¹ Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. I cite the following commentators by name: Classen, J. and Steup, C., Thukydides, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1919 ⁵)Google Scholar; Fantasia, U. (ed.), Tucidide: La Guerra del Peloponneso. Libro II (Pisa, 2003)Google Scholar; Gomme, A.W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1956)Google Scholar; Hornblower, S., A Commentary on Thucydides. Volume 1: Books I–III (Oxford, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rusten, J.S. (ed.), The Peloponnesian War Book II (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar.

² Hammond, N.G.L., ‘Plataea's relations with Thebes, Sparta, and Athens’, JHS 112 (1992), 143–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar gives a succinct history of the interactions of Plataea with its immediate neighbour, Thebes, and its recourse to Athens. For the invasion of Plataea from a strategic standpoint, Bloedow, E.F., the, ‘Archidamus “intelligent” Spartan’, Klio 65 (1983), 27–49Google Scholar, at 42–3 outlines the differing interpretations. On the innovative nature of the siege, see P.B. Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare (Bloomington, IN, 1999), 103–9.

³ E.g. J.R. Grant, ‘Toward knowing Thucydides’, Phoenix 28 (1974), 81–94, at 86. Recently affirmed by S. Hornblower, Thucydidean Themes (Oxford, 2010), 166, ‘it would surely have been taken to show that Zeus was on the side of the Plataians … Thucydides, whatever he himself thought of such reasoning, will have known that most of his readers would sympathize with it’. See too R. Bruzzone, ‘Weather, luck and the divine in Thucydides’, in K. Ulanowski (ed.), The Religious Aspects of War in the Ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome (Leiden, 2016), 180–93, at 180: ‘Thucydides’ narrative implies that divine forces associated with the one-time victory over barbarians indeed exist and object to transgression.’

⁴ This is regularly interpreted as a sign of narratorial disquiet; see e.g. Gomme on 77.6: ‘he [Thucydides] did not at once believe all that he was told, including a story that Plataia was saved in much the same way as Croesus had been.’ H.D. Westlake, ‘ΛΕΓΕΤΑΙ in Thucydides’, Mnemosyne 30 (1977), 345–62, at 354: ‘His use of a legetai phrase seems here to convey not uncertainty about the facts but rather a sense of uneasiness because the thunderstorm might be thought to be the outcome of divine intervention, as was doubtless claimed by at least some of his informants.’ Rusten ad loc. states that it ‘implies that T. does not himself vouch for the story’. By contrast, Hornblower ad loc. finds the interpretation of λέγεται as a distancing effect unnecessary.

⁵ Foster, E., ‘The rhetoric of materials: Thucydides and Lucretius’, AJPh 130 (2009), 367–99Google Scholar, at 378. At 376 n. 24, Foster finds it evocative of the philosophy of Empedocles, and does not observe the reference to Anaxagoras.

⁶ Thucydides does not elsewhere stay so close to a Presocratic fragment, but 2.28 also appears to follow Anaxagoras’ explanation on the lunar eclipse, for which see DK 59 A 42, Plut. Vit. Per. 35.2 and Cic. Rep. 1.25. For discussion of the relationship, A. Moleti, ‘Tucidide Anassagoreo’, AION 34 (2012), 31–61, at 50–3. Of value as a reception of Thucydides’ relationship to his intellectual milieu is the statement from Marcellinus 22 admitting Thucydides to the circle of Anaxagoras. It is evident that there was an earlier biographical tradition linking the two from the following comment on the otherwise unknown Antyllus, who held that Thucydides became slightly godless, ἄθεος, from their association. This should not be taken as evidence that the biographical tradition has historical value. W. Nestle, ‘Thukydides und die Sophistik’, [Neue] Jahrb. 33 (1914), 649–85, at 651 rejects the influence of Anaxagoras and his philosophy of mind on Thucydides’ History, but admits that ‘Dagegen hat er sich allerdings die physikalischen Ergebnisse der vorsokratischen Philosophie, das Naturwissenschaftliche im engeren Sinn zu eigen gemacht: das beweist die völlige Unbefangenheit, womit er den Naturvorgängen gegenübersteht.’ Alternatively, S. West, ‘ὅρκου παῖς ἐστιν ἀνώνυμος: the aftermath of the Plataean perjury’, CQ 53 (2003), 438–47, at 446 finds the notion of influence from Anaxagoras in general in the History ‘simplistic’, noting in particular Thucydides’ encomium to Nicias at 7.86.5 as at odds with Anaxagorean philosophy.

