Thucydides' Use of Abstract Language

Author(s): Adam Parry

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Yale French Studies, No. 45, Language as Action (1970), pp. 3-20
Published by: Yale University Press
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Adam Parry

use of abstract
Thucydides' language

In thefollowing essayI shallconsiderit mypurposenotso muchto

make a pointabout Thucydides, as to suggesta methodof study
whichI thinkis a usefulone forhim and formanyotherGreek
writers as well.Thismethodis hardlya newone,butas faras I can
see it has notbeenadequately exploitedin Classicalstudies:I mean
makinga studyof the means of expressionwhicha givenwriterhad
at hisdisposalas thestarting pointfortheelucidation ofhisthought;
in otherwordsto viewa writer's creationfirstin termsof theraw
materials he used.Certainly thestudent of theplasticartsis careful
to do that: we are alwaystoldwhatsortof marble,or bronze,or
claya sculptor or architect
choseto shapeto hispurposes;and often
we can see how thefinalshapehe createddependson thematerial
chosen.Sometimes we are shownthephenomenon of a certainin-
congruence betweenmaterialand form:cases wherean artistuses
in one mediumdeviceswhichwereevolvedin, and are moreap-
propriate to, theuse of another.Clay vaseswithhandleswhichare
too thinbecausethepotteris brying theshapeof metalvases,and
similarphenomena. I suggestthatthe literary artistis no less de-
pendenton his medium:he dealswithlanguagein a particular state
ofevolution;whathe says,thefinalpurport ofhiswork,willalways
be intimately associatedwiththelanguagewhichis hisrawmaterial.
Occasionallyhe will be seen to struggle againstcertainqualitiesin
his literarymedium:he may,like Pindar,use abstractnounsas if
theyweretangible entities;andin doingso he willbe likethesculptor
who triesto giveto marblesomeof thequalitiesof bronze.A dif-
ference betweentheliterary and theplasticartistis thatthematerial
of the formeris alwaysimmediately boundup withthought:the
languagewhicha poet or an historian adoptsitselfcontainsa way

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of lookingat theworld; and in makinghis individualstatement, a

writerwill have to beginfromthe assumptions implicitin his raw
materials.
Such an approachmayI feelbe particularly valuableforGreek
writers beforetheage ofPhilosophy, forthereasonthattheirlanguage
differsmuchfromours,and thatitsspecialqualitieshaveaccordingly
beenlittleunderstood. We are likelyto consider thepoetsas isolated
phenomena, as if everypoet not onlycreatedhis poems,but also
fashioned as it werefromnothing thestyleand themodeof language
theyare written in. And yetit shouldbe obviousthatif we are to
understand say,Pindar,we mustfirst understand thelyricstylewhich
existedbeforehe wrote:we mustfindout whatis commonto him
and to Simonides and to Bacchylides,andthenlookforthevariations
fromthiscommonstylein orderto see whathe was reallytrying to
do. Even in the case of a - for us-isolated representative of a
tradition,thisis so. The geniusof Homer(assumingonlyforthe
purposesof argument thathe is the authorof boththe Iliad and
theOdyssey)willonlybe understood by seeingclearlytheparticular
use he made of a pre-existing formulary tradition. In the case of
prose-writers on the otherhand,our knowledge is obscuredby a
worsefailing:thetradition of ancientrhetoric has beenso strong as
to dominatemostmodernpresentations: so thatwe look at the
history of Greekprosefromthepointof viewsuggested by Aristotle
in hisRhetoric, 1 and see,or think we see,howfromprimitive begin-
ningsthe fullydevelopedrhetorical period slowlybut inevitably
evolved.
The truthis thatwe do nothavein Greekliterature on theone
handa groupof poets,each uniqueand a law untohimself, and on
a
theother, development of prosemovingfrominfantile simplicities
towardan Aristotelian finalgood of developedrhetorical device.
Whatwe have insteadis a constantdevelopment of languagefrom
Homerto Hellenistic literature
whichembracesall formsof writing.
The chiefcharacteristic of thisdevelopment is theformation and the

1II. 9.

