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Chapter 2

Pericles

Aspiring Statesman in Thucydides, General and Sophist in Plato

Thucydides writes as if he trusts that the sense and value of words are constant in a healthy polis, but when the polis degenerates into stasis, values change and the distinctions between words disappear. The decrease in the power of words to differentiate one thing from another lowers their value until they eventually become almost worthless. But immediately a fundamental question arises: whose discourse is the standard for judging? One of the prime characteristics of such a standard for Thucydides would be that logos corresponds to ergon. He believed that it is vital to ascertain the facts as a preliminary to sound discussion (1.20–1.21).¹ He himself states that his own logos matches the erga, at least as far as he was able to discover (1.22.1–1.22.3). He claims for his logos a universality (κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ, “a possession forever,” 1.22.4); that is, his logos will be useful forever and has general application to the understanding of human nature, since war is a fundamental aspect of man’s life, and the war Thucydides describes is worthy to be described (1.1.1–1.1.2). Thucydides’ claim to have written a work of permanent importance rests on his belief that human nature is constant (1.22.4, 3.82.2) and that he has drawn the essential outlines of people’s behavior in crisis and war.

In the conclusion to his explanation of his methods concerning the speeches and the events surrounding them, Thucydides says that it will be sufficient for him if those who wish to know the clear truth of events (τῶν τε γενομένων τὸ σαφὲς, 1.22.4) judge his work as useful. Here, as in his remarks on stasis, Thucydides refers to what is characteristically human (“in the course of human things,” 1.22.4, cf. “as long as the nature of mankind remains the same,” 3.82.2), and says that in some form the future will resemble the past.² The similarity of the thought of these two sections underscores the importance of stasis for the work as a whole. The war in its entirety is a kind of stasis within the Hellenic community,³ and the revolutions themselves within the cities are internal wars. Socrates himself makes the general argument in the Republic that when Greeks fight with Greeks, Greece suffers illness and faction (νοσεῖν δ᾽ ἐν τῷ τοιούτῳ τὴν Ἑλλάδα καὶ στασιάζειν), and the result must be called stasis (στάσιν τὴν τοιαύτην ἔχθραν κλητέον, Book 5, 470b).⁴

Thucydides’ logos organizes and presents the entire war, but during the war and the various staseis (plural), logos itself suffers and declines until political speech becomes almost impossible. Should such an outcome become permanent, it would render Thucydides’ work useless, and would doom men to complete ignorance about the past and no help for the future. Thus, Thucydides places great importance on the stability of language as the basis for its use as a measure of what people do, their erga, and its degeneration troubles him.

Thucydides’ own work thus serves in some sense as the standard against which the speakers’ words may be judged, and in fact, the erga that Thucydides describes serve as a touchstone against which the speakers’ claims and recommendations can be tested. Thucydides has fitted the speeches to the erga so that his narrative confirms, undercuts, or amplifies what each speaker says. The process of comparing one speech to others and to the action of the war helps the reader to see Thucydides’ work as an artistic whole. The use of the erga of the war in this way to clarify the speeches exemplifies the way the speeches present hypotheses about the war that events support or contradict. Those events as narrated by Thucydides and their relationships with the speeches are an encapsulated example of the hypothetical method that give us standards or measures by which to evaluate accounts or logoi.

Within the work itself Pericles’ speeches serve as the standard, albeit an imperfect one, against which other Athenian speeches may be judged.⁵ Thucydides’ admiration for Pericles is well known and clear (2.65.5–2.65.11). Pericles says that among his other virtues, he understands what is necessary and is able to explain it (2.60.5); Thucydides concurs (1.139.4, 2.65.9). Pericles claims for Athens an unlimited universality, and this has two sides: On the one hand there is the unlimited power of Athens (2.41.2, 2.62.2), which has left eternal monuments of its good and bad deeds (2.41.4, cf. 2.64.3),⁶ and on the other hand, there is the singular spirit of Athens, her love of beauty and wisdom, which themselves are part of the universal nature of logos.

At this point the question arises whether, although Pericles is a great leader of a great state, political problems are already visible and reflected in his political language. “Eternal monuments of good and bad deeds” suggests at the very least a conflict between the internal values of Athens and the external values of a powerful imperial state. Solon, the great Athenian leader and lawgiver of the Archaic age, speaks of wealth and power that comes from unjustly obtained fruit:

χρήματα δ᾽ ἱμείρω μὲν ἔχειν, ἀδίκως δὲ πεπᾶσθαι

οὐκ ἐθέλω: πάντως ὕστερον ἦλθε Δίκη:

πλοῦτον δ᾽ ὃν μὲν δῶσι θεοί, παραγίγνεται ἀνδρὶ

10ἔμπεδος ἐκ νεάτου πυθμένος ἐς κορυφήν:

