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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



10882
Thucydides, The History Of The Peloponnesian War, 3.82.1


οὕτως ὠμὴ <ἡ> στάσις προυχώρησε, καὶ ἔδοξε μᾶλλον, διότι ἐν τοῖς πρώτη ἐγένετο, ἐπεὶ ὕστερόν γε καὶ πᾶν ὡς εἰπεῖν τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐκινήθη, διαφορῶν οὐσῶν ἑκασταχοῦ τοῖς τε τῶν δήμων προστάταις τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἐπάγεσθαι καὶ τοῖς ὀλίγοις τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους. καὶ ἐν μὲν εἰρήνῃ οὐκ ἂν ἐχόντων πρόφασιν οὐδ’ ἑτοίμων παρακαλεῖν αὐτούς, πολεμουμένων δὲ καὶ ξυμμαχίας ἅμα ἑκατέροις τῇ τῶν ἐναντίων κακώσει καὶ σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ προσποιήσει ῥᾳδίως αἱ ἐπαγωγαὶ τοῖς νεωτερίζειν τι βουλομένοις ἐπορίζοντο.So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being everywhere made by the popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians. In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties.


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

4 results
1. Aristophanes, Acharnians, 308 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)

308. οἷσιν οὔτε βωμὸς οὔτε πίστις οὔθ' ὅρκος μένει;
2. Aristophanes, Peace, 619, 1066 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)

1066. αἰβοιβοῖ. τί γελᾷς; ἥσθην χαροποῖσι πιθήκοις.
3. Herodotus, Histories, 1.32.8, 8.144.2 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

1.32.8. It is impossible for one who is only human to obtain all these things at the same time, just as no land is self-sufficient in what it produces. Each country has one thing but lacks another; whichever has the most is the best. Just so no human being is self-sufficient; each person has one thing but lacks another. 8.144.2. For there are many great reasons why we should not do this, even if we so desired; first and foremost, the burning and destruction of the adornments and temples of our gods, whom we are constrained to avenge to the utmost rather than make pacts with the perpetrator of these things, and next the kinship of all Greeks in blood and speech, and the shrines of gods and the sacrifices that we have in common, and the likeness of our way of life, to all of which it would not befit the Athenians to be false.
4. Thucydides, The History of The Peloponnesian War, 1.21.1, 1.23.1, 1.23.3, 2.40.2-2.40.3, 2.47-2.53, 2.51.3, 2.53.1, 3.37-3.48, 3.76.1, 3.81.4-3.81.5, 3.82, 3.82.2-3.82.8, 3.83.1-3.83.2, 3.84, 3.112.3, 3.112.5, 6.24, 7.29.5 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)

1.21.1. On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity. 1.23.1. The Median war, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two by land. The Peloponnesian war was prolonged to an immense length, and long as it was it was short without parallel for the misfortunes that it brought upon Hellas . 1.23.3. Old stories of occurrences handed down by tradition, but scantily confirmed by experience, suddenly ceased to be incredible; there were earthquakes of unparalleled extent and violence; eclipses of the sun occurred with a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there were great droughts in sundry places and consequent famines, and that most calamitous and awfully fatal visitation, the plague. All this came upon them with the late war 2.40.2. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. 2.40.3. Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. 2.53.1. Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its origin to the plague. Men now coolly ventured on what they had formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and those who before had nothing succeeding to their property. 3.76.1. At this stage in the revolution, on the fourth or fifth day after the removal of the men to the island, the Peloponnesian ships arrived from Cyllene where they had been stationed since their return from Ionia, fifty-three in number, still under the command of Alcidas, but with Brasidas also on board as his adviser; and dropping anchor at Sybota, a harbor on the mainland, at daybreak made sail for Corcyra . 3.81.4. During seven days that Eurymedon stayed with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those of their fellow-citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and although the crime imputed was that of attempting to put down the democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their debtors because of the monies owed to them. 3.81.5. Death thus raged in every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there. 3.82.2. The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety of the particular cases. 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. 3.82.3. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. 3.82.4. Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence, became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. 3.82.5. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended 3.82.6. until even blood became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such associations had not in view the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by ambition for their overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime. 3.82.7. The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence. Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first. 3.82.8. The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy, engaged in the direct excesses; in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honor with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape. 3.83.1. Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. 3.83.2. To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. 3.112.3. At dawn he fell upon the Ambraciots while they were still abed, ignorant of what had passed, and fully thinking that it was their own countrymen,— 3.112.5. In this way he routed their army as soon as he attacked it, slaying most of them where they were, the rest breaking away in flight over the hills. 7.29.5. Everywhere confusion reigned and death in all its shapes; and in particular they attacked a boys' school, the largest that there was in the place, into which the children had just gone, and massacred them all. In short, the disaster falling upon the whole town was unsurpassed in magnitude, and unapproached by any in suddenness and in horror.


Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
abstract nominal forms (in ancient greek generally), indications of time of day frequent in subject position Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 37
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides, and passive phrases / shades of meaning Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 61
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides, as subjects Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 37
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides, generalizing Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 61
abstract nominal phrases in thucydides, vs. plain style Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 37
alcibiades Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 222
athens, and identity Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
corcyra Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 222
deception, opposed to hoplitism Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
democracy, athenian, thucydides depiction of Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
dionysius of halicarnassus, on continuity between thucydides style and subject matter Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 15
dionysius of halicarnassus, on idiosyncrasy of thucydides style Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 15
epipolai Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 402
euripides, supplices Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
herodotus, and τὸ ἑλληνικόν Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 61
herodotus Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 197
hippocratic corpus Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
pathology of war, stylistic comparison with preceding narrative Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 37
peloponnesian war, as commonly characterized by thucydides Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 15
pericles, on deceit Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
phrynichos (politician) Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 222
plague' Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 197
plague, and character of peloponnesian war Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 15
plague Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 402
poikilia Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
samos Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 222
sicilian expedition Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 197
solon Rengakos and Tsakmakis, Brill's Companion to Thucydides (2006) 197
sparta, education system Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
spartans, duplicitous and savage Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
substantivized neuter phrases, abstract vs. collective sense of Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 61
substantivized neuter phrases, based on adjectives Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 61
thucydides, funeral speech Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
xenophon, and spartan custom Hesk, Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens (2000) 38
τὸ ἑλληνικόν Joho, Style and Necessity in Thucydides (2022) 61