Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

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Thucydides, The History Of The Peloponnesian War, 3.43.4

χρὴ δὲ πρὸς τὰ μέγιστα καὶ ἐν τῷ τοιῷδε ἀξιοῦν τι ἡμᾶς περαιτέρω προνοοῦντας λέγειν ὑμῶν τῶν δι’ ὀλίγου σκοπούντων, ἄλλως τε καὶ ὑπεύθυνον τὴν παραίνεσιν ἔχοντας πρὸς ἀνεύθυνον τὴν ὑμετέραν ἀκρόασιν. Still, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, and the position of affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a little further than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are responsible, while you, our audience, are not so.

Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

2 results
1. Thucydides, The History of The Peloponnesian War, 1.76.2, 2.64.1, 3.38.1-3.38.2, 3.38.4, 3.42.1, 3.42.3, 3.42.5, 3.43.2, 3.43.5, 3.45.6, 6.15.2 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) 1.76.2. It follows that it was not a very wonderful action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honor, and interest. And it was not we who set the example, for it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger. Besides, we believed ourselves to be worthy of our position, and so you thought us till now, when calculations of interest have made you take up the cry of justice—a consideration which no one ever yet brought forward to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything by might. 2.64.1. But you must not be seduced by citizens like these nor be angry with me,—who, if I voted for war, only did as you did yourselves,—in spite of the enemy having invaded your country and done what you could be certain that he would do, if you refused to comply with his demands; and although besides what we counted for, the plague has come upon us—the only point indeed at which our calculation has been at fault. It is this, I know, that has had a large share in making me more unpopular than I should otherwise have been,—quite undeservedly, unless you are also prepared to give me the credit of any success with which chance may present you. 3.38.1. For myself, I adhere to my former opinion, and wonder at those who have proposed to reopen the case of the Mitylenians, and who are thus causing a delay which is all in favour of the guilty, by making the sufferer proceed against the offender with the edge of his anger blunted; although where vengeance follows most closely upon the wrong, it best equals it and most amply requites it. I wonder also who will be the man who will maintain the contrary, and will pretend to show that the crimes of the Mitylenians are of service to us, and our misfortunes injurious to the allies. 3.38.2. Such a man must plainly either have such confidence in his rhetoric as to adventure to prove that what has been once for all decided is still undetermined, or be bribed to try to delude us by elaborate sophisms. 3.38.4. The persons to blame are you who are so foolish as to institute these contests; who go to see an oration as you would to see a sight, take your facts on hearsay, judge of the practicability of a project by the wit of its advocates, and trust for the truth as to past events not to the fact which you saw more than to the clever strictures which you heard; 3.42.1. ‘I do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the Mitylenians, nor do I approve the protests which we have heard against important questions being frequently debated. I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of mind. 3.42.3. What is still more intolerable is to accuse a speaker of making a display in order to be paid for it. If ignorance only were imputed, an unsuccessful speaker might retire with a reputation for honesty, if not for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes him suspected, if successful, and thought, if defeated, not only a fool but a rogue. 3.42.5. The good citizen ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city without over-distinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive them of their due, and far from punishing an unlucky counsellor will not even regard him as disgraced. 3.43.2. Plain good advice has thus come to be no less suspected than bad; and the advocate of the most monstrous measures is not more obliged to use deceit to gain the people, than the best counsellor is to lie in order to be believed. 3.43.5. For if those who gave the advice, and those who took it, suffered equally, you would judge more calmly; as it is, you visit the disasters into which the whim of the moment may have led you, upon the single person of your adviser, not upon yourselves, his numerous companions in error. 3.45.6. Fortune, too, powerfully helps the delusion, and by the unexpected aid that she sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with inferior means; and this is especially the case with communities, because the stakes played for are the highest, freedom or empire, and, when all are acting together, each man irrationally magnifies his own capacity. 6.15.2. By far the warmest advocate of the expedition was, however, Alcibiades, son of Clinias, who wished to thwart Nicias both as his political opponent and also because of the attack he had made upon him in his speech, and who was, besides, exceedingly ambitious of a command by which he hoped to reduce Sicily and Carthage, and personally to gain in wealth and reputation by means of his successes.
2. Xenophon, Memoirs, 4.2.5 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) 4.2.5. This exordium might be adapted so as to suit candidates for the office of public physician. They might begin their speeches in this strain: Men of Athens, I have never yet studied medicine, nor sought to find a teacher among our physicians; for I have constantly avoided learning anything from the physicians, and even the appearance of having studied their art. Nevertheless I ask you to appoint me to the office of a physician, and I will endeavour to learn by experimenting on you. The exordium set all the company laughing.

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides,and events and circumstances presented as quasi-agents	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides,and passive phrases / shades of meaning	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides,and perfect forms with static implications	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides,as subjects	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides,circumstances / conditions / states of affairs stressed by	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides,vs. active / personal phrasing	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
antiphon,anti-rhetoric	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 251
athens and athenians,and mytilenean revolt	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229
athens and athenians,justice as concern of	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229
athens and athenians,vs. spartans	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229
choice (primarily in thucydides),scope for	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
cleon,irrationality championed by	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
cleon	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168, 251
deception,and deliberation	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168
deception,and democratic constitution	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168
deception,association with rhetoric	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 251
deception,suspicion of	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 251
democracy,athenian,and noble lies	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168
democracy,athenian,thucydides depiction of	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 251
demosthenes,on logocentricity	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168
demosthenes,representation of deceit	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168
demosthenes,works,on the false embassy	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168
demosthenes	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168
diodotus,and greatest things (freedom or dominion over others)	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229, 231
diodotus,rhetorical strategy of	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229, 231
diodotus,vs. cleon	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229
diodotus	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168, 251
homer,plan of zeus in	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229
irrational impulses,and choice	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
irrational impulses,and human nature	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
mytilene,secession of	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
mytilenean debate	Liddel (2020), Decrees of Fourth-Century Athens (403/2-322/1 BC): Volume 2, Political and Cultural Perspectives, 58
noble lie	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168
peace of philokrates	Liddel (2020), Decrees of Fourth-Century Athens (403/2-322/1 BC): Volume 2, Political and Cultural Perspectives, 58
pericles'	Liddel (2020), Decrees of Fourth-Century Athens (403/2-322/1 BC): Volume 2, Political and Cultural Perspectives, 58
plataea and plataeans	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229
quest for power,and self-preservation	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 231
rhetoric,of anti-rhetoric	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 251
sparta and spartans,and plataea	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 229
thucydides,and anti-rhetoric	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 251
thucydides,on mytilenean debate	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168, 251
thucydides,on paradox of honest liar	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 251
topoi,and interplay with creative strategy	Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 168