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Two lives or three? Pericles on the Athenian character (Thucydides 2.40.1–2)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. S. Rusten
J. S. Rusten
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

ɸιλοκαλο⋯μέν τε γ⋯ρ μετ' εὐτελείας κα⋯ ɸιλοσοɸο⋯μεν ἄνευ μαλακίαας. πλούτῳ τε ἔργου μ⋯λλον καιῷ ἢ λόγου κόμπῳ χρώμεθα, κα⋯ τ⋯ πένεσθαι οὐχ ⋯μολοσεῖν τιν⋯ αἰσχρόν, ⋯λλ⋯ μ⋯ διαɸεύγειν ἔργῳ αἴσχιον ἔνι τε τοῖς αὐτοῖς οἰκείων ἄμα κα⋯ πολιτικ⋯ν ⋯πιμέλεια, κα⋯ ⋯τέροις πρ⋯ς ἔργα τετραμμένοις τ⋯ πολιτικ⋯ μ⋯ ⋯νδε⋯ς γν⋯ναι.

J. Kakridis has seen in this famous passage a reflection of the popular debate, conducted most memorably by Amphion and Zethus in Euripides' Antiope and Callicles and Socrates in Plato's Gorgias, over the respective merits of the vita activa and vita contemplativa. Normally the intellectual is faulted as lazy and helpless, the politician as an ignorant busybody; yet Pericles, according to Kakridis, claims that Athenians avoid these faults and combine the traits of both lives at their best.

This interpretation accords well with the idealism of the funeral oration, but it falters over what Pericles places between philosophy and politics, viz.πλο⋯τος. Kakridis must struggle to account for the transition directly from philosophy to wealth, on the assumption that πλούτῳ τε…χρώμεθα serves to amplify ἄνευ μαλακίας, while ἔνιτε…⋯πιμέλεια extends the description of the non-intellectual life from the private sphere of trade to the public one of politics (pp. 50–1).

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , May 1985, pp. 14 - 19
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Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

1 Der thukydideische Epitaphios: ein stilistischer Kommentar (Zetemata 26, Munich, 1961), 51Google Scholar. The following editions of book 2 will be cited by editor's name alone: G. B. Alberti (Rome, 1972); J. Classen, fifth ed. rev. by J. Steup (Berlin, 1914); H. Stuart Jones, rev. by J. E. Powell (Oxford, 1942); K. W. Krüger, third ed. (Berlin, 1860); O. Luschnat, second ed. (Leipzig, 1960); E. F. Poppo, second ed. rev. by J. M. Stahl (Leipzig, 1875); J. de Romilly (Paris, 1962). The manuscript sigla are those of Alberti.

2 Snell, B., Szenen aus griechischen Dramen (Berlin, 1971), 77–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Euripides, , Ion 621–47Google Scholar

3 Gorgias 484c4–486d1; cf. Republic 487a, 520c14.

4 ‘Quibus in exemplis non decipi debemus, quod interdum inter τε—τε interpositum est καί, quod non pertinet ad τε, sed priori membro aliquid adiungit’ Hammer, B., De τε particulae usu Herodoteo, Thucydideo, Xenophonteo (Diss. Leipzig, 1904), 48Google Scholar. Taking the second or third τε here with following καί would be impossible, since the sentence would then be left in asyndeton; but the first τε carries no such insurance against misinterpretation, and so it has been viewed as prospective with καί ɸιλοσοɸ⋯μεν by Classen and Steup, and omitted entirely (with ABFM3) by Krüger. On τε…τε…τε in general see Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles, second ed. (Oxford, 1954), 504–5Google Scholar; for its use in Thucydides, Hammer 48–9 (note especially 8.48.4–5: ὅ τε Άλκιβιάδης…βασιλεἶ τε…τάς τε ξυμμαχίδας πόλεις). For (οὔ)τε γ⋯ρ…τε…τε elsewhere in Thucydides cf. 2.39.2, 47.4; 3.13.3; 4.126.5.

5 Festugière, A. J., ‘Les trois vies’, Acta Congressus Madvigiani (Copenhagen, 1958), ii. 131–78Google Scholar; Joly, R., ‘Le thème philosophique des genres de vie dans l'antiquité classique’, Mémoires de l'Académie royale de Belgique 51.3 (1956)Google Scholar; Jaeger, W., Aristotle (second ed., Oxford, 1962)Google Scholar, appendix II, ‘On the Origin and Cycle of the Philosophic Ideal of Life’, 426–61 (originally in German, , Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Ph.-hist. KI., 1928)Google Scholar; Burkert, W., ‘Platon oder Pythagoras? Zum Ursprung des Wortes “Philosophie”’, Hermes 88 (1960), 159–77Google Scholar.