ὃν δ᾽ ἄνδρες μετίωσιν ὑφ᾽ ὕβριος, οὐ κατὰ κόσμον

ἔρχεται, ἀλλ᾽ ἀδίκοις ἔργμασι πειθόμενος

οὐκ ἐθέλων ἕπεται: ταχέως δ᾽ ἀναμίσγεται ἄτη

I long to have money, but I am unwilling to possess it unjustly, for retribution assuredly comes afterwards. Wealth which the gods give remains with a man, secure from the lowest foundations to the top, whereas wealth which men honor, with violence comes in disorder, an unwilling attendant persuaded by unjust actions, and it is quickly mixed with ruin. ( ἄτη, “ate” transliterated)⁷

It seems like a small point in the Funeral Oration to include a reference to bad deeds and to praise them implicitly, but the clause into which Thucydides inserts this small reference provides some clues as to how important it is:

ἀλλὰ πᾶσαν μὲν θάλασσαν καὶ γῆν ἐσβατὸν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ τόλμῃ καταναγκάσαντες γενέσθαι, πανταχοῦ δὲ μνημεῖα κακῶν τε κἀγαθῶν ἀίδια ξυγκατοικίσαντες. (2.41.4)

we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere have [established in our colonies] imperishable combined monuments [of good and evil (deeds)] behind us. (2.41.4, translation Crawley except for the parts in [right brackets]).

The most telling word here is ξυγκατοικίσαντες, a form from συγκατοικίζω, which means “together” (συγ) to “settle as colonists” (κατοικίζω).⁸ So, Thucydides is using the word metaphorically in relation to monuments but the poetic association with colonizing is obvious. The direct colonizing by Athens and the larger indirect colonizing through accumulation of the empire has left behind monuments of good and evil. These monuments commemorate forceful compulsion (καταναγκάσαντες), that is, “using force get what one wants,” which in the case of Athens is control of the sea and through the sea the land. We have to wonder here what the monuments are—temples built by Athenian money and power? Victory monuments? Or perhaps one monument is Thucydides’ book, which brings us closer to an understanding of Athens’ failure.⁹

The reference to Homer in the section 2.41.4 that immediately precedes Pericles’ remarks on monuments of good and evil, begins, “And far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact,” and continues, “we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, have [established in our colonies] imperishable combined monuments [of good and evil (deeds)] behind us.” This hints strongly to the readers that we should consider the work we are reading and remember what Thucydides said about poets in Book I: “On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft” (1.21.1).

But now we are reaching a high point on the path to knowledge, so Thucydides’ competition becomes clearer—it is Homer himself, who is also always present for Plato. One monument of evil deeds is Thucydides’ book, and another is the fame of Athens in the hearts and minds of those who have studied Athens.¹⁰ The book reveals the flaws in Periclean Athens as well as its luminous strengths. It is a radical but still developing democracy built on external power, and that power outside the city inevitably influences how people who are in Athens think about their general relationships with others.¹¹ This is a fundamental problem in political life in Athens. Thucydides shows this almost in passing in the Funeral Oration, but the signs are unmistakable, an expansionist foreign policy based on compulsion and power, a desire for more allies as subjects (as at 2.64.3 in Pericles’ third speech), and a definition of the city itself that is intellectually attractive and in accord with the technological and political power of democracy—a strong and dangerous navy as a core representative of democratic power. The freedom of Athens attracts supporters from the numerous lower classes in poleis outside of Athens, but the attraction of freedom and equality is based on unequal power.¹² It is also quite clear that Pericles’ definition of the city is abstract in some ways, an idea of a free, enterprising community of spirit that is an “education for Hellas” (2.41.1).¹³

The conflict between the idea of the city as an abstraction divorced even from the land, and the actual city in which the Athenians live is another source of emotional conflict that in the end contributes to Athens’ ruin. Is the city the physical city of Athens that Pericles advises the Athenians not to risk in Thucydides’ account of Pericles’ instructions (2.65.7), or is the city the larger concept, the “sea and the city” that Pericles tells the Athenians to safeguard (1.143.5)?¹⁴

The evil deeds here that are part of the monumental history of Athens, passing reminders that sometimes Athens had to do bad things to make a greater good, resemble the start of ruin in Solon’s famous poem, where he says,

ταχέως δ᾽ ἀναμίσγεται ἄτῃ,

ἀρχὴν δ᾽ ἐξ ὀλίγης γίγνεται ὥστε πυρός:

φλαύρη μὲν τὸ πρῶτον, ἀνιηρὴ δὲ τελευτᾷ:

οὐ γὰρ δὴν θνητοῖς ὕβριος ἔργα πέλει

It [wealth] is mixed quickly with ruin (ἄτη, “ate” transliterated), [Ruin] in the beginning small like fire, insignificant at first but grievous in the end, For mortals’ deeds of violence do not live long.¹⁵

The monuments of good and evil deeds that Pericles extols are, except for the intellectual testaments of Thucydides and others, not “imperishable” (2.41.4). And Solon is right that “mortals’ deeds of violence do not live long,” or at least we all hope he is right.

