moreover, seems to contradict some of his earlier judgments. On the crucial question of the Megarian Decree, for instance, Meyer agrees with Thucydides that the decree itself was not the cause of the war, but he admits that his interpretation of the decree and the causes of the war is not altogether correct. It is clear to him, moreover, “that Thucydides does not give the Megarian Decree sufficient motivation, or rather, he does not give it any motivation at all.”2 He concedes the possibility that the Corinthians might have chosen to accept the Athenian interference at Corcyra, but considers the Athenian intervention at Potidaea the act that made war inevitable.3 It is interesting to note that he does not even consider the possibility that Corinth might have chosen not to involve herself in the affair at Epidamnus. Yet his appreciation of the events of the Pentecontaetia is very similar to the one we have given above. He denies that Athenian power grew between 446 and 433 and considers Thucydides’ attempt to offer the events of the Pentecontaetia as Sparta’s motive for war to be unsuccessful. “On the contrary, his own account shows that it was the Corinthians who brought on the war and that it was quite difficult for them to push through the decision for war in Sparta.”4 He further believes that the decisive causes of the war lay not in the opposition between Athens and Sparta but between Athens and Corinth, where “vital interests collided.”5
Meyer believed that the mutual acceptance of the Peloponnesian League and the Athenian Empire that had prevailed since 446/5 might have lasted, “but only on one condition: that no displacement of the equal power of both groups took place.”6 The Corcyrean affair destroyed the equilibrium and brought on the war, but Thucydides and Pericles were both right in thinking that war was already inevitable. Athens had to defend Corcyra to defend the empire, and Pericles knew that the alliance would provoke Sparta into war. Thereafter he allowed no concessions, as Thucydides says, and drove Athens into war. “An unprejudiced judgment could not deny that his attitude, which alone appreciated the Athenian power position and the suitable circumstances, was in fact the only one possible and statesmanly. Every other procedure would have brought more serious consequences to Athens and still not have avoided the war.” Meyer concluded his argument as follows:
So basically we have returned after long detours to Thucydides’ interpretation. If we put in place of Sparta’s jealousy and her fear of the growing power of Athens the thesis that the Peloponnesians, and at their head, the Spartans, could not fail to consider the power position of Athens as a serious handicap which they must seek to get rid of as soon as a promising opportunity presented itself then, his interpretation and his presentation remain perfectly right. And above all: the Corcyrean business was not the cause of the the war but the occasion that made it inevitable.7
Meyer’s essay remains a very valuable contribution, but it reaches a very surprising conclusion: his analysis of the evidence contradicts his final interpretation. In order to accept the Thucydidean explanation, he is forced in the end to change its formulation. Having shown that Athenian power was not growing between 446/5 and 433, that the events of the Pentecontaetia did not make the war inevitable, that the real causes of the war lay between Athens and Corinth, he concludes by arguing that the power of Athens forced the Peloponnesians to seek a reason to attack. The obvious conclusion is that Athenian power grew only after the alliance with Corcyra, but Meyer does not draw it. If the affair at Corcyra or, as Meyer says also, the affair at Potidaea, made war inevitable, it cannot have been inevitable before. Thus, it would appear Corcyra and the other quarrels were not mere pretexts but the real causes of the war, and Thucydides is mistaken. But Meyer did not follow his arguments to their logical conclusion. He was persuaded by the conclusions of Thucydides and could not or would not see the contradictions between Thucydides’ facts and his interpretation. Instead, he employed his great erudition and ingenuity to patch up the cracks.
Meyer’s method of historical exegesis is only one of the many attempts to solve the problem of Thucydides’ treatment of the causes of the war. A very radical solution was proposed by Eduard Schwartz.8 He noticed that Thucydides’ account of the events leading to the war seemed to lead to an interpretation quite different from the one presented by Thucydides as his own. The former seemed to suggest that the Corinthians were really the cause of the war, while the latter said that the truest cause was Sparta’s fear of Athens. Schwartz concluded that Thucydides had written two versions, an earlier one which saw Corinth as the instigator of the war and a later one, written after the war had run its full course, which showed that the war was the inevitable result of Athenian power and Spartan fear. The latter view also vindicated Pericles against the general conviction that he had needlessly brought on the war and was responsible for the Athenian disaster. Schwartz’ work began anew the old attempt to divide the history of Thucydides into early and late passages and to explain difficulties in the interpretation of the meaning of Thucydides with reference to these chronological levels.
