Speaking the Same Language: Speech and Audience in Thucydides' Spartan Debates 0472112368, 9780472112364

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Speaking the Same Language: Speech and Audience in Thucydides' Spartan Debates
 0472112368, 9780472112364

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'5peakingthe &me Language

Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2001 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America @)Printed on acid-free paper 2004

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2002

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalogrecordfor this book is availablefrom the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0-472-11236-8 (cloth: alk. paper)

Speaking the Same Language Speech and Audience in Thucydides' Spartan Debates

PAULA

DEBNAR

Ann Arbor

THE UNIVERSITY OF 1\1.JCHIGAN PRESS

Preface

~ his book is an examination

of the role played by the internal audiences in

.1 Thucydides' History of the PeloponnesianWar and focuses on debates in

which Spartans are either speakers or auditors. My analysis for the most part takes the form of discursive commentaries on the speeches, with particular consideration given to the historical as well as the narrative context. I make no apology for this approach; Thucydides demands close reading coupled with attention to historical detail. As is true of any study of Thucydides, the organization of Speaking the Same Language is itself a structure imposed on the History. Its three parts correspond to a progressive change I perceive in Spartan discourse-and attitudes to discourse-as the History moves farther away from the prewar debates in Sparta in both time and place. There are of course numerous details that do not fit easily into this schema. Nonetheless, a large-scale movement of profound significance is the result of the individual speeches and events in the History. As Thucydides says concerning the plague, a general phenomenon can be recognized even when individual cases differ (2.51.1). Without such a view of the relation of particular and general, he would not have been able to speak of "what happened and what will happen-or something close to it-given what is human" (1.22.4). Since my hope is that this book will be of use to a broad range of readers of Thucydides, I have translated all the Greek in the main text. Except where noted, translations are my own; I have tried to adhere closely to Thucydides' often awkward Greek, especially where the word order has some bearing on my analysis. The notes are addressed primarily to scholars; discussions of syntactical and textual problems of the Greek, and of points of historical fact, are restricted to those areas where they most affect my argument. I have retained the latinized forms of Greek proper and geographical names, more out of fondness than any ideological conviction. Unless otherwise noted, all

Vi

PREFACE

in-text references are to Thucydides; citations are from the Oxford text by Stuart Jones and Powell, and references to the scholia are to Hude. My deepest gratitude goes to Mary Bellino, a fine Hellenist whose superb editorial skills and relentless queries helped to deliver this book from a purgatory of drafts. In this project as well as in earlier articles, I have benefited greatly from Justina Gregory's astute observations and suggestions. I extend my thanks as well to Carolyn Dewald, Jeffrey Rusten, and my anonymous referees for their detailed comments. And for invaluable assistance at the beginning and the end of a seemingly interminable process, I would like to thank Ellen Bauerle, for her enthusiastic response to my initial submission, and Joan Davis, for her splendid work on the index.

Contents

ix 1

List of Abbreviations Introduction

25

PART ONE•SPARTANS

27

Introduction to Part I

30

c HAP

59 c HAP

TE R

AT HOME

o NE • The Spartans as Audience • The

TE R Two

The League as Audience

77

CHAPTER

91

PART TWO• SPARTANS

TH REE •

Spartans among Themselves

ABROAD

93 Introduction to Part II 96

CHAPTER

FOUR

•The Seige of Plataea

102

c HAP

TE R FI

v E • The Politics of Olympia

125

c HAP

TE R

147

CHAPTER

169

PART THREE•

171

Introduction to Part III

173

c HAP

TE R EIGHT

201

c HAP

TE R NINE

221

Conclusion

235

Bibliography

245

Index of Greek Terms

247

General Index

s Ix

• The

SEVEN



Trial of the Plataeans

Pylos and the Offer of Peace

ENEMIES



WITHIN

Brasidas' Spartans

• Alcibiades'

Spartans

Abbreviations

For classical authors and works the abbreviations used are those of The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Andrewes Classen-Steup Dover FGH

