Thucydides and Herodotus: Remarks on the Attitude of the Historian Regarding Literature

Thucydides and Herodotus: Remarks on the Attitude of the Historian Regarding Literature Antonis Tsakmakis The way Thucydides shaped the links between passages of his work has been the subject of several studies in recent decades.1 Today there is very little doubt that a Thucydidean speech can be at the same time a perfectly constructed, potentially independent, and extremely coherent whole, as well as part of a symmetrical and well-balanced pair or set of speeches (άντιλογἰα). The speech is also the place of revelation of the cognitive elements underlying the actions of the war sketched out in other parts of the work;2 finally it is a manifestation of the historian’s philosophical principles concerning human behaviour and the historical process, including his theory of knowledge, ethics and politics.3 Nevertheless, these unique features follow the rules of rhetoric, both in structure and style, and can not be fully understood when isolated from the background of sophistic doc trines.4 Thucydides achieves the connection among his speeches through parallel composition, verbal echoing, and thematical correspondence, either between speeches or between rhetorical and narrative parts of his work. These qualities of the speeches, which can be traced equally well in other parts of the work, raise an important question: are there external, intertextual ref erences besides the internal ones? If we consider Thucydides’ preference for vari ation and skillful elaboration5 and his dislike of meanings that are too simple, then it is possible that his allusions are not always as evident as some direct polemical remarks (as for example those of 1.20.3) would lead us to expect. The supposed affinities with the medical thinking of his time, though they can not be rejected in their entirety, still remain quite vague after sixty years of C. Schneider, Information und Absicht bei Thukydides. Untersuchung zur Moti vation des Handelns, Hypomnemata 41, 1974; H.R. Rawlings III, The Structure of Thucydides’ History, 1981, 255-260; V. Hunter, Thucydides, The Artful Reporter, 1973. See J. de Romilly, Histoire et raison chez Thucydide, 1956; C. Macleod, “Rhetoric and History (Thucydides 6, 16-18)”, Collected Essays, 1983, 68-87; Rawlings (n. 1), 70-85; Ρ. Pouncey, The Necessities of War. A Study of Thucy dides’ Pessimism, 1980, 13. See H.R. Immerwahr, “Pathology of Power and the Speeches in Thucydides”, Speeches in Thucydides, ed. Ρ. Städter, 1973, 16-31; Μ. Cogan, The Human Thing. The Speeches and Principles of Thucydides’ History, 1981. See J. Finley, Thucydides, 1942, 36-73; S. Hornblower, Thucydides, 1987, 45 ff. Cf. J.G.A. Ros, Die μεταβολη als Stilprinzip des Thukydides, 1938. Scripta Classica Israelica vol. XIV 1995 pp. 17-32 18 THUCYDIDES AND HERODOTUS investigation.6 On the other hand, indications of correlations and intellectual affinities between Thucydides and Gorgias7 or Antiphon8 have not yet stimu lated any systematical study of Thucydides’ intellectual background and of his reception of the principal theoretical movements of his age.9 On the contrary, the exile of Thucydides and the work’s formal completeness and intellectual unity seemed to indicate a certain isolation, and to confirm the self-sufficiency of the historian (both intellectual and material)10 1112 and his rejection of anything not matching in every respect the standards he set for his work." It is not astonishing then if discussion of the affinities between Thucydides and Herodotus serves the purpose of rehabilitating Herodotus or indicating as pects of the general evolution of historiography, without, however, shedding light on the relation of the younger Athenian to the representative of the Ionian 6 See C.N. Cochrane, Thucydides and the Science of History, 1929; Κ. Weidauer, Thukydides und die Hippokratischen Schriften. Der Einfluß der Medizin auf Zielsetzung und Darstellungsweise des Geschichtswerks, 1954; L. Lichten- thaeler, Thucydide et Hippocrate, 1965; Η. Erbse, Thukydides-Interpretationen, 1989, 136-137; G. Rechenauer, Thukydides und die hippokratische Medizin, 1991. 7 V. Hunter, “Thucydides, Gorgias, and Mass Psychology”, Hermes 114, 1986, 412-429. 8 See e.g. R.C. Jebb, The Attic orators from Antiphon to Isaios, 1876, I, 18-44; F. Decleva Caizzi, Antiphontis Tetralogiae, 1969; Α. Barigazzi, Antifonte. Prima Orazione, 1970, 30-35; V. Hunter (n. 1), 41 n. 19. O Luschnat, “Thukydides der Historiker”, RE Suppl. 12, 1970, 1085-1354, accuses Rit- telmeyer (n. 9) for stressing too much the relation between Thucydides’ and An tiphon’s style (1146); Luschnat devotes only one column of his article to the discussion of Tiiucydides’ debts to the sophists, but he admits “das Fehlen eines Versuches der historischen Einordnung des thukydideischen Stiles” (1266). 