⁷ For these oaths and the question of perjury, see n. 41 below.

⁸ Following Classen and Steup ad loc. as well as Gomme ad loc., with ἀπ᾽αὐτοῦ referring to ἀπὸ τοῦ πυρός.

⁹ E.g. R. Shilleto, Thucydidis II (Cambridge, 1880), on 2.77.4; W.E. Leonard and S.B. Smith, De rerum natura libri sex (Madison, 1942), on 1.897–920.

¹⁰ By contrast, Thucydides does not make the reference explicit. Anaxagoras’ popularity is evident already in the early fourth century, e.g. Pl. Ap. 26d–e = DK 59 A 35, Pl. Phd. 96c–d, 97b8–98c2. For work on Thucydides and Anaxagoras, E. Golfin, ‘Thucydides and Anaxagoras or a philosophical beginning to historical thought?’, DHA 33 (2007), 35–56; Moleti (n. 6), 31–61; Σ.Α. Σταμούλη, Η φιλολογική και φιλοσοφική διάσταση στην Ιστορία του Θουκυδίδη (Athens, 2014), 93–5.

¹¹ For a recent overview of Anaxagoras’ status as a source in Lucretius, see F. Montarese, Lucretius and his Sources (Berlin, 2013), 235–43. Brown, R.D., ‘Lucretian ridicule of Anaxagoras’, CQ 33 (1983), 146–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Tatum, J., ‘The Presocratics in Book One of Lucretius’ De rerum natura’, TAPhA 114 (1984), 177–89Google Scholar remain fundamental.

¹² E.g. Diod. Sic. 1.13.3. Lucr. 5.1091–100 finds lightning or branches rubbing together responsible for giving fire to humans. R. Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford, 1982), 377: ‘I have tried persistently to save Thucydides’ reputation, but have not yet found any forester or timber merchant who is prepared to believe that a forest fire could possibly arise in this way.’ There are four additional instances in Greek and Latin literature that I have identified as giving the same explanation; notably, these are all scientific or philosophical works: Vitr. De arch. 2.1.1; Manilius 1.856–8; Anon. Aetna 364–6; Ael. NA 16.39.23–6. Elsewhere, mountain fires were associated with the advance of society through the discovery of ore, e.g. Posidonius, FGrHist 87 F 47, F 48.

¹³ Lucretius is less critical of Anaxagoras than, for example, Heraclitus: Brown (n. 11), 150; Tatum (n. 11), 183.

¹⁴ Manilius 1.856–8 gives evidence for the presence of fire within all objects in a manner evocative of Lucretius’ Anaxagoras. See P.B. Paisley and D.R. Oldroyd, ‘Science in the Silver Age: Aetna, a classical theory of volcanic activity’, Centaurus 23 (1979), 1–20.

¹⁵ Simplicius, In Phys. 27.2 = DK 59 B 12. For a discussion of Lucretius’ misreading of Anaxagoras here, see Vlastos, G., ‘The physical theory of Anaxagoras’, PhR 59 (1950), 31–57Google Scholar, at 48–51.

¹⁶ E.g. Gorgias’ On Nature at DK 82 B 3.68–9.

¹⁷ Moleti (n. 6), 49 rightly observes that Thucydides cites Anaxagoras in this passage, but argues against the notion that Lucretius and Thucydides took the passage from Anaxagoras, and instead finds it more probable that Lucretius took the exemplum from Thucydides on the basis that 1) the passages are practically identical and 2) it would be a strange coincidence if each author picked the same passage of Anaxagoras to quote from. This is hardly persuasive. Evidently, 1.871–4 prepares for the reference: in lignis si flamma latet fumusque cinisque | ex alienigenis consistant ligna necessest | ex alienigenis, quae lignis exoriuntur. Similar priming is found at 1.891–2: postremo in lignis cinerem fumumque uideri | cum praefracta forent, ignisque latere minutos.