Thucydides’ history shows us that while Pericles was a great leader, perhaps one of the greatest, his city and his view of that city had a deep moral flaw, that no strong personal honesty and good judgment were able to overpower. The flaw was the desire for more, or pleonexia, that rather quickly rose to dominate the internal politics of Athens as that expressed itself in the Athenians’ united desire in sailing to conquer Sicily for “sights and spectacles,” conquest, personal gain, and pay that would last forever (6.24.3). They were united in their desire each to satisfy his own goals. Further, their desires were “excessive” (ἄγαν), desires for more—in what seems like one of the two natural interpretations of Thucydides’ ambiguous phrase, διὰ τὴν ἄγαν τῶν πλεόνων ἐπιθυμίαν (on account of “the enthusiasm of the majority [that] was excessive” or on account of “their excessive desire for more”).¹⁶ The “excessive desire for more” suggests the famous injunction at Delphi, “nothing to excess” (μηδὲν ἄγαν, transliterated “meden agan”).¹⁷ Thucydides’ method, like Plato’s, is partly that of the famous tragedians. He very rarely intrudes directly into the narrative, which forces his readers to interpret.¹⁸ Here Athens’ flaws are fatal, and they lead to a great mistake, the Sicilian Expedition, which “failed not so much through a miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was sent, as through a fault in the senders” (2.65.11). It was one of many mistakes produced by the competing leaders after Pericles’ death. The flaws are flaws of character, in this case pleonexia, but the fatal mistake is a mistaken calculation that arises out of a desire to win more.¹⁹ The problem that Pericles faced was mixing moderation (nothing to excess in one account, sophrosune or “moderation” in another) and courage. He clearly had the courage to move Athens to the sea and to fight Sparta, but his moderation was personal. He did not translate it into a government that had a formal structure that would restrain the people or a single leader. The ability to mix sophrosune and courage is quite a difficult skill to attain, as the Stranger makes clear in the Statesman (306b):

Ξένος

καὶ μὴν σωφροσύνην γε ἀνδρείας μὲν ἕτερον, ἓν δ᾽ οὖν καὶ τοῦτο μόριον ἧς κἀκεῖνο.

Νεώτερος Σωκράτης

ναί.

Ξένος

τούτων δὴ πέρι θαυμαστόν τινα λόγον ἀποφαίνεσθαι τολμητέον.

Νεώτερος Σωκράτης

ποῖον;

Ξένος

ὡς ἐστὸν κατὰ δή τινα τρόπον εὖ μάλα πρὸς ἀλλήλας ἔχθραν καὶ στάσιν ἐναντίαν ἔχοντε ἐν πολλοῖς τῶν ὄντων. (306b)

Stranger:

[And I suspect that you believe that] certainly sophrosune is other than courage [or manliness], but nevertheless, [that] this also is a part of that of which courage is a part.

Younger Socrates:

Yes.

Stranger:

Concerning these things then one must be brave to present a certain astonishing argument.

Younger Socrates:

What sort [of argument]?

Stranger:

That this pair in a certain way has a very great enmity and opposing faction (stasis) among many of the things that are. (306b)

This analysis applies to Periclean Athens and indeed even of the unresolved contradictions in Pericles himself. In his discussion of the start of the disastrous Sicilian Expedition, Thucydides makes his readers ponder why Athens became enamored of faraway conquests. He later suggests some answers to that. Plato looks into the conceptual contradictions in political leadership generally, but this relates to Athens where an application of the Stranger’s ideas suggests that if the political life of Athens had been woven together differently there might have been a different outcome, but what Athens ended up with was first a conflict between the errant and self-protective moderation of Nicias and the unbalanced courage of Alcibiades. Later stasis took over among many of the fundamental values in Athens and within the minds their political exponents.

Thucydides thus uses ambiguity to ensure the reader’s engagement in this most important point, how to determine what is too much. Socrates raises several weaknesses of writing in the Phaedrus. He says the King of Egypt told Theuth, the inventor of writing, that his invention would promote forgetting (274e–275b). Socrates attempts to counter this by avoiding statements of doctrine and attempting to lead his interlocutors and even his readers to discover their own answers. Writing is unable to respond directly to questions (275d). Most seriously, writing cannot address an individual (276e). In addition to this, an individual soul is always moving (246c) and, as Heraclitus says (see Cratylus 402a, cf. 440a), we cannot step in the same river twice.

Yet the situation is even more complicated since there are two factors that change, the river and our souls. What we think we understand from a text once may not apply to us in the same way later. Some of Plato’s solutions are to use the dialogue for writing, to have even Socrates say different things about the same subject—depending on his interlocutor and the context, to avoid stating doctrines in his own (Plato’s) voice, and to employ a variety of types of writing including myth and precise analytical discussion to look at the same problems from different perspectives.

