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Fear, Honor and Profit?: Ambiguity and Ideation in Thucydides' Athenian Speech
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August 23, 2006
'Fear, Honor and Profit’: Ambiguity and Ideation in Thucydides' Athenian Speech
Daniel P. TompkinsDepartment of Greek and Roman ClassicsTemple UniversityDaniel.## email not listed ##
I
Athenian Culture in Thucydides 1.68-73
I begin with a single sentence from a Thucydidean speech.
Why just one sentence? Because at the sentence level a text levels intimately with us, its tics, quivers, and sidelong glances hinting at inward dispositions. This essay will proceed from telltale tics and quivers to an assessment of how Athenians view the world and how they act in it, then to how this helps us understand Thucydides.
I will argue that decision-making in Thucydides hinges as much on world view as on the classical realist struggle for power or neorealist fear and competition; that notions about the causal force of an “unchanging human nature” rest on a misreading of Thucydides’ treatment of this term.
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In conclusion, I’ll invert the “nature / culture” paradigm to
“culture / nature,” arguing that when Athenians speak about “human nature,” they’re describing not the timeless truths of “nature” but the time-bound contingencies of their own “culture.”
Here is the sentence:
We assert that we alone led in taking a risk against the Persians at Marathon, and being too few to oppose them on land on their return, went all of us into the ships and fought him at Salamis, checking him from ravaging the Peloponnese city by city, since the inhabitants would have been unable to assist each other against his overwhelming force.
Phamen gar Marathôni te monoi prokinduneusai tôi barbarôi kai hote to husteron êlthen, ouch hikanoi ontes kata gên amunesthai, esbantes es tas naus pandêmei en Salamini xunnaumachesai, hoper esche mê kata poleis auton epipleonta tên Peloponnêson porthein, adunatôn an ontôn pros naus pollas allêlois epiboêthein.(1.73.4)
In forty-five words, this stirring sentence celebrates an achievement that required several
1 Morgenthau, Wendt
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| | Authors: Tompkins, Daniel. |
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August 23, 2006
'Fear, Honor and Profit’: Ambiguity and Ideation in Thucydides' Athenian Speech
Daniel P. Tompkins
Department of Greek and Roman Classics
Temple University
Daniel.## email not listed ##
I
Athenian Culture in Thucydides 1.68-73
I begin with a single sentence from a Thucydidean speech.
Why just one sentence? Because at the sentence level a text levels intimately with us,
its tics, quivers, and sidelong glances hinting at inward dispositions. This essay will
proceed from telltale tics and quivers to an assessment of how Athenians view the world
and how they act in it, then to how this helps us understand Thucydides.
I will argue that decision-making in Thucydides hinges as much on world view as on the
classical realist struggle for power or neorealist fear and competition; that notions about
the causal force of an “unchanging human nature” rest on a misreading of Thucydides’
treatment of this term.
In conclusion, I’ll invert the “nature / culture” paradigm to
“culture / nature,” arguing that when Athenians speak about “human nature,” they’re
describing not the timeless truths of “nature” but the time-bound contingencies of their
own “culture.”
Here is the sentence:
We assert that we alone led in taking a risk against the Persians at Marathon, and
being too few to oppose them on land on their return, went all of us into the ships
and fought him at Salamis, checking him from ravaging the Peloponnese city by
city, since the inhabitants would have been unable to assist each other against his
overwhelming force.
Phamen gar Marathôni te monoi prokinduneusai tôi barbarôi kai hote to
husteron êlthen, ouch hikanoi ontes kata gên amunesthai, esbantes es tas naus
pandêmei en Salamini xunnaumachesai, hoper esche mê kata poleis auton
epipleonta tên Peloponnêson porthein, adunatôn an ontôn pros naus pollas
allêlois epiboêthein.
(1.73.4)
In forty-five words, this stirring sentence celebrates an achievement that required several
1 Morgenthau, Wendt
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