¹⁸ For the relationship between Anaxagoras and Homer, see Shaw, M.M., ‘Parataxis in Anaxagoras: seeds and worlds in fragment B4a’, Epoché 21 (2017), 273–88Google Scholar. Lucretian scholars have rightly looked to Homer for the metaphor of flammai … flore (1.900): cf. C. Bailey, Titi Lucreti Cari De rerum natura libri sex, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1947), ad loc., citing Plut. De fac. 943B with its variant reading of Il. 9.212, and also noting Aesch. PV 7.

¹⁹ The bronze arms of the army at Il. 2.455–8 gleam like a forest fire on the mountain; the sound of the clash of the armies in battle at Il. 14.396–7 is like a forest fire on the mountain; cf. Amm. Marc. 21.16.11.

²⁰ R. Janko, The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume IV: Books 13–16 (Cambridge, 1992), on 15.605–9: ‘the forest fire … is a traditional image (14.394–9n.). The simile's continuation means that Ares rages “in the mountains” and the fire is personified; the fusion of war god and fire is apt amid the roar of the narrative’.

²¹ Wind often marks out heightened action on the epic battlefield: A. Purves, ‘Wind and time in Homeric epic’, TAPhA 140 (2010), 323–50, at 328.

²² On Quintus’ similes during the sack of Troy, see the perceptive comments of T. Scheijnen, ‘Ways to die for warriors: death similes in Homer and Quintus of Smyrna’, Hermes 145 (2017), 2–23, at 19–22. E. Kneebone, ‘Fish in battle? Quintus of Smyrna and the Halieutica of Oppian’, in M. Baumbach and S. Bär (edd.), Quintus of Smyrna: Transforming Homer in Second Sophistic Epic (Berlin, 2007), 285–306, at 297–300 discusses the importance of fire imagery in the Posthomerica, drawing attention to this passage. For Quintus of Smyrna's independence in taking over Homeric models, see S. Bär, ‘Reading Homer, writing Troy: intertextuality and narrativity of the gods and the divine in Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica’, in J.J. Clauss, M. Cuypers and A. Kahane (edd.), The Gods of Greek Hexameter Poetry: From the Archaic Age to Late Antiquity and Beyond (Stuttgart, 2016), 215–30.

²³ Unique to epic; always used as an attribute of fire at the line end, e.g. Il. 12.177, 12.441, 15.597, 20.490, 21.342, 21.381, 23.216 and Od. 4.418.

²⁴ Fire is to be associated with Hephaestus: e.g. Hes. Theog. 864–5; Pind. Pyth. 3.36–40.

²⁵ See W.A. Lamberton, Thucydides Books II and III (New York, 1905), 2.77.18: ‘ἀνιέναι is used of sprouting vegetation, gushing springs, rising breezes’, with examples.

²⁶ Compare the emphasis on reason vs the irrational in Thucydides, for which see H.-P. Stahl, Thucydides: Man's Place in History (Swansea, 2003); also S.I. Oost, ‘Thucydides and the irrational: sundry passages’, CPh 70 (1975), 186–96; V. Pothou, ‘Paralogos polemos: irrationality and war in Thucydides’, in G. Rechenauer and V. Pothou (edd.), Thucydides – A Violent Teacher? (Göttingen, 2011), 261–77.

²⁷ DK 59 B 19; cf. Xen. DK 21 B 32. Anaxagoras apparently studied Homeric epic and revealed its program of virtue and justice, DK 59 A 1.29–31.

²⁸ DK 59 A 72, A 73.

²⁹ Pl. Ap. 26d. For the tradition on the negative Athenian reception of Anaxagoras, see e.g. Diod. Sic. 12.39; Plut. Vit. Per. 32. On Anaxagoras explaining the ‘mechanisms of the gods’, see Xen. Mem. 4.7.6.

³⁰ It was not included in the fragments of DK; P. Curd, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae: Fragments and Testimonia: A Text and Translation with Notes and Essays (Toronto, 2007) incorporates it as a footnote following Lucretius’ citation, briefly observing (at 98 n. 23): ‘[t]his passage is quite similar to a comment in Thucydides about the fire set by the Peloponnesians at Plataea’. D.W. Graham, The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics (Cambridge, 2010) includes it in the fragments to Anaxagoras at F 12b.

