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Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War THUCYDIDES AND THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR 'Cawkwell is an important historian ... [this book] is typical of his style, his scholarship and his humanity, and ought to be read.' Hugh Bowden, King's College, University of London Understanding the history of Athens in the all important years of the second half of the fifth century BC is largely dependent on the legacy of the historian Thucydides. Previous scholarship has tended to view Thucydides' account as infallible. This book challenges that received wisdom, advancing original and controversial views of Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian war; his misrepresenta­ tion of Alcibiades and Demosthenes; his relationship with Pericles; and his views on the Athenian Empire. Cawkwell's comprehensive analysis of Thucydides and his historical writings is persuasive, erudite and is an immensely valuable addition to the scholarship and criticism of a rich and popular period of Greek history. George Cawkwell arrived in Oxford in 1946 as a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar and, like the lotus-eaters, 'forgot the way home'. In 1949 he became a Fellow of University College, Oxford where he tutored in Ancient History until 1995. He is the author of Philip of Macedon (1978) and many articles in learned journals on the history of Greece from the eighth to the fourth century BC. THUCYDIDES AND THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR George Cawkwell fc London and New York First published 1997 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016 Transferred to Digital Printing 2005 © 1997 George Cawkwell Typeset in Garamond by Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Cawkwell, George. Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War / George Cawkwell. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Thucydides-Political and social views. 2. Greece-History- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BC-Historiography. 3. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. I. Title. DF229.T6C37 1997 938'.05'072-dc21 96-37755 CIP ISBN 0-415-16430-3 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-16552-0 (pbk) CONTENTS Preface vii List of abbreviations ix 1 THUCYDIDES 1 2 'THE TRUEST EXPLANATION' 20 3 THUCYDIDES AND THE STRATEGY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR 40 4 THUCYDIDES, PERICLES AND THE 'RADICAL DEMAGOGUES' 56 5 THUCYDIDES, ALCIBIADES AND THE WEST 75 6 THUCYDIDES AND THE EMPIRE 92 Appendix 1 A note on the so-called 'Financial Decrees' of Callias, IGV52(=ML 58) 107 Appendix 2 The Megara Decrees of Plutarch, Pericles 30 111 Appendix 3 Military service in the Athenian Empire 115 Notes 121 List of works referred to in Notes 155 v PREFACE For about fifteen years, off and on, I lectured on Thucydides and the War' in the School of Literae Humaniores in Oxford, but when in 1992 I was invited to fill a temporary gap in the Lecture List and return to the fray, I declined. Lecturing was for me a fray indeed. I used to take enormous pains over it and at the end of an hour felt physically exhausted. It seemed unwise to engage again. So I resolved instead to seek to publish what I would have delivered; foolishly perhaps, for lectures are essentially an agonisma es to parachrema and such is this book. I resolved to refer in the notes only to works accessible to the majority of those likely to use the book. Thus the list of works referred to is confined mainly to works in English. A few articles in French have crept in, but almost no works of German scholarship are listed (though in one or two places in the notes I have weak­ ened). So such a masterpiece as Beloch's Griechische Geschichte, a work for which I take this opportunity to profess supreme admiration, is not mentioned. In short, the list is not a bibliography, which would be immense. Especial thanks are due to Rachel Chapman, Madeline Little- wood and Susan McCann at the Classics Faculty Office, without whose kindness this work would not have gone beyond manuscript. Perhaps I should dedicate it to the many Greats, men and women, who have patiently and politely persisted with me, at least longer than a beautiful and intelligent young lady I once met at a party, who told me that she had been to my lectures 'or, rather, to one of them', but actually I prefer to dedicate it honoris causa to Simon Hornblower. George Cawkwell University College, Oxford, March 1996 vn ABBREVIATIONS ATL The Athenian Tribute Lists, B. D. Meritt, H. T. Wade-Gery and M. F. McGregor (eds). Volume I, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1939); Volumes II and III, Prin­ ceton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton (1949). CAH Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn. (1961- ), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FGH Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, F Jacoby (ed.), Leiden: Brill (1923-). GHI A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions II, M. N. Tod (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press (1948). HCT Historical Commentary on Thucydides, A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes and K. J. Dover (eds), 5 volumes, Oxford: Clar­ endon Press (1945-81). IG Inscriptiones Graecae, Berlin: de Gruyter (1873-). Meiggs and Andrewes, Sources for Greek History between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, R. Meiggs and A. An­ drewes (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press (1951). ML Greek Historical Inscriptions P, R. Meiggs and D. M. Lewis (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press (1969). SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Amsterdam: Gieben (1923-). VS Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds), 7th edn., Berlin: Weidmann (1954). IX 1 THUCYDIDES For good or ill, we students of Greek History are utterly beholden to the Histories of Thucydides, and inevitably one begins with a profession of belief about that great man. Gone are the days when he was accorded the sacrosanctity once accorded to Holy Writ, as it may be fairly supposed he was accorded by his great commentator, A. W Gomme. A more tempered regard is now inevitable. Indeed, his reputation is under assault and some prefatory statement is necessary from anyone about to engage in discussion of the history of the Peloponnesian War. What little is known about the life of Thucydides is to be gleaned almost entirely from his book.1 Unfortunately, we cannot be very precise about the date of his birth. It is commonly supposed that he was born not long before 454, for he returned to Athens in 404 (5.26.5) and probably passed some time making revisions, and in the Life of Marcellinus (§34) it is stated that he was over 50 at his death. The source of this statement is, however, very uncertain. It is more suggestive that Thucydides has Nicias speak of Alcibiades as young for the generalship in 415 (6.12.2) and under 420, the year of Alcibiades' first recorded generalship (Plut. Ale. 15.1), Thucydides himself declared (5.43.2) that any other city would have regarded him as 'young' (neos). The age at which a man could be elected general is not known, but since thirty was the required age for entry to the council, the 'young' man is likely to have been at least 30. Alcibiades had assets both material and moral that Thucydides lacked and it would be no surprise if the latter's less brilliant career began at a considerably later age.2 So he may have been at least 40 when he entered in 424 on his only recorded generalship and have been born as early as the mid-460s. Consistent with this would be Thucydides' claim to have begun at the outset of the war the work 1 THUCYDIDES of recording what happened (1.1.1 and 5.26.5); young men of 23 are more minded to fight than to record wars; by the age of 34 a more reflective habit of mind would have come upon him. Let Thucydides then be born by the mid-460s. But, it may be asked, 465 or 454, does it matter? It does indeed. If he was 15 or so when the remains of his great kinsman Cimon were laid to rest in the so-called 'Cimonia' (Plut. Cim. 19.5), the occasion must have left its mark. And if he had heard, or heard of, the high praise of Cimon uttered in Cratinus' Archilochi (ibid. 10.4) shortly after his death, family pride would have been much touched, and Thucydides' conversion to admiration of Cimon's great rival, Pericles, would have been a most striking independence of mind. Not able to attend the Ecclesia until he was 18, he may have missed the excitements of Callias' return from negotiating the Peace that bears his name,3 but growing up in such circles the boy must have heard the great issue of peace or war with Persia seriously discussed, and as he rose to manhood, the Parthenon began to rise on the Acropolis, and his education would have been completed amidst the intellectual and artistic ferment of the 440s. It is, then, no wonder that he should acquire an intense admiration of Athens, her empire and her whole way of life, so lauded in the Funeral Oration he put into the mouth of Pericles, the author of all this power and beauty. Thucydides himself beheld day by day this power of the city and loved it indeed (2.43.1).
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