Once the issue was joined, other scholars entered the fray with different systems of distinguishing early passages from late. Soon it became evident that different systems yielded different results, and no two scholars agreed exactly on which passages were early and which were late. A typical example of the hopeless subjectivity of the undertaking has often been noticed.9 A single reference to the Aeginetans (7. 57–58) is used by one scholar to date all of Books VI and VII, by another for only Chapters 57 and 58 of Book VII, and for a third it dates only the part of the sentence where the Aeginetans are mentioned. At this point, very few passages are generally agreed to be early, and they do not give us much help in interpreting Thucydides. This is, of course, not the place to discuss the problem of composition. We have only raised it to show how it originated in large part from the unsatisfactory state of Book I and Thucydides’ account of the origins of the war.
The same difficulty gave rise to Nissen’s wild assertion that Thucydides deliberately concealed evidence of Athenian imperialism to shield Pericles.10 Such suggestions would be neither necessary nor possible had the Thucydidean explanation been more satisfactory. The same thing can be said of Cornford’s fanciful theory “that the merchants in the Athenian harbor city carried on a secret conspiracy to force the war, a secret so well kept that Thucydides never discovered it and that is why he missed the key fact in the whole story.”11 He makes it altogether clear that he was led to investigation by his dissatisfaction with Thucydides’ version of the causes of the war.
Plainly he thought that his account…of the disputes and negotiations on the eve of the outbreak ought to satisfy posterity. He has told us all the ascertained truth which seemed to him relevant. But somehow we are not satisfied. We do not feel, after reading the First Book, that Thucydides has told us all that we want to know, or all that he knew and, if he had considered it relevant, might have told. So attempts have again and again been made to go behind his story. We are still troubled by the question which he thought no one would ever have to ask.12
It was Cornford’s belief, in fact, that Thucydides was not very much interested in causes, and that opinion has won support in very respectable quarters.13 Momigliano has exposed the weakness of the Thucydidean account with his customary shrewdness. Modem historians praise Thucydides because he drew the distinction between superficial and profound causes:
Nothing else has contributed so much to Thucydides’ reputation as the most scientific of the ancient historians—as the man whom any university would be proud to have as a Privatdozent. But surely there is a misunderstanding here. If there is something that Thucydides does not succeed in doing, it is to explain the remote origins of the conflict between Sparta and Athens. The whole of the diplomatic and social history of the thirty years before the Peloponnesian war is perhaps irretrievably lost for us just because Thucydides was not interested in it. There are so many things we do not know because Thucydides did not care to study them.
The remote causes of a war are as much plain facts as the immediate causes. If the facts are not produced, if we are left with a vague feeling of mystery, then we can be certain that we have been misled. Thucydides is vague about the ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις. He is far superior to Herodotus in explaining the actual conduct of the war with which he is concerned, but he is much less convincing than Herodotus in discovering the remote origins of the war.14
The unsatisfactory quality of Thucydides’ explanation leads Momigliano to the conclusion that Thucydides, like most Greeks, “came to accept war as a natural fact like birth and death about which nothing could be done. They were interested in causes of wars, not in causes of war as such. Yes, the golden age had been free from wars, but then that was the golden age. In ordinary life you could postpone a war, but you could not avoid war.”15 This is not the place to discuss the accuracy of Momigliano’s generalization about all the Greeks.16 It is enough here merely to disagree with its applicability to the historian of the Peloponnesian War.
It should be plain that the causes of the war were vitally important to Thucydides. Whatever he may have thought about the nature of war in general, he was determined to set his audience right on the causes of this particular war. Public opinion in Athens was convinced that Pericles had started the war by insisting on the Megarian Decree. Meyer does not go too far in saying that Thucydides’ “whole first book, the presentation of the origins of the war, is wholly an uninterrupted polemic against the popular opinion.”17 Yet the shortcomings of the Thucydidean account have led scholars to take more recondite views.