6 Heraclides fr. 88 Wehrli. For the other testimonia to Heraclides' story (Sosicrates apud Diog. Laert. 8.8 = FHG iv. 303, Diog. Laert. 1.12 = fr. 87 Wehrli, Iambfichus, Vita Pythag. 58–9) see Joly (above n. 5) 43–52 and Burkert (above n. 5) 160–4. It is not likely that Aristotle had told the story already in the Protrepticus (B 18 Düring); see Burkert 166–9.

7 Cicero's verbose ‘mercatum eum, qui haberetur maxumo ludorum apparatu totius Graeciae celebritate’ is an attempt to retain the mercantile, athletic and social connotations of this word. For the comparison of life to πανηγυρίς cf. Menander fr. 416b Koerte, Alexis fr. 219 Kock, Teles p. 10.13 Hense.

8 ⋯δονή is substituted for Plato's πλο⋯τος; wealth, says Aristotle, is useful only for the sake of the pleasure it brings. Similarly Plato's τιμή is rejected as too superficial a goal for the political life, since honour is sought only as a recognition of other qualities (1095b22–6); Aristotle himself suggests ⋯ρετή as a more plausible goal, but admits that it is not inextricably linked to the essential element of this life, which is action (1095b29–34).

9 For a sampling of modern discussions of this fact see Rorty, A. O., ‘The Place of Contemplation in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics’ in Rorty, (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (Berkeley, 1980), 393 n. 1Google Scholar.

10 Because he insists in the Republic that only the philosopher ought to govern, Plato must restrict the inferior γένος ɸιλόνικον to the spheres of athletics and warfare. An earlier version of the threefold division (Phaedo 68c) had combined the ɸιλότιμοι and the ɸίλαρχοι (Phaedo 82c).

11 Jaeger (above n. 5) 432. He was reacting against Burnet, J., Early Greek Philosophy, fourth ed. (London, 1930), 98Google Scholar, who judged Heraclides' story authentic and consequently assumed the Platonic tripartite soul to have a Pythagorean origin (see his commentary on Phaedo 68c2).

12 Of the studies cited above n. 5, see Joly 33, Festugière 133, Burkert 164. Exceptions are Guthrie, W. K. C., History of Greek Philosophy i (Cambridge, 1962), 165Google Scholar (following Cameron, Alister, The Pythagorean Background of the Theory of Recollection [Menasha, Wisconsin, 1938], 34Google Scholar), and Morrison, J. S., ‘The Origin of Plato's Philosopher-Statesman’, CQ 52 (1958), 208Google Scholar.

13 Joly 27, Burkert 165; an exception is Festugière 133.

14 See Usener, H., ‘Dreiheit’, RhM 58 (1903), 1–47Google Scholar.

15 See the hypothesis to Cratinus' Dionysalexandros (Kassel–Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci iv. 140) lines 13–19: <διδομένων> αὐτ⋯ παρ⋯ μ(⋯ν) Ἥρα[ς] τυραννίδο(ς) ⋯κινήτου, πα[ρ]⋯δ' Ἀθην⋯ς εὐψυχί(ας) κ(α)τ(⋯) πόλεμο(ν), τ⋯ς δ' Ἀɸροδί(της) κάλλιστό(ν) τε κ(α⋯)⋯πέραστον αὐπτ⋯ν ὑπάρχειν, κρίνει ταύτην νικ⋯ν. If the description given of his satyr play Krisis by Athenaeus xv 687c (F 361 Radt) is to be trusted, Sophocles seems to have retained three τέλη(⋯δονή, ɸρόνησις and ⋯ρετή) while reducing their representatives to two to accommodate them to the tragic agon; see Stinton, T. C. W., Euripides and the Judgement of Paris (JHS Supplementary Paper 11, London, 1965), 8Google Scholar, and Scodel, Ruth, Euripides' Trojan Trilogy (Hypomnemata 60, Göttingen, 1980), 102CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (To the personifications of Aphrodite as ⋯δονή cited by Deubner Roscher, 's Lexicon iii. 2107Google Scholar, add Plato, Philebus 12b.)

16 See especially Jupiter Mars Quirinus (Paris, 1941)Google Scholar.

17 Joly 57, Burkert 165. A similar scheme seems to lie behind Bacchylides 10.38–51 (Wilamowitz, , Sappho und Simonides [Berlin, 1913], 186–9Google Scholar), and one of the Stobaeus quotations of Democritus (whose authenticity is however doubtful; see Stewart, Z., ‘Democritus and the Cynics’, HSCP 63 [1958], 179–91Google Scholar) states δόξα κα⋯ πλο⋯τος ἄνευ ξυνέσιος οὐκ ⋯σɸαλέακτήματα (B77).

