BMCR 2009.02.47, Ernst Heitsch, Geschichte und Personen bei Thukydides

Ernst Heitsch, Geschichte und Personen bei Thukydides: eine
Interpretation des achten Buches. Beitraege zur Altertumskunde, Bd.
248.  Berlin/New York:  Walter de Gruyter, 2007.  Pp. x, 180.  ISBN
9783110201291.  $93.00.

Reviewed by Gauthier Liberman, Universite/ Paris Ouest
([email protected])
Word count:  3083 words
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Those who will read this interesting but somewhat puzzling book might
well wonder to what extent its title[[1]] tallies with its contents,
mainly a paraphrasis of Thucydides' book eight, which includes a number
of discussions not only or even mainly pertaining to the part played by
individuals in history. The general introduction (p. 1-18), an abridged
version of a 2003 paper ("Geschichte und Kontingenz. Einleitende
Ueberlegungen fuer eine Thukydideslektuere"), first discusses, so to
speak sub specie aeternitatis, the nature of history as what happens,
the factors and actors which make history, the part played in it by
contingency, and the nature, aim and utility of history as the writing
of what happens. This introduction, which may be called philosophical
or epistemological, seems to me to be a clear and clever piece of
empirical or analytical thinking, but it raises some issues : one may
miss more awareness of the various meanings of the word history and of
the relativity and historical dependency of any conception of history
both as the framework within which an individual or a group lives and
as its transformation into writing. A subsequent section of the book
shortly sets the birth of history in the context of Greek culture and
thought. It is not original but prudent and says nothing which can
arouse controversy. However it raises an issue concerning the whole
book : for whom is it meant  ? The foreword mentions the "nachdenkliche
Leser".

The bulk of the book is a paraphrasis of book eight interspersed not
only with translations from the Greek (fortunately produced in italics
but unfortunately not always fully indicating the divisions of the text
first introduced by E. Fr. Poppo and generally observed after him), but
also with Heitsch's short remarks and longer discussions. The
explanatory paraphrasis is divided into three parts (8.1-28 : the
events of autumn 413 till autumn 412 ; 8.29-60 : the events of winter
412/411 and 8.61-109 : the events of summer 411), each of which is
followed by a useful "Rueckblick" which however does not avoid mere
repetition of elements contained in the preceding analysis. Heitsch's
observations are mixed with straightforward paraphrasis in such a way
that one must read Thucydides if one wants to be sure what belongs to
whom. This may not be misleading for hardcore specialists of
Thucydides, who may anyway need no such paraphrasis, but it may prove
so for those readers whom Heitsch addresses with information such as
the following : "Agathon, (den der Leser vielleicht aus Platons
Symposion kennt)" (p. 114), "Sestos (an der Westkueste des
Hellesponts)" (p. 157). Heitsch seems to justify his explanatory
paraphrasis thus (p. 17-18) :


"Thukydides verweist den Leser auf seine Erzaehlung und damit auf die
von ihm rekonstruierte Geschichte, laesst ihn mit ihr allein. Und
tatsaechlich sind denn auch seine Einblicke in die Natur der Geschichte
von uns heute m. E. nur durch eine deskriptive Analyse seiner
Erzaehlung wiederzuerkennen."


I cannot help thinking "Deskriptive Analyse" is somewhat euphemistic.
That must not make one blind to the merits of what is not mere
paraphrasis but elucidation of what (no small amount !) is implicit and
unclear in Thucydides' text. Scholars will be especially grateful to
Heitsch for the longer discussions embedded in the paraphrasis, but
they may well regret that this embedding prevented the author from
thoroughly discussing the issues and exposing and refuting contrary
views. The generally light footnotes are neither uninteresting nor
unimportant but they are no compensation. The use of secondary
literature is limited, and readers who are neither hardcore specialists
nor uninterested in these matters will too rarely be spared the effort
to check if Heitsch is exposing an original view or one that has
already been stated (compare p. 93, on the tautology of 8.58.2, with
Andrewes 1981, p. 140[[2]] and see below on the second and third
Spartan-Persian treaties). Though one may not be fully happy with
Heitsch's use of the paraphrasis, this reviewer, after reading
Thucydides' Greek, was somewhat relieved to read Heitsch's almost
always clearer German. But it must be acknowledged that only the
original text can provide the intellectual enjoyment and excitement
that is traditionally associated with Thucydides at his best. Thus
Heitsch's analysis of 8.65-66, which focuses on the missing information
in Thucydides' report, does not make it look like what Andrewes 1981
(p. 164) thinks it is, "one of Thucydides' most powerful pieces of
political description".