The problems of the Thucydidean interpretation have even led to a debate over the words Thucydides uses to express the idea of cause and the very meaning of his major statement about the causes of the war. It was, of course, inevitable that Cornford’s representation of Thucydides as an unscientific historian who had no sense of cause should produce a reaction. Some scholars responded by asserting that far from having no understanding of cause, he had a very scientific and subtle notion of it, deriving from contemporary usage in Greek science, particularly medicine.18 Subsequent studies have shown that this reaction went too far, that Thucydides does not use words for cause in a special, scientific way. When he speaks of προφάσεις, and especially of ἡ ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις he uses it in a way that accords fully with general Greek usage.19 Thucydides’ main statement on the causes of the war runs as follows:
διότι δ’ ἔλυσαν, τὰς αἰτίας προύγραψα πρῶτον καὶ τὰς διαφορὰς τοῦ μή τινα ζητῆσαί ποτε έξ ὅτου τοσοῦτος πόλεμος τοῖς ᷉ Eλλησι κατέστη. τὴν μέν γὰρ ἀληθεστάτην πρόφασιν, ἀφανεστάτην δέ λόγῳ, τοὠς ’Aθηναίους ἡγοῦμαι μεγάλους γιγνομένους, καὶ φόβον παρέχοντας τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις ἀναγκάσαι ἐς τὸ πολεμεῖν. αἱ δ’ ἐς τό φάνερον λεγόμεναι αἰτίαι αἵδ’ ἦσαν ἑκατέρων, ἀφ’ ὦν λύσαντες τὰς σπονδὰς ἐς τὸν πόλεμον κατέστησαν20
The obvious interpretation and the one most commonly adopted is that the view given is that of the historian himself. This view is best illustrated by quoting a standard English translation that incorporates it.
The reasons why they broke it [the peace] and the grounds of their quarrel I have first set forth, that no one may ever have to inquire for what cause the Hellenes became involved in so great a war. The truest explanation, although it has been the least often advanced, I believe to have been the growth of Athens to greatness, which brought fear to the Lacedaemonians and forced them to war. But the reasons publicly alleged on either side which led them to break the truce and involved them in the war were as follows.21
Kirkwood and Pearson on similar but different grounds believe that Thucydides is not giving his own view of the causes of the war, but rather the motive of the Spartans.22 Sealey has shown that this view is mistaken and that the usual opinion is correct: “At 1. 23. 6 Thucydides states the true cause of the war, as he conceives it.”23 But that is not the end of the affair. Though Sealey believes that we have Thucydides’ own opinion, he does not share in the consensus of what that opinion is. He translates the crucial sentence as follows: “The truest cause, though least spoken of, was, in my opinion, that the Athenians, who were growing powerful and arousing alarm among the Lacedaemonians, compelled them to make war.”24 When this interpretation is expanded, it suggests that it is not the growth of power or the Spartan fear that is emphasized; it is rather the leading role of the Athenians. “The growth of Athenian power is thus relevant to Thucydides’ conception of the cause of the war; but to say that it, or with it the fears of the Spartans, was in his opinion the cause of the war is to overlook the nuances of his statement.”25 It is not unlikely that Sealey was led to this interpretation by his own conviction that Athens really was responsible for the war. “In the years 433—432 the Athenians were spoiling for a fight.”26 Our own analysis has led us to different conclusions, but in any case, Sealey has himself seen problems with the theory. He finds the theory of “the truest cause” not satisfactory, “for even if he [Thucydides] is right in saying that the Athenians compelled the Spartans to fight, he has not answered the further question, why did the Athenians want war?”27 We might be tempted to suggest that Thucydides did not answer the further question because he did not hold to the earlier premise, for Sealey’s translation and interpretation of 1. 23. 6 are not likely to win wide support.28
Sealey thinks the answer is that Thucydides had not fully thought out the consequences of his theory. He finds, moreover, an alternate theory of causation that exists side by side with the “truest cause” in the work of Thucydides. This rises out of the account of the incidents that led up to the war, the quarrel over Corcyra, the Megarian Decree, the affair at Potidaea, etc. This theory tries to explain the war as the consequence of a series of grievances, much in the manner of Herodotus. It was an earlier theory and the “truest cause,” a later and, presumably, unfinished one. And so we are back to explaining the problems of Book I by the suggestion that it is incomplete and contains ideas formulated at different times. The important point here, however, is that the whole problem is brought about by the unsatisfactory relationship between the facts as Thucydides presents them and his explanation of their meaning.
