Only two articles in the past century have attempted reconstructions of this play: Gilbert Norwood in 1930 conjectured a basis in tragic burlesque, specifically a parody of Aeschylus’Edoni, due largely to the presence of Dionysus and a chorus of Babylonians. An entirely different plot was proposed in 1983 by David Welsh, who took as his starting point Herodotus’ account of the fall of Babylon; he thought that the chorus, envisioned as a group of refugees from the Persian empire, reflected the (...) recent arrival in Athens of the grandson of the Persian primarily credited with the capture of Babylon. Though commentators on Aristophanic comedy and politics often affect to be on firm footing about this play, the total dissimilarity of these two reconstructions actually highlights our ignorance. (shrink)

Fustel de Coulanges' thesis that ancient society was founded upon the cult of ancestral tombs has had, for a thoroughly self-contradictory argument, a remarkably successful career. Neither Fustel himself nor the many subsequent scholars who have quoted his views with approval faced clearly the difficulty of deriving a social structure dominated by corporate descent groups from the veneration of tombs placed in individually owned landed property. On the whole, historians have tended to play down Fustel's insistence on the relation between (...) ancestor-cult and property and to exaggerate the role of the corporate kin group. This tendency, which assimilates Fustel to Sir Henry Maine and other lawyers interested in the reconstruction of Indo-European institutions has in my view considerably impeded understanding of the role of kinship in early Greek society; it also obscures one of the most individual aspects of Fustel's work which, thanks to the researches of Philippe Ariès on the development of the modern tomb-cult in the nineteenth century, can now be placed in its historical context. (shrink)

Is there or is there not a reference here to the Megarian Decree? Opinions have differed and no doubt will continue to do so. However, considerable authority has recently been thrown behind the proposition that the matter can be decided on purely linguistic grounds, that merely as a matter of use of Greek the passage cannot contain a reference to the Megarian Decree. This seems, on investigation, to be false, and since confusion appears to persist in the books about the (...) interpretation of Thucydides' text a short discussion may perhaps be of value. (shrink)

This essay considers episodes in which phenomena like war and civil strife affected, changed, and revealed the identity of the polis. Even if framed by an understanding of the Peloponnesian War and the imperialistic logic and destiny of Athens, Thucydides' History still provides us with narratives that illuminate the particular history of “minor” poleis, each with its specific events, turning points, and dynamics. Through analysis of Thucydides' historical material, this essay focuses on Plataea, Corcyra, and Mytilene and discusses the notion (...) of the polis in relation to space and in the context of time, thereby testing Aristotle's question—too soon dismissed—about the separation of a community from the space of its city. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Rhetoric of Parody in Plato's MenexenusFranco V. TrivignoIn Plato's Menexenus, Socrates spends nearly the entire dialogue reciting an epitaphios logos, or funeral oration, that he claims was taught to him by Aspasia, Pericles' mistress. Three difficulties confront the interpreter of this dialogue. First, commentators have puzzled over how to understand the intention of Socrates' funeral oration (see Clavaud 1980, 17–77).1 Some insist that it is parodic, performing an (...) essentially critical function (e.g., Loraux 1986); while others claim that it is serious, in particular as an expression of Plato's political ideal (e.g., Kahn 1963).2 Adherents on both sides seem to think that the options are mutually exclusive.3 Second, commentators have had difficulty understanding why Plato would have Socrates attribute his entire oration to Aspasia (e.g., Coventry 1989, 3; Pownall 2004, 60). Most agree that this move is ironic and that it has something to do with the alleged target of the dialogue's criticism. But scholars have differed over whether the Aspasia reference is meant to implicate Pericles' funeral oration (Monoson 1998), rhetoric in general (Pownall 2004), Athens (Loraux 1986), or even Aeschines (Clavaud 1980).4 Third, scholars have struggled to make sense of the dialogue's "deliberate and fantastic anachronism" (Dodds 1990, 24). In the funeral oration, Socrates relates the history of Athens up to the King's Peace in 386 B.C., a full thirteen years after he has died. This problem has generated the least consensus, with some scholars restricting their analysis [End Page 29] to dating considerations (e.g., Dodds 1990) and at least one speculating that Socrates speaks in this dialogue as a ghost (Rosenstock 1994).5It is the contention of this article that, by understanding the rhetoric of parody in the Menexenus, one can resolve these difficulties and come to a coherent and unified understanding of the philosophical intentions of the dialogue.6 More specifically, I will show that the anachronism is a consequence of a particular parodic strategy, that of amplification; that the dialogue's parody targets not only Pericles' funeral oration in particular but funeral oratory, rhetoric, and Athens as well; and that the parody has serious philosophical implications.7 Further, I claim that the serious philosophical content is both critical and constructive. Plato subverts the civic identity and understanding of virtue encouraged by the genre of funeral oration, and he challenges its praise-based model of political discourse. At the same time, Plato's parodic criticism is not entirely negative, for it relies on alternative paradigms of civic identity, virtue, and political discourse.I. The Rhetoric of ParodyBefore turning to the Menexenus itself, I want to clarify what I mean by parody. For a working definition, I suggest that parody is "an imitation that distorts a target text, author, or genre."8 In order to make some general observations about the rhetoric of parody, I will look briefly at an exemplar of parody from Aristophanes' Frogs. I do so for three reasons: to display two strategies of parodic distortion, to show that parody can have multiple targets, and to argue that parody can have both serious and complex intentions.9In the Frogs (1331–63), Aristophanes uses at least two techniques of parodic distortion, inversion and amplification, in his extended parody of Euripides' monodies or single-actor odes.10 Parodic inversion, broadly speaking, upsets or overturns the target text by distorting the original in a way that reverses the stylistic effect or semantic intention. Parodic amplification hones in on one aspect of the target text and amplifies it to absurdity, often exposing its artificiality as a literary trope.The parodic scene features a woman who awakens, hysterical and terrified, from a god-sent dream, which has conveyed disturbing news. We find in this passage a particular kind of parodic inversion: bathos, the unexpected introduction of the vulgar, ordinary, or mundane, which undermines an otherwise somber tone.11 Consider the following excerpt:Attendants, set alight a lamp for me,Collect the dew of rivers in pitchers [End Page 30] And heat the water,So that I may wash away the god-sent dream.Oh god of the sea... (shrink)