Thucydides rarely says openly what he thinks, and when he does speak and identify his point as a summary or a judgment, he speaks in ambiguous ways that take a long time to understand. He presents many points of view through many different speakers, some of whom even seem to disagree with themselves in other speeches or to see the same issue differently under different circumstances. Some of the speeches are much more difficult to read than the narrative, which makes us interact with them in slow and complicated ways. Plato and Thucydides have formally similar profiles in their own work. Thucydides speaks rarely, albeit more openly than Plato. Thucydides was an actor in the war he describes, and he presents himself as such more than once. Plato was, we have to assume, present with Socrates more than a few times, though he only shows himself as present once (in the Apology). There Socrates mentions him twice—first to point him out as in attendance in court (34a) and the second time to note that he proposes to pay a fine for Socrates (38b). In the Phaedo, Phaedo says that Plato was not there on Socrates’ last day (59b). Both authors make their presence felt in their absence, however. Finally, like Plato, Thucydides uses dramatic irony to make points that he does not state directly. Sometimes the irony seems almost impossible to resolve fully. Sometimes the irony just reflects something about the speaker or the situation in which various actors and military forces find themselves. Some of the most striking ironies occur in Pericles’ Funeral Oration itself.

Here we can turn to a more detailed review of the Funeral Oration in terms of the thesis that we can see in the Athenian speeches in Thucydides the gradual collapse of Athenian political discourse into the intellectual and emotional failures of stasis. Logos, for Thucydides, transmits to his readers what is permanent and valuable in the particulars he describes. Logos provides the means by which Thucydides and his readers can derive universal truths from particular experiences. If we consider the aspirations of the Athenians rather than their failures, it is clear that Athens’ love of beauty and wisdom, and hence her participation in the universal nature of logos, reveals itself in the Funeral Oration. Athens by herself is a school for Greece for all time. Athens teaches by her example, although this teaching has limitations that amount to flaws, as we have seen already. Logos in general teaches by training people in understanding. Those who love wisdom, philosophers, become wise through their use of logos and understanding of it, while those who love Athens (2.43.1) are members of the greatest polis in Greece and become wise through their political life in this polis.

The Funeral Oration praises Athens by a statement of facts rather than by adorning her with pleasing words (2.41.4). This speech, because it represents the universal power and spirit of the city, and because as a political speech it attempts to encourage that power and spirit, becomes universal itself.²⁰ Pericles denies that Athens needs a Homer: the facts speak for themselves. But there is an obvious irony in this, as we have seen, in that Thucydides seems to consider himself the Homer of the Peloponnesian War, as the Archaeology makes clear (1.1.3, 1.10.3). He thus has engaged himself in a contest with Pericles as well as the implicit one with Homer. If in Pericles’ view Athens needs no Homer, what need is there for Thucydides to record Athens’ greatness? An answer to this question requires a more detailed comparison of the logos of Thucydides with the logoi of Pericles, of which the Funeral Oration is the preeminent example. In the process of this examination, we will be able to see the weaknesses in Pericles’ combination, as a political figure, of sophrosune and courage or manliness (andreia).

In the first place, Thucydides’ respect for Pericles is clear (cf. e.g., 2.65). Both agree on the need to state the facts without ornamentation (1.22, 2.41.4). Both praise practical abilities and intellectual attitudes in relation to action rather than deeds themselves.²¹ Thucydides’ praise of four men shows this in his case. He praises Pericles not for his deeds but for his ability to understand, speak, and act (1.139.4, 2.65.5–2.65.13, cf. 1.127.3).²² In particular, Thucydides praises him in 2.65 for his moderation (2.65.5), his foresight (2.65.5, 2.65.13), and for his integrity and liberality (2.65.8), in other words for his character. His tribute to Nicias is likewise a praise of his character:

καὶ ὁ μὲν τοιαύτῃ ἢ ὅτι ἐγγύτατα τούτων αἰτίᾳ ἐτεθνήκει, ἥκιστα δὴ ἄξιος ὢν τῶν γε ἐπ᾽ ἐμοῦ Ἑλλήνων ἐς τοῦτο δυστυχίας ἀφικέσθαι διὰ τὴν πᾶσαν ἐς ἀρετὴν νενομισμένην ἐπιτήδευσιν.

This or the like was the cause of the death of a man who, of all the Hellenes in my time, least deserved such a fate, seeing that the whole course of his life had been regulated with [practiced attention to conventionalized] virtue. (7.86.5, Crawley, modified as noted with [brackets])²³

Nicias’ ἐπιτήδευσις, his “principles of conduct,”²⁴ are in accord with his moral virtue (arete).²⁵ Thucydides praises Antiphon for his ability to originate plans and to expound them (8.68.1). The estimate of Hermocrates also emphasizes his ability—his intellect, bravery, and experience in war (6.72.2). Even in his praise for Sparta and Chios, Thucydides focuses on their moderation, rather than on specific moderate acts (8.24.4).²⁶

When Pericles praises those who have died first in the war, he turns directly to an exposition of Athens’ “principles of conduct” (ἐπιτηδεύσεως), her constitution and manner (τρόπων, 2.36.4). His praise of Athens thus emphasizes the spirit and character of the city, and the people’s devotion to the intellectual and beautiful (2.40.2). He is not praising the constitution per se.²⁷ The special virtues of the Athenians are intellectual: they are adept at originating plans, or at least at considering them (2.40.2–2.40.3).²⁸ These are the same qualities to which Thucydides frequently refers in his praise of individuals. Pericles seems to equate even courage with understanding (2.40.3, 2.43.1).²⁹ His actual praise of the men who have died rests on an appreciation of their state of mind when they died.³⁰ Finally, the most important remembrance of the dead is what is recorded in the hearts of men, not what stones may say (2.43.2–2.43.3). Both men seem to believe that a person’s character is the proper focus of praise or blame.