4
Adam Parry

gradualascendancy of abstractmodesof expression. We can watch

theprogressof thisdevelopment, whichoccurswithespecialclarity
in theGreekworld,muchgreater claritythanis shownby theanal-
ogousdevelopment of theEuropeanlanguages, sincetheyfromtheir
earlieststageshave been troubledby influences fromwithout.We
can see how at a distinct pointof time aroundthemiddleof the
-
Vth Century - prosebeginsto displacepoetryas themostserious
vehicleof thought, largelyas a consequence ofthisverydevelopment.
And, mostimportant, we can gain new insightinto everyancient
writeralongtheway,by seeinghow he reactedto the stage,of the
development whichwas contemporary withhim.
Let us considerthe specificproblemof Thucydides' style.I was
led to a studyof thisa good manyyearsago by thediscovery that,
whileI admiredthestyleofThucydides immensely, moreindeedthan
thatof any otherGreekprose-author, not everyone sharedmy un-
qualifiedenthusiasm. It mayhave begunone day witha professor
who handedme back a prosepiece I had done forhim withthe
comment thatit soundedlikeone of Thucydides' speeches.Thatthis
was by no meansa compliment struckme as a veryinteresting judg-
menton Thucydidesas well as myself.About the same time I
discovered thatalreadyin antiquity thestyleof Thucydides had met
with criticism, and notablythat Dionysusof Halicarnassushad
written at some lengthto demonstrate the vices of the historian's
Greek style.2 Dionysus,writingfroma strictschool-rhetorician's
pointof view,and condemning Thucydides accordingly, is ratherlike
Bentleycriticising Miltonfromthepointof viewof a stricter, and
of
tamer,standard English than Milton's own.And he is valuable as
a criticin the same way as Bentley:whathe is least capableof
understanding is likelyto be mostcharacteristicallyThucydidean.
We are facedwiththeparadoxthattheGreekwriter whoabove
all others,even Plato and Aristotle, values intellectual clarityand
certitude,is oftenso extremely difficult
and involvedthatwe must
struggle to figureout whathe is saying,and not rarelyfail in the

2 De Thucydidead Aelium Tuberona,esp. ch. 24. Dionysus mixes some

admirationof the historian'sstylewithhis censure.

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attempt.Who has read throughthe text of Thucydideswithoutat

dozens of places exclaiming: "Here he is really not giving us a
chance!" Was this the last joke on the world of the exiled Athenian
militaryleader, or of the disappointedPericlean imperialist?Surely
not,because anyonewho admiresThucydidesmustfeelthatthepower
of his language is inevitablybound up withhis obscurity.Oftenwe
feel that it is preciselyhis desire for accuracy,for a precisionthat
will not relax into cliche at any point,that makes his sentencesso
complex and so elliptical.But it is not enoughto say thathe sought
precision,or even,as Wade-Geryso finelyputit,a "poet's precision."I
Albin Lesky is nearerthe mark when he speaks of the remarkable
antinomyin Thucydides,whereby"beneath his serene detachment
and lucid objectivitythereis theagitationof a passionateand troubled
spirit."This, says Lesky, is what accountsforhis densityand varia-
tion in expression,qualities which,as Lesky sees withgreatinsight,
appear most clearlywhenhis styleis comparedwiththatof his older
contemporaryGorgias.4 This brief statementof Lesky brings us
closer,I think,than any previousanalysisto understanding Thucydi-
des; but to grasp its fullimplicationswe mustdefinethispassionate
and yetscientific stylemorecloselyand considerit in thelargecontext
of the developmentof abstractexpressionin the Greek language.
One obvious peculiarityof Thucydides' style is a fondnessfor
forbalancingone sortof thingagainstanother.An equally
antithesis,
obvious peculiarityis variation,what the Greek rhetoricianscalled
metabole.I
These two featuresare persistentand obvious. Aristotle(Rhet.
111.9) distinguishedthe lexis eiromen&- the running,paratactic or
strung-out stylefromthe lexis katestrammen&, the bound or periodic
style.Modern historiansof Greek prose have added the antithetical
style, representedby Thucydides and the orators Antiphon and
Gorgias as an intermediatestep betweenHerodotus,masterof the
strung-out, and Isocrates and Demosthenes,mastersof the periodic,

3 OxfordClassical Dictionary,904.
4 Geschichteder griechischenLiteratur,
2 Bern/Mtinchen 1957-8,524.
5 See [Longinus]De Sublimitate23.1 and Russell's note ad loc.

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Adam Parry

styles.6 We thus get a developmentwhich subservesthe idea of

progress with the infantilesimplicitiesof Herodotus developing
throughthe energeticadolescenceof Thucydidesto the roundedma-
turityof Isocrates.This is one way of presenting the historyof Greek
prose; but if somethingmay have been gained in smoothnessand
fullnessof expressionbetweenThucydidesand Isocrates,betweenthe
mastersof the antitheticand the periodic styles,so much may have
been lost as well.
Antithesesare the most prominentfeatureof Thucydides'style.
Only a littleless prominentis variation.The effectof this is partly
to counteractthe effectof antithesis.That is, you firstbalance offone
thingagainst another,then you introducean imbalanceby phrasing
the two correspondingparts differently. Thucydidesdoes this con-
stantly,and thereis a huge book by a Dutch scholar7 which lists
example afterexample of this sort of variation,and triesto classify
them.
Let me give a few simple examples. The simplestantithesisra-
pidly sets up one word against another.The Corinthianscomplain
of Lacedaemonian sluggishnessin the First Congressin Laecdaemon
in book I. "You, Lacedaemonians, are alone inactive,and defend
yourselves,not by doing anything,but by looking as if you -would
do something."That is Crawley'stranslation, and it is veryingenious,
but the contrastis muchmorefocussedon singlewordsin theGreek:
ou tei dynameitina, alla t0i melleseiam5nomenoi: defendingyour-
selves not by power or action,but by delay. An abstractnoun in the
dativesingular(dynamei)is balanced againstanotherabstractnoun in
the dative singular (mellisei). They have the same endings (-ei)
and the same numberof syllables,althoughthe firstis rapid,beingan
anapaest(oo -), the second,appropriately slow,a molossus( --).
The symmetry is virtuallycomplete,and thereis almostno variatio.
But we can observethesepoints: thatthe effectof the swiftstaccato

grecqueIV, Paris 1898, 629.