It is well known that Athenian orators, when they made reference to the historical past, usually eschewed prolonged narrative in favour of brief allusions to familiar episodes from Athenian history. Perhaps the most striking exception to this custom is the long and detailed account of fifth-century Plataean history in the pseudo-Demosthenic speech Against Neaera . The main interest of this passage, however, lies not in its divergence from contemporary rhetorical practice, but in its clear reliance on Thucydides for its account (...) of the siege of Plataea during the Peloponnesian War. Indeed, it is unique in Attic oratory in the extent of its reliance on an identifiable historical work. Yet, considering its significance, this passage has received very little scholarly attention, and merits a closer reexamination. (shrink)

πƤΟƩ ΗΔΟΝΗΝ ΛΕƮΕΙΝAt 2.65 Thucydides says of Pericles that he did not speak to please (πρòς ήδoνν λέγειν): he had no need of such means for acquiring influence, since he already enjoyed it because of his recognized merits. But his successors were on the same plane as one another, each one striving to establish himself as the man first in influence with the demos. And in this drive for ascendancy, they began to allow the people's pleasures to shape the advice (...) they gave (༐τράπoντo καθ’ ήςoνàς τŵ δήμω καì τà πράγματα ༐νδιδóναι). (shrink)

Arguing against the long-standing belief that Thuc. 3.82.4 refers to words changing their meanings, this article shows that, according to the passage, the way in which people value actions and apply value-words to actions in peace differs from how they value and apply value-words to the same types of actions in stasis. But the meaning of the value-words themselves remains the same in both circumstances. The passage is about neither meaning nor the propagandistic manipulation of language but about the distorting (...) effect of stasis on the moral assessment of actions. (shrink)

This paper presents the case for reading the Hephaisteion as a temple planned and begun by the Philaid family early in the fifth century. It was originally designed to give a house to Hephaestus in Athens after the successful campaign of Miltiades brought the island of Lemnos, traditionally the home of Hephaestus, under Athenian control. Work on the temple was interrupted by the death of Miltiades but resumed in the wake of Cimon’s successful northern ventures. The strong association of Miltiades (...) and Cimon with the strategic islands of the northern Aegean suggests that the correct interpretation of the Hephaisteion’s east frieze is the expulsion of the Pelasgians from Athens. Their punishment is interpreted here as a mythological analogue for the annexation of the Pelasgians’ island, Lemnos. Evidence from the island demonstrates that the Athenian cleruchs on Lemnos were eager to distinguish themselves from the Lemnians. The Pelasgian episode enabled them to demonstrate this, and to emphasize their Athenian identity. (shrink)

