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