A final example will suffice. An interesting analysis of the coming of the Peloponnesian War is that of F. E. Adcock in the Cambridge Ancient History.29He is shrewd enough to reject the theory of inevitability and bold enough to deny the truth of Thucydides’ “truest cause,” saying, “It seems to explain more truly why the war began again in 413 and ended as it did than why it began at all in 431.”30 He explains the difficulty away, however, by resorting to the theory of early and late strata of Thucydidean thought. The early stratum gives us an account “which is true to fact and true to the Greeks and Greek wars of that time.”31 The later stratum, written after the defeat of Athens, looked at the events from a distorted perspective. Mme de Romilly, however, has shown that whatever the state of the history as a whole, Book I at least is a unit. There may be some late additions, but the essential ideas, of which the “truest cause” is the most pervasive, were present in Thucydides’ thinking and in the composition of the book from the beginning.32 There is no way to minimize his responsibility for the only explicit causal theory in the work.
Adcock, furthermore, is led by his own conviction that the war was not inevitable to attribute the same view to Thucydides.33 In this opinion he appears to be alone.34 He is surely mistaken. In 1. 23. 6, Thucydides clearly distinguishes the “truest cause” from the events of the period after 435. In 1. 88 he concludes his account of the quarrels and complaints by saying that the Spartans voted to go to war “not so much because they had been persuaded by the arguments of their allies as because they were afraid that the Athenians might become more powerful, seeing that the greater part of Greece was already in their hands.” This assertion is then supported by a long excursus whose purpose is to show just how Athenian power had grown and caused fear for the Spartans.35 Since the immediate causes are dismissed as incidental, since the growth of Athenian power that goes back to the Persian War is offered as the “truest cause,” and since no way of preventing the growth of that power or the fear it engendered is presented, we can only conclude that Thucydides meant us to think that the war was inevitable once the Athenian Empire was permitted to come into existence.
We are compelled, then, to conclude that the general opinion is right in thinking that Thucydides believed the war to be inevitable and that the growth in Athenian power and the fear it produced in Sparta was the true cause of the war. Our own analysis of the facts, both those presented by Thucydides and those reported elsewhere, has led us to believe that he is wrong on both counts. We may seek comfort in the words of F. E. Adcock, who justified his disagreement with Thucydides by saying, “We remain entitled, indeed obliged, to make the best judgment we can on the facts known to us about the historical reasons for the outbreak of the war. That is not a matter to be settled by authority, even the authority of Thucydides.”36
Two questions remain. They deal with the mind and the methods of the historian rather than with historical events, and a full answer to them would require a detailed historiographical study, which is impossible here. Yet they arise unavoidably from our investigation and deserve at least to be recognized, if not fully answered. If Thucydides is wrong about the causes of the war and its inevitability, we must ask how he has been able to convince most of his readers that he is right. We should further like to know how and why he himself came to his conclusions. The first question is rather easier to answer. The devices Thucydides uses in his account of the causes of the war are the same ones he employs throughout his work to make his interpretation clear and persuasive: judgments made in his own voice (such as his statement of the “truest cause” in 1. 23. 6), the selection, omission, and arrangement of evidence, and the speeches. These have always been recognized and form the greatest part of his method.
A fourth device, however, has been given prominence by recent studies: the attribution to people of motives, purposes, and ideas that, at the very least, Thucydides does not support with evidence, and in some cases, he could hardly have known anything about. The clearest example of this device is to be found in Thucydides’ treatment of Cleon. We need not concern ourselves with whether or not that treatment is fair or the picture it paints of Cleon accurate;37 we want merely to know, for instance, how Thucydides goes about convincing us that Cleon is an incapable general who wins battles by luck and loses them out of incompetence. One of those ways is perfectly illuminated by Woodhead in a passage so illustrative that it deserves quotation. The subject is the Battle of Amphipolis, where the Spartan Brasidas defeated Cleon. Both generals died in the battle. The Thucydidean account makes it perfectly clear that the battle was decided by the shrewdness of Brasidas, who took advantage of the foolishness of Cleon, who appears “incompetent, uncertain, self-confident, cowardly, by turns.”38 But a careful analysis of the text reveals interesting things.