6 E. g. A. Croiset,Histoirede la Litterature
By katestrammeni, Aristotlein fact probablyhad somethinglike the "anti-
thetical"stylein mind,and would have includedThucydides.See G. Kennedy,
"Aristotleon thePeriod,"HarvardStudiesin ClassicalPhilology63, 1958,283-8.
7 J. Ros, Die METABOLH (Variatio) als Stilprinzip des Thukydides,Pa-
derbon,1938.

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styleis to concentrateour attentionon particularwords; and that

thesewordsare likelyto be abstract
nouns.
Here is an examplefromthe secondbook. The Peloponnesians
are attacking the townof Stratusin Acarnania:"[They]advanced
uponStratusin threedivisions,withtheintention of encampingnear
it and attemptingthewall byforceif theyfailedto succeedbynego-
tiation."HeretheEnglishdoesgetthecontrast ofwordagainstword,
buttheGreekagainis a littledifferent."So thattheycouldencamp
and then,if theycould not
near it, hopos engysstratopedeusamenoi,
the wall: ei me
persuadeby words,by actiontheycould attempt
logois peithoien,ergoi peirointotou teichous. The words that are
made to leap out at us in thesentenceare thedativeplurallogois
and the dativesingularergoi,and thesefundamental Thucydidean
termsare whatCrawleytranslated by negotiation and force.More-
overthereis a subtlevariatioin thissentence:theonewordis plural,
the otheris singular.The one goes witha verbused absolutely:
peithoien-persuade; theothergoeswitha verbthathas an object:
peirointotou teichous-makean attempt on thewall.Furthermore,
logoisis a real instrumental dative: theywill tryto persuadeby
words;whereasergoiis adverbialand in a senseunnecessary: they
will make an attempt on the wall,and thiswill be an exampleof
action.ergoiin factis notneededfortheimmediate meaningof the
sentence,and Thucydides putsit in becausehe wantsto presentthis
simplebit of narrative too as a manifestation of the fundamental
oppositionhe is alwaysseeingbetweenwords,or conception, and
But at thesame timethathe establishes,
deeds,or actuality. witha
touchof violence,thissymmetry, he breaksit a littlebit,by variatio,
makingthecorresponding wordsfulfillslightlydifferent functionsin
thesentence.
A thirdexampleof antithesis and variationis the mostfamous
sentencein thewholeHistory:PericlessaysoftheAthenians:philo-
kaloumen te gar met' euteleiis kai philosophoumenaneu malakias.
Thisis a highlyGorgiansentence,
and rhythm playsan obviouspart.
"We lovethingsof beautywitheconomy,withrestraint, and we love
thingsof themindwithoutsoftness." in Crawley's
Or, less literally,

8
Adam Parry

translation:
"Cultivating
refinement
without
extravagance
and knowl-
edgewithout effeminacy..."
philokaloumen -'we love beauty'- matches philosophoumen
-'we love wisdom,or knowledge'-perfectly,in rhythm,grammar
and sense.The verbphilosophein a gener-
firstappearsin Herodotus,
ationbeforeThucydides,whoprobablytookthewordfromhis pre-
decessor;philakaloumenis Thucydides'
own coinage,made by him
to match Herodotus' word.8 met' euteleiis-with economy'- does
not quitematchaneu malakiiis- 'withoutsoftness'.You could de-
scribethissortof variationin two ways: eitherby sayingthatit
establishesa symmetry and thenbreaksit up; or by sayingthatif
forcesintoa symmetrical pattern
phrasesand thoughts thatare not
entirelycommensurate witheach other.And noticeagain,first, that
antithesisandvariation turnon abstractwords;and second,thathere
too,thoughnotso obviously, Thucydides has seenthings in termsof
his fundamental oppositionbetweenthought and actuality.The first
halfof theepigramsoundsetherealin translation, but in factrefers
to a specificexternal thePericleanbuildingprogram,
reality, respon-
sibleforthe Parthenon amongotherthings, so fiercelyattackedby
his politicalopponentswho complainedparticularly aboutits high
cost.The secondhalfcontrasts withthefirst, movingintothesphere
of mind; onlythetermmalakii 'softness' bringsus back to theex-
ternalworld,beingprimarily a militaryterm:Periclesis sayingthat
theAthenians and stilldefeattheSpartans.
can be intellectuals,
Another example,withgreater syntactical The Thebans,
variation.
alliesof theSpartans,makea speechin book3 (chs.61-7)urgingthe
Spartansto exterminate themalepopulation of Plataea,a smalltown
on theborderbetweenTheban-dominated Boeotiaand the territory
of Athens.The Plataeans,theThebanssay,are war-criminals: their
crime has been to help the Atheniansin their attemptto conquerall
of Greece.The Plataeans,on trial,makean eloquentplea fortheir
lives,employing poeticand archaiclanguageand reminding theSpar-
tansof theirold alliancewithPlataeaat thetimeofthePersianwars:

8 I am rejectingwithoutargumentthe possibilitythat Thucydidesin this

sentenceis actuallyrepeatingwords spoken by the historicalPericles.