Gomme Graves

Hornblower

JG

LSJ Marchant

OCT

Commentary in A. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. Dover. 1970. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, IV. Oxford. J. Classen; revised J. Steup. 1900-1922. Thukydides. Berlin. Commentary in A. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. Dover. 1970. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, IV. Oxford. F. Jacoby. 1962. Die Fragmente der grieschische Historiker, II B. Leiden. A. Gomme. 1945-70. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, I- IV. Oxford. C. E. Graves. 1884. The Fourth Book of Thucydides. London. 1891. The Fifth Book of Thucydides. London. S. Hornblower. 1991.A Commentary on Thucydides, I. Oxford. 1996. A Commentary on Thucydides, II. Oxford. Inscriptiones Graecae. 1843-. Berlin. H. G. Liddell, and R. Scott; revised H. Stuart Jones. 1925-40. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. Oxford. E. C. Marchant. 1891. Thucydides: Book II. London. 1902. Thucydides: Book VI. London. 1905. Thucydides: Book I. London. 1909. Thucydides: Book III. London. H. Stuart Jones, ed.; revised J. Powell. 1942. Thucydidis Historiae. Oxford.

X

ABBREVIATIONS

Poppo-Stahl RE

Rusten Scholia SIG

Smyth Spratt

Steup, Anhang

E. F. Poppo; revised J.M. Stahl. 1876-85. Thucydidis de bello peloponnesiaco libri octo. Berlin. A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll. 1894-1980. RealEncyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart. J. Rusten. 1989. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Book II. Cambridge. C. Hude, ed. 1927; rpt. 1973.Scholia in Thucydidem. London. W. Dittenberger. 1960. Sy/loge Inscriptionum Graecarum, I. 4th ed. Hildesheim. H. W. Smyth, revised G. Messing. 1984. Greek Grammar. Cambridge, Mass. A. W. Spratt. 1896. Thucydides: Book III. Cambridge. 1905. Thucydides: Book VI. Cambridge. 1912.Thucydides: Book IV. Cambridge. Appendices in Classen-Steup.

Introduction

(fhucydides' speeches are mimetic. They are spoken by "actors," and they are heard and judged by "actors" who are collective representations of Athenians, Spartans, or their allies. If, as is generally accepted, Thucydides uses debates to mark critical points in the war, these internal audiences are among the most important actors in the History. Yet audiences in the History are easy to overlook; they make little noise, and we rarely witness a vote. Nonetheless, these are the men who transformed words into deeds-or chose to ignore them. When audiences decide whether or not to follow speakers' advice, they base their decisions not only on rational calculations, but on what they feelfear, ambition, greed, anger-and what they believe is most important, whether it is honor or revenge, safety or prestige. Such intangible factors were no less real for the Greeks who lived through the Peloponnesian War, and for Thucydides as he composed a history of contemporary events, than the talents in Athens' treasury. These "realities" of the war have left no material trace except in the consequences of the actions they precipitated: we cannot see fear or ambition, although we can recognize their products. But they do emerge from the pages of Thucydides when we consider how a speaker's words play on his audience's values and emotions.' Thus, while Thucydides' account of

.1

1. Cogan (1981, 231-32) rightly believes that analysis alert to rhetorical elements can reveal "quite profound but often obscured information concerning the nations and politicians engaged in the war, and information concerning the dynamics of the specific moments of decision in the war." He continues, "This information would have its natural limits. We would not discover facts about the nations generally, but only in their role as deliberating bodies; we would not find information of enduring factuality by this method, but only information concerning the specific state of affairs at a given moment. Yet because even information limited in this way would be precious to us, such rhetorical analyses ought to be pursued."