Heitsch provides stimulating views or discussions which may be useful
even if they are sometimes problematic : thus (p. 58 n. 55) on the
Daric stater (surprisingly little money, as is acknowledged)
Tissaphernes gives for each prisoner of Iasos (8.28.4). Heitsch rebukes
the view that Thucydides intends his (Greek) readers to understand that
Tissaphernes dupes the Spartans. In that case, he argues, Thucydides
would have indicated the amount in Greek currency (twenty silver Attic
drachmai). The objection seems to me to be futile, because Thucydides
probably expected his readers to know the worth of the <greek>stath\r
*Dareiko/s</greek>, abridged <greek>*Dareiko/s</greek>, a phrase and
word well enough attested in Greek literature and inscriptions
(Hultsch, Metrologie, p. 485 ; Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums,
IV.1, p. 75 n. 2 ; see also M. Alram, Encyclopaedia Iranica online, s.
v. Daric, with more recent bibliography). Heitsch's second objection is
better : the low price results from "an arrangement with Tisaphernes
about the booty, out of which the Spartans had in other respects done
very well" (Andrewes 1981, p. 69).

He further  argues (p. 63-64) that, since we cannot think Thucydides
was unaware that the second Spartan-Persian treaty (8.37) was less
advantageous to the Spartans than the first (18), something must be
wrong with 8.36-37 as they stand, for the second treaty (8.37) is,
Heitsch argues, supposed by Thucydides (8.36.2) to be more advantageous
to the Spartans.[[3]] But Thucydides only says that the Spartans,
considering the first treaty not to be advantageous enough, wanted
another one. This does not imply that he thought the second treaty was
more advantageous to the Spartans than the first (the second treaty is,
I believe, actually more advantageous to the Spartans, but that is not
my point). Heitsch builds on this premise the view (inter alia) that
8.37 may be due to the posthumous editor of book eight. He holds (p.
91-92 n. 101, cf. 95-96) the same view on the third treaty, 8.58, with
which, he argues, neither 8.57 nor 8.59 tally. He helpfully stresses
that this treaty does not explicitly say the fleet will come, but does
it follow from this being only implied that 8.58 doesn't tally with
8.57 and 8.59 ? Heitsch's views on 8.37 and 8.58 are to be found
(differently and forcibly but, I believe, hardly more successfully
argued) in Schwartz 1919, p. 72-75, which neither Heitsch nor
Hornblower 2008 mention.

