Thucydides on human nature

Political Theory

Volumn 27, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 435-446

  Reeve, C D C ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0033246145     PISSN: 00905917     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0090591799027004001     Document Type: Review

References (25)

1. Simon Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 1 (Oxford, UK Clarendon, 1991), 478.
2. Rex Warner, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), 245.
3. This implication is present in all the best-known English translations. Richard Crawley, The Landmark Thucydides (New York: Free Press, 1996): "human nature, always rebelling against the law, and now its master, showed itself ungoverned in passion, above respect for justice, and the enemy of all superiority." Steven Lattimore, Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1998): "human nature always ready to act unjustly even in violation of laws, overthrew the laws themselves and gladly showed itself powerless over passion but stronger than justice and hostile to any kind of superiority."
4. This implication is present in all the best-known English translations. Richard Crawley, The Landmark Thucydides (New York: Free Press, 1996): "human nature, always rebelling against the law, and now its master, showed itself ungoverned in passion, above respect for justice, and the enemy of all superiority." Steven Lattimore, Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1998): "human nature always ready to act unjustly even in violation of laws, overthrew the laws themselves and gladly showed itself powerless over passion but stronger than justice and hostile to any kind of superiority."
5. My translations are based, with modifications, on those given in Paul Woodruff's excellent Thucydides on Justice, Power, and Human Nature (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1993).
6. That is, pleonexia, as the next clause makes clear.
7. I leave to hosion untranslated for a reason.
8. The evidence is reviewed in Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, ad loc. W. R. Connor, Thucydides (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 102 n. 60, rightly asks who the author of 3.84 is if not Thucydides and how the chapter got into our text. The authenticity of the passage is defended in M. Christ, "The Authenticity of Thucydides 3.84," Transactions of the American Philological Association 119: 137-48.
9. The evidence is reviewed in Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, ad loc. W. R. Connor, Thucydides (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 102 n. 60, rightly asks who the author of 3.84 is if not Thucydides and how the chapter got into our text. The authenticity of the passage is defended in M. Christ, "The Authenticity of Thucydides 3.84," Transactions of the American Philological Association 119: 137-48.
10. The evidence is reviewed in Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, ad loc. W. R. Connor, Thucydides (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 102 n. 60, rightly asks who the author of 3.84 is if not Thucydides and how the chapter got into our text. The authenticity of the passage is defended in M. Christ, "The Authenticity of Thucydides 3.84," Transactions of the American Philological Association 119: 137-48.
11. Lattimore, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, 171 n. 3.84.
12. H.G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, Greek English Lexicon (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1968), s.v. hosios.
13. Warner, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, 242. Crawley, The Landmark Thucydides: in peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants and so proves a rough master that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes. Lattimore, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War: in peace and good circumstances, both states and individuals have better inclinations though not falling into involuntary necessities; but war, stripping away the easy access to daily needs, is a violent teacher and brings most people's passions into line with the present situations.
14. Warner, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, 242. Crawley, The Landmark Thucydides: in peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants and so proves a rough master that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes. Lattimore, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War: in peace and good circumstances, both states and individuals have better inclinations though not falling into involuntary necessities; but war, stripping away the easy access to daily needs, is a violent teacher and brings most people's passions into line with the present situations.
15. Warner, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, 242. Crawley, The Landmark Thucydides: in peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants and so proves a rough master that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes. Lattimore, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War: in peace and good circumstances, both states and individuals have better inclinations though not falling into involuntary necessities; but war, stripping away the easy access to daily needs, is a violent teacher and brings most people's passions into line with the present situations.
16. Warner, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, 242. Crawley, The Landmark Thucydides: "words had to change their ordinary meanings and to take that which was now given to them."
17. Warner, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, 242. Crawley, The Landmark Thucydides: "words had to change their ordinary meanings and to take that which was now given to them."
18. See J. Wilson, "The Customary Meanings of Words Were Changed - Or Were They? A Note on Thucydides 3.82.4." Classical Quarterly 32 (1982). Lattimore, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, gets it right: "men inverted the usual verbal evaluations of actions."
19. See J. Wilson, "The Customary Meanings of Words Were Changed - Or Were They? A Note on Thucydides 3.82.4." Classical Quarterly 32 (1982). Lattimore, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, gets it right: "men inverted the usual verbal evaluations of actions."
20. Literally, "the simple, in which the noble above all participates." That the simple is being said to participate in the noble, and not vice versa (as is grammatically possible), is convincingly argued in Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 507-8 n. 24.
21. See 3.82.2 above.
22. The passage should be compared point by point with 3.82.8 above.
23. In 2.53 this is made particularly plain: The plague was the starting point for greater lawlessness (anomia) in the city. For everyone was ready to be more daring (etolma) about things they had previously enjoyed only in secret, since they saw the sudden change both for those who were prosperous and suddenly died and for those who previously owned nothing but immediately got their property. And so they thought it appropriate to use what they had quickly and with a view to pleasure, considering their persons and their possessions equally ephemeral. No one was enthusiastic over additional hardship for what seemed a noble objective, considering it uncertain whether he would die before achieving it. The pleasure of the moment, and whatever was conducive to that were deemed both noble and useful. Neither fear of the gods nor law of man was a deterrent, since it was judged all the same whether they were pious or not because of seeing everyone dying with no difference, and since no one anticipated that he would live till trial and pay the penalty for his crimes, but that the much greater penalty which had already been pronounced was hanging over them, and it was reasonable to get some satisfaction from life before that descended. (trans. by Lattimore, with minor changes)
24. A topic that merits an essay of its own, which might begin with Lowell Edwards, Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), and Colin Macleod, "Reason and Necessity: Thucydides III 9-14, 37-48," Journal of Hellenic Studies 98 (1978): 64-78.
25. A topic that merits an essay of its own, which might begin with Lowell Edwards, Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), and Colin Macleod, "Reason and Necessity: Thucydides III 9-14, 37-48," Journal of Hellenic Studies 98 (1978): 64-78.