2

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THE

SAME

LANGUAGE

the fifty years following the Persian Wars focuses on the growth of Athens' military power, the debates in Book 1 reveal Athens' less quantifiable, but no less real, gain of prestige and Sparta's concomitant loss. Despite their importance, the internal audiences in Thucydides have not been studied either systematically or in detail. 2 Speakingthe Same Languageis an attempt to correct this deficit and in doing so to make three points: that Thucydides' assessment of historical audiences was a critical factor in determining what he thought was "most appropriate" for speakers to say (1.22.1), that in general speakers in the History accommodate their auditors, and that when they do not, this failure is significant. Thus an understanding of the audiences in the History can aid us in judging Thucydides' conception of the overall pattern of the war. I decided to limit my inquiry to debates involving Spartans (either as speakers or as audience) in part because, with the exception of the debates in Sparta in Book 1, they have received relatively little scholarly attention.3 More important, speech played a vital role in the construction of Spartan identity. The brevity of Spartan speech projected an image of the discipline and restraint of Spartan society.4 As I focused on the Spartan debates a second thesis emerged. Over the course of the war Spartans increasingly use arguments that would seem more at home among the Athenians, and they themselves become far less susceptible to arguments that are based (like those of the Plataeans) on the assumption that their values have not changed. This secondary thesis dictated the organization of Speaking the Same Language,which is divided into three parts corresponding to the stages I perceive in the evolution of Spartan discourse. The progression is chronological, but it is also centrifugal. As the Spartans shift their activities away from Sparta, they tend to confirm the Athenians' observation that they act less like Spartans when they are away from home (1.77.6). Thucydides offers a paradigm for this metamorphosis in the story of 2. Leimbach (1985), however, pays close attention to audiences of military harangues; see also Cogan 1981, 205-14. More often, discussions of audience are brief (often confined to notes in a commentary) and limited to the effects of a particular argument or to the overall tone of a speech; e.g., Orwin 1994, 69 (Mytileneans); KalletMarx 1993, 85 (Spartans); Kagan 1969, 310 (Spartans); Gomme I 419-20 (Spartans and allies); Spratt ad 3.67.1 (Spartan judges); Graves IV 141 (Athenians). 3. The bibliography is especially short for the Mytileneans' speech at Olympia, the exchange between Archidamus and the Plataeans, the trial of the Plataeans, the Lacedaemonian peace embassy, and Alcibiades' speech to the Spartan assembly. 4. Francis 1991-93, 200.

INTRODUCTION

3

the Spartan regent Pausanias (1.94-95, 1.128-34). Following his victory over the Persians at Plataea, Pausanias was sent with a fleet to Ionia, where, Thucydides tells us, he began to act more like a despot than a general (1.95.3). Near the end of his career Brasidas showed signs of following in Pausanias' footsteps, although his death at Amphipolis obscured his ultimate aims.5 The juxtaposition of a Spartan general among Athens' allies and an Athenian exile among Spartans concludes this study. The extent of the change in the way Spartans use and respond to deliberative oratory can be gauged by Brasidas' speeches, which refashion the Spartans in his own exceptional image, and by the Spartans' acceptance of Alcibiades and his counsel. The progressive transformation in the Spartans' attitudes toward discourse corresponds to the gradual collapse of the antithesis between Spartans and Athenians that provides the overarching structure for the History. 6

Ethnicity and Discourse

Thucydides introduces a lightly sketched antithesis between Spartans and Athenians in his account of early Greece (1.2-19). The Athenians, he says, were the first to set aside their weapons and adopt a more luxurious style of dress and an easier mode of living; in contrast, the Spartans adopted simpler attire and more egalitarian practices (1.6.3-4). A few chapters later, he predicts that the paucity of monumental remains in Sparta will lead future generations to underestimate that city's power, while the exact opposite is likely to be true of Athens (1.10.2). Throughout the History Thucydides will reiterate this opposition between the Spartan ethos and that of the Athenians. The most striking contrast between the History's protagonists is articulated by the Corinthians in their first speech in Sparta (1.70 ). Here the speakers contrast the Spartans' sluggish conservatism with the Athenians' intelligence and innovation. To be sure, the Corinthians' assessment of Athenian and Spartan characters is hardly objective, designed as it is to provoke the Spartans into an immediate invasion of Attica. Thucydides, however, seems to corroborate the Corinthians' view in his own voice; near the end of 5. As some scholars have speculated, Thucydides' portrait of Brasidas may have been shaped by his perception of the unscrupulous Spartan general Lysander; e.g., Connor 1984, 139 n. 80, and Wassermann 1964, 292. See also Cartledge 1987, 85. 6. On Athenian/Spartan dualism in the History see, for example, Gundert 1968. On the collapse of the antithesis see Edmunds 1975, 139-42, and Wassermann 1964, 292.