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the Plataeansthengave theirlives forGreekliberty. The decisive

wasfought
battleagainstthePersianinvaders on theirsoil.The graves
oftheSpartanswhodiedin thatbattlehavebeencaredforeversince
bythePlataeans;and Spartain particularhas an obligationto main-
tainherold sacredalliancewithPlataea,ratherthandestroy all her
Thebans.The Thebansin replyreject
citizensto please theruthless
whattheyregardas a sentimental appeal to irrelevantpast history.
The Plataeansare guiltynowbecausetheyhave becomethelackeys
ofAthensnow."Do not,"theysayin theirperoration to theSpartans,
"let us be disregarded in yourdecisionbecauseof the Plataeans'
words; makeherea demonstration to all of Greecethatyou will
insiston contestsnotof wordsbutof acts; iftheactsare goodones,
thereportof themcan be brief[theThebanshad earliercomplained
of the lengthof the Plateans'speech]but of wrong-doing men,
words,adornedwithpoeticforms,are a mask of hypocrisy.
The Thebans'rejectionof history as a standardof judgment in
favourof immediate politicalpressures,and their
reductionof a com-
plex situationto a simplistic morality immediate
reflecting political
interest(all pro-Spartansare good; all pro-Athenians are evil) are
expressedby a seriesof antitheses. 'us'-in Greekthefirstperson
pluralof the verbperiosth3men'be neglected or pushedaside'- is
contrasted withwords,logois,thedativepluralofthenoun.Paradeig-
ma,example,objectof a verb,is setagainstlogon,wordsin thegen-
itiveplural,whichis itselfinstantlycontrastedwithergon,acts,again
in thegenitive plural.Another genitive pluralnounagath3n,of good
men,is contrasted, external realitywithwords,withthenounreport
on whichit depends;thenthegenitive hamar-
pluralof a participle
tanomenon,of wrong-doing men,is contrastedin sense withagathln,
but as realityversus words with logoi, words or speeches, which
'become' a deceptivereality,prokalymmata.The speakers ring the
changeson therelationofwordsto realityas theysee it in thisrapid
(a beingthefirstmember
are syncopated
dialectic.The antitheses of
an opposition withb, whichthenbecomesthefirst member of a new
opposition withc) and variedin grammaticalform,verbsbalancing
is variedand refracted
nouns,etc.The basicdeviceof antithesis to a

10
Adam Parry

degreebeyondwhatwe couldfindin anyotherGreekauthor.And

yettheintensity analysisand theelaborateness
of intellectual of the
syntactical structureare not frivolous: they deepen our dramatic
senseoftheThebans'brutalmodeofself-justification as theybrilliant-
ly and systematically annihilate all the emotional claims whichthe
Plataeanshad presented in theirself-defense.Thucydides' syntactical
modulations operatein his history like the sophistic conceitsof a
EuripideanJasonor Menelaus.Here,withinthespectrum of Thucy-
dides' oppositionof innerand outerreality, the Thebans represent
one extreme, rejectingall moralstandards, intellectualcriteriaand
psychological motives in favourof theimmediate pressure of political
interest.
betweenthought
This distinction betweenlogosand
and actuality,
ergonor moreor less obviousequivalents, is the real idiosyncracy
in Thucydides' style.It comesup againand again-I have counted
some420 examplesaltogether in theeightbooksof theHistory, and
it comesup wherewe leastexpectit,in moments of greatpathosfor
example,as in the longsentencewherePericlesdescribesthedeath
of the Atheniansoldiersin the firstyear'sfighting, whereergon
appearstwice,logosonce,and variousequivalents appeartentimes. 9
This is the one featureof Thucydides'stylewhichcriticshave
mostsingledout forattack,and even his admirers have been put
outbyit.ThomasArnold,commenting on thesentence I justreferred
to, lamentsthatsuchfinepathosis adulterated by a frigid rhetorical
device,andA. Croisetchoosesanother exampleofit11to demonstrate
thatThucydides alloweda mannerism to standin theway of what
he was saying.More recently, J. D. Denniston, in an attempt to set
up Herodotusas thestandard of Greekprose-writing, has statedthat
whileGorgiaswas misledby a craze for verbal Thucy-
antithesis,
dideswas misledby a crazeforlogicalantithesis. he
"In particular,"
says,"he dragsin thelogos/ergoncontrastin season and outof season.
It spoilsone ofhisnoblestutterancesin theFuneralOration...etc.""

9 2.42.4.
10 1.70.6; in his editionof ThucydidesI and II.
11 GreekProse Style,Oxford1952,13.