³¹ For Thucydides and fifth-century intellectual culture, see Dion. Hal. Thuc. 24, 46; Ps.-Dion. Hal. Ars rhet. 11.2; [Plut.] X orat. 832E; Philostr. Ep. 73; Hermog. Id. 2.11, 2.12 Rabe; Schol. in Ael. Arist. Or. 124.14 Dindorf; Schol. in Thuc. 4.135.2. The connection of Thucydides to Anaxagoras is rejected on erroneous chronological grounds at the Schol. in Thuc. 8.109.1.

³² For Thucydides’ relationship to his philosophical intellectual milieu, recent good work includes R. Thomas, ‘Thucydides’ intellectual milieu and the plague’, in A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis (edd.), Brill's Companion to Thucydides (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 87–108; D. Shanske, Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History (New York, 2007); S. Hornblower, ‘Intellectual affinities’, in J.S. Rusten (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Thucydides (Oxford, 2009), 29–88.

³³ Calder, W.M. III, ‘A fragment of Anaxagoras in Thucydides?’, CQ 34 (1984), 485–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 485, ‘I should seclude ἤδη … ἀνῆκεν. χειροποίητον makes the gloss redundant. Its sentiment too is suspect … The narrative flows untroubled after excision.’

³⁴ With K. Maurer, Interpolation in Thucydides (Leiden, 1995), 8 n. 15.

³⁵ Marcellinus 22.6–8. Commentators largely accept its authenticity, often with reservations on its acuity: Gomme ad loc. does not entertain the notion that it is interpolated, but offers that it is ‘a somewhat childish instance of “the largest ever”; the largest bonfire’; Rusten ad loc. agrees that it is ‘indeed not an impressive observation’, and rejects the notion that it is an interpolation; Hornblower ad loc. is an exception, and states that it may be a gloss; and Fantasia ad loc. finds the notion that it is an interpolation improbable. Foster (n. 5), 375 n. 21 argues that it is Thucydidean rather than an interpolation on the basis that ‘the sentence exhibits Thucydidean prose habits’.

³⁶ Maurer (n. 34), 7–8 finds that long additions to the text are not convincing in Thucydides. Nor does he identify it as an incorporation of a ‘parallel’ passage written in the margins.

³⁷ On the autonomy of Plataea outside of Thucydides, see Diod. Sic. 12.41.2. At Ps.-Dem. 59.98–9 the Lacedaemonians are said to take revenge against Plataea during the attempted Theban invasion and here for Plataea's action immediately after the Graeco-Persian Wars in bringing a suit against the Lacedaemonians, forcing the erasure of Pausanias’ name from the tripod and fining them 1,000 talents.

³⁸ P.A. Stadter, ‘Thucydides as a “reader” of Herodotus’, in E. Foster and D. Lateiner (edd.), Thucydides and Herodotus (Oxford, 2012), 39–63, at 49 maintains that Archidamus’ speech is ‘a model of sophistry’. For treatments of the exchange, see F.M. Wasserman, ‘The speeches of king Archidamus in Thucydides’, CJ 48 (1953), 193–200, at 198; H.D. Westlake, Individuals in Thucydides (London, 1968), 132–4; Bloedow (n. 2), 43–5; E. Badian, From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentacontaetia (Baltimore, 1993), 109–14. R.D. Luginbill, Thucydides on War and National Character (Boulder, 1999), 109–10; P. Debnar, Speaking the Same Language: Speech and Audience in Thucydides’ Spartan Debate (Ann Arbor, 2001), 96–101.

³⁹ M.C. Taylor, Thucydides, Pericles, and the Idea of Athens in the Peloponnesian War (Cambridge, 2010), 93–6, for a reading of the proposal in which Archidamus asks the Plataeans to act like the Athenians, with additional bibliography at 95. Stahl (n. 26), 81 rightly notes that the choice for Plataea is not entirely free, as their women and children are in Athens; Zatta, C., ‘Conflict, people, and city-space: some exempla from Thucydides’ History’, ClAnt 30 (2011), 318–50Google Scholar, at 327–8 interprets the offer in light of the unique position the land of Plataea occupies in the cultural imaginary and the Spartan aim to control Plataea to interfere with Athens more easily.