By contrast with the obscurity of the battle narrative, the historian seems remarkably well acquainted with what was in the minds of both commanders. Brasidas’ plan could presumably have been expounded to him soon afterwards, perhaps by Clearidas himself. But what of Cleon, also dead on the battlefield? What was Thucydides’ source of information here? A few prisoners eager to blame their misfortune on their dead general? Disgruntled hoplites casting back in their memories nineteen or more years later?…Further we may note Thucydides’ use of words: “Cleon was compelled…he became aware, and was unwilling that they be exasperated….” And later, “He did not expect…he had acquired confidence in his own wisdom…he thought he could withdraw….” but afterwards, seeing Amphipolis apparently deserted, “he thought he ought to have brought up siege engines.” It is, to say the least, remarkable that Thucydides should know all this.39
This attribution of motives, purposes, and ideas, so difficult to authenticate, is one of Thucydides’ most effective means of persuading the reader of the inevitability of the war. After the speeches of the Corcyreans and Corinthians in the assembly at Athens in 433, Thucydides tells that the Athenians voted to make a defensive alliance with Corcyra, “for it seemed to them that a war with the Peloponnesians would come in any case.”40 But almost half of the Athenians did not think the war inevitable, for they had voted against the alliance and had almost commanded a majority against it. It is also worth contemplating how Thucydides knew what was in the minds of the narrow majority of Athenians who supported the alliance. Again, immediately after completing his account of the growth of Athenian power after the Persian War, Thucydides reiterates a version of his view of the causes of the war:
In this time the Athenians established and reinforced their empire and themselves attained great power. Although the Spartans perceived this, they made only a small attempt to prevent it and remained quiet for the greater part of the time. For even before this they had never been quick to go to war unless they were compelled, and in this period they were hindered, to a degree, by wars at home. This quiet lasted until the power of the Athenians began to manifest itself and to lay hold of their allies. Then the situation became unendurable, and the Spartans decided they must try with all their resolution to destroy that power if they could and to launch this war.41
Here the explanation of the causes of the war rests on an interpretation of the feelings, motives, and inclinations of the Spartans over a period of half a century. The resolution of the Spartans to destroy the power of Athens is made to seem the culmination of an emotion that had grown gradually and could not forever be contained, not a temporary aberration, an outburst of anger and fear resulting from a particular event or chain of events. Once again it would be interesting to know how Thucydides obtained his information on the inner workings of the Spartan psyche. When these passages are put together with two others in the speeches, it is difficult to escape the feeling of inevitability. The Corcyreans say the war is inevitable in 433.42 Pericles says the same thing in the debate that put an end to negotiations.43 It is not easy to avoid concluding, as Mme de Romilly does, that “all the different actors in the drama know from the beginning that the war is going to take place.”44 How can the reader believe otherwise?
The same impression is strongly fortified by the arrangement of materials in the first book. After a section on ancient history to demonstrate the relative insignificance of previous wars and the magnitude of the one under discussion, Thucydides gives us his fullest statement of the truest cause of the war. This is followed by an account of the publicly alleged causes, an account already rendered insignificant by the last sentence in the statement of the truest cause. That account makes only the briefest mention of the one event most widely believed to be significant, the Megarian Decree, and the brevity of this treatment, as Mme de Romilly points out, is quite deliberate. “By never mentioning the Megarian decree except among the other incidents, by speaking of its importance in the debate only after the Peloponnesian vote and among so many demands and pretexts, finally, by raising the question of this importance just before the speech of Pericles which denies and refutes it, Thucydides makes us clearly understand that this importance was illusory.”45 The narrative of Thucydides also manages to tell us of the debate on the Corcyrean alliance at Athens, that it required two sessions of the assembly to make a decision, and yet does not tell us what position Pericles took in the debate. We know, of course, that he favored the alliance, but we do not learn that fact from Thucydides.