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But thiscannotbe right.Thucydides dependsfartoo muchon these

antithesesforus to brushthemoffas inconvenient mannerisms. An-
tithesesofthissortarein factto Thucydides whatpoeticambiguity is
to Shakespeare;and Arnold'simpatience withthe Greekhistorian
is remarkably likeSamuelJohnson's impatience withtheidiosyncra-
ciesoftheEnglishpoet.Johnson, in a famousremark, saysofShakes-
peare: "A quibbleis to Shakespeare whatluminousvapoursare to
thetraveller:he followsit at all adventures; it is sureto lead him
outofhisway,and sureto engulf himin themire.It has somemalig-
nantpoweroverhis mind,and its fascinations are irresistible...
A
quibblewas to himthefatalCleopatra,forwhichhe losttheworld,
and was content to lose it."In recenttimesscholarsof Englishlitera-
turehavedonemuchto showjusthowindispensable a partquibbles,
or ambiguities,do playin Shakespeare's verse.Consider theanalyses
of WilliamEmpson.And similarly, our purposein understanding
Thucydides shouldbe to explainwhattheeffect is of hisfatalCleo-
patra,theabstractantithesis withvariation, turning on a contrastof
thought and reality.
To do this,I thinkwe haveto go backand look,howeverbriefly,
at the entirehistoryof the development of abstractlanguagein
Greekliterature. The Greeksin factwerethefirstpeopleto develop
an abstractvocabulary. T.B.L. Websterhas describedverywell a
numberof featuresof thisdevelopment in an articlecalled "From
Primitiveto Modem Thoughtin AncientGreece;"12 I shouldlike
hereto offera schema.I proposefivestagesof abstraction. Thucy-
dides and Gorgiasbeforehimwill fallneatlyintothe third.They
are: the concreteabstraction, the proverbial abstraction,the social
abstraction,the dogmaticabstraction, and the tentative abstraction.
The concreteabstraction is wherewe start,and it is of course
a contradictionin terms. Therearein factvirtually no abstractions
in
Homer.In the Homericworldeverything is feltas a substantial
thing,a concretefor our abstract,and thisis whatgivesus that
wonderful senseofsolidity andreality whenwe readHomer.Courage,
forexample,is nothing one couldeverargueabout,or tryto define,

12 Acta CongressusMadvigianiII, 29-46.

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Adam Parry

in the mannerof a Platonicdialogue.andreici, the classicalnoun

meaning'courage,does notoccurin Homer,and a wordlikemenos
resistsdefinition.
It is somethinglived,ratherthanthought. A man
has it,and whenhe dies,he losesit: apo garmenosheiletochalkos:
"thebronzetookhismenosaway."
The proverbial is developedby Hesiod,and reaches
abstraction
itsheight PindarandAeschylus
in thearchaicwriters, andHerodotus.
Here we get real abstractwords,like eubouliigood counsel,penii
poverty, philophrosyni benevolence, re-
and the like.13 dikaiosyne,
placingtheold substantivedike,seemsto appearfirst in Herodotus.
14

These abstractwordsexistin theirown right,but theyare largely

limitedto proverbialexpressions,or else are immediately boundup
withsome dramaticcontext.A briefexamplefromHesiod: after
pounding in uponhisbrother thevalueofeconomy, he says:

gar aristZ
euthemosynZ
thnetoisanthropois de kakiste.
kakothemosynZ

"euthemosyne is bestformenand kakothemosyne is worst."These

wordsstandalone as trueabstractions, but theyreallysum up a
longconcreteargument precedesthem; and theyare locked,so to
speak,in a proverb.Euthemosyne meansliterally good disposition,
i.e., householdeconomyand orderliness;kakothjmosyne is its con-
trary. Bothwordsappearto havebeeninvented bythepoet,to make
possiblethenextproverbial jinglewe findin theselines.Unlikeother
abstracts endingwith-syneand -ii coinedin thisperiod,thesewords
did not survivein the livinglanguage.The reason for Hesiod's
frequent clumsinessis thathe is sucha greatinnovatorin language.
The thirdstage,whichI willcomeback to,is thesocialabstrac-
tion.Abstractwordsnow appearcompletely free.Theyare indepen-
dententities,and theycan dominatewholepassagesof writing. But
theyare social,becausetheyalwaysimplya clearhumanstateor

13 Such words,including philophrosyng,do occurin Homer,in a proverbial

use, e.g.,Iliad 9.256. But thisis exceptional.
14 See now E.A. Havelock, "Dikaiosune, an Essay in Greek Intellectual
History,"Phoenix23, 1969,49-70.

