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Copyright by Scott Matthew Truelove 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Scott Matthew Truelove Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Plato and Thucydides on Athenian Imperialism Committee: T.K. Seung, Supervisor Aloysius Martinich H.W. Perry Jeffrey Tulis Paul Woodruff Plato and Thucydides on Athenian Imperialism by Scott Matthew Truelove, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 To my family Acknowledgements I would not have been able to complete this project without the support of many people to whom I am very grateful. Shelby Barnett graciously granted me extended leave so that I could finish without worry. Todd Young and Pat Burger each provided frequent and friendly “reminders” that I was forgetting to finish something important. Each member of my committee helped me over the course of my obscenely long graduate career. H.W. Perry encouraged me to think seriously about the attraction and dangers of idealism. Jeffrey K. Tulis taught me to consider how regimes shape the souls of those who live under them. Al Martinich is partially responsible for the topic of the dissertation by introducing me to Hobbes’ translation of Thucydides. Paul Woodruff showed me the richness of Thucydides scholarship by recommending I read Adam Parry’s dissertation Logos and Ergon in Thucydides. T.K. Seung guided me through my graduate career. Those of us fortunate enough to know him understand that Dr. Seung’s genius lies in his ability to see thematic connections that elude nearly everyone else. However, it is his insatiable passion for knowledge and for his students that has most profoundly affected me (though I’m also grateful for his forgiveness). I remain in his debt for his willingness to tolerate my many shortcomings. By nature or custom, everyone has a family. The “birth lottery,” as many call it, reflects the fact that we have no agency over what family we are born into—it is purely a matter of chance or luck. I am well aware that I am one lucky guy. My sister Robin patiently listened to my concerns, even though as a scientist she must be confounded about why I would be interested in studying political philosophy. My wife Rosie provided constant encouragement and gave me the two most precious gifts I’ll ever v receive in our sons Isaac and Adam. I never fully appreciated the power and seriousness of the challenge that the love of one’s own poses to justice until their births. Finally, I will never be able to repay my parents for the love and support they’ve given me through my whole life. During the writing of this dissertation, my mother reminded me what courage looks like in deeds. And my father reminded me that even though speech sometimes seems impotent in the face of deeds, it is not. I dedicate this to all of them. vi Plato and Thucydides on Athenian Imperialism Scott Matthew Truelove, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: T.K. Seung For over two thousand years, Plato’s superiority to Thucydides was taken as an article of faith in Western philosophy. Nietzsche was the first to challenge this verdict by asserting his view—on philosophical grounds—that Thucydides was the more penetrating analyst of the human condition. Other than Nietzsche’s consideration of the two thinkers, surprisingly little has been done to investigate the connections between the two greatest Greek prose writers. My purpose in this dissertation is to rekindle this debate in light of new evidence to see what—if anything—can be gained by examining the relationship between how Plato and Thucydides treat the problem of Athenian imperialism. More specifically, I believe and attempt to show that: (1) Plato silently but explicitly directs his readers to different parts of the History through the use of textual references and thematic patterns; (2) Plato uses these textual allusions to highlight the common ground between the two thinkers, and that Plato understands Thucydides to be an ally to his philosophic aims; (3) Plato and Thucydides agree that the underlying cause of Athenian imperialism can be attributed to a combination of greed (pleonexia) and the internalization of specific sophistic teachings that, whether intended by the sophists or not, support unbridled appetitiveness as the best way of life; and (4) Plato and Thucydides largely agree on the solution to the problem—that pleonexia must be extirpated from the ruling order. vii Table of Contents Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Thucydides on the Foundations of Imperialism ...................................33 Chapter 2: Plato on the Moral Foundation of Politics ...........................................67 Chapter 3: Thucydides’ Pericles and Plato’s Protagoras ....................................108 Chapter 4: Thucydides’ Archaeology and Plato’s Republic ................................160 Bibliography ........................................................................................................215 viii Introduction For over two thousand years, Plato’s superiority to Thucydides was taken as an article of faith in Western philosophy. It is not terribly difficult to understand why this was the case. The majesty of Plato’s corpus is nearly impossible to deny.1 Plato’s dialogues are littered with insights about such weighty things as the human soul and its composition, the nature of knowledge and reality, and the relationship between virtue and community. Unlike Thucydides, whose work appears at first blush to focus only on a particular, historically situated event, Plato is the avatar for what it means to be a philosopher. Through his dialogues, Plato weaves a comprehensive and interconnected web of ideas that take in the whole of human life.2 Nietzsche was the first to challenge this verdict by asserting his view—on philosophical grounds—that Thucydides was the more penetrating analyst of the human condition. For Nietzsche, Thucydides’ analytic superiority is due to his more astute and synoptic presentation of human motivation and his clear-eyed “scientific” method, in contrast to Plato’s moralism.3 Other than Nietzsche’s consideration of the two thinkers, surprisingly little has been done to investigate the connections between the two greatest Greek prose writers. As R. B. Rutherford observes, it is “astounding that more has not 1 Even Nietzsche testifies to Plato’s greatness in the frequency, vehemence, and often outlandishness with which he attacks Plato. Among other things, Nietzsche criticizes Plato’s ability as a prose stylist in 2 It is this comprehensiveness that led Whitehead to make his famous quip that the “safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1979), 39. 3 Nietzsche conveniently ignores the moral character of Thucydides’ judgments. For example, Thucydides says of the Athenian general Nicias that: “of all the Greeks in my time he was the one who least deserved such a misfortune, since he had regulated his whole life in the cultivation of virtue” (8.86). Translation from: Thucydides, On Justice, Power, and Human Nature: The Essence of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993). References to Thucydides are cited by book and chapter number. 1 been done to examine their [Plato and Thucydides’] relationship.”4 Writing in 2009, Simon Hornblower writes that the relation of Thucydides and “the Socratic corpus, has not been much studied since…the early part of the twentieth century.”5 While it is true that Plato does not mention Thucydides in his works, neither do any other fourth-century writers.6 And, though we remain uncertain as to both when Thucydides died and when his work was publically available, we do know that it was accepted as sufficiently authoritative for Socrates’ second most famous student, Xenophon, to begin his history (Hellenica) at 411, the point where Thucydides—in all likelihood involuntarily—breaks off mid-sentence.7 The most detailed comparison between Plato and Thucydides was done by Max Pohlenz nearly a century ago.8 Pohlenz highlights connections between Plato’s analysis of democracy in the Republic and Pericles’ Funeral Oration.9 Leo Strauss mentions, but does not thoroughly analyze, the similarity between Plato and Thucydides’ accounts of early history in Book III of the Laws and the beginning chapters of the History.10 However, as many commentators have observed in passing, there are many themes to 4 R. B. Rutherford, The Art of Plato: Ten Essays in Platonic Interpretation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 66. 5 Simon Hornblower, "Intellectual Affinities," in Thucydides, ed. Jeffrey S. Rusten (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 63. 6 This very peculiar fact has yet to be adequately explained. 7 Thucydides certainly survived the end of the war (2.65), but we have no evidence that requires a date later than this. 8 Max Pohlenz, Aus Platos Werdezeit (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1913). 9 Pohlenz also connects Pericles’ address with the Menexenus. In the past thirty years, the Menexenus is the only work that has generated much research on the relationship between the two thinkers. Stephen G. Salkever, "Socrates' Aspasian Oration: The Play of Philosophy and Politics in Plato's Menexenus," The American Political Science Review 87, no. 1 (1993). S. Sara Monoson, "Remembering Pericles: The Political and Theoretical Import of Plato's Menexenus," Political Theory 26, no. 4 (1998). 10 Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 237. As many have noticed, Thucydides’ work bears no official title and Thucydides himself never refers to his work as a history. Even if he did, in Greek the word history (historia) means “investigation” or “inquiry.” However, I follow standard convention and will refer to his work as the History.