18 For double τε of alternatives cf. Euripides, , Ion 853Google Scholar (θανεῖν τε ζ⋯ν τε ɸέγγος εἰσορ⋯ν), IA 56, Heracleidae 153–4, Aesch. Supp. 380.

19 Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides ii (Oxford, 1956), 119Google Scholar: ‘it is difficult to be happy about this clause…τ⋯ ɸιλόκαλον was not pursued in Athens with an eye to economy.’ On an individual level, however, ɸιlοκαλεῖν is virtually a synonym for ɸιλοσοɸεῖν, as seen by Burkert 174, de Vries on Plato, Phaedrus 248d3 and Flashar, H., Der Epitaphios des Perikles (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenshaften, 1969), 22 n. 39Google Scholar; it is closer to the aristocratic ⋯ρ⋯ν τ⋯ν καλ⋯ν (Pind. Pyth. 11.50, Theognis 696; cf. Plato, Meno 77b4) than to ‘die Liebe zur Kunst’ (Kakridis 51). The praise of an individual for εὐτέλεια is entirely conventional; see Vischer, R., Das einfache Leben (Göttingen, 1965), 27–9Google Scholar.

20 Guthrie, , HGP vi (Cambridge, 1981), 332 n. 2Google Scholar, Burkert 174. On the other hand Flashar (above n. 19) 23 was forced to conclude that the only wealthy philosopher–politician Thucydides could have had in mind was Pericles himself.

21 For a collection of other views on the subject see Hemelrijk, J., Penia en Ploutos (Diss. Utrecht, 1925), 132–9Google Scholar. Pericles uses more or less the same words in 42.3 to describe the life the dead have rejected in favour of dying for their city: πλούτου…⋯πόλαυσιν ~ πλούτῳ…χρώμεθα, διαɸυγὼν αὐτ⋯ν (sc. πενίαν) ~ τ⋯ πένεσθαι…διαɸεύγειν.

22 See Kakridis (above n. 1) 28–9, Russell, D. A. on ‘Longinus’, On the Sublime 9.4Google Scholar.

23 Denniston, J. D., Greek Prose Style (Oxford, 1952), 54–5Google Scholar.

24 This is not as unusual as Kakridis 52 seems to think; cf. Kühner-Gerth i. 24 n. 2 and, e.g. Thucydides 2.35.1 εὖ τε κα⋯ χεῖρον, 37.1 μ⋯ ⋯ς ⋯λίγους ⋯λλ' ⋯ς πλείονας.

25 Stuart Jones (in the apparatus), Poppo-Stahl, Classen-Steup, Luschnat, de Romilly and Alberti; Krüger is alone in defending the text.

26 Barrett on Euripides, Hippolytus 1000–1001Google Scholar; cf. Jebb on Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus 457Google Scholar; e.g. Philoctetes 119 σοɸός τ' ἂν αὑτ⋯ς κ⋯γαθ⋯ς κεκλῇ' ἄμα.

27 6.80.4 is more complex: placed in the second of two parallel conditions, οί αὐτοί emphasises that the Spartans will suffer through either of two possible outcomes. — 2.40.2 (οἱ αὐτο⋯ ἤτοι κρίνομέν γε ἢ ⋯νθυμούμεθα ⋯ρθ⋯ς τ⋯ πράγματα) is different entirely, as noted by Herter, H., ‘Comprensione ed azione politica’, Studi in onore Gino Funaioli (Rome, 1955), 138Google Scholar: here there is rather a disjunction of two predicates, so that we must obviously delete οἱ, with all manuscripts except C and G (so most editors, Stuart Jones being a notable exception). αὐτοί alone then serves to mark the contrast with τόν…μηδ⋯ν τ⋯νδε μετέχοντα (as seen by Pohlenz, M., ‘Thukydidesstudien I’, Nachrichten von der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 1919, 126 n. 1Google Scholar). For such a contrast between different cases cf. 2.37.1 χρώμεθα…πολιτείᾳ οὐ ζηλούσῃ…παράδειγμα δ⋯ μ⋯λλον αὐτο⋯ ⋯ντες… (Herter and Classen-Steup take αὐτοί as ‘without help’, but that would add nothing to the sense here.)

28 πρ⋯ς (⋯π⋯, εἰς) ἔργα τρέπσθαι = ‘pursue one's own business’; see cEdmunds, L., CR 22 (1972), 171–2Google Scholar. The participle is of course concessive.

29 Edmunds (above n. 28) and Flashar (above n. 19) 22 n. 40.

30 For hints and corrections on several points I am indebted to Albert Henrichs, Donald Morrison and Ruth Scodel. In locating the passages adduced at the end of note 4 – a task for which the existing lexicographical tools for Thucydides were worthless – I had the aid of computer tapes of the text supplied by the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae in Irvine, California, and programs written by Gregory Crane.