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The influence of forensic oratory on Thucydides’ principles of method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Ian M. Plant
Ian M. Plant
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, i.plant@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au
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Extract

In recent years, there has been considerable debate about the reliability of Herodotus: the attack on his honesty led by Fehling, the defence by Pritchett. The debate, it seems, may have begun at least as far back as Thucydides, but now Thucydides himself may have joined the school of liars. Badian has produced a new reading of Thucydides’ description of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, arguing that Thucydides deliberately set out to mislead the reader, misrepresenting the Spartans as the instigators of the War and carefully masking the Athenians’ own responsibility.

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Type
Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , May 1999, pp. 62 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1999

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References

1 Fehling, D., Herodotus and His Sources, trans. Howie, J. G. (Leeds, 1989)Google Scholar; Pritchett, W. K., The Liar School of Herodotos (Amsterdam, 1993).Google Scholar

2 See 1.20.3 with Hornblower, S., A Commentary on Thucydides vol. 1 (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar ad loc.

3 Badian, E., From Plataea to Potidaea (Baltimore, 1993).Google Scholar See also Moles, J. L., ‘Truth and untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in Gill, C. and Wiseman, T. P. (edd.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Austin, 1993), pp. 88–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Moles, J. L., JACT Review 2:14 (1993), 14–18, p. 16.Google Scholar

5 Cochrane, C. N., Thucydides and the Science of History (Oxford, 1929)Google Scholar; for a more recent opinion, see Wiseman, T. P., Clio's Cosmetics: Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature (Leicester, 1979), p. 41Google Scholar; for discussion of this point, see Woodman, A. J., Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (London, 1988), p. 5.Google Scholar

6 S. Hornblower, Commentary, pp. 6–7, 59.

7 For 1.1–23 as prooimion, see Dion. Hal. De Thue 20.

8 Cornford, F. M., Thucydides Mythistoricus (London, 1907)Google Scholar; Finley, J. H., Thucydides (Cambridge, MA, 1942)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Macleod, C., Collected Essays (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar, A. J. Woodman (n. 5).

9 Cf. Dion. Hal. De Comp. Verb. 22. For a full discussion, see Cole, T., The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore, 1991), pp. 73ff.Google Scholar For pathos and ethos in Thucydides, see Carey, C., ‘Rhetorical means of persuasion’, in Worthington, I. (ed.), Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (London, 1994), pp. 26–45, at pp. 27, 33–5.Google Scholar

10 Marcellinus, Life of Thucydides 36, 51; Gorgias fr. 82.A35 Diels-Kranz; Dion. Hal. De Thuc. 19, 24; see Gomme, A. W., Essays on Greek History and Literature (Oxford, 1937), pp. 116–24.Google Scholar

11 Hunter, V. J., ‘Thucydides, Gorgias and mass psychology’, Hermes 114 (1986), 414–29.Google Scholar

12 M. Gagarin, ‘Probability and persuasion: Plato and early Greek rhetoric’, in Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (n. 9), pp. 46–68, at p. 65; see also Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides vol. 2 (Oxford, 1956), p. 131Google Scholar; but cf. Dover, K. J., Thucydides Book VI (Oxford, 1965), p. xvii.Google Scholar

13 Cole (n. 9), pp. 104–11.

14 Aristotle, On Sophistical Refutations 33. 183b36 = Gorgias fr. 82.B14 Diels-Kranz; see also Isocrates 13.12–13.

15 (Plut.) Vit. X Or. 4; Diod. ap. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1.365.

16 For examples of loci communes, probably derived from models: Choreutes 3–6, cf. Herodes 87–9; Herodes 14, cf. Choreutes 2; Prosecution for Poisoning 12f., cf. Herodes 38ff., Choreutes 27; see Maidment, K. J., Minor Attic Orators vol. I (Cambridge, MA, 1941), p. 338Google Scholar for loci communes in Andocides, On the Mysteries.

17 Cole (n. 9), p. 104.

18 Cole (n. 9), pp. 104–11.

19 See, for example, Hornblower, Commentary, pp. 58–61. For a recent analysis of the problems encountered by scholars in reading 1.22, see Orwin, C., The Humanity of Thucydides (Princeton, 1994), pp. 207–12.Google Scholar

20 Text from Macdowell, D. M., Gorgias. Encomium of Helen (Bristol, 1982)Google Scholar; Helen is Gorgias fr. 82.B11 Diels–Kranz.

21 82.A 28 Diels-Kranz = Plato, Gorgias 453A.

22 In 1.22.1 the idea of the difficulty of obtaining a truthful report is maintained. Thucydides tells us that he has recorded the speeches for us, keeping as close as possible (őтι ༐γγύтαтα) to the general intention (/purpose/gist) of what was actually said (тŵν ảληθŵς λεχθντων); the superlative conveys well Thucydides’ commitment to accuracy while reiterating the impossibility of verbatim reproduction.

