also opens up some questions about the accuracy and value of a founding myth or story of the Athenian democracy. This in turn leads to an explanation of Thucydides’ view of the roots of Alcibiades’ failure in his inadequate education. For Thucydides, correct knowledge and a sound political education are essential for the continuation of good rule.
Thucydides thus agrees with Plato in that both see the weakness of Alcibiades’ education as an image for Athens’ brilliant failure. Through a comparison of Plato with Thucydides, it can be established that while for Thucydides Pericles’ logos represents an ideal moment, that moment fades quickly in word and in deed due to political deficiencies of the same type as those Plato and Socrates saw in Periclean Athens and to some extent in democracy generally. Thucydides sees his own endeavor as being on a philosophically higher level than Pericles’ words and deeds. Thucydides approaches the Peloponnesian War with some of the tools of a tragic poet, while Plato differs from almost every philosopher since his time in that we must respond to his writing as a complex interplay of actors, deeds, and ideas in order to understand his view of political excellence. This view ultimately resembles Thucydides’ though Plato emphasizes the value of true knowledge for political life while Thucydides seems to align himself with freedom tempered and interpreted by true knowledge obtained by careful examination of facts and speeches.
NOTES
1 Ober, Josiah, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Princeton: Princeton University Press reprint edition 2016, pp. 52, 73, 266–67, 269 and in particular concerning Athens, pp. 273–80. Most of this evidence is economic.
2 G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1981, pp. 298–327.
3 Peter Green, Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, 1993, pp. 10–11. The idea that the Greeks of the era beginning with the rule of Alexander were spreading cultural enlightenment including advanced political thought is interesting but not justified overall. See Peter Green’s comment: “The . . . overwhelming motivation that confronts us in these Greek or Macedonian torchbearers of Western culture, throughout the Hellenistic era, is the irresistible lure of power and wealth, with sex trailing along as a poor third and cultural enlightenment virtually nowhere.”
4 For the apparent prevalence of various forms of democracy in the fourth century BC, see Eric W. Robinson, Democracy Beyond Athens: Popular Government in the Greek Classical Age, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 182–216. For a discussion of the many democratic city states in the third century BC, albeit often without full self-rule, see Philippe Gauthier, “Les Cités hellénistiques,” in Mogens Herman Hansen, The ancient Greek city-state, Copenhague, Commisionner Munksgaard, 1993, pp. 211–31 and in particular pp. 217–18.
5 See Hornblower, Simon, “The Fourth-Century and Hellenistic Reception of Thucydides,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1995, Vol. 115, pp. 47–68, for a thorough review of Thucydides’ influence while Plato was writing.
6 Euripides’ Hippolytus in Euripidis Fabulae, Vol. 1, Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea, Heraclidae, Hippolytus, Andromacha, Hecuba, edited by J. Diggle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984, Euripides Bacchae, edited with an introduction and notes by E. R. Dodds, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960. In Thucydides, cf. Pericles’ Funeral Oration 2.40.2. For the early fourth century and Plato, see Republic 557b. See also Polybius 2.38.6. For a modern discussion see Michel Foucault, “Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia.” Six lectures at University of California at Berkeley, CA, Oct–Nov 1983, https://foucault.info/parrhesia/ (accessed October 10, 2019). Arlene Saxonhouse discusses the speech of Theseus on this topic in Euripides’ Suppliant Women. See Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, Location 1788–1819 (Kindle edition). She notes that the ability to speak freely generally marks those who are politically enfranchised but here Euripides seems to raise the question of why women are not allowed to speak freely.
7 For the fifth century BC, see Herodotus, 5.78. For the fourth century, see Xenophon, Cyropaedia 1.3.10. The word means equality or equality in speaking. See also Polybius 2.38.6.
8 Thucydides 3.82.8, cf. 2.37.2 (Funeral Oration). Plato, Republic VIII.562b (political equality for men and women).
9 See, e.g., Plato Republic I.343d, V.466d, Symposium 182c, Thucydides 7.69.2.
10 Hannah Arendt, “Philosophy and Politics.” Social Research 71, no. 3 (2004), p. 433, Accessed November 1, 2019. www.jstor.org/stable/40971709.
11 Thomas Hobbes, A History of the Grecian War in Eight Books, Written by Thucydides. Translation by Thomas Hobbes. “Of the Life and History of Thucydides,” p. xxii. London: 1629, imprinted to John Bohn, 1843.
A Note on the Use of Ancient Greek
Wherever an ancient author is quoted, the quotation is printed in polytonic Greek with accents and breathing marks. For Greek words that are not quoted and that denote difficult-to-translate concepts, such as polis (πόλις, city or city-state), kinesis (κίνησις, movement), and polupragmosune (πολυπραγμοσύνη, meddlesomeness), the transliterated word has been italicized. The first time the word appears here I have included the original Greek, generally in the nominative case but not always, as when it is taken directly from an important quotation. After that the Greek words are printed in transliterated Greek. When such words are actually taken from a section of an ancient Greek text, I have printed them in Greek. Translations of Plato and most other authors are mine except where otherwise noted. Translations of Thucydides are those of Richard Crawley, though on occasion I have modified them and noted that. ἀξίωσις (transliterated axiosis) is a special case as the word is rare but of particular importance for Thucydides. Its meaning is valuation, estimation, or act of assigning value, as we shall see.
I have generally included references to Greek texts, for example, Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle, in the text rather than in footnotes, though there are exceptions to this. The references follow standard numbering systems such as the Stephanus page number in Plato, Bekker numbering for Aristotle, and the Oxford Classical Text book, chapter, and section identification elsewhere. References to Thucydides and Plato are generally to the Oxford Classical Text editions as noted in the bibliography.
I do not use a line over a vowel to indicate that the vowel is long in transliterated Greek.
I would like to thank Philip Persinger for his long friendship and consistent support for the idea that Greek drama and the dramatic mode in literature profoundly influence every other ancient Greek genre of writing. I also wish to thank Larry and Raquel Goldberg for many years of reading Plato, Euclid, Nietzsche, and Madison together. I owe the opportunity to learn Greek and Latin to Andrew Zimmerman; I also owe to him and his wife, Dao, a focus on what I believe is of the highest value in philosophy, friendship. I would like to thank my friend Michael for many years of thoughtful discussion of some of the more perplexing works we read.
I thank Prof. Nicholas Bloom of Hunter College in New York for helping me get the time and opportunity to write this book. I also owe a great debt to Prof. George Kennedy of UNC-Chapel Hill for his classes and his support of my work over many years and in many different ways. I would like to remember every day the help I received in Plato and Greek tragedy from Prof. Brooks Otis and in Thucydides from Prof. Henry Immerwahr. I wish also to remember the very timely and thoughtful support I received from Prof. Lou Feldman, late of Yeshiva University.
I also wish