This omission points up some others equally strange. We know from Thucydides himself that after the Athenians heard the Corcyreans and Corinthians, they had a debate of their own. Not less than two opinions were put forward with enough vigor and persuasiveness to force a second assembly. If not Pericles, then one of his party must have made an effective speech in behalf of the alliance with Corcyra. Yet, although Thucydides gives the speeches of the Corinthians and Corcyreans in full, he presents no Athenian speeches, in spite of the splendid opportunity the occasion afforded for another of the antilogies Thucydides is so fond of. Why does he omit the Athenian speeches? He was surely there to hear them and had every reason to remember what he heard. On a similar occasion at Sparta he presents speeches on both sides of the question and gives us the names of the speakers, Archidamus and Sthenelaidas. Nor does he on other occasions hesitate to indicate political differences within Athens by means of contradictory speeches. The argument over Mytilene is reported in full and highlighted by the speeches of Cleon and Diodotus. The debate over the Sicilian expedition is documented with several contradictory speeches by Nicias and Alcibiades. But we are not given the speeches in the crucial debate that concluded with Athens’ first step in the direction of war.
The other striking omission occurs in the final debate at Athens which resulted in the rejection of the Spartan ultimatum and which amounted to a decision for war. On that occasion, Thucydides tells us, there was a great debate indeed. Many rose to speak, much was said for and against the war, a great deal of argument surrounded the Megarian Decree, yet Thucydides reports only the speech of Pericles. It would be instructive to know what arguments his opponents used, and this occasion too is perfect for a typically Thucydidean antilogy, but we are given only the speech of Pericles. We have rejected the notion that Book I is incomplete, and it is impossible to believe that these striking omissions are accidental. The choice and arrangement of evidence and speeches are deliberate. Its purpose is to emphasize what is truly significant (ἡ ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις) and to diminish the importance of what is really trivial.
If Thucydides had given us a pair of Athenian speeches from the debate on the Corcyrean alliance, one of them most likely by Pericles, he would be emphasizing the fact that two decisions were possible, that the Athenians could readily have chosen not to accept the alliance and almost did, and that vulgar opinion had some reason to believe that Pericles had an important responsibility for bringing on the war. Had he given us speeches that opposed Pericles’ refusal to withdraw the Megarian Decree in 432, he would have had to give greater support to the contention that the decree could have been rescinded. In so doing, he could not avoid giving even greater emphasis than he does to Pericles’ decisive role in the Athenian determination not to yield. The impression given would be very different from the one that leaps out at us at the first glance we give to the history as we, in fact, have it. It would be, according to Thucydides, a very false impression.
After the narrative of the publicly alleged causes, with the significant omissions we have noticed, comes a restatement of the “truest cause,” followed immediately by the description of Athens’ rise to power, which is meant to give it support. The omissions in the account of the Pentecontaetia are notorious and too numerous to list here.46 The point is that there is no way to explain all these omissions and still hold to the belief that the excursus is intended to supply an accurate, objective history of the period. No one has supplied a perfectly acceptable explanation of how Thucydides made his selection of facts for this period, but Walker’s suggestion cannot be far from the truth: “The passage 89–118, as an account of the Athenian growth which alarmed Sparta, is at the same time an account of ἡ ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις: it is, from its introduction and conclusion, no more and no less than an account of the growth of Athenian power written to explain Spartan alarm and a particular Spartan decision: it is parenthetic to the main substance of Bk. I as introduced in 23, i.e. the formal cause or πρόφασις of the war.”47 The excursus is followed by another statement of the “truest cause.” Then comes an incredibly brief and sketchy account of negotiations between Athens which went on for months, capped by a long, unopposed speech by Pericles which assumes and flatly states that the Spartans have long been plotting against Athens and that the war is inevitable. A study of the selection and arrangement of materials in Book I should make it clear that a theory that suggests that it is incomplete is untenable. On the contrary, it is a masterpiece of rhetoric, carefully planned and executed, which makes its point with brilliance and subtlety. We need not wonder that it has convinced most of its readers.
