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A Suggested Characteristic in Thukydides' Work Author(S): G A Suggested Characteristic in Thukydides' Work Author(s): G. B. Grundy Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 18 (1898), pp. 218-231 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/623726 . Accessed: 08/01/2015 17:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Thu, 8 Jan 2015 17:00:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A SUGGESTED CHARACTERISTIC IN THUKYDIDES' WORK. THE matter of this paper has been a subject of consideration with me for some time past, and I venture to put forward the conclusion I have arrived at, not because I consider it to be a certain one, but as possibly affording a working hypothesis providing an explanation of what has been to me, and may have been to others, an obscure and difficult point. That the subject demands the earnest attention of those who study Thukydides will, I think, be generally admitted, and this, together with the fact that I have formed the conclusion on a certain amount of first-hand experience, may afford some excuse for the publication of my views. The vast majority of the incidents in the Peloponnesian War are treated by Thukydides with great brevity, in some cases with a brevity dispro- portionate to their importance. There are, however, according to the ordinary acceptation, three incidents into which he enters with a peculiar and striking amount of detail. (1) The Siege of Plataea. (2) The operations at Pylos and Sphakteria. (3) The Siege of Syracuse. I say 'according to the ordinary acceptation' advisedly, because I venture to think that there are really four narratives, viz.:-- (1) The Siege of Plataea. (2) The Siege of Pylos. (3) The Siege of Sphakteria. (4) The Siege of Syracuse. i.e. thus (2) in the original list consists of two different stories. I came to that conclusion in 1895 after an examination of the region of Pylos and Sphakteria, on the intrinsic evidence of the story as compared with the site, but I had not then had time to take a comprehensive view of the general problems which the story of Plataea, which I examined in 1892-3, taken with the Pylos-Sphakteria narrative, presented. The first consideration that naturally suggests itself in reference to the matter is that these incidents upon which Thukydides enlarges in so noticeable a manner are all of them narratives of sieges. It would on the face of it seem likely that there was some special reason for this. Furthermore there is at least one noticeable omission from the list-the siege of Potidaea, which, though of such importance and magnitude, is dealt with in his history with far less detail. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Thu, 8 Jan 2015 17:00:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A SUGGESTED CHARACTERISTIC IN TIHIUKYDIDES'WORK. 219 A second consideration on the general question is that Thukydides was an historian contemporary with the events which he describes. It must almost necessarily be the case that the interests of such an historian should be less wide than those of one who is writing, like Herodotus, for example, of events which are past to him. He must necessarily be affected by the interests of his audience, an audience, in the first instance, contemporary with the events which he is describing. To every audience the interest must lie mainly in that which is novel to it, meaning thereby everything which differs from the wonted circumstances of their life. The criticism may not be original, but I think that it is to this that we must ascribe the peculiar limitation which Thukydides places upon the subject matter of his story. His history is a narrative of incidents rather than of institutions, whether political or social, because in the latter the contemporary historian would find little or nothing save what would be perfectly well known to a contemporary audience. Regarding his work as a military history some of his most noticeable omissions must, I think, be attributed to this fact. He tells us, for example, practically nothing of the Athenian army system, and but little of the naval organisation, simply, I take it, because these things were institutions so well known to the readers for whom he immediately wrote, that the account of them was not likely to excite much interest, nay, would rather add an unattractive feature to his work. Even if we knew nothing of the military history of the period preceding that in which and of which Thukydides wrote, we might then perhaps suspect from the elaboration of detail with which this contemporary historian deals with these four cases of siege operations that there was something in this department of it which was peculiarly novel: that the operations relative to the attack and defence of fortified places had entered on a new phase of development within the limits of the historian's own personal experience. Fortunately we possess evidence of this being the case.' To the student of Greek history, there are, I venture to think, few questions which so frequently and persistently call for consideration and solution, as the contrast which is presented in the military history of the fifth century between, on the one hand, the peculiar strength of the natural positions which the character of the country afforded for the Acropolis of its towns both great and small, and, on the other, the peculiar incapacity which the typical Greek army displayed in the attack on such places. The dilemma becomes more striking still when we consider the most prominent individual case among Greek armies, the Spartan, whose reputation for incapacity in this respect was notorious. And yet, in spite of this, this very army was able to maintain the hegemony of its country over a large part of Greece, thickly sown with fortifications of great natural strength. In attacking these, its only method was blockade. Nor were the other prominent 1 The earliest example in the Greek world, at the siege of Samos, v. Diod. xii. 28 and and this is by no means fully authenticated, Plut. Peril. 27. Both passages are from is the reported use of siege engines by Perikles Ephoros. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Thu, 8 Jan 2015 17:00:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 220 G. B. GRUNDY. Greek armies, at any rate until the time of the Peloponnesian War, really in advance of the Lacedaemonians in this respect. The Athenians had indeed a reputation that way, but it was evidently the reputation of the one-eyed among the blind, of those who know little, among those who know nothing. Such details as we have of the siege of Potidaea show that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War the Athenians were not far advanced in the science of attack on fortified places. The old passive system of blockade is the one adopted, and though it is in the end effective, the cost is enormous. The question naturally arises-how is it that the Greeks, after a long and frequent experience of warfare with one another, had never carried this special branch of the art to a higher pitch of development than that at which we find it at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War? Furthermore how did it come about that a state like Sparta, in spite of its notorious incom- petence in this department, was able, in face of what was at times the most serious opposition, to exercise the strong political influence which it exercised over neighbouring states whose towns were provided with all but impregnable Acropolis ? The answer to this question seems to me to lie in the special nature of the land of Greece south of the Kithaeron-Parnes line. It is hardly necessary to say that the major portion of the area of this part of the country consists of mountains incapable not merely of cultivation but of affording aught but meagre pasturage. Interspersed among these mountains there are indeed plains of great fertility, but of very small extent compared with the area of the uncultivable land, and on the produce of these plains the population of those states which had not facilities for foreign trade was absolutely dependent. It is quite certain that in that part of Greece south of the Kithaeron-Parnes line the amount of cultivable land, rich though it was, was not more than enough, if enough, to support the then population of the region, and in the case of Attica the inhabitants had long been dependent on the supply of foreign corn. This special characteristic must of necessity be true of every mountainous country, but it is peculiarly true of Greece. It was this fact that rendered it easy for a force unskilled in siege operations to keep control over the country south of Kithaeron, and more especially over the Peloponnese.
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