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The opposition to Perikles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. Andrewes
Affiliation:
New College, Oxford

Extract

In the critical years that followed the death of Kimon, it is clear that Thoukydides son of Melesias played an important role in opposition. It is less clear what he stood for positively, and Wade-Gery's brilliant and controversial article (JHS lii [1932] 205–27 = Essays in Greek History 239–70), for all its sensitivity to the values of the Athenian aristocracy, did not succeed in settling this issue. My argument here is mainly negative, that Plutarch's description (Per. 11–12 and 14) of the conflict between Thoukydides and Perikles, our only detailed witness, is worthless and has seriously distorted our picture of this period and of Athenian attitudes to the empire; and that the colony at Thourioi, as Ehrenberg maintained, was meant to serve strictly Athenian interests.

1. Plutarch and the Anti-Imperialists

For Ed. Meyer (Forschungen zur alten Geschichte ii 86; Gd A iv2 1.690 n. 1) it was beyond doubt that Plutarch here preserves an authentic account of the debate over the building programme. Wade-Gery assumed the same (240–3, cf. Hesp. xiv [1945] 224–5), and D. L. Stockton (Hist. viii [1959] 69), arguing against Wade-Gery, still calls this a good and possibly contemporary source.2Since the most notable characteristic of these chapters is their vehement rhetoric and the high proportion of nonsense, this position needs more defence than it has received.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1978

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References

1 See Gomme, A. W., HCT i 386–7Google Scholar; Ehrenberg, V. L., AJP lxix (1948) 149–70Google Scholar; Frost, F. J., Hist. xiii (1964) 385–99Google Scholar: I cite these by the author's name alone. P&P=Parthenos and Parthenon, suppl. to C&R × (1963).

2 Busolt wavered, suspecting the influence of Theopompos, (Gr. Gesch. iii 349Google Scholar n. 1) but half prepared to allow the authenticity of the speeches (444 n. 1). Beloch does not appear to have considered the passage anywhere as a whole. Meiggs, R. (P&P 40–3Google Scholar; The Athenian Empire [1972] 139–40, 155) took some large strides towards scepticism but halted on the brink: we differ at the point where he says (155) that ‘the central point around which the speeches are elaborated is likely to be historical’.

3 For the previous history of this view, see Busolt 349 n. 1.

4 On the wrestling see Wade-Gery 243–6; this is an authentic touch, but possibly due to Plutarch himself who was aware of the association (e.g. Per. 8.5).

5 Philochoros (FCrH 328 F 140) tells us that in 410 a new clause was incorporated into the bouleutic oath, that Councillors must sit ἐν τῷ γράμματι ᾧ ἆν λάχωσιν; and that has been brought into the argument (see Jacoby ad loc.). Whether or not this means allocation of seats in the Boule individually, nothing of the kind could be done on the Pnyx.

6 If he had really spoken of ‘thousand-talent temples’ (12.2), that would have been a bit immoral too: cf. Stanier, R. S., JHS lxxiii (1953) 6876CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burford, A., PCPhS n.s. xi (1965) 25Google Scholar.

7 Polyaenus' account (iii 11.7) of Chabrias' device for training Egyptian rowers (cf. Diod. xv 92.2–3) shows what is meant by the term ἀξυγκροτήτοις. Since this is picked out as a ‘stratagem’, we can be sure that such training schemes were not normal in Greece.

8 Meiggs, (Ath. Emp. 427Google Scholar), rightly rejecting the story as it stands, is still inclined to accept ‘the basic fact that routine patrols annually cruised in the Aegean’. I would be more inclined to follow him if other details in these chapters conveyed more confidence.

9 In the context these should be not hoplites but the rowers of 11.4. What they get from state funds must be their pay, and єὐπορίας is an exaggerated description for this.

10 On Wade-Gery's unfortunate notion that there was a demobilisation problem, Frost (391–2) said all that is needed. Frost himself (390), after discussing possible sources from the late fourth century, refers to Plutarch's own experience of urban unemployment in Greece, and this could certainly be a factor; but the concept is so central to 12.4–6 that it must have been present also in the source.

