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Thucydides and Pericles

The Classical Review vol. 62 no. 2 © The Classical Association 2012; all rights reserved offensive strategy as ‘a purely defensive war’ (p. 93) involving ‘strict passivity’ on the Athenians’ part (p. 101), but he never thoroughly analyses Thucydides’ presentation of Pericles’ strategy. He provides a modern scholar’s ‘excellent synopsis of Periclean strategy as it is reported in the History’ (p. 77), but this synopsis, too, lacks a thorough assessment of what either Pericles or Thucydides actually said about that strategy. Third, L.’s imagined readers are not very critical and seem immune to the possibility of irony or negative foreshadowing in Thucydides’ text with regard to Pericles. For example, Pericles’ speeches ‘fi t seamlessly into the fabric of the history Thucydides presents’ (pp. 144–5) in contrast with those of a Nicias or an Alcibiades, ‘where we see with hindsight their future failings’. For Pericles, on the other hand, ‘this same hindsight causes us to marvel at his foresight’ (p. 145). L. castigates Pericles for being so casually ‘dismissive’ of an epiteichismos in Attica; but the critical reader, knowing the course of the war, feels concern at the moment Pericles says that the Athenians need not fear an enemy fortifi cation in Attica (1.142.2). However, it is not clear that the fortifi cation of Decelea actually was as destructive as Thucydides reports, adding another layer of complexity. L. does not discuss these points. Again, for L., the Funeral Oration ‘cements the goodness of Pericles’ rule to the best part of what was the glory and the power of classical Athens’. That readers know that Athens will fail ‘in the end only heightens the emotion as all glorious lost causes do’ (p. 165). L. does not discuss the extensive bibliography on the Funeral Oration that investigates how Thucydides undercuts the vision of Athens it presents both in the speech itself and in the juxtaposition of the plague account that follows. It seems clear that Thucydides has manipulated his account of the Pylos campaign throughout in order to present it as an unexpected boon rather than the result of careful planning. The goal may have been to diminish the credit due Demosthenes or Cleon or to prevent the judgement that Pericles should have tried this kind of thing years before. The sort of conscious manipulation L. argues for should not be dismissed out of hand. Nevertheless, to prove his thesis L. needed a reading of his text more attuned to the complexity of Thucydides’ technique.