On the other hand, a basic difference between Thucydides’ logos and Pericles’ logoi is that Pericles’ speeches, including the Funeral Oration, are political and public, while Thucydides’ work at its highest level is philosophical history. His book is a political history of the Peloponnesian War and its antecedents, but Thucydides uses this groundwork as a basis on which he develops his philosophical ideas. The work is philosophical history in that it sees the particular events of the Peloponnesian War as images of human speech and action in general.

Although the Funeral Oration is political in the narrow sense, because Thucydides presents Pericles as delivering it upon a particular occasion, it has a larger purpose. It attempts to represent an approach to a harmony of the individual and the city rather than a simple focus on a narrow political aim. Nor in his three other speeches (including the speech reported in indirect discourse in Book 2), although they are more concerned with specific issues and problems, does Pericles attempt to achieve a private good for himself. He always has his eye to some extent on what is good for the state.

How the Funeral Oration can approach an ideal of political discourse in Thucydides, and what type of ideal Pericles aims it to be, or even if it is an ideal or a kind of flawed ideal, are questions closely related to what is true and universal in it.³¹ It first claims universality in the connection it draws between the Athens of 431 and the Athenians’ ancestors (2.36). The Athenians of today, Pericles says, are one in spirit with their forebears, who gave them what they now have. The city is also universal in its relation to its own citizens, for Athens is democratic, even though all are preferred to public positions on the basis of their abilities (2.37.1). All contribute to the formation of policy even if they cannot lead (2.40.2). Pericles alternates between the public and the private in order to unite the private interests for the public good (cf. 2.37–2.39 especially). For Pericles’ ideal citizen, the polis is paramount. This proves to be an extremely dangerous relationship in a democracy just as it can be in an aristocracy.

This primary interest in the polis appears most clearly in Pericles’ respect for debate or logos, which is the means by which every citizen may participate in the political life: polupragmosune develops from free public debate. Polupragmosune is thus an expression of the universality of logos in respect to the Athenian citizens. Each citizen has a share in the logos that precedes action, and in Athens all actions are prepared by debate (2.40.2). Polupragmosune also expresses the universality of the state in respect to its citizens,³² for each Athenian is involved in some way in government. For Pericles, as for every other citizen, the state is paramount. It encompasses the prosperity or failure of the individual (2.60.4).

In order to draw out some of the implications of this position, it will be helpful to compare Pericles (and Thucydides) with certain aspects of Plato’s discussion of the polis and its relationship to the individual. To begin with, Pericles’ concept of the primacy of the polis resembles Plato’s in the Republic, where justice of the whole arrangement of the polis is the highest goal, and the individual is subordinate to the state (Republic 504c–505b, cf., 433c, 443c–444a).³³

On the other hand, for Pericles “happiness” (τὸ εὔδαιμον) is “freedom” (τὸ ἐλεύθερον, 2.43.4), while in Plato’s ideal state happiness depends upon justice. Glaucon’s question to Socrates near the beginning of Book 2 frames the question of happiness as a relationship between justice and injustice. The subjects here are the two men Glaucon proposes to Socrates: On the one hand, Glaucon says, take the man who is perfectly just, but who has no success in life, and moreover has a reputation for injustice, while on the other hand he suggests a man who, although perfectly unjust, leads a successful life and is regarded as a model of justice.

The question is, which man is happier?

ἀλλὰ ἴτω ἀμετάστατος μέχρι θανάτου, δοκῶν μὲν εἶναι ἄδικος διὰ βίου, ὢν δὲ δίκαιος, ἵνα ἀμφότεροι εἰς τὸ ἔσχατον ἐληλυθότες, ὁ μὲν δικαιοσύνης, ὁ δὲ ἀδικίας, κρίνωνται ὁπότερος αὐτοῖν εὐδαιμονέστερος. (361c–d)

Let him go on without a change until death, seeming to be unjust through [his] life, but being [really] just, so that when both have come to the very end—one of justice, the other of injustice—they can be judged, whichever of the two is happier. (361c–d)

The rest of the Republic is in part Socrates’ answer to this question and a demonstration that the just man, no matter what the rewards for his justice, is happier. Thucydides does not ignore justice, however. In addition to its place in many of the speeches, there are the questions of the justice of Athens’ empire, whether Athens ruled that empire justly, and whether for Thucydides justice has any role in an empire at all. The answers to these questions are complicated. We will begin by returning to the examination of the Funeral Oration in detail.