I venture to doubt Heitsch's postulate of Thucydides' awareness (p. 64)
: even if one could consider book eight as an opus limatum, one could
not expect of any ancient historian, even Thucydides, what is expected
of modern historians. His standards of political and strategical
thinking were or may have been as different from ours as his standards
of accuracy. Furthermore Heitsch seems to be inconsistent, for he
himself more than once notes or hints that Thucydides' analysis may be
insufficient. Thus, like Andrewes 1981 (p. 95, attributing the idea to
D. Lewis, who retracted it), he thinks (pp. 74 ff) that Alcibiades was
never threatened with death by the Peloponnesians, contrary to what
Thucydides explicitly says (8.45.1). Heitsch thinks this threat is
Alcibiades' invention and he quite ingeniously speculates on his
strategy. But if Thucydides was so easily misled by Alcibiades or his
circle, what are we to think of his critical faculty, and how can we be
sure he was aware that the second Spartan-Persian treaty was (if it
was) less advantageous to the Spartans than the first ? Another case
(if one follows Heitsch's analysis) is the well-known chapter (8.87) in
which Thucydides exposes various explanations, including his own, of
why Tissaphernes did not bring the Phoenician fleet to the
Peloponnesians. Heitsch (p. 95) accepts the view originally broached in
Lewis 1958 that the fleet was kept in store for an upheaval in Egypt.
He then proceeds to explain why Tissaphernes did not tell the real
reason for not bringing the fleet (the satrap, Heitsch suggests, did
not want to display the weakness of the kingdom). After Herbse 1989
(here not quoted by Heitsch), Hornblower 2008, p. 1004-1005,
effectively challenges Lewis' hypothesis and thinks one has to conclude
that Thucydides' view is both pondered and correct. Should we go
further than Thucydides himself and hold him to be right when he
himself is not sure ? It might be no bad thing if modern scholars gave
more thought to their notion of Thucydides' reliability and excellence
as an historian and to the way they use it to corroborate their own
views on what he does, would or should have said.

Other challenging, if speculative, discussions (outside those
pertaining to Alcibiades) are, for instance, p. 80-82, on how
Thucydides' judgement in 8.46.5, which tallies with the complaint he
attributes to the Peloponnesian soldiers at Miletus (8.78), may have
been influenced by a source favourable to Alcibiades or Alcibiades
himself ; p. 103-108 on 8.65-66 as being "der angemessene Ersatz fuer
das, was der Leser hier eigentlich erwartet" and one of the many signs
that book eight is unfinished ; p. 141 on Thucydides' failure to state
what the Four Hundred's embassies were empowered to grant to the
Spartans ; p. 152-154 on Theramenes' future attitude to Antiphon and
what Thucydides would have said about it (a characteristically
speculative but entertaining piece of writing). However stimulating
Heitsch's discussions may be, they raise methodological issues. He says
in the foreword that he is not primarily interested in the question of
the extent to which book eight is unfinished (contrast p. 148 n. 186,
"dass das 8. Buch nicht ueberall jene Form hat, in der Thukydides
selbst es haette veroeffentlichen wollen, davon bin ich mit Andrewes
und anderen ueberzeugt" ; p. 132 n. 150 ; p. 172 n. 221), but this
question proves essential to many of his discussions. His attitude
towards this problem does not seem to me consistent, for he
occasionally (p. V-VI, 173) considers facts which he might have
attributed to the book's unfinished state as due to other factors, e.
g. Thucydides' strategy towards his reader or his unavoidable failure
to "impose upon events a logical pattern which they did not possess"
(Adcock 1963, quoted p. VI), a failure which is supposed to account for
the dullness of 7-44. This case illustrates a recurrent problem in the
understanding and interpretation of book eight, since the same facts
may be viewed quite differently according as one considers the book
partly a posthumous editor's juxtaposition of more or less finished
passages (for such a case, see Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica book eight
with the notes of my edition) or as an in fieri whole entirely operated
by the author himself (I do not imply that these alternative views are
always mutually exclusive). Another methodological issue, already
pointed to above, is what the word history means when one asks such a
question as "welche Moeglichkeiten haette die Geschichte noch bereit
gehalten, wenn beide, die Oligarchen in Athen und Alkibiades als
Stratege der Flotte auf Samos, in wohlverstandenem Interesse Athens auf
dem Boden einer Realpolitik rechtzeitig zueinander gefunden haetten ?"
(p. 141-142). Heitsch often speaks of the part played by chance and
opportunity, especially missed opportunities, in history. This seems to
be one of the keys of Heitsch's book, as one is aware when one reaches
its very end and conclusion : "Was man von der Minute ausgeschlagen,
gibt keine Ewigkeit zurueck" (p. 174, see also p. 107). These words
illustrate a personal aspect of the book written by a veteran scholar
(born 1928), whose attitude to history seems to be somewhat
disenchanted and pessimistic. This feeling, which Heitsch thinks was
also Thucydides', may well have influenced the way the former views the
part played by individuals in history and especially Alcibiades'
part.[[4]]

