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AN ARISTOCRACY of VIRTUE: the PROTAGOREAN BACKGROUND to the PERICLEAN FUNERAL SPEECH in THUCYDIDES by Joseph Arthur Tipton Bach

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AN ARISTOCRACY of VIRTUE: the PROTAGOREAN BACKGROUND to the PERICLEAN FUNERAL SPEECH in THUCYDIDES by Joseph Arthur Tipton Bach AN ARISTOCRACY OF VIRTUE: THE PROTAGOREAN BACKGROUND TO THE PERICLEAN FUNERAL SPEECH IN THUCYDIDES by Joseph Arthur Tipton Bachelor of Arts, Berea College, 2000 Master of Arts, University of Kentucky, 2003 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Classics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Joseph A. Tipton It was defended on May 29, 2013 and approved by Dr. D. Mark Possanza, Professor, Department of Classics Dr. Nicholas F. Jones, Professor, Department of Classics Dr. James Allen, Professor, Department of Philosophy Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Harry C. Avery, Professor, Department of Classics ii Copyright © by Joseph Arthur Tipton 2013 iii AN ARISTOCRACY OF VIRTUE: THE PROTAGOREAN BACKGROUND TO THE PERICLEAN FUNERAL SPEECH IN THUCYDIDES Joseph A. Tipton, Ph.D University of Pittsburgh, 2013 In this dissertation I argue that the theory of relativism developed by the sophist Protagoras of Abdera served as a rationalization for democracy that was incorporated into the Athenian political culture as an integral part of its basic worldview. Using Plato’s Protagoras and Theaetetus, as well as the fragments of Protagoras, I first offer a comprehensive reconstruction of the sophist’s political thought. Since the human individual is an autarkic and autonomous entity whose perceptions and judgments of reality are veridical and incorrigible, the only form of government that allows him to live in community with others without violating his basic identity is democracy. After discussing Protagoras’ political theory, I analyze the evidence concerning his life and friendship with Pericles and conclude that Protagoras was in a position that enabled him to exert an influence on the Athenian democracy. I then examine the funeral speech composed for Pericles by Thucydides in his History and argue that the description Pericles gives of the Athenian political system recalls in both concept and language not only Protagoras’ political thinking, but his relativist philosophy as well. Turning then to Protagoras’ rhetorical program, summed up in the claim “to make the weaker logos the stronger,” I examine it as an integral supplement to his political theory and conclude that it was a mechanism for securing genuine consensus in the citizen-body. I then examine the rhetorical aspect of Pericles’ funeral speech iv and find that it enacts this Protagorean rhetorical program in an effort to create greater unanimity in the Athenian state after the first year of war. Finally, in order to account for this Protagorean dimension in Thucydides’ characterization of Pericles, I analyze Thucydides’ description of the plague that struck Athens shortly after the war began and attempt to show that it contains conceptual and verbal allusions to both Pericles’ speech and Protagoras’ thought. On the basis of these allusions I suggest that Thucydides incorporated this Protagorean dimension in his portrait of Pericles in order to point to the sophist’s relativism as a crucial step in the eventual espousal of Realist politics by the Athenian state. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiv 1.0 INTRODUCTION: THE JUSTIFICATION OF DEMOCRACY 1 1.1 A DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL THEORY 1 1.2 EVIDENCE OF THEORETICAL THINKING 4 1.2.1 The Fight for History 4 1.2.2 Theoretical Terminology 5 1.2.3 A Cultural Revolution 6 1.3 SCHOLARSHIP: THE TWO APPROACHES EXPLAINED 11 1.3.1 The Educational Approach 12 1.3.2 The Philosophical Approach 13 1.3.2.1 Cynthia Farrar 14 1.4 THE TWO APPROACHES EXAMINED 17 1.4.1 The Educational Approach 17 1.4.2 The Philosophical Approach 19 1.5 THE APPROACH OF THIS DISSERTATION 22 2.0 RELATIVISM AND DEMOCRACY 25 2.1 PROTAGOREAN RELATIVISM 29 2.1.1 The Human-Measure Claim 29 vi 2.1.2 What Kind of Relativism? 34 2.1.3 The “polis-measure”: Synopsis of the “Great Speech” 39 2.2 RELATIVISM AND THE PROTAGORAS 44 2.3 RELATIVISM IN THE PROTAGORAS 46 2.3.1 εὐβουλία 46 2.3.2 The Fourth Proof 49 2.3.3 An Alternative to the Mythos 50 2.3.4 A Peritropē Implied 52 2.4 CONCLUSION 55 3.0 THE MYTHOS OF PROTAGORAS: CONTEXT AND PREMISE 56 3.1 THE MYTHOS: INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES 57 3.1.1 The Mythos as Equivalent to the Logos 57 3.1.2 The Mythos as Quasi-History 58 3.1.3 The Mythos: The Evolution of Human Morality 60 3.2 THE CONTEXT 61 3.2.1 Ἀνὴρ Ἀγαθὸς Πολίτης 62 3.2.2 The Mythos 64 3.3 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM 66 3.3.1 The Gods 66 3.3.2 Ecological Equilibrium 68 3.3.3 Necessity (Ἀνάγκη) 71 3.3.4 Empedocles of Agrigentum 72 3.3.5 Survival (σωτηρία) 74 vii 3.4 CONCLUSION 75 4.0 THE MYTHOS OF PROTAGORAS: THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN SOCIETY 76 4.1 HUMAN INTELLIGENCE 76 4.1.1 Innate or Developed Intelligence? 76 4.1.2 The Great Power of Human Intelligence 78 4.1.3 Intellectual Autarky 80 4.1.4 An Uncompromising Autarky 82 4.2 HUMAN SOCIETY 84 4.2.1 The Origin of Law 84 4.2.2 The Humans as Measures: Epistemological Autarky 86 4.3 SUCCESS 88 4.3.1 Union by Accidental Matching 88 4.3.2 Natural Law 90 4.3.3 Social Contract Theories 91 4.3.4 Agreement by Natural Selection 93 4.4 CONCLUSION: ETHICALITIES 96 4.4.1 Ὁμοδοξία? 98 5.0 Δίκη AND Αἰδώς AS THE CONSENSUS OF THE POLIS 100 5.1 THE MYTHOS: DEMOCRACY PRESCRIBED 101 5.1.1 Consistency with the Founding Principle 102 5.1.2 True Morality 104 5.1.3 The State and the Individual 106 viii 5.1.4 Conclusion: The Psychological Effect 107 5.2 THE LOGOS: INTRODUCTION 108 5.3 THE FEASIBILITY OF GENUINE CONSENSUS 109 5.3.1 The Logos: Its Use and Structure 109 5.3.2 Κόλασις and Conformity 113 5.4 RIGHT DECISION-MAKING (εὐβουλία) 115 5.4.1 Ἀρετή and Harmony 116 5.4.2 Superiority and εὐφυΐα 117 5.4.3 Consistency with one’s Moral and Social Environment 120 5.4.4 Εὐβουλία, Harmony and Δίκη καὶ Αἰδώς 123 5.5 CONCLUSION 124 6.0 PROTAGORAS’ WISE POLITICIAN 126 6.1 THE DOCTRINE OF CONSISTENCY IN THE THEAETETUS 127 6.1.1 The Inconsistent Philosopher 128 6.1.2 A Change of Ἕξις 129 6.2 THE ROLE OF POLITICIAN 132 6.2.1 The Creation of Δίκη and Αἰδώς 132 6.2.2 “Good Things” and “Bad Things” 134 6.2.3 “Good Things” and “Bad Things” for Protagoras 138 6.2.4 The Guarantor of the City’s Opinion 140 6.2.5 Factional Division 142 6.3 THE UTILITARIAN READING OF THE “DEFENSE” 143 6.3.1 The Analogies 