A most serious charge that can be made against Athens is a lack of moderation, and this deficiency is manifest in the city’s desire for universal rule.³⁴ Pleonexia, the unlimited desire for possession, did finally overcome Athens and was the emotional agent of her destruction (4.17.4, 4.21.2, 4.41.4, 6.13.1). Yet it is precisely in this point that Pericles personally is distinguished from his successors, especially Cleon and Alcibiades, though there are important issues surrounding how much Pericles’ ideas and rhetoric encourage limitless desire. Still, under Pericles’ personal rule Athens took a “moderate” (μετρίως) and “safe” (ἀσφαλῶς, literally, “not falling or failing”) direction according to Thucydides (2.65.5). Even at the beginning of the Funeral Oration, Pericles declares his intention to speak “moderately” (μετρίως, 2.35.2) when he criticizes the law that someone must deliver a Funeral Oration for those killed in battle. The audience will be hard to please: the one who is well-disposed to the dead and who knows what they have done will think that the speech is insufficient in its praise, while the one who does not know their exploits may feel envy if he hears of something beyond his powers (2.35.2). Pericles’ difficulty will be in finding a middle ground that will satisfy the wishes and beliefs of each citizen (2.35.2–3).

In the Funeral Oration, Pericles elevates and redefines certain important concepts of Greek politics.³⁵ The Athenians are opposed to what is commonly reckoned as arete (2.40.4).³⁶ Athens, Pericles asserts, gains friends by conferring benefits, not by receiving them, because she has an abiding faith in the liberality with which she bestows favors (2.40.4–2.40.5). Pericles says he believes that foreign affairs should be conducted without a calculation of advantage, although this is not the way of the tyrant city that Athens became. Athens in Pericles’ time was a special kind of democracy, in which the demos did not rule absolutely, and high public estimation depended on virtue, not rank (2.37.1). Pericles here claims that Athens is a true aristocracy with rule by the best. For the encouragement of bravery, Athens relies more on the habits and character of her citizens than upon laws (2.39.4). This is a very significant point, meant to show a contrast with Sparta, but also revealing a view of the role of government that accords with what Plato presents in the Statesman.

In the Statesman, one of the subjects the Stranger and the younger Socrates discuss is the different political constitutions, concluding that in the best constitution the statesman-philosopher rules in accordance with his art (300c), and not by laws (294a–b, cf. 303b). Laws are ignorant of the particular situation (294b–c) and can never rule in accordance with the good. Laws thus represent true opinion, imitations (μιμήματα, 300c) of the truth but not knowledge, and one can never legislate true virtue.³⁷ In this sense, the laws are like works of art in Plato’s epistemology as outlined in the Republic (X.595a–607c). In Pericles’ Athens, on the other hand, there are laws, but Pericles represents them in the Funeral Oration as pertaining to private disputes and arrangements (2.37.1). Pericles is then, in Platonic claims at least, making what amounts to a very high claim, to be a philosopher, since he implies that he has fostered Athens and Athens has become a polis where rule in accordance with the good is possible. This implied claim, to the extent that we can view Thucydides as presenting Pericles arguments fairly, likely accounts in part for the antipathy between Plato and Pericles. The solution to the conundrum would seem to be depend on the extent to which Plato actually believed that a philosopher could rule in this world in which we live. A stubborn realist might argue that even though some rulers sometimes make legitimate approaches to philosophical rule, these approaches are always temporary and fortuitous. Therefore, Plato cannot mean that philosophers will rule. But in the Republic, it is quite clear that the rule of a philosopher-king is envisioned as possible (375e, 456b, 472d–473d, 499c, 502c). We may wonder why Socrates and Plato seem to have thought this and why Socrates maintains it in the Republic, especially since there have been no philosopher kings.³⁸ One provisional answer is that the proposals of the Republic respond to the situation of the various participants in the discussion and to the questions that Glaucon and Adeimantus pose in Book II concerning justice and injustice. One point at issue for Plato and Thucydides was, it seems, at least to some extent, the question of whether Pericles was a philosopher. The complicated answer to this that emerges from the Statesman, as we will see, appears to be that Pericles was not an effective statesman, though he clearly had many qualities, some of which may have approached philosophical concerns quite reasonably and effectively.

Of course there were also laws about elections and the various offices of state, but Pericles makes the large claim that in the political sphere men achieve prominence in accordance with their virtue, and that they are not hindered by their poverty or low position (2.37.1). A primary characteristic of Pericles’ polis is freedom (ἐλευθέρως, “freely,” 2.37.2, cf., 2.43.4). Similarly, as the Stranger describes him in the Statesman, the true ruler is not guided by laws but is free to do what is best:

Ξένος

καὶ μὴν τόν γε εἰδότα ἔφαμεν, τὸν ὄντως πολιτικόν, εἰ μεμνήμεθα, ποιήσειν τῇ τέχνῃ πολλὰ εἰς τὴν αὑτοῦ πρᾶξιν τῶν γραμμάτων οὐδὲν φροντίζοντα, ὁπόταν ἄλλ᾽ αὐτῷ βελτίω δόξῃ παρὰ τὰ γεγραμμένα ὑφ᾽ αὑτοῦ καὶ ἐπεσταλμένα ἀποῦσίν τισιν. (300c–d)

Stranger:

And yet we said, if we recollect, that the man of knowledge at least, the one who is really a statesman, would by art do many things in his practice while taking no regard to his writings, whenever he thought other things were better contrary to the rules written and sent by him to his absent subjects. (300c–d)

These similarities raise questions about the criticisms of Socrates against Pericles and the Athenian democracy, for example in the Gorgias, where Socrates accuses four of the greatest Athenian politicians, Themistocles, Kimon, Miltiades, and Pericles of “gratifying their own pleasures and the pleasures of the people” (τὸ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας ἀποπιμπλάναι καὶ τὰς αὑτοῦ καὶ τὰς τῶν ἄλλων, 503c, cf. 502e).³⁹ In Thucydides’ portrait, on the other hand, many of Pericles’ characteristics resemble those of the ideal ruler of the Statesman and in some sense also of the philosopher-king of the Republic. For example, Pericles never spoke with a view to the pleasure of the people but was able to contradict and anger them (2.65.8).

A most important task for the ruler in the Statesman is to ensure the proper mingling of the people so that the courageous and the moderate types do not separate (310c–311a). This is to be taken literally—that the moderate should reproduce with the courageous—and also in a larger sense, that the ruler’s task is to keep a proper proportion of the virtues in the people. One of the most important differences between the current age and the golden age that preceded it, according to the myth delivered by the Stranger in the middle of the dialogue, is that the mode of birth now is different from before. In the previous age, men arose from the earth and God was their shepherd (27le–272a), while in the current age men have responsibility for their own procreation and raising of the young (274a–b).

In the Republic too, knowledge of procreation and birth is a major responsibility of the ruler, and when the ruler loses the “nuptial number” the state inevitably declines (545e–547a). Like Plato (546a), Pericles recognizes that it is in the nature of things to decay (2.64.3), but Pericles does fail to provide for his own succession, which involves a new generation of births, and when the plague kills him there is no worthy leader to follow him. His failure here is the political version of what Socrates’ says in the Protagoras is a serious flaw in Pericles’ rule:

μὴ τοίνυν ὅτι τὸ κοινὸν τῆς [319ε] πόλεως οὕτως ἔχει, ἀλλὰ ἰδίᾳ ἡμῖν οἱ σοφώτατοι καὶ ἄριστοι τῶν πολιτῶν ταύτην τὴν ἀρετὴν ἣν ἔχουσιν οὐχ οἷοί τε ἄλλοις παραδιδόναι: ἐπεὶ Περικλῆς, ὁ τουτωνὶ τῶν νεανίσκων πατήρ, τούτους ἃ μὲν διδασκάλων εἴχετο καλῶς καὶ εὖ ἐπαίδευσεν, [320α] ἃ δὲ αὐτὸς σοφός ἐστιν οὔτε αὐτὸς παιδεύει οὔτε τῳ ἄλλῳ παραδίδωσιν, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτοὶ περιιόντες νέμονται ὥσπερ ἄφετοι, ἐάν που αὐτόματοι περιτύχωσιν τῇ ἀρετῇ. εἰ δὲ βούλει, Κλεινίαν, τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδου τουτουῒ νεώτερον ἀδελφόν, ἐπιτροπεύων ὁ αὐτὸς οὗτος ἀνὴρ Περικλῆς, δεδιὼς περὶ αὐτοῦ μὴ διαφθαρῇ δὴ ὑπὸ Ἀλκιβιάδου, ἀποσπάσας ἀπὸ τούτου, καταθέμενος ἐν Ἀρίφρονος ἐπαίδευε: καὶ πρὶν ἓξ μῆνας γεγονέναι, [320β] ἀπέδωκε τούτῳ οὐκ ἔχων ὅτι χρήσαιτο αὐτῷ. (Protagoras, 319d–320b)

Not, therefore, does is that which is held in common in the city thus, but in private the wisest and best of the citizens cannot pass on this excellence which they have. Then Pericles, the father of these youngsters, was educating them nobly and well in those things that closely relate to teachers, but, on the other hand, respect to those things in which he himself is wise, he neither educated them nor did he hand them over to anyone else [to be taught], but they run around as if set loose, on the chance that somehow automatically they might happen upon excellence. And if you wish, [considering] Kleinias, the younger brother of Alcibiades here, the one for whom this same man Pericles serves as guardian, [Pericles] separated him from that one, Alcibiades, fearing concerning him lest he be ruined by Alcibiades, set him up in Ariphron’s home and educated him. And before six months were up, Ariphron gave him back to Pericles not knowing what to do with him. (Protagoras, 319d–320b)

Pericles does not educate his dependents in his own particular, that is, political, virtue (319e). The result is so bad that Pericles recognizes that under his own guardianship Kleinias, Alcibiades’ younger brother, has been morally endangered by Alcibiades’ presence, the same Alcibiades whom Pericles himself is raising. In Gorgias, Socrates raises the same question in a different form: did Pericles make the citizens better (515d–516d)? For Plato the answer is that he did not, since Socrates says that Pericles corrupted the Athenians, and they became wilder and less just under his rule (515e–516c). Therefore, he was not even a good statesman (516d), let alone a philosophical teacher.