The reader who expects a thorough study of the part played by
individuals in history as far as book eight is concerned will be
disappointed, though Heitsch  has something to say about Agis,
Antiphon, Theramenes, Tissaphernes and a lot about Alcibiades, which is
dispersed and might better have been gathered in a monograph or paper
on this much discussed personality (Heitsch's references to the
literature on the subject are too few). The following passages
illustrate his attitude to this fascinating but controversial man : "so
einfach wie genial" (p. 79, about Alcibiades' argumentation, such as
stated in 8.46 ; "genial" p. 169 about the man himself), "der
wechselnden Interessenlage des ungewoehnlichen Mannes" (p. 76 n. 76),
"gibt Thukydides ein ungeschminktes Bild von der egozentrischen Haltung
dieses aussergewoehnlichen Mannes" (p. 127), "egozentrisch" (p. 169,
about the man himself). Alcibiades is one "den sein Ingenium aber auch
befaehigte, Situationen realistisch einzuschaetzen, Konzeptionen zu
entwickeln, entschlossen zu handeln und gegebenenfalls auch sein
eigenes Leben mutig einzusetzen" (p. 173). But history was not
favourable to what may seem to be in Heitsch's somewhat romantic view a
kind of unfortunate great man. It is (almost unavoidably) not always
clear what in Heitsch's portraiture of Alcibiades belongs to reality,
what to Thucydides and his informants, what to Heitsch himself. He may
well show a bias towards Alcibiades when he challenges (p. 135)
Thucydides' view (8.88) that, when he promised the Athenians at Samos
to spare no effort to avoid Tissaphernes' bringing the Phoenician fleet
to the Peloponnesians, Alcibiades had known <greek>w(s ei)ko/s</greek>
for some time (<greek>e)k ple/onos</greek>, "seit laengerem" Heitsch)
Tissaphernes' intention not to bring the fleet. Thucydides' view is in
keeping with 8.46.1, where Alcibiades is said to advise Tissaphernes to
maintain a kind of balance between the two sides through not bringing
the fleet and other resources to the Peloponnesians. Thucydides' view
in 8.88 is very logical if one remembers 8.46.1, so that I am inclined
to take <greek>w(s ei)ko/s</greek> (on which Heitsch doesn't comment)
as meaning as was natural (so Westlake 1969), as is logical, almost as
expected, rather than as was probable (so Andrewes 1981, p. 293, 456 ;
Hornblower 2008, p. 1007, comparing 8.46.5, but there we have at least
as far as can be conjectured from his actions and the passage is about
Tissaphernes, which makes no small difference, for Thucydides could be
informed of Alcibiades' thoughts more easily than of Tissaphernes'). On
the other hand one could argue that, if 8.46.1 and 8.88 belong to
different strata of composition, we are not entitled to interpret the
latter in the light of the former. Certainly, Alcibiades emerges as a
much more cynical figure if we follow Thucydides in 8.88, but we should
resist idealization. If we do, we may be more prepared to understand
why history, to speak like Heitsch, was not there when the unreliable
and cynical man knocked at the door and we may avoid exaggerating the
responsibility of chance, history or those who were not able to seize
the opportunity Alcibiades supposedly might have offered them.