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a clearmodeof behaviour:theyhavenotlostdramaticand human

reference.
The fourthstageis Aristotle, and I call it dogmatic.Abstract
wordsare entirely independent: theyneed not referto any human
stateor behaviour.Andtheyarethetruerealities. WhenAristotle has
reducedsomething to a setofterms, whichis theprocedure of all his
he feelsthathe has reallyexplainedand fixedthatthing
treatises,
forever.hyleand ousi -matter and essence-mean nothing in a
humancontext, but theyare whattheworldis made of. Aristotle's
universeis constructed but of pinpointed
not of spheres, and hypo-
stasizedabstractwords.
The fifthstageis the one we are in, and I meanby callingit
thatit comeswhentheconfidence
tentative, of earlyphilosophy has
been shaken,so thatwe no longercan reduceeverything to a sure
terminology; on theotherhand,abstract language,developedoriginal-
lybyphilosophers, is so widespreadthatwe can'tgetalongwithout it.
A return to a Homericor evena Gorgiannaiveteis impossible;and
so we use complicated but withoutfeelingthatthey
abstractions,
accuratelydescribethings foronceandforall. Whenwe readthiskind
of sentence- to choose an example - it is obvious that the writer
is not claimingforhis intellectualabstractionsthe kindof lasting
accuracythat Aristotle,or Descartes,claimed for his: "Sade's
fictional
counterworld was articulated
in stages;each of themmarks
a furtheradvance in the profoundly dramaticemergenceof an
ideologythatis at thesametimean affective I havechosen
tonality."
here,partlyforamusement, an examplefromEnglish,because,as I
indicated,I believetheschemeworksformodemlanguagesas well
as for Greek,althoughthe stagesare less clearlyarticulated in
English.A moreseriousexampleofthefifth stagein Greekliterature
mighthave been takenfromthetreatiseOn theSublime.
Let us return whichis
to thethirdstage,the social abstraction,
the one I said Thucydidesand Gorgiasrepresent. Abstractwords
abound; at timestheyappearthestapleof theargument;butthey
alwayshave a humanand dramaticreference. Here is a paragraph
of Englishprosewhichrepresents thisstageto perfection.It is from

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Adam Parry

theend of JaneAusten'sPersuasion:"In his preceding attemptsto

attachhimself to Louisa Musgrove(theattempts of angrypride),he
protestedthathe had foreverfeltit to be impossible;thathe had
not cared,couldnot care forLouisa; though, tillthatday,tillthe
leisurefor reflexionwhichfollowedit, he had not understood
theperfectexcellence of a mindwithwhichLouisa'scouldso ill bear
a comparison;or the perfect, unrivalledhold it possessedoverhis
own. There,he had learntto distinguish betweenthe steadinessof
principleand theobstinacy of self-will,
betweenthedaringsof heed-
lessnessand theresolution of a collectedmind.Therehe had seen
everythingto exaltin hisestimation thewomanhe had lost,andthere
begunto deplorethepride,thefolly, themadnessofresentment, which
had kepthimfromtrying to regainherwhenthrown in his way."
CaptainWentworth makeshisfinalchoicein thenovelbydistinguish-
ingbetweensocialabstractions, witha precisionthatwouldhavewon
theadmiration of Prodicus.
Thisthirdstagemarksthefirst realtriumph of abstract language,
and in Greekliteratureit coincideswiththedevelopment ofproseas
the majorvehicleof man'sunderstanding of theworld.We findat
thisstagean excitement, evenan exhilaration,withprosaiclanguage
whichdoes notrecurlater.The novelsenseof thepowerof abstract
prose,not onlyas a meansof persuasion, but evenmoreas a way
of seeingand controlling theworld,is whatwe findin Gorgiasand
Thucydides, and no IVth-century writerquitehas it. By the IVth-
centuryalready,menhad grownfamiliar withabstractions thatcould
be juggledby theSophistand theScientist.
The social abstraction beginsin the poets.We findit in the
writersof elegy,in Pindar-in a special form-and in Aeschylus;
and in Aeschylus, I mightadd, mostclearlyin a play whichsome
hereticshave considered not genuineon thegroundsthatit reveals
"sophisticinfluence";thatis, thePrometheus Bound.But by itsna-
tureit demandsprose,and thisis becauseit demandsantithesis for
its fullexpression.
It is interesting,
in viewof Thucydides'
ownview
of history,to notethatThemistocles is thefirstmanwe can citeas
havingused it as the chiefmaterialof discourse.In book VIII,

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chapter83,Herodotusdescribes a speechof Themistocles whichmay