Finally we come to the question of why Thucydides chose the interpretation that he presents to us. Why does he offer an explanation for the coming of the war which is not clearly supported by the evidence he supplies? Part of the answer must lie in his polemical intentions. Popular opinion believed that the war was caused by Pericles and the Megarian Decree. That opinion was altogether simple-minded and wrong. Although the decree and Pericles were more important than Thucydides indicates, he was surely right to seek a more satisfactory explanation. It would be a mistake to believe, however, that Thucydides offers his interpretation merely to defend Pericles against the popular charges. Thucydides was an ardent admirer of Pericles and regarded him as the greatest statesman of his time.48 At the end of the war that had brought Athens so much grief and a crushing defeat, we may be sure that the reputation of Pericles had suffered great damage. Thucydides could not have been unmoved by the desire to restore that reputation, and his history must have contributed much to that end. Instead of believing that Pericles had driven his country into an unnecessary and disastrous war over a trifle, the reader of Thucydides is persuaded that Pericles was a wise and far-seeing statesman who knew that war was inevitable, evolved a sound strategy for winning it, and was thwarted only by such unforeseeable events as the plague and his own death, and by the foolishness of his successors, who would not carry out his strategy. Both versions are exaggerated, although we may be sure that Thucydides is far closer to the truth than Aristophanes and Ephorus. Thucydides would have been very pleased that his defense of Pericles has totally driven the opposition from the field.
Yet the desire to defend Pericles is not enough to explain the Thucydidean interpretation. The play of great impersonal forces is not confined merely to the coming of the war, but plays a leading part in the entire history. The purpose of the work is made very clear quite early. It is intended for those “who wish to see clearly the things that have happened and those things that, in accordance with human nature, will happen in the same or a similar way again in the future.” His work is not intended only for the present, but as a “possession forever.”49 Assuming the essential stability of human nature in the political realm,50 he tried to establish what amount almost to laws of political behavior. Mme de Romilly’s study of the place of imperialism in the work of Thucydides has shown that it is possible to derive from the history such fundamental laws.51 Nevertheless, he recognized the role of outstanding individuals who possessed wisdom and could affect the course of events. No doubt his book was intended for their use, and its purpose was to provide them with the principles of human political behavior that would enable them to make good judgments in the future. Thucydides wanted to describe and analyze the impersonal forces that operate in human society. A future Themistocles or a Pericles would have the wisdom to use the laws or principles that emerge from that analysis to guide his political actions.52
If we keep this purpose in mind, we may arrive at a better understanding of why Thucydides interpreted the coming of the war as he did. Thucydides stood on the edge of philosophy. He was sufficiently a historian to feel compelled to establish the particulars, to present the data as accurately as he could, but he was no less, and perhaps more, concerned to convey the general truths that he had discovered. His passion for truth, his careful distinction between remote and immediate causes, his refusal to explain human events by celestial intervention have all led modern scholars to see him as very much like a modern historian. The fact is that in many ways he is far less modern than Herodotus. The canons of modern historical scholarship demand the presentation of a fair sample of the evidence. Evidence must be presented on both sides of an argument, and the interpretation must emerge from a demonstration that one thesis is better founded than another. Where there is conflicting evidence, the sources must be cited and reasons given for preferring one over the other. Relevant material known to the historian must be reported even though it contributes to a thesis that he believes mistaken. It should be perfectly plain that Herodotus complies with these demands far more than does Thucydides, who, in fact, violates every one of them at some time or another. Herodotus loves the phenomena in themselves; he is chiefly concerned with composing an interesting and honest narrative. He also wants to suggest some general truths, but that purpose is secondary. Thucydides has a different purpose. The phenomena and the narrative are not ends in themselves, but means whereby the historian can illustrate general truths.
This is not to say that Thucydides means to deceive. Quite the opposite is true. He is determined that the reader will not be deceived, so he selects his material in such a way as to emphasize and clarify the truth. We must remember that his immediate audience knew much more than we do about the events that led to the Peloponnesian War. When Thucydides treated the Megarian Decree with such contempt, they were fully aware of all the evidence on the other side, and Thucydides knew it. His peculiar emphasis was not an attempt at deception but at interpretation. We should also remember that the great majority of the evidence that permits us to reject the Thucydidean interpretation is provided by Thucydides. The purpose of Thucydides was to set before us the truth as he saw it, but his truth need not be ours. If we are to use his history with profit, as we can and must, we must distinguish between the evidence he presents and the interpretation he puts on it. Only then can we use it as a “possession forever.”
1 Forschungen, II, 296–326.
2 Ibid., 302–303.
3 305–306.
4 314.
5 315.
6 323.
7 326.
8 Thukydides.
9 See Romilly, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, 7 and H. D. West-lake, CQ, N.S., V (1955), 53, n. 8.
10 Historische Zeitschrift, NF. XXVII (1889). See also its refutation by Meyer, Forschungen, II, 296–326 passim.
11 I quote the satirical but accurate summary of M. I. Finley, The New York Review of Books, vol. 8, No. 5, March 23, 1967, 26.
