THE POWER OF CITIES IS NOT EASY TO JUDGE

The goal of this chapter is the elucidation of Pericles' city, or more precisely, Pericles' radical redefinition of the city of Athens. This redefinition is crucial not only to Pericles' war strategy but also to Thucydides' presentation and assessment of Pericles. Although Thucydides does not introduce Pericles and his new vision of the city until the end of his first book, he signals his interest in cities and what constitutes them from the very beginning of the work. He thus primes his readers (when they reach it) to judge Pericles' understanding of the city carefully and critically. In the so-called Archaeology, for example – Thucydides' brief account of events in Greece until the Persian War (1.2–1.19) – Thucydides encourages his readers to focus on the intangibles that lead to power – especially in Athens.

The Archaeology surveys the earliest history of Greece known to Thucydides. It seeks to put the Peloponnesian war in context and to justify Thucydides' claim that the war he described was “a great war and more worthy of report than those that came before it” (1.1.1). Part of what makes the Peloponnesian War so important for Thucydides is the greatness of the cities involved, and so the Archaeology aims also to define what makes a city great. The first answer that Thucydides provides is walls; indeed, walls seem to be an essential element of a city for Thucydides.