⁴⁰ It is their suggestion for the Ionian islands under Persian threat at Hdt. 9.106.3.

⁴¹ Badian (n. 38), 110–11; M.F. Williams, Ethics in Thucydides: The Ancient Simplicity (Lanham, MD, 1998), 141, who interprets Archidamus’ appeal to the oath as sophistic; D.M. Carter, ‘Could a Greek oath guarantee a claim right? Oaths, contracts, and the structure of obligation in classical Athens’, in A. Sommerstein and J. Fletcher (edd.), Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society (Exeter, 2007), 60–72, at 71 argues that the oath sworn by Sparta imposes a claim right on the city; see D. Lateiner, ‘Oaths: theory and practice in the Histories of Herodotus and Thucydides’, in E. Foster and D. Lateiner (edd.), Thucydides and Herodotus (Oxford, 2012), 154–84, at 173–4 for the entire series of oaths and counter-oaths; and West (n. 6), 438–47 on the Plataeans’ putting Thebans to death at Thuc. 2.5.6, and at 446: ‘[t]he unresolvable suspicion of perjury gives to the city's sufferings a theological significance’. For the appeal to the region's gods and heroes, see Thuc. 4.87.2. Recall that at 7.18.2 the Peloponnesians recognize that Thebes committed the first injustice in attacking in peacetime and admitted their complicity in this act.

⁴² Badian (n. 38), 112–13 assumes Thucydides treats Archidamus’ appeal to the gods as rhetorical because of the historian's ‘contempt for established Greek religion’. As Debnar (n. 38), 100 notes, he is the only figure to give a speech to the gods in the History.

⁴³ 2.77.2. The small size of the city contributes to the παρ᾽ ἐλπίδα effect of their resistance: Stahl (n. 26), 82–3.

⁴⁴ The perversion of the Graeco-Persian Wars relationship is marked not only by the speeches but also by the presence of Plataea's ‘wooden wall’ (2.75.4) built opposite the mound Sparta creates to attack the city. For the Plataeans as surrogate Athenians, J. Morrison, Reading Thucydides (Columbus, 2006), 54.

⁴⁵ Classen and Steup on 2.77 argue that it requires an ending such as ‘und eine solche Flamme ist wohl schon noch größer gewesen’, but this is not present.

⁴⁶ There is a similar homology in the auxesis at 1.23.3, which foregrounds natural phenomena. For this passage, see W. Furley, ‘Thucydides and religion’, in A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis (edd.), Brill's Companion to Thucydides (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 415–38, at 423; R. Munson, ‘Natural upheavals in Thucydides (and Herodotus)’, in C.A. Clark, E. Foster and J.P. Hallett (edd.), Kinesis: The Ancient Depiction of Gesture, Motion, and Emotion (Ann Arbor, 2015), 41–59.

⁴⁷ V. Gray, ‘Thucydides’ source citations’, CQ 61 (2011), 75–90, at 78: it ‘encourages us to read the episode in terms of the contrast between technê (“design”) and tychê (“chance”)’. Chance plays a crucial role elsewhere in the History: L. Edmunds, Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides (Cambridge, MA, 1975) and D. Cartwright, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Ann Arbor, 1997), 77, who comments at 1.120.5 on the triumph of chance over rational calculation: ‘Within this rather loose and unreliable framework man in Th. is responsible for his own actions. Nothing is assigned (as in Herodotus, for instance) to gods.’

⁴⁸ Cf. Schol. in Thuc. 6.36.1 ἀπὸ ταὐτομάτου: ἐξ ἀλόγου συμπτώματος.

⁴⁹ The fire may be considered ‘artificial’ because pitch and sulphur are added, as in Procop. Pers. 1.7.14 of an ‘artificial hill’.

⁵⁰ D. Sedley, Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity (Berkeley, 2007), 18 argues that Anaxagoras’ use of seeds appears like spontaneous generation but is not: ‘Indeed, Theophrastus speaks approvingly of Anaxagoras’ doctrine of ubiquitous seeds for precisely this merit—its reduction of the need to postulate spontaneous generation.’ Cf. Theophr. Caus. pl. 1.5.2–3. At Arist. Metaph. 984b12–20, Anaxagoras’ theory of nous is opposed to chance and to τὸ αὐτόματον.