The translations from the Greek are accurate, except seemingly in
8.58.6 (p. 92), where textual criticism and accuracy in translation
have a bearing on historical analysis (see Hornblower 2008, p. 930-931)
: <greek>e)f' e(autoi=s</greek> (the transmitted and commonly accepted
text, which I suppose Heitsch translates) cannot mean auf eigene
Kosten. Weil 1972 conjectures <greek>a)f' e(autw=n</greek>, which he
translates "a\ leurs propres frais", but, unless I am mistaken,
<greek>e)f' e(autw=n</greek> would be better Thucydidean Greek (cf.
8.8.1, translated "par leurs propres moyens" by Weil himself !, and
8.63.4). Heitsch, who refers his reader to no edition, rarely quotes
and more rarely discusses the Greek ; where he does (p. 42 n. 39 ; p.
83 n. 87 ; p. 85 n. 92 ; p. 107 n. 110 ; p. 121 n. 138), his notes are
far from being always satisfactory. The confusing note on p. 42 about
8.23.5 is (I believe) both wildly speculative and wide off the mark :
"die Unsicherheit des Textes koennte irgendwie mit der Tatsache
zusammenhaengen, dass Thukydides hier nicht voll informiert ist und --
vermutlich -- eine endgueltige Darstellung auf spaeter verschob". On p.
146 n. 183 Heitsch notes that Thucydides in 8.96.5 summarizes what he
says at greater length in 1.70, but, if one carefully examines the
structure of the sentence in 8.96.5, it appears problematic enough for
one to consider Krueger 1861's view that part of it is interpolated. Of
course one may argue that the problematic construction betrays the
unfinished state of book eight. On p. 157 Heitsch speaks of Mindaros'
86 ships (8.103.1) and, after others, rightly remarks that they should
be 87 : "73 + 16 - 2 (die nach 103,2 bei der Verfolgung verloren
gingen)". There would be no problem if 3 instead of 2 were read in
8.103.2. Now 3 is the number indicated by Diodorus 13.39.1, whose
testimony is generally discarded because "it would be unwise to take
this as based on different and better evidence than that available to
Thucydides" (Hornblower 2008, p. 1047, referring to Busolt ; 88 is a
mistake for 86 in Hornblower's note). But does the transmitted text
offer us the evidence available to Thucydides ? I am not sure it is
wise to discard Diodorus' testimony here and/or the change of 2 into 3
proposed by Stahl 1883, who suggests, as a less plausible alternative,
that the ship may have disappeared in the tempest mentioned in 8.99. In
his foreword Heitsch might have warned his reader of the textual
uncertainties with which book eight teems.

Those who are not scholars may read Heitsch's book with enjoyment or
profit. Specialists might miss a more scholarly approach than the
descriptive analysis or explanatory paraphrasis offered by the author.
His approach raises other issues, mentioned above. However this book
can be commended to scholars for the stimulating remarks and
discussions embedded in the paraphrasis. One constantly feels its
author is conversant with Thucydides' work, manner and thought. The
personal aspect of the book, which in a way expresses the disenchanted
view of a veteran scholar on history (with a few hints at contemporary
history, p. 82 [[5]], p. 105 ;  p. 112 n. 117), commands respect. There
is a short bibliography and an index personarum. The book is not free
from misprints, but they are harmless.


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Notes:


1.   Cf. E. Heitsch, Geschichte und Situationen bei Thukydides,
Stuttgart/Leipzig, 1996.

2.   Full references of works quoted in this review are available in
previous standard commentaries and/or in S. Hornblower, A Commentary on
Thucydides. Volume III : Books 5.25-8.109, Oxford, 2008.

3.   Cf. E. Heitsch, Der Vertrag des Therimenes. Von den
Schwierigkeiten einer Thukydides-Interpretation, Hermes, 134, 2006, p.
26-43.

4.   "Ich denke, es war auch in den Augen des Historikers ein Unglueck,
dass zwischen ihm [Alcibiades] und den Oligarchen eine Verstaendigung,
fuer die es in einem bestimmten Augenblick politische Moeglichkeiten
wohl gegeben haette, nicht zustandegekommen, offenbar gar nicht
versucht worden ist" (p. 173-174).

5.   "Dass die Masse es hinterher besser weiss, ist eine bekannte
Erscheinung".