wellhavebeenactuallydelivered byhim,andHerodotus's description
makesit fairlyclear thatthisspeechmusthave turnedon abstract
antitheses.We can further noteas an amusingexampleof thepower
of abstractions, Themistocles' attempt to hold up theAndrians(for
theirwantof serviceto theGreekcause)afterthebattleof Salamis:
We havewithus twogreatgods,he said,Persuasionand Necessity;
and theAndriansreplythattheirland is alreadypossessedby two
contrary divinities,
Poverty and Resourcelessness.ButifThemistocles,
as a Vth-century "FirstModemMan," was thefirstpractitioner of
the social abstraction in politicalspeech,we mustlook to Gorgias
as the earliestwriterwe have who showsthismode of language
in developedform.
Gorgias'sDefenseof Helen is themostimportant document we
possessin thisrespect.It seemsto havebeenwritten in Attic,and it
is tempting to supposethatGorgiasreadit whenhe visitedAthensas
an ambassadorfromLeontiniin 427, and thatThucydides heardit
then.But we cannotknow; and in any case Finleyhas presented
manycogentarguments to showthatthe sortof styleit represents
was knownin Athensearlierthan427.15If we considerThucydides
himself,thisseemsreasonable. Mostofus developwhatstylewe have
by ourearlytwenties, and verylikelymostof ourideas.Thucydides
was apparently in his twenties by thebeginning of thePeloponnesian
Warin 431: so itis unlikely thathe adopteda newandrevolutionary
stylein 427 as a resultof Gorgias'svisit.The Defenseof Helen,or
thingslike it, was probablyknownin Athensearlierin any case:
according to Philostratus, Gorgiaswas alreadygrowing old in 427.
The styleof this remarkable speechrepresents the triumph of
antitheticallanguage.Considerthefirstsentence:kosmospolei men
euandrii,somatide kaios, psycheide sophit,praigmati de areti,
logai de alitheia; ta d' enantiatoutonakosmi&"The gloryof a city
is euandrii- "goodmanness"-; of the body, beauty; of the mind,
wisdom; of a thing,excellence;of speech,truth;the contrary
of

15 "The Originsof Thucydides'Style,"now in ThreeEssays on Thucydides,

Cambridge,Mass., 1967.

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these is ingloriousness."Here is a writer-the first-who exploits

brilliantlythe potentialitiesof the Greek language,such as the stem-
shiftfrom kosmos to akosmii, to put forthgeneral and abstract
nouns as isolated and dynamicentities.He operates almost entirely
with antitheses,presentingabstractionsas a contrastingseries of
staccato imperatives.No style, if only we could take it wholly
seriously,contrivesmore to give a sense of the masteryof intellectual
language over the world. His words give the impressionthat all the
essential elementsof a situationhave been selected and placed in
their proper categories.To this end he employs a repetitivebut
impressivearray of rhetoricaldevice: assonance and end-rhymes,
paronomasia and isocolon, hypnoticiambic rhythms,come forth
with bewilderingneatnessand rapidity.And notice,in contrastwith
Thucydides,the perfectsymmetry, the absence of the variatio that
makes Thucydides so complicated.Gorgias's style implies an un-
qualified confidencethat the intellectcan divide and distill the
essentialsof a situationinto balanced antitheses.
This is the method which Gorgias then employs to exonerate
Helen. With six abstractphrases,he presentssix possibilitiesfor the
cause of Helen's desertionof her husband: it was "eitherthe will of
Fortune,or the counsels of the Gods, or the decrees of Necessity;
or it was because she was seized by force,or persuadedby words,or
capturedby Love." Here is the Greek: e gar tychis boulemasinkai
theon bouleumasinkai anankes psiphismasineprdxenha eprdxen,e
biii harpastheisae logois peistheisa[e erotihalousa]. The accuracyof
diction and the placing of words succeed in givingthe impression
thatif these six possibilitieshave been isolated and contrasted,then
thereare no others.All Gorgiashas thento do is to showthatforeach
possibility,Helen herself is not responsible,and she is entirely
exculpated.
Now to be sure the Defenseof Helen is a joke. We are not meant
to feel thateitherGorgias or his audience care about Helen one way
or the other.But it is not enoughto dismissthe speechas "a brilliant
displayof rhetoric".Gorgias'smethodis an intellectual- a dialectic
- one, and the rhetoricsubservesthe action of the analyticmind.

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And afterall, is this not largelythe methodof all philosophy?The

philosophertells us, You've got to accept view A or B or C; and I
will disprovethemall; or else I will disproveA and B and C and
leave you inescapably saddled with C. When we are not wholly
convincedby a philosopher,and most of us rarelyare, it is usually
not because we disagreewithhis logic step by step, but because we
don't accepthis termsto beginwith.We say to ourselves,consciously
or unconsciously, I am not goingto let you reduce my world to that
particularset of abstractcategories.The prose of Gorgias containsin
naked formthe essence of philosophicmethod.
But thereis one passage in theDefenseof Helen whichin content
as well as in methodis not a joke, but is meantby Gorgias in dead
earnest. He has six categories,thingsthat might have motivated
Helen; and the fifthof these is significantly, logos. When he comes
to logos, he entersinto a strikingdisquisitionwhichlasts for 35 lines
of Diels' text. Logos, he says, is a great wielder of power: logos
dynastesmegas estin; its body is small, even invisible,but it can
accomplishgodlike deeds: theiotataerga apotelei. It can quell fear,
and take away pain, and arouse joy and increasepity: dynataikai
phobon pausai kai lIpe-napheleinkai chardnenergasasthaikai eleon
epauxesai... Now Gorgias in this remarkablestatementis obviously
not talkingabout the words with which Paris may have persuaded
Helen, but about his own style.Playingon the traditionalopposition
of logos and ergon,wherelogos had meant "mere words" and ergon
had meant"reality,"Gorgiasis saying,My style,my way of dividing
the world into abstractconcepts,is not mere words. It is in fact
superiorto what we call realitybecause,it can createthisreality.No
modernsemanticist, tellingus we live in a worldnot of thingsbut of
words, has gone furtherthan this. Gorgias has investedhis brand
of logos, the firstdominantlyabstractspeech in the WesternWorld,
with a mythicalbeing and a demoniccapability.
Thucydides'styletoo is characterizedby abstractionand antithesis,
if not so exclusivelyso as that of Gorgias. And the influenceof
Gorgias,and to a lesser extentthatof Prodicus,has been evidentto