⁵¹ Transl. A. Laks and G.W. Most, Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, MA, 2016), D 32 = DK 59 A 67.

⁵² DGE I.1 ‘que actúa por sí mismo, por propia voluntad o impulso’. The substantive is used at Hdt. 2.66.4 of a cat's death: ‘it dies from natural causes’ (ἀποθάνῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου), i.e. from internal causes. Cf. too Hdt. 2.14.2, 8.37.2, 8.138.2, for translation as ‘of x's own motion’.

⁵³ The opposition of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations holds too at Thuc. 6.91.7: οἷς τε γὰρ ἡ χώρα κατεσκεύασται, τὰ πολλὰ πρὸς ὑμᾶς τὰ μὲν ληφθέντα, τὰ δ’ αὐτόματα ἥξει. Cf. 6.36.2, on which C.F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides Book 6 (Boston, 1913), ad loc. notes: ‘ἀπὸ ταὐτομάτου: of themselves, sua sponte’.

⁵⁴ 2.77.5. For closure by barely escaping danger, H.-P. Stahl, ‘The dot on the “i”: Thucydidean epilogues’, in A. Tsakmakis and M. Tamiolaki (edd.), Thucydides between History and Literature (Göttingen, 2013), 309–28, at 321. T. Rood, Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford, 1998), 279–82 on the rhetoric of ‘what might have been’.

⁵⁵ This need not mean that no wind was present; it is likely the Peloponnesians waited for it, as the genitive absolute is probably not conditional, but better understood as temporal: εἰ δύναιντο πνεύματος γενομένου. Wind is often interpreted as a random phenomenon in the History: S. Flory, ‘Thucydides’ hypotheses about the Peloponnesian War’, TAPhA 118 (1988), 43–56, at 54.

⁵⁶ Gray (n. 47), 79 finds it attributed to chance through the verb ξυμβῆναι, though this interpretation is less likely given the emplotment in terms of divine motivation.

⁵⁷ See n. 4 above.

⁵⁸ E.g. the comedic play on the popular conception of rain and thunder at Ar. Nub. 367–8, 373–4. The phrase is often used of divine signs: Polyaenus, Strat. 7.12, Darius invokes Apollo, and the god hears and sends ‘rain from heaven’, ὕδωρ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ; Arr. Anab. 1.17.5–6, Alexander considers building a temple to Olympian Zeus and a sudden thunderstorm breaks out, which he interprets as a divine sign. Cf. Aristid. Hieroi Logoi 4.329. Hornblower ad loc. suggests that the thunder is a vindication of the claim that Thebes has perjured itself in invading Plataea in a time of peace: ‘thunder was not worth mentioning unless it was seen by some as an indication of the attitude of Zeus. It would surely have been taken to show that Zeus was on the side of the Plataians, which would suggest, not only that the Plataians had not offended him, but that the Thebans had.’ In an Athenian decree from 418/417, IG Ι³ 84, there is preserved: καὶ τε͂ς τάφρο καὶ το͂ ὕδατος κρατε͂ν το͂ ἐγ Διὸς τὸν μισθοσάμενον. This demonstrates that rainwater is commonly viewed as ‘water from Zeus’, adding force to the interpretation that ‘water from heaven’ would imply ‘water from Zeus’ to Thucydides’ contemporaries.

⁵⁹ Grant (n. 3), 86 is typical: ‘To this completed account Thucydides adds a Croesus-like storm which put an end to the danger, introduced, to be sure, by λέγεται, but by its inclusion revealing Thucydides’ taste for melodrama, and showing that the austere scientist was not always in the driver's seat.’ Cf. Bacchyl. 3.53–6.

⁶⁰ M. Dillon, Omens and Oracles: Divination in Ancient Greece (New York, 2017), 183: ‘Lightning and thunder from a clear sky were irrefutably signs of heaven's favour.’

⁶¹ West (n. 6), 441 notes the parallel summarily but concludes pessimistically at 442 that it is ‘a pity that the latter's date is quite uncertain’. Even if it is uncertain that the Plataeans knew it, doubtless Thucydides’ audience did.