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THE

SAME

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the History, he says that because of their lack of initiative the Spartans were the most convenient opponents for the Athenians (8.96.5).7 The overall effect of such comparisons is to render the conflict between Athens and Sparta as much a competition between opposing ways of life as a contest between military powers. 8 The Spartan way of life was closely associated with the Dorian ethnos, of which they themselves claimed to be the outstanding exemplars. Far from being a race, the "Dorians," as is true of ethnic groups in general, were a social construct generated for the most part discursively through putative claims of common descent and association with a common territory.9 The Dorians professed to be descendants of those who, after three generations of exile, returned (in some versions from Doris) with the sons of Heracles to the Peloponnese. 10 But seams in genealogical myths also reveal the permeability of ethnic boundaries. By means of the insertion of an extra generation, for example, the Corinthians retrojected themselves into the history of the Dorian ethnos. 11 Once boundaries are established, an ethnos can strengthen its cohesiveness socially, through the expression of shared attitudes, religious practices, material culture, and language. Identifying oneself as Dorian, then, meant exhibiting at least some of the appropriate ethnic indicia, those attitudes and practices clearly marked as Dorian.12 7. See Luginbill 1999, 83-87, and Connor 1984, 36-47, on the importance of national character in Thucydides; Luginbill (87-91 and 105-33) provides a useful collection of passages demonstrating Spartan character. For a nuanced but less exhaustive study, see Hamilton 1996. 8. This view is not peculiar to Thucydides. Georges (1994, 129-30) argues that Herodotus "subtly redefined the nature and extent of Asiatic barbarism in order to explain to the Greeks of his day not only the deep and permanent causes of the enmity between Asiatic barbarians and Greeks, but also the thematically parallel rivalry within Greece itself between the very different peoples of Dorian Sparta and Ionian Athens." 9. On these ethnic criteria see J. Hall 1997, 25. 10. J. Hall 1997, 56-65. 11. On the Corinthians' entry into the genealogical myths through Aletes see J. Hall 1997, 58-59. On the flexibility of Greek ethnic boundaries see Mcinerney 1999, 28-35. 12. J. Hall 1997, 20-21 (following Horowitz 1975, 119-20): ethnic indicia are "the operational set of distinguishing attributes which people tend to associate with particular ethnic groups once the criteria have been established." These indicia are not to be confused with what ethnic theorists of the nineteenth century thought were genetically determined racial characteristics; see J. Hall 4-16 for an overview of the development of the notion of a Dorian "race," the reaction to such views following World War II, and the obstacles that both sets of attitudes present to modern scholars.

INTRODUCTION

5

The Spartans in particular made a show of their dorianism, 13 which consisted in large part of adherence to deeply conservative values. They claimed to surpass other Greeks in bravery and boasted of their military superiority in traditional hoplite warfare.'4 They disdained words unsupported by deeds.' 5 Moreover they were skeptics in a literal sense, men for whom seeing was believing; 16 adept at manipulating visual displays, they were also vulnerable to them.17 Spartans took pride in their restraint (awq,goauvl]) and tranquillity (~auxia); they were pious, often even to their own detriment. 18 They were wary of chance (i:uxTJ),to which they attributed a wide scope: life was unpredictable, and fortune was likely to mean misfortune. 19 Most of these characteristics, all of which are evident in Thucydides' portrait of the Spartans, were traditional values that persisted in the fifth century among the conservative, elite elements in many cities. But the Spartans carried their conservatism further. They also believed that their disciplined upbringing 13. For the purposes of this study I am interested in the image the Spartans projected through discourse (to the degree that Thucydides accepts or challenges it). On the Spartans' image see Tigerstedt 1965and 1974;Oilier 1933;and the more recent essays in Powell 1989a;Powell and Hodkinson 1994; and now Hodkinson and Powell 1999. 14. In a discussion of Herodotus' pro-Dorian bias, Georges (1994, 149) observes that the historian "shared the aristocratic Greek prejudices favorable to a way of life that made warriors of its men, in contrast to the maritime, artisanal, banausic, and antihoplite image of Athens." On "natural" Dorian virtues see Alty 1982,9-11. 15. See Parry 1981,49-50 (on Herodotus) and 80-82 (on Thucydides) concerning the use of the word/deed opposition to depict national character. 16. On the importance of sense perception (especially vision) to Spartans in Thucydides see Meyer 1997,42-46. The Spartans need visual proof of the regent Pausanias' guilt (1.132),although they also want to hear him admit his crimes (1.133).Addressing the Spartans, the Athenians suggest that vision (frtpt£) is more valuable than reports (axoal, 1.73.2). See also Hdt. 1.8.2 on the superior value of eyes over ears. On the privileging of vision in general in Greek antiquity see Hartog 1988,261-73, 17. E.g., Hdt. 9.82;Xen. Lac. Pol. 11;Plut. Mor. 209C, 228F, 232E.See Powell 1989b, esp. 179-82. On Spartan laws about hairstyles and on the use of hair and dress to signal status, see David 1992. 18. On the Spartan conception of OW(!)QOOUVl] in Thucydides see North 1966, 99115,and Wilson 1990. On ~ouxla see Plut. Mor. 219 and Grossman 1950, 131-32.On Spartan piety see Hdt. 5.63, 7.206, 9.10 and Thuc. 4.5.1,5.75.2.See also the index (s.v. Spartan/Spartans: religiosity/superstition) in Cartledge 1979,and Holladay and Goodman 1986,152-60. 19. On the Spartans' view of i:uxri see Edmunds 1975, esp. 89-109; see also Luginbill 1999, 87-92 on the connection between this view and the Spartans' caution.