For Plato, Pericles failed as a leader because he had less than firm control over the people, and he left no worthy successor. For Thucydides, on the other hand, Pericles appears at first as the type of the ideal ruler, and “while he lived Athens was at her greatest” (2.65.5).⁴⁰ In fact, however, as Thucydides portrays the situation, real flaws—and profoundly important ones—in Pericles’ statesmanship seem to be that he did not live longer or ensure a worthy successor, develop a party with worthy contenders, or produce a constitution with a structure for orderly succession and a separation of powers. These prove in the long term to be fatal flaws, as Athens lacked any senior, moderating legislative body. Once Pericles’ personal moderation was gone, with no worthy successor and no institutional moderation force, there was no way to restrain the people. This particular shortcoming, which had developed after the reforms of Kleisthenes, had been exacerbated by the measures of Ephialtes and his junior partner Pericles, and then continued unresolved during the ascendancy of Pericles as strategos from 446 BC until his death.⁴¹ The rise of the office of the strategos coincided roughly with the career of Pericles, though as we saw earlier, it began with Themistocles before the second Persian invasion.

It is remarkable that Thucydides presents the government of Athens under Pericles as a relationship of the one to the many, but the presentation seems to reflect the actual facts of his rule as Thucydides presents them. This is also, as the abstract version of the failure to provide a successor or moderating institutional power, Pericles’ great weakness, which was not readily apparent while he was alive because of the high level of his personal qualities. In addition, however, just as he does not educate his children, so he educates the people insufficiently, since he does not create laws as educators of a constitutional structure that would lead the people toward moderation.⁴² To repeat an earlier point, Thucydides is clear as to his view of the actual structure of the rule of Athens: “What was in word a democracy was becoming in deed rule (arche) by the first man” (2.65.9, translation mine). The plague exposes this and the other weaknesses in the polis. Then Pericles’ death and the subsequent failure of Athens to allow a leader of equal stature to arise at last set the state on a path to ruin (2.65.10, 12). It is ironic that the plague first attacked Athens in the Piraeus, the vital center of her naval dominance and the epitome of her technical superiority (2.48.2). Piraeus and the fleet were for Themistocles the center of Athens’ power (1.93.7), and Themistocles is for Thucydides the prototypical Athenian (1.138.3), able to respond with versatility to almost any situation, which is a quality Pericles also praises in the Athenians (2.41.1).⁴³

Athens is an education for Hellas, an idea that seems to be based in the Athenians’ confidence in their freedom or “liberality” (τῆς ἐλευθερίας, 2.40.5), which in turn makes them versatile (2.41.4), which then leads to Athens’ power, which she has acquired through the “habits” of her people (τῶνδε τῶν τρόπων, 2.41.5). But this too actually is ironic since Athens lost the war. In that sense Thucydides’ history shows us the irony of the idea that Athens is an education for Hellas. It is an education in that the narrative and speeches, like the action and the speech of a tragedy, show that the protagonist, which in a way is Athens herself, becomes a beacon of freedom and democracy and then turns greedy, and tyrannical as the result of an underlying character flaw, a love of power and the monumental results of that power shown in good and bad deeds. The Athenians fall victim to a collective desire for adventure and gain in particular in Sicily. Thucydides reveals this progression in the character, actions, and speeches of the major political figures, Pericles, Cleon, Diodotus, Alcibiades, Nicias, and lesser figures like Theramenes. Then a mistake in agreeing to Nicias’ overly subtle plea for more power—as a deterrence to the expansion of the war—had the further ironic result of increasing the size of the resulting catastrophe. Athens is an education for the Greeks and an education that arises within the Greek world. That education has informed political life in the West precisely as Thucydides hoped it would, as a glorious experiment in imperial democracy that suffers a defeat memorialized in his book, a lesson and a possession for ever (1.22.4). One model for what Thucydides has presented us with is the Persians of Aeschylus, which develops sympathy for the defeated, that is, the Persians and their tyrannical leaders, in the war between the Greeks and the Persians that ended seven years before the play was produced.⁴⁴ In Thucydides’ book, we develop a strong sense of the pathos of the emerging tyrannical power Athens, as the city careens toward defeat and eventually loses completely. One of the deepest historical ironies then is that Pericles himself was the choregos or producer of the Persians.⁴⁵ Thucydides also makes use of Herodotus’ narrative of the Persian Wars to compare Athens’ imperial development to the failed ambitions of Persia against Greece, as Tim Rood has recently argued quite successfully.⁴⁶

Like Themistocles, Pericles saw the fleet as the physical means of Athens’ dominance (2.62.2). Even the highest achievements of man’s intellect cannot, however, escape the forces of nature. This does not in itself lessen Athens’ achievement in Thucydides’ eyes, although it is here in the Piraeus where the plague entered that imperial Athens began her tragic end. Pericles himself recognizes that it is in the nature of all things to decay (2.64.3),⁴⁷ and that some events even turn out contrary to reason (1.140.1).