The question of what constitutions should do is deeply connected to what constitutions are. In the American founding conception, a constitution was a fundamental law, hierarchically superior to the decisions of the legislature, and intended to act as a restraint on legislative action. Despite the massive gulf between the ancient Greeks and the Americans, classical Athens offers an important lesson about how the failure to recognize fundamental laws can lead to catastrophic consequences. The evidence suggests that the Athenians understood the (...) need for conceptual, procedural, and institutional distinctions between the fundamental laws and the more specific decrees of the governing institutions. The Athenian and American experiences also suggest that certain philosophical positions conditioned their understanding of their fundamental laws, and guided the practices that followed from that understanding. (shrink)

The scholiasts offer two different dates for the Pythian victory of the Theban Thrasydaios celebrated in Pindar's eleventh Pythian ode: 474 or 454 bce. Following several older scholars, I accept the latter date, mainly because Pindar's myth in this poem is a mini-Oresteia, teeming with what seem to be echoes of the language, plotting, and sequencing of Aischylos' trilogy of 458 bce, as well as allusions to the genre of tragedy in general. Yet even those scholars who have argued for (...) such a dialogue between these two works are at something of a loss to explain it, except as Pindar's admiring homage to the genius of Aischylos. Such accounts reveal the inadequacy of a reading that assumes a narrowly literary system of intertextuality. In order to account for this intertextual, intergeneric dialogue, we need instead to recognize the embeddedness of choral lyric and tragedy within their social and cultural contexts, and their differential relations with “neighboring systems” such as cult ritual. I will argue that Pindar implicitly challenges the tendency of Attic tragedy to displace and appropriate for its own purposes cults that properly belong to other Greek cities. Pindar, in contrast, in Pythian 11 emphasizes the locality and specificity of different communities' relations to the heroes of myth and cult as an important part of traditional choral and civic harmonia. Thus I will argue that these two texts are engaged in a contestatory ritual poetics about the locality and propriety of cult and its relation to the community as mediated through different choral forms. (shrink)

This article highlights two aspects of the language used in Classical Greek literary sources to discuss pitched battle. First, the sources regularly use unqualified forms of the verb kinduneuein, “to take a risk,” when they mean fighting a battle. They do so especially in contexts of deliberation about the need to fight. Second, they often describe the outcome of major engagements in terms of luck, fate, and random chance, at the explicit expense of human agency. Taken together, these aspects of (...) writing on war suggest that pitched battle was seen as an inherently risky course of action with unacceptably unpredictable results, which was therefore best avoided. Several examples show that the decision to fight was indeed evaluated in such terms. This practice casts further doubt on the traditional view that Greek armies engaged in pitched battles as a matter of principle. (shrink)

In his account of the events leading up to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides tells us that in 435b.c.the Epidamnians decided to transfer their allegiance from Corcyra to Corinth in accordance with the Delphic oracle, whereupon the Corinthians agreed to support Epidamnus against their own colony Corcyra. One of the reasons given is that the Corinthians hated the Corcyraeans for their contempt for their mother city, as ‘in their common festivals they would not allow them the customary privileges (...) of founders, at their sacrifice they did not give priority to Corinthians [as other colonies did]’ (οὔτε γὰρ ἐν πανηγύρεσι ταῖς κοιναῖς διδόντες γέρα τὰ νομιζόμενα οὔτε Κορινθίῳ ἀνδρὶ προκαταρχόμενοι τῶν ἱερῶν ὥσπερ αἱ ἄλλαι ἀποικίαι). Precisely what the dispute was and what the word προκατάρχεσθαι means have not been convincingly explained by commentators. (shrink)

Neither the chronology nor the interpretation of the history of the years 375 to 371 BC is yet settled. The date of the peace that followed the Athenian naval victory over Sparta at Alyzeia in Scirophorion 375 is put variously in the second half of 375 or 374 or even in spring 374. The status of the Boeotian cities at the time of the peace as well as the role of the King and the participation of Thebes are controversial, and (...) this affects the interpretation of the peace itself. (shrink)

At the beginning of the fifth century there was a change in the style of clothing worn by Athenian men.1 When Thucydides speaks of it,2 he first describes how the Greeks of ancient times used to carry weapons in everyday life, just as the barbarians of his own day still did. The Athenians were the first to lay weapons aside and to take up a relaxed and more luxurious way of life.