23 This point is made by Connor, W. R., Thucydides (Princeton, 1984), p. 27.Google Scholar

24 See also, for example, First Tet. 4.1, Herodes 86.

25 See also Herodes 86.

26 That is, that the Spartan kings had two votes (Hdt. 6.57) and Pitanate was a deme name applied to a division of the army (Hdt. 9.53, cf. 3.55); see also Thuc. 1.126.7, correcting Hdt 5.71 on Cylon's conspiracy; see Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides vol. 1 (Oxford, 1945), pp. 137–8.Google Scholar

27 See Hdt. 5.55.

28 See also Choreutes 47.

29 See also Choreutes 18–19.

30 ‘He set standards of research and accuracy for all time’, Hornblower, S., Thucydides (Baltimore, 1987), p. 30.Google Scholar

31 See also Choreutes 7, First Tet. 1.9.

32 Examples: 1.1, 1.2, 3.3, 6.2, 8, 9.4, 10, 20, 21, ibid. For discussion of the use of these terms in Thucydides, see Hornblower (n. 30), pp. 100–7.

33 The evidence he uses in his preface is wide-ranging: it may be literary, mythological, anthropological, archaeological, geographical, or political: Homer in particular (1.3, 1.9), traditional stories (1.9.2, 1.4, 1.13, 13.5, probably 1.2 as well), archaeological (1.8, 10), geographical (1.7), past and present social customs (1.5.2, 6), or resources (1.1): see Hornblower (n. 30), pp. 73–96.

34 Hornblower finds this vocabulary of evidence unsystematic and non-technical. His comparison between тεκμήρνον, σημεῖον, and (μαρтύριον) (e.g. at 1.6.2 and 2.15.3 and 1.8.1 respectively) reveals that the three terms are used to mean much the same thing by Thucydides; but the vocabulary of evidence was not strictly technical in the works of such orators of the fifth century as Antiphon either. Such technicality in the use of forensic language was a later development of the fourth century: see Hornblower (n. 30), pp. 100–9.

35 The meaning of τς ξυμπάσης γνώμης is unclear. Most editors accept ‘general sense’; De Ste Croix, G. E. M. Suggests ‘main thesis’ (The Origins of the Peloponnesian War [London, 1972]. pp. 7–10)Google Scholar; Badian, E. has recently reopended the debate, arguing for ‘the entire intention’ (‘Thucydides on rendering speeches’, Athenaeum 70 [1992], 187–90).Google Scholar

36 Thucydides uses τà δέοντα four times elsewhere in the context of knowing or advising or doing what political or military actions were demanded by the situation (1.60.5, 70.8, 138.3; 2.43.1). See also τò δέον 4.17.2, 5.66.3. Attempts by D. Rokeah to pin down one specific connotation for this phrase in Thucydides are inconclusive: see ‘τà δέέντα περì τŵν αἱεì παρόντων: speeches in Thucydides: factual reporting or creative writing?’ Athenaeum 60 (1982), 386–401 and ‘A note on Thuc. 1.22.1’, Eranos 60 (1962), 104–7.

37 For the connection between τà δέοντα and Gorgias’ work on καιρ;ός, see Vollgraff, W., L’ Oraison sunèbre de Gorgias (Leiden, 1952), pp. 20–8Google Scholar; see also Gorgias fr. 82.Ala Diels-Kranz (= Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 11), and A20 (= Plato, Gorgias 447c.).

38 ‘Form and meaning in the Melian Dialogue’, Historia 23 (1974), 385–400; Kennedy, G., The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton, 1963), p. 48Google Scholar also argues that τà δέοντα has a rhetorical sense in Thucydides.

39 Hdt. 2.123.1, 7.152.3; see A. W. Gomme (n. 26), ad loc.

40 Hornblower, Commentary ad loc.

41 E. G. Choreutes 28–30

42 ༐πεξέρχομαι has many senses, including that of prosecuting a legal case (Antiphon, Prosecution for Poisoning 1) and a military sense of ‘to make a sally’ (Thuc. 3.26, etc.); cf. Connor (n. 23), pp. 27–8.

43 Quoted above, pp. 66–7.

44 On τí εἱкóςς in Thucydides, see Westlake, H. D., Essays on the Greek Historians and Greek History (Manchester, 1969), pp. 55ffGoogle Scholar; cf. Hornblower (n. 30), pp. 106–7. See also Finley, J. H., ‘Euripides and Thucydides’, in Three Essays on Thucydides (Cambridge, MA, 1967), p. 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On τí εἱкóς in Greek rhetoric, see Gagarin (n. 12).

45 There are many examples in Thucydides’ speeches: 1.76, 86.1, 3.67.2, 1.76.3, 5.105.1, 2, 3.39.5; 45.7; 4.19; 61.5; see de Ste Croix (n. 35), p. 29.

46 See Connor (n. 23), pp. 116–18.

47 For τí μυθŵες, see Flory, S., ‘The meaning of τí μή μυθδες (1.22.4) and the usefulness of Thucydides’ History’, CJ 85 (1990), 193–208.Google Scholar

48 Herodotus (Demaratus to Xerxes): βαοιλεû, кóτερα ảληθείη χρήσωμαι πρòς ἢ ήδονῆ (7.101.3). For the idea in Thucydides, see also 7.8.2, 14.4, 3.38.7, 40.3, 1.84.2, 2.65.8, 10, 6.83.2–3.For discussion of the ‘aesthetic of exhibition’ as an element of Greek rhetoric, see Poulakos, J., Sophistical Rhetoric in Classical Greece (Columbia, 1995), pp. 39–46.Google Scholar

49 For comic elements in Gorgias, see P. Harding, ‘Comedy and rhetoric’, in Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (n. 9), pp. 196–221, at p. 202.

50 See Woodman (n. 5), pp. 5–7.

51 In the absence of the analytical metalanguage of the fourth-century: Cole (n. 9), p. 93.