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Demosthenes the General - Protagonist in a Greek Tragedy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Graham Wylie
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Extract

Demosthenes is a curiously shadowy figure in Thucydides. Few of his speeches are recorded, and although Thucydides gives abundant information about his actions – possibly obtained from the general himself, who may have been a relation by marriage – few personal details are included, and Demosthenes never comes to life as Brasidas does. We know little of his origins, his friends, or his associates; nor of what he did between 424 and 415, while he was out of favour. Despite the putative relationship, Thucydides' attitude towards him is unsympathetic, even disapproving, and does not suggest personal intimacy between the two. Though a better general than Brasidas, in my view – more innovative, less reckless – he was never specially honoured, as Brasidas was, by his own or any other city.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , April 1993 , pp. 20 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

Notes

1. Wcstlake, H. D., Individuals in Thucydides (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 97–121Google Scholar.

2. Woodcock, E. C., ‘Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes’, HSCPh 39 (1928), 93–128Google Scholar; Westlake, ibid., p. 98.

3. His imputation to Demosthenes o f motives which cannot have been widely known, and unfilled intentions' (Westlake, ibid., p. 97) may be ‘illuminating’ but are not necessarily reliable. Unfulfilled intentions (3.95.1, 3.96.2) by their very nature are unverifiable.

4. Woodcock, ibid., 93.

5. Unidentified citations are from Thucydides' History.

6. Young, P., The Victors (London, 1981)Google Scholar – ‘Grant at Vicksburg’ (1863). Grant's release of prisoners was apparently an act of simple magnanimity.

7. Woodcock, ibid., 97 n. 1.

8. Grundy, G. B., Thucydides and the History of his Age, vol. ii (Oxford, 1947), p. 125Google Scholar.

9. Woodcock, ibid., 98–9, 101–2; Westlake, ibid., p. 106.

10. Hunter, V.J., Thucydides the Artful Reporter (Toronto, 1973), pp. 69ffGoogle Scholar.

11. Connor, W.J., Thucydides (Princeton, 1984), pp. 108–18Google Scholar.

12. Grundy, ibid., pp. 125–6. The author actually surveyed the two islands. Further comments on the topography are given in the Loeb edition of Thucydides, vol. ii, p. 220 n. 1.

13. Woodcock, ibid., 102–3; Hunter, ibid., pp. 72–3.

14. But cf. Ellis, J. R., ‘Characters in the Sicilian expedition’, Quademi di storia 102 (1979), 39–79Google Scholar, who considers (p. 58) that Thucydides deliberately ignored this possibility, in order to give the impression (4.28) that Cleon was ‘goaded into agreement’ by the demos.

15. Woodcock, ibid., 102; Hunter, ibid., p. 72.

16. Westlake, ibid., p. 113 a 2.

17. Hanson, V. D., The Western Way of War (Oxford, 1989), pp. 112–13Google Scholar.

18. But cf. 5.80.3. In 418 the Athenians sent him to Epidaurus to retain control of fortifications which Argos had warned them to evacuate – a minor task he accomplished with his usual ease, by tricking the non-Athenians in the garrison into leaving.

19. ‘I'd baked a rich Laconian cake at Pylos,

When round he runs, filches my cake, and off with it

To serve it up to Demos as his own.'

Demosthenes, a slave, Knights, 50–8

20. Aristophanes had lampooned Nicias too, for his lack of enterprise (Birds, 638–9):

'Heavens, this is no time for us to doze

Or dither about, like our friend Nicias!'

21. Probably malaria (Grundy, ibid., p. 151).

22. See Donini, G., ‘Thuc. 7, 42, 3 etc.’, Hermes 92 (1984), 116–19Google Scholar, for a textual study of this passage.

23. Ellis, ibid., 53 ff.

24. See Hanson, ibid., chaps. 1 and 2, for a most interesting study of this topic, on which the present discussion is largely based.

25. Hanson, ibid., p. 15.

26. Finley, M. I., The World of Odysseus (London, 1956), p. 80Google Scholar; cf. Soph. Phil. 407–8.

27. Hanson, ibid., p. 37.