The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War

by Thucydides

The ambiguity of a man’s thought and intent is scarcely appreciated in the historian’s effort to paint broad strokes of character. Intention counts for little; action is everything. Pericles is thoroughly majestic (2.65.5–9), and Cleon is violent and mean-spirited (3.36.6; 4.21.3–4.22.2)—period. Most Spartans predictably conform to their conservative and unimaginative stereotypes (1.86.1–1.87.6; 5.105.4), as if better to contrast a few Spartans of unquestioned dash and audacity, like Gylippus (7.1.1–7.7.2) and Brasidas especially (2.25.2; 4.11.4–4.12.1; 4.81; 5.6.3–5.11.5). The rash and amoral Alcibiades is as un-Periclean (6.15.2–4) as the conventional, cautious, and ineffective Nicias. Admiration for men of action like Hermocrates of Syracuse (5.32.3–5.35.1; 6.72.2–5) and the Athenian general Demosthenes (7.42.3–5) often outweighs their occasional failures and errors in judgment (6.103.4; 8.85.3; 3.98.5;