Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

10882

Thucydides, The History Of The Peloponnesian War, 3.44.4

καὶ οὐκ ἀξιῶ ὑμᾶς τῷ εὐπρεπεῖ τοῦ ἐκείνου λόγου τὸ χρήσιμον τοῦ ἐμοῦ ἀπώσασθαι. δικαιότερος γὰρ ὢν αὐτοῦ ὁ λόγος πρὸς τὴν νῦν ὑμετέραν ὀργὴν ἐς Μυτιληναίους τάχ’ ἂν ἐπισπάσαιτο: ἡμεῖς δὲ οὐ δικαζόμεθα πρὸς αὐτούς, ὥστε τῶν δικαίων δεῖν, ἀλλὰ βουλευόμεθα περὶ αὐτῶν, ὅπως χρησίμως ἕξουσιν. And I require you not to reject my useful considerations for his specious ones: his speech may have the attraction of seeming the more just in your present temper against Mitylene ; but we are not in a court of justice, but in a political assembly; and the question is not justice, but how to make the Mitylenians useful to Athens .

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

2 results
1. Thucydides, The History of The Peloponnesian War, 1.76.2-1.76.3, 3.36-3.49, 3.40.4, 3.42.1, 3.42.5, 3.45.6-3.45.7, 3.46.1, 5.87, 5.103.2, 5.113, 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. 1.76.3. And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human nature as to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their position compels them to do. 3.40.4. To sum up shortly, I say that if you follow my advice you will do what is just towards the Mitylenians, and at the same time expedient; while by a different decision you will not oblige them so much as pass sentence upon yourselves. For if they were right in rebelling, you must be wrong in ruling. However, if, right or wrong, you determine to rule, you must carry out your principle and punish the Mitylenians as your interest requires; or else you must give up your empire and cultivate honesty without danger. 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. 3.42.5. 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. 3.45.6. 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. 3.45.7. In fine, it is impossible to prevent, and only great simplicity can hope to prevent, human nature doing what it has once set its mind upon, by force of law or by any other deterrent force whatsoever. 3.46.1. We must not, therefore, commit ourselves to a false policy through a belief in the efficacy of the punishment of death, or exclude rebels from the hope of repentance and an early atonement of their error. 5.103.2. Let not this be the case with you, who are weak and hang on a single turn of the scale; nor be like the vulgar, who, abandoning such security as human means may still afford, when visible hopes fail them in extremity, turn to invisible, to prophecies and oracles, and other such inventions that delude men with hopes to their destruction.’ 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. Demosthenes, Orations, 16.3, 20.64, 20.81, 20.141

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
advantage	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 70
aristotle,on deliberative rhetoric	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 70
assembly,discursive parameters	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 70
athenians at sparta (speech of),and greatest things (fear,honour,and advantage)	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 230
athens and athenians,and mytilenean revolt	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 230
choice (primarily in thucydides),and freedom	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 298
choice (primarily in thucydides),impairment / erasure of	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 298
choice (primarily in thucydides),scope for	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 230
diodotus,and greatest things (freedom or dominion over others)	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 230
diodotus,rhetorical strategy of	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 230
honorific decrees	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 122
humaneness	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 122
invisible things (τὰ ἀφανῆ)	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 298
irrational impulses,and choice	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 298
irrational impulses,and human nature	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 230, 298
irrational impulses,dominating intellect	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 298
justice,corrective	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 70
justice,distributive	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 70
mytilene,secession of	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 230
pericles,exceptionality of	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 298
quest for power,and self-preservation	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 230
reciprocity,and athenian identity	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 122
reciprocity,and honorific decrees	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 122
reciprocity,and justice	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 122
reciprocity	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 122
thracian allies of athens	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 298
thucydides,mytilenean debate	Barbato (2020), The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past, 70, 122
ἐλπίς (hope or expectation) and ἐλπίζω and εὔελπις,and thracian allies'	Joho (2022), Style and Necessity in Thucydides, 298