12 Cornford, Thucydides, 3.
13 E.g., Arnaldo Momigliano in Studies in Historiography, (London, 1961), 112–126 and M. I. Finley, in Generalization in the Writing of History, Louis Gottschalk, ed. (Chicago, 1963), 27.
14 Studies in Historiography, 117–118.
15 Ibid., 120.
16 It might, however, be useful to cite Gordon M. Kirkwood’s intelligent refutation of Cornford’s view: “When Cornford said that ‘there is in Thucydidean Greek no word which even approaches the meaning and association of the English “cause” with its correlative, “effect,”’ he must have altogether overlooked the historical use of αἴτιον.” Further on he denies that Thucydides did not understand causes but only pretext and grievance, by referring to his analysis of the Trojan War, where he is clearly aware of objective causes (AJP, LXXIII [1952], 58–59).
17 Forschungen, II, 297.
18 E. Schwartz, Thukydides, 250; C. N. Cochrane, Thucydides and the Science of History (Oxford, 1929), 17.
19 Kirkwood, op. cit., and Lionel Pearson, TAPA, LXXXIII (1952), 205–223.
20 1. 23. 5–6.
21 Translated by C. F. Smith in the Loeb Classical Library. A similar understanding may be found in the translation of Mme de Romilly in the Bude edition and that of Antonio Maddalena, Thucydidis Historiarum Liber Primus (Florence, 1961), III, 98. The English translation of Richard Crawley, based on the same understanding, is very free, but in my opinion closer to the real sense of the passage than any other. It deserves quotation: “The real cause I consider to be the one which was formerly most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable. Still it is well to give the grounds alleged by either side, which led to the dissolution of the treaty and the breaking out of the war.”
22 Kirkwood, AJP, LXXIII (1952), 47 and 51; Pearson, op. cit., 219–221.
23 Raphael Sealey, CQ, N.S., VII (1957), 9.
24 Idem.
25 Ibid. 10.
26 Idem.
27 Ibid. 11.
28 It is noted and rejected by A. Andrewes, CQ, N.S., IX (1959), 225, n. 1.
29 5. 165–192.
30 5. 190.
31 191.
32 Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, 16–36.
33 CAH, V, 182; Thucydides and his History, 7.
34 I have been unable to find a single scholar who denies that Thucydides believed the war to be inevitable. Many make no reference to the subject, but the following flatly assert that Thucydides believed in the inevitability of the war: Eduard Meyer, Forschungen, II, 308–310; J. B. Bury, The Ancient Greek Historians, paperback republication (New York, 1958), 94; Werner Jaeger, Paedeia, Gilbert Highet, tr. (Oxford, 1954), I, 393; P. A. Brunt, AJP, LXXII (1951), 270; Jacqueline de Romilly, Thucydide I (Paris, 1958), xliii and Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, 21.
35 See P. K. Walker, CQ, N.S., VII (1957), 27–38.
36 JHS, LXXI (1951), 4.
37 Although A. G. Woodhead’s article in Mnemosyne (Series 4, XIII [1960], 289–317) should put an end to the controversy.
38 Ibid., 306.
39 Ibid., 308.
40 1. 44. 2. ἐδόκει γὰρ ὁ πρὸς Πελοποννησίους πόλεμος καὶ ᷉ς ἔσεσθαι αὐτοῖς.
41 1. 118. 2.
42 1. 33. 2.
43 1. 144. 3.
44 Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, 21.
45 Thucydide, I, xlii.
46 Gomme (Hist, Comm., I, 365–369) lists sixteen; it is possible that there are even more.
47 Op.cit. 31.
48 See especially Romilly, Thucydide, II, xvi-xxix.
49 1. 22. 4.
50 It is important to emphasize, as Momigliano has done in Studies in Historiography, 127–142 and 211–220, that Thucydides limited himself strictly to political history. His statement about the stability of human nature should be understood to apply to that limited context. In that area his confidence does not seem to be misplaced.
51 Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, 311–343.
52 For a somewhat fuller statement of my view of Thucydides’ purposes, see my chapter on Thucydides in The Great Dialogue, A History of Greek Political Thought (New York, 1965), 96–112.