Through a specific example, this paper explores the problems of empiricism and ideology in the uses of material-cultural and visual evidence for the writing of ancient history. The focus is on an Athenian documentary stele with a fine relief from the late fifth century bc, the history of its publications, and their failure to account for the totality of the object's information—sculptural and epigraphic—let alone the range of rhetorical ambiguities that its texts and images implied in their fifth-century context. While (...) the paper reflects on the Samos Stele, it also considers the broader hermeneutic problems of approaching the different discourses ofword and imagewithin antiquity andworries about the distortions introduced into ancient history by modern formulations, descriptions, and translations of the past. (shrink)

The reception of the work of Thucydides in late antique authors constitutes a huge chapter of allusions and reworkings, on methodological, structural, lexical levels and more. A fortiori, certain particularly famous passages by the historian are well suited for a study of their reception, above all where key terms or rare expressions are concentrated. The case of the adjective ἀλγεινός, a poeticism declined twice in the epitaphios of Pericles (2.39 and 2.43) offers interesting material of this kind in the work (...) of Dexippus, the Athenian historian of the third century A.D., and in the romance author Heliodorus. Alongside a secure reference to 2.39 in Dexippus (F28 Martin = F34 Mecella), already identified by Stein, it is possible to identify a further reuse in another fragment, probably extracted from a demegoria (F26b Martin = F32b Mecella). In the light of these examples, it becomes more likely that we can see a reminiscence of Thucydides also in a passage of Heliodorus of Emesa (5.29), already proposed by van Krevelen but omitted from the repertory of citations present in the Aethiopica prepared by Feuillâtre. (shrink)

The prominence of the island city of Corcyra in Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War presents a puzzle. It appears in the opening of the work in a conflict with its mother city Corinth, after which representatives of both Corinth and Corcyra deliver speeches at Athens. Further conflict between the two cities follows, with Athens supporting Corcyra. Later on, Thucydides depicts two unusually graphic episodes ofstasisat Corcyra. This prominence is surprising, given that the historian himself explicitly states that the initial (...) set of events involving the island does not in fact represent the beginning of the war, and that the Corcyreanstasisis not the first in the war, and that, as has been often observed, it is not even particularly remarkable or influential in it. In what follows, I seek to clarify Thucydides’ use of the island first by exploring ancient views of Corcyra's ‘predecessor’, Homer's Phaeacia, and by arguing that perceptions of the mythical place mirror and reinforce beliefs about its successor Corcyra. An interpretation of Phaeacia as a representative of excess luxury, weakness and friendlessness requires an aggressive reading of Homer. As Rose and others have made clear, however, this position is defensible even if not all readers may choose to accede to it. A significant strand of ancient opinion seems to have adopted a similar attitude as well, perhaps projecting a fifth-century prejudice identified by Rusten back onto Corcyra's Homeric forerunner. In the second part of this paper, I argue that this background influences Thucydides’ presentation of Corcyra, and that the historian emphasizes the story of the island in order to illustrate a pattern of extravagant wealth followed by civic collapse that would have been readily recognizable to an ancient audience. The fact that Thucydides’ Corcyra-story traces all the stages of this process, from a nod to Homeric opulence through pre-war selfishness to wartime collapse, effectively explains his conspicuous use of the city. (shrink)

This paper argues that spatial contingencies, defined by the relationship between where historical actors are in the narrative and what they say, are crucial for understanding the political and ideological effects of Thucydides' History. A comprehensive approach to these contingencies is linked to two related premises. First, that the city of Athens is the principal spatial referent in the History and, second, that Athens refers both to a set of “real” topographical features and to a transcendent and trans-historical ideal that (...) exceeds those features. The dynamic between these two is mediated by Athens' inevitable defeat and by the related conflict between the History as the presentation of facts about the past, on the one hand, and as the source of future predictions, on the other. Framing this analysis are the distinctive characteristics ascribed to the Athenians as a collective and to the positions of Thucydides and Alcibiades as Athenians in exile. (shrink)