⁶² So too the Plataeans surrender as suppliants at the end of the siege, 3.58.3 and 3.59.2.

⁶³ LIMC i.556 s.v. ‘Alkmene’; see also A.B. Cook, Zeus, vol. 3.1 (Cambridge, 1940), ‘Pyre-extinguishing rain’, 506–24. For the tragedy's connection with the Lysistrata, Faraone, C.A., ‘Salvation and female heroics in the parodos of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata’, JHS 67 (1997), 38–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 40–1. Hahnemann, C., ‘Mount Oita revisited: Sophokles’ Trachiniai in light of the evidence of Aischylos’ Herakleidai’, ZPE 126 (1999), 67–73Google Scholar, at 71–2 for the argument that Aeschylus’ Herakleidai included the narrative of his apotheosis with a reference to being ‘showered’, κἀξηιονήθην, by the intervention of Zeus.

⁶⁴ Cf. Ar. Lys. 324, ὑπό τ᾿ ἀνέμων ἀργαλέων Henderson, and the action of the women in dousing the men holding the torch much as the Hyades douse the pyre in the Italian vase tradition; also Lys. 350–1. The entire passage on the firing of the Acropolis may parody the Alcmene of Euripides, for which note the cautious conclusion of Faraone (n. 63), 41.

⁶⁵ For a compilation of omens arising from thunder and lightning in warfare, see W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, Part III: Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 119–22. See too W. Furley, Andokides and the Herms: A Study of Crisis in Fifth-Century Athenian Religion (London, 1996), 96; Dillon (n. 60), 182–4 with references.

⁶⁶ Cf. Ar. Ach. 170–1 for the raindrop as a ‘sign of Zeus’ (διοσημία) and Eupolis, fr. 99 K.–A., which preserves criticism of an unknown demagogue in the Demes who outrageously threatened the generals at Mantineia with punishment for waiting to begin battle because of the god's thunder (τοῦ θεοῦ βροντῶντος).

⁶⁷ Foster (n. 5), 387. The above analysis agrees with the recent work of L. Kallet, ‘Thucydides, Apollo, the plague, and the war’, AJPh 134 (2013), 355–82, in which she argues that Thucydides includes divine intervention in the History as a potential interpretation of the plague. Unlike the plague, in 2.77.4 Thucydides discloses a rival ‘mechanistic’ interpretation of the failure of the fire to destroy Plataea.

⁶⁸ See C.A. Powell, ‘Religion and the Sicilian expedition’, Historia 28 (1979), 15–31, at 31 on this passage: ‘The failure of the expeditionary force to escape in 413 from the Great Harbour was due to divination. And the low morale of Athenian troops, which contributed to the final catastrophe, was largely a result of religious fears.’ For the parallel loss of morale and the rise of superstition, see B. Jordan, ‘Religion in Thucydides’, TAPhA 116 (1986), 119–47, at 146. Cf. Thuc. 5.103.2.

⁶⁹ For this passage as pitting the intention (γνώμη) of the Peloponnesians against probabilities anticipated by Phormio, see J. de Romilly, Histoire et raison chez Thucydides (Paris, 1956), 125–8, 172.

⁷⁰ This is generally interpreted as playing a solely strategic role through Phormio's knowledge of regional weather conditions (e.g. Hornblower on 2.83.3 and 2.84.2). For the manipulation of the wind in a sea-battle, cf. Plut. Vit. Them. 14.2–4.

⁷¹ In speech it is attributed to chance and inexperience, 2.87.2. See G. Crane, Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity: The Limits of Political Realism (Berkeley, 1998), 45–6. On the historical question of the wind as a strategically manipulated element by Phormio, see J. Morton, The Role of the Physical Environment in Ancient Greek Seafaring (Boston, 2001), 91–7 and 91 n. 37.