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onwards.But does he makeanything

his readersfromantiquity new
of theGorgianstyle?I suggestthisanswer.
The sort of confidencethat Gorgiasexpressed,that the free
humanintellect,by a sophisticatedand analyticlanguage,could
dominatetheoutsideworldwas transformed by Thucydidesintothe
centralproblemof history.Thucydidesfeltthat man was constantly
closeto a situation
wherethings, pureforceand pure
outsidereality,
his
chance,were masters. The beginning of theArchaeology,16 Thu-
cydides'sketchofearlyGreekhistory, presentssucha situation:men
moving from one place to no
another, cities,no financial
resources,
no shipsor commerce, the ever-present thattheremay
possibility
comealongall of a suddenanother strongerthanyou,and dispossess
youof thelittleyouhave.Hereis a worldwherewordsand thought
count fornothingand power - dynamis- the active manifestation
of ergon- countsforeverything. is a productof human
Civilization
conception. When it exists,wordsand thoughtcan be important,
whether thewordsbe thetraditional moraltermsby whichwe live
in timeofpeace,or whether theyare theenunciated policyofa great
statesman, like Pericles.But the tragicdialecticis, thatcivilization
itselfcannotlive in mereconception. It mustbe transformed into
reality.And thisrealitymusteventually appearin its mostviolent
form: war. Polemos, war, is the ergonpar excellence.(As in 1.23.1,
thetermsare oftenin factusedsynonymously.)Butwhenwarcomes,
it overpowers men, and reducesthemto theiroriginalstate,or
worse; worse,becausethedegeneration is evenworse
of civilization
thanthe brutality of man's firststate.Corcyrain
and uncertainty
is evenworsethanGreecebeforetheGreekshad a name.
revolution
In a famoussentencein the descriptionof thatrevolution (7.82.2),
thehistoriansays "War is a hardmaster,and bringsthemoodsof
mostmenintoharmony withtheirconditions."
ho de polemosbiaios
didaskalos kai pros ta paronta tais orgieston pollan homoioi. ta
paronta- immediate,goingrealityassumescontrolof everything,and
all language, moralandpoliticalterms,
including becomesmeaningless.
Parallelsforsucha situation
in ourowntimeare notfarto seek.

16 Esp. 1.2.2.

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Writing after404,Thucydides, whohad seenhis worlddestroyed,

presentsthisdialecticas an inevitable process.Nonetheless,thebest
thatmancan do, evenif it is notto last,is to createa civilization.
This meanscreating in realitya situationwheretheintellect - that
is, words- is in controlof things.But it is hardto do, and once
done,neverstableforlong.In short,whatGorgiasnaivelyassumed
to be easilydone- and theassumption revealshis basicfrivolity
-
Thucydides feltcould be sometimes, fora period,accomplished by
greatenergyand daringand genius.Civilization he feltis theresult
of suchqualities.
History,then,is thestoryofman'sattempt to imposehis intellect
on theworld.Thewordthatexpresses is gnome,corresponding
intellect
to the verbgignoskein,to come to knowand it is even morecommon
in Pericles'speechesthanlogos.The centralproblemof history is,
How,andwhen,canmanimposehisgnomeon things outsidehimself?
So he dramatised thisproblemalso by his style.The styleof
Gorgiaswas blandassurance.That of Thucydides, usingmuchthe
sameformsof language, is struggle.
Like Gorgias,Thucydides distills
theworldintoabstractions. But thoseof Gorgiasfallneatlyintotheir
boxesand matcheach otherperfectly. Those of Thucydides, to use
the mathematical metaphor, are neverquite commensurate. They
resistthe intellectwhichwantsto put theminto order.Of the
elementsof Thucydides' world,as it is impliedby his style,it might
be said with Montaigne,Resemblance does not so much make one,
as differencemakes other.17
In theirunwillingnessto submitto theintellect,
thethingsof the
worldrevealthepossibility of theparalogos,thesuddenincursion of
realitywhichoverthrows thebestanalysesof thegreatest statesmen.
The brokensymmetry, thevariation and thedifficulty
of Thucydides'
styleare alwaysrepeating his finalmessage:thatthemostsplendid
everrecorded
visionofcivilization - Athens oftheFuneralSpeech-
can be reducedto thesurvivorsoftheSicilianExpeditionin a rock-pit
in Syracuse,withhalfa pintof water,and a pintof meal,each day.

17 From Sur l'experience.

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