144 ix 6.3.2 The testimony of Socrates 150 6.4 SOCRATIC IRONY 150 6.4.1 The Language of the Direct Testimony 151 6.4.2 The Peritropē 153 6.4.3 Protagoras the Socratic 155 6.5 CONCLUSION 157 7.0 PROTAGORAS AND PERICLES 158 7.1 CHRONOLOGY OF PROTAGORAS’ LIFE 159 7.1.1 Birth 159 7.1.2 Life 162 7.1.3 Thurii 164 7.1.4 Sicily 174 7.1.5 First Return to Athens 178 7.1.6 Second Return to Athens 179 7.1.7 Death 181 7.2 PROTAGORAS’ RELATIONSHIP WITH PERICLES 182 8.0 PROTAGOREAN PREFACES 188 8.1 PERICLEAN EPISTEMOLOGY 190 8.1.1 Belief (πίστις) 191 8.1.2 Two Logoi 195 8.2 AUTARKY 196 8.2.1 Protagorean Autarky: An Existential Necessity 197 8.2.2 Periclean Autarky 200 x 8.3 HERODOTEAN POLEMIC 206 8.3.1 Lesson 1: Knowing the gods 206 8.3.2 Lesson 2: Autarky 208 8.3.3 Lesson 3: Present versus Future Certainty 210 8.4 CONCLUSION 212 9.0 THE PROTAGOREAN SIDE OF ATHENIAN POLITICS 214 9.1 POWER TO THE PEOPLE 215 9.1.1 Wholeness over Partiality 215 9.1.2 ἰσονομία rejected 219 9.2 AN ARISTOCRACY OF VIRTUE 220 9.2.1 The Privileged Group 221 9.2.2 Protagoras and Pericles’ Aristocratic Democracy 228 9.2.3 Pericles and Plato’s Menexenus 233 9.3 PERICLEAN JUSTICE 236 9.3.1 Athenian Social Interaction 237 9.3.2 Athenian Legal Interaction 238 9.4 ATHENIAN DECISION-MAKING 242 9.4.1 Th. 2.40.2 243 9.4.2 Protagorean Assumptions 245 9.5 CONCLUSION 251 10.0 PROTAGOREAN RHETORIC: A RECIPE FOR HOMONOIA 253 10.1 RELATIVISM AND RHETORIC 255 10.1.1 Rhetorical Implications of Relativism 255 xi 10.1.2 The “Better” Logos 257 10.1.3 Conclusion 261 10.2 THE WEAKER LOGOS AND THE STRONGER 262 10.3 THE DEBATE IN THE ARISTOPHANES’ CLOUDS 263 10.3.1 Stronger Logos 264 10.3.2 Weaker Logos 266 10.3.3 The Resolution of the Debate 267 10.4 “RE-DISPOSITIONING” 269 10.4.1 Bewitching Words 270 10.4.2 Praise and Blame 271 10.4.3 Praise and Blame as a Mechanism for Societal Education 273 10.5 RHETORIC AND THE CREATION OF HOMONOIA 275 11.0 THE HEALTHY CITY: THE RHETORICAL STRATEGY OF THE PERICLEAN FUNERAL SPEECH 277 11.1 THE ΔΟΞΑ / ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ ANTITHESIS 280 11.1.1 A Relativist Approach 281 11.1.2 Belief and Opinion 284 11.1.3 Conclusion 286 11. 2 STRATEGY: VINDICATION AND RE-DISPOSITIONING 287 11.3 VINDICATION: RE-ENACTING THE PAST 288 11.3.1 The Criterion for Praise 289 11.3.2 True Sons 291 11.4 RE-DISPOSITIONING: FROM ENVY TO EMULATION 293 xii 11.4.1 The Exemplary Athenian 295 11.4.2 Σώματα αὐτάρκη 298 11.5 THE HEALTHY CITY? 301 12.0 THE DISABUSED CITY: THE FUNCTION OF THE PROTAGOREAN DIMENSION IN THUCYDIDES’ HISTORY 303 12.1 REALISM 304 12.1.1 The Emissaries’ Speech at Sparta 305 12.1.2 An Athens Divided 308 12.2 THE PLAGUE NARRATIVE 309 12.2.1 Previous Interpretations 311 12.2.2 An Alternative Interpretation 313 12.3 THE DISABUSAL OF A DISTORTED VIEW 313 12.3.1 Self-determinism 314 12.3.2 Loss of Confidence in Human Ingenuity 316 12.3.3 Loss of Perception 318 12.3.4 The Individual’s Perception 320 12.3.5 The Loss of Autarky 322 12.3.6 Νόμοι Abandoned 325 12.3.7 Realism Adopted 329 12.4 IRONY AND TRAGEDY 330 12.4.1 Intellectual Unpreparedness 331 12.5 CONCLUSION 333 BIBLIOGRAPHY 335 xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Of all those who by their help made this dissertation possible (and they are many) I would like to thank in particular Dr.
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