⁷² With Rood (n. 54), 130: ‘It is a mistake, in a naval context, to attach so much importance to numbers—and to be angered by a subversion of traditional land values.’ For analysis of the passage, see Stahl (n. 26), 87; V. Hunter, ‘Thucydides, Gorgias, and mass psychology’, Hermes 114 (1986), 412–29, at 416–18. The Spartans’ first attempts at sea are characterized as unsuccessful: E. Millender, ‘Sparta and the crisis of the Peloponnesian League in Thucydides’ History’, in S. Forsdyke, E. Foster and R. Balot (edd.), The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides (Oxford, 2017), 81–98, at 87–90. Another serious but abortive attempt is made by the Spartans to take the port of Piraeus by surprise at 2.93. It is clear that it would have devastated Athens, but the Peloponnesians in the end decide against sailing to the port because of their fear of danger, and it is said (λέγεται) that some wind prevented it (2.93.4). The narratorial assessment of their failure borders on derision in a counterfactual stating that, if they had not been so willing to delay, they could have easily taken the Piraeus, ‘and no wind could have prevented it’ (2.94.1).

⁷³ P.A. Stadter, A Commentary on Plutarch's Pericles (Chapel Hill, 1989), 6.2. Cf. Pl. Phdr. 270a.

⁷⁴ For the narrator's rationalization of weather phenomena, see also 2.28, 3.88.3, 3.89.4–5, 7.79.3 and V. Pothou, ‘Transformation of landscapes in Thucydides’, in A. Tsakmakis and M. Tamiolaki (edd.), Thucydides between History and Literature (Berlin and Boston, 2013), 167–80, at 174–7.

⁷⁵ The dedication of a ship is only elsewhere noted of the Peloponnesians after the naval battle immediately following at 2.92. For the Athenian dedication, cf. Diod. Sic. 12.48, who confuses the strait with the temple at Rhion. On spoils dedicated after naval battles, see Pritchett (n. 65), 281–5. The temple of Poseidon at Rhion is guaranteed by Strabo 8.2.3.

⁷⁶ For Stadter (n. 38), 50, the ‘issue of competing claims of justice’ is an important theme of this exchange.

⁷⁷ For the dialogism of Herodotus, see E.J. Bakker, ‘The making of history: Herodotus’ Historiēs apodexis’, in E.J. Bakker, I.J.F. de Jong and H. van Wees (edd.), Brill's Companion to Herodotus (Leiden – Boston – Cologne, 2002), 3–32, at 18; C. Dewald, ‘I didn't give my own genealogy’, in E.J. Bakker, I.J.F. de Jong and H. van Wees (edd.), Brill's Companion to Herodotus (Leiden – Boston – Cologne, 2002), 267–90, at 276; D. Boedeker, ‘Pedestrian fatalities: the prosaics of death in Herodotus’, in P. Derow and R. Parker (edd.), Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest (Oxford, 2003), 17–36; V. Zali, The Shape of Herodotean Rhetoric: A Study of the Speeches in Herodotus’ Histories with Special Attention to Books 5–9 (Leiden, 2015), 305–10.

⁷⁸ Boedeker (n. 77), 31, cited by E. Baragwanath, Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2008), 20 n. 57.

⁷⁹ On dialogism and Thucydides, see C. Dewald, Thucydides’ War Narrative: A Structural Study (Berkeley, 2005), 15–22 and especially 20: ‘the narrative structure of Thucydides’ History is fashioned out of Thucydides’ determination to convey to us, his readers, that what is narrated is not one story, or a story from one standpoint, but an account that seriously tries to take account of multiple consciousnesses of many different actors who in real time reacted to each other, with many different aims and opinions and ways of proceeding.’ More wary is E. Greenwood, ‘Fictions of dialogue in Thucydides’, in S. Goldhill (ed.), The End of Dialogue in Antiquity (Cambridge, 2008), 15–28, at 27: ‘Although I find it hard to accept the concept of Thucydides’ narrative being committed to “responsible dialogism”, I am still willing to agree that dialogism may be a byproduct of Thucydides’ narrative’; G. Mara, ‘Political philosophy in an unstable world: comparing Thucydides and Plato on the possibilities of politics’, in R. Balot, S. Forsdyke and E. Foster (edd.), The Oxford Handbook to Thucydides (Oxford, 2017), 531–48, at 534: ‘Thucydides’ own logos takes other logoi seriously, while nonetheless subjecting them to a critical examination that is more provocative than decisive.’