9 Astonishing parallels between Thucydides and Antiphon have remained almost unexploited in Thucydidean scholarship ever since 1914, date of publication of the major article by Nestle, “Thukydides und die Sophistik”, NJ 33, 1914, 649- 685. On sophistic influence on Thucydides see F. Rittelmeyer, Thukydides und die Sophistik, 1915, 53; J.H. Finley, “The origins of Thucydides’ style”, HSPh 50, 1939, 35-84 (= Three essays on Thucydides, 1967, 55-117). 10 See U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, “Die Thukydideslegende”, Hermes 12, 1877, 326-367, 311; J. Classen - J. Steup, Thukydides, I, 1897, XXX-XXXI; Luschnat (n. 8), 1104-5. 11 Thucydides wished his own work to be used by the historian of the future. He cer tainly used literary sources himself in order to examine the past, and there are no indications that he disregarded literature. 12 Κ. Reinhardt, “Herodots Persergeschichten”, Vermächtnis der Antike, 1960, 133-174; C.W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome, 1983. ANTONIS TSAKMAKIS 19 prose tradition.13 Whenever Herodotus is supposed to have had any important influence on Thucydides’ historiographic consciousness, this is bound to be on the young Thucydides, a fact also assumed by the ancient biographical tradi tion.14 The analysis of Thucydides’ view of Herodotus is generally exhausted in the discussion of passages of unmistakable allusion and in the diagnosis of a general polemical attitude.15 This opinion is based on two remarks included in a discussion of methodological questions (1.20-21) raised by Thucydides’ survey of the past, the Archaeology (1.2-19). Thucydides deplores the distortion of the real dimensions of historical facts in the works of poets and prose writers. The nature of poetry does not encourage accurate representation of reality. Equally, prose writers regularly succumb to the temptation of exalting the importance of popular, attractive elements, which soon acquire a magnificent and miraculous character and easily raise suspicions of falseness. Prose writers are not more trustworthy when writing about the present: the two examples cited (1.20.3) are both from Herodotus, who, however, is not named.16 For an evaluation of these two remarks we have to consider that they are part of the proem of the work (1.1 -23), which is designed to affirm the historical sig nificance of the war and its value as the subject of a literary presentation.17 This value is in Greek literature commonly founded in a claimed superiority to other literary works and in the delimitation of the special field to which the author has contributed. This consciousness led Thucydides to adopt a generalizing perspec tive: the ultimate target of his criticism is prose tradition as a whole; simple polemical remarks are designed to show the insufficiency of literary genres; rela tive recognition of individual authors is not to be a priori denied. Thucydides had of course no reason to leave major errors of the most important of his col leagues, Herodotus, unexploited, but he obviously had reason to do it in the most decent manner, i.e. without mentioning him. If the passage does not imply a total rejection of Herodotus, then we are prompted to ask whether Thucydides made a positive use of his predecessor’s literary achievements.18 Despite the differences there are several indications of similarity in Herodotus’ and Thucydides’ literary consciousness. Both belong to the type of the “wandering intellectual”, who sets out in active search of his material and 1 3 An exception is Α. Deffner, Die Rede bei Herodot und ihre Weiterbildung bei Thukydides, Diss. Munich, 1933; for some aspects of this relation see Hornblower (n. 4), 13-33. 14 Marcellin. Vita Th. 54; L. Canfora, “Il ‘Ciclo storico’”, Belfagor 26, 1971, 653-670, esp. 658-660. 15 Under the influence of nineteenth century scholarship and the important book of Ε. Schwartz, Das Geschichtswerk des Thukydides, 1919, 23-27. 16 A.W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides I, 1945, 137-139, ar gues that Herodotus is only one target of the criticism besides other authors and the common opinion; cf. Classen-Steup (n. 10), 60. 17 Th. 1.1.1, 1.23.1-3. 18 On the other hand it is very doubtful if Herodotus is to be included among the targets of the critical remarks of 1.22; see J. Malitz, “Thukydides’ Weg zur Geschichtsschreibung”, Historia 31, 1982, 257-289, especially 268 n. 61. 20 THUCYDIDES AND HERODOTUS bases his inquiry on autopsy and personal examination of the witnesses.19 20 They know that not every indication or piece of information is trustworthy, so they tend to be suspicious. They both provide a definition of their subject of research and representation in the proem.® Herodotus integrates in his work several branches of literary tra dition (geography, ethnography and local history stand out among them). But in Herodotus the war turned out to be so important that it is explicitly named in the proem and overshadows other themes in the last three books.21 Thucydides’ choice of subject was a natural consequence of the predominance of the war in the Halicarnassian’s history.

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