11 See also Burford, in Econ. Hist. Rev. 2 xiii (19601961) 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The fullest data on transport are from work at Eleusis in the fourth century, on which see Glotz, , REG xxxvi (1923) 2645CrossRefGoogle Scholar, whose tabulation of the items in IG ii2 1673 is reproduced by Burford on p. 14. See also her account of transport in The Greek Temple Builders at Epidauros, 184–91, from which it clearly emerges that there can be no question of mass employment in this area.

12 Meiggs, (Ath. Emp. 140Google Scholar) called attention to the speeches of Perikles and others which Cicero believed to be genuine, but Quintilian and Plutarch treat as certainly spurious.

13 The considerable difficulties of this passage will be discussed in HCT ad loc.: I still find it hard to understand the mechanism of the upper-class exploitation of the empire, but there is no doubt that the words given to Phrynichos imply that it took place. The importance of this unique passage is rightly stressed by de Ste, G. E. M.. Croix in Hist. iii (1954) 37–8Google Scholar.

14 See Connor, W. R., The New Politicians of fifth-century Athens (1971)Google Scholar, passim.

15 See Gomme 386 n. 2; Ehrenberg 161; Frost 385 n. 2. Accame, S., Riv. Fil. xxxiii (1955) 164–74Google Scholar, leaves the tangle rather worse than it was; Rutter, N. K., Hist. xxii (1973) 155–76Google Scholar, is gently sceptical of received ideas about Thourioi, including the Periklean connection of Xenokritos and even of Lampon.

16 The same sequence, defeat in court followed by ostracism, is found in schol. Ar. Vesp. 947, where the context is confused but the great orator who thus suffered must be our Thoukydides. Ehrenberg (160) found the sequence incredible, but did not say why: possibly he overlooked the fact that ostracism took place at a fixed time of year, and might not have been available at the time of the trial.

17 Rainey, F., AJA lxxiii (1969) 272Google Scholar, remarks that ‘all the archaeological evidence points to the conclusion that Thurii was built over the southern section of the city of Sybaris’. The oracle about the change of site (Diod. xii 10.5–6; Parke and Wormell no. 131) may well be spurious, but the story was established by the time of Diodoros' source, which (with Rutter) I take to be probably in this case Ephoros rather than Timaios.

18 Diod. xii 23.2 puts under 444/3 a sporadic war between Thourioi and Taras, of which he says there was no action worth reporting. His Chronographic source appears to have taken note of the outbreak and end of some wars, with a distinguishable formula for the name and duration of the war (e.g. xiv 86.6); but nothing of this sort appears here, and I take this notice to be a piece of Thourian history from his narrative source, put in to fill a gap.

19 Cf. Agesilaos' apology to Pharnabazos for plundering the territory of a former friend and ally (Xen., Hell. iv 1.34)Google Scholar. The story of Kimon's attempt to fight for Athens at Tanagra, true or false in fact, is right in feeling; Alkibiades' peculiar form of patriotism (Thuc. vi 92.2–4) was exceptional and suspect.

20 Ehrenberg (161) was certain that, if Thoukydides did make such a voyage, it was ‘with the intention of causing trouble and of interfering with Pericles' plans’. This goes well beyond what Wade-Gery proposed, and seems to me misconceived.

21 Modern writers sometimes use the term ‘Dorian’ very loosely; e.g. Rutter (n. 15) appears to take six out of the ten tribes as Dorian (166). In Classical Greek it is an exact term, and so far as the names here go, only Doris qualifies.

22 Ehrenberg (158 n. 33) takes Elis as ‘a sort of one-state Olympic Amphictyony’, with Olympia balancing the Delphi to be read out of the tribe-name Amphiktyonis. The ‘Olympic Amphictyony’ is surely a mirage, though it is true that Elis had in the fifth century completed her reduction of several minor tribes of the W. Peloponnese (Hdt. iv 148.4), who might have contributed members to a tribe Eleia.

23 This would then be the tribe for colonists from Corinth or Argos; and even Sparta has been contemplated (Ehrenberg 159). The notion that a potential share in this one tribe constituted any sort of appeasement of Corinth (Wade-Gery 256, citing O'Neill, 's Ancient Corinth 196Google Scholar) can hardly stand.

24 It is just possible that these two also led the first expedition for Sybaris IV and returned to Athens soon after (Lampon at least returned from Thourioi to resume his career in Athens); but it is more likely that Diodoros has conflated the two expeditions.