6

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SAME

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and unique institutions,2° both of which they attributed to the semimythical figure Lycurgus, distinguished them from other Greeks and entitled them to look down on other intrahellenic ethne, the Ionians in particular. They scorned displays of luxury, adopting a common style of dress that disguised economic disparities, and professed to shun both wealth 21 and pleasure. 22 They subordinated the welfare of the individual to that of the group, which is to say that life in Sparta was characterized by a very high degree of societal oversight and forced conformity. The state educational system, into which Spartan males entered at the age of seven, was designed to produce hardened warriors who would follow orders without question. 2 3 It was obedience to authority, and most of all obedience to custom (E1'ivoµla),that gave the Spartans their renowned stability and good order. 2 4 Perhaps because of this training, the Spartans placed little value on yvwµl'] in the sense of "intellect"; rather they faced the vicissitudes of chance with yvwµri in the sense of firm resolve and adherence to traditional ways.25 They were not encouraged to argue or speculate; indeed, they believed the less said, the better-presumably in Dorian dialect. As E. D. Francis argues, the Spartan manner of speaking reflected their way of life: 20. Spartan institutions and practices are most fully described in Xen. Lac. Pol. and Plut. Lye., although both offer idealized pictures. See also Hamilton 1996. 21. Thuc. 1.6.4, Plut. Lye. 9, Xen. Lac. Pol. 7. Recently, scholars have reexamined the Spartans' strictures concerning wealth. Noethlichs (1987, 165-70) argues that private possession of gold and silver was not outlawed until around 404. Hodkinson (1993,168) thinks even this law was a "dead letter" by the time Xenophon composed, although he does suggest (172) that there were general prohibitions against ostentatious displaysof wealth that may have channeled it toward acquisition ofland. Hodkinson (1994) also contends that the image of Spartan attitudes toward wealth is a product of the end of the Peloponnesian War and was primarily created by outsiders. 22. See Plut. Mor. 210A,where Lycurgus' laws are said to have taught the Spartans "to have contempt for pleasure." 23. Xen. Lac. Pol. 2-4; Plut. Lye. 16-25. However, Kennell (1995) doubts that many of the customs recorded by Plutarch can be traced back to classical Sparta. For a brief overview of the educational system and the resulting pressure to conform see Hodkinson 1983;see also Cartledge 1987,24-33. 24. On Sparta's stability see Thuc. 1.18.The most famous expression of Spartan respect for custom is Hdt. 7.104,where Demaratus says that v6µo£ is their only master. See also Plut. Mor. 218C, 220B, 230F. On Spartan wvoµla see Andrewes 1938;see also Grossman 1950,70-89, on the connection between wvoµla and ow