One powerful example of the contrast between Pericles’ idealistic view of the city aspiring to become a city residing in the minds and hearts of its citizens instead of in Attica is the movement of people back into Athens from their own local city (πόλις or polis, 2.16.2).71 This movement, necessitated in many ways by Pericles’ war itself, intensified a tension at the heart of Athenian civilization, a tension that Thucydides presents as going as far back as Theseus, who abolished the magistrates of the local cities in Attica and relocated them in Athens proper (2.15.2).72 Indeed, Theseus prefigures Pericles in that his intelligence was a match for his power (2.15.2). His earlier relocation of the seat of government from the small cities of Attica to Athens presents Pericles with an opportunity, when the need arises at the start of the war, to complete the task by moving the people themselves. Edith Foster’s elegant description of the power of the country establishments for those who live there is understated and powerful: “Such attachments [to their local country homes] would tend to make them satisfied with what they have.”73 But Pericles’ failure here is a want of moderation. Theseus the king had moved the power of the local magistrates and council offices to Athens, but the people were allowed to keep their homes and live in them (2.15.2). This established the political center. Pericles moved the people themselves, which was a necessity in war but immoderate as the long-term step it turned out to be. It was too costly emotionally for the people and then imposed the dreadful practical problem of concentrated population in Athens, which aggravated the difficulty of the basic living situation during the plague (2.52.1). The crowding together from the countryside into the city (2.52.1) echoes very similar wording in the description of Pericles’ transport of people from their farms into Athens (2.14.1).74 This then is an example of dramatic irony as the ritual celebration of the first glorious deaths of the war is transmogrified into the horror of dead bodies piling up from the plague. Thucydides emphasizes the ominous danger of Pericles’ crowding of people into the city by quoting a Pythian oracle that portends great danger to the city from inhabiting a special area below the citadel, the “Pelargikon parcel” (2.17.1–2). Thucydides himself says that the oracle referred not to danger from the unlawful habitation of the area but rather to the risks associated with inhabiting the area as the result of the war (2.17.2).
In a broader way, Thucydides implies by the parallel actions here that Pericles serves as a sole ruler or king like Theseus. But Theseus was wiser than Pericles in this all-important matter of homes for his people. While moving the residents of rural Attica to a place of safety was advisable, here also we may think forward to Thucydides’ later and more famous comment on Pericles’ rule: ἐγίγνετό τε λόγῳ μὲν δημοκρατία, ἔργῳ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ πρώτου ἀνδρὸς ἀρχή (“what was in word a democracy was becoming in deed rule (arche) by the first man,” 2.65.9, translation mine). The connection between Pericles’ arche or rule and Athens’ tyranny (τυραννίδα 2.63.2) is close but not exact, and also clear, but to ascribe to Thucydides here a complete criticism of Pericles’ government makes too strong a point.75 Pericles was working with the structure he had, but he did not do very much to change it if he found it wanting. He certainly did not revive the power the Council of the Areopagus, for example, or arrange for a different method of selecting members of the boule. This may provide an insight into how to read Thucydides. Pericles lived the active life. Events pressed in and limited some of his choices. Then in war he faced necessity regularly. On the other hand, he chose war or at least did not seek either to delay it or to set a power in the middle between the main executive of the government the strategos, Pericles, and the democratic Assembly. Though he did tell his people to “wait quietly” in the war (ἡσυχάζοντάς, 2.65.7), he seems to have lacked something of Archidamus’ “moderation”: “Archidamus their king . . . was held to be both an intelligent and a moderate man” (Ἀρχίδαμος ὁ βασιλεὺς αὐτῶν, ἀνὴρ καὶ ξυνετὸς δοκῶν εἶναι καὶ σώφρων,” 1.79.2, translation Crawley, modified so as to render σώφρων as “moderate” and ξυνετὸς as “intelligent”).76
Archidamus believed at that point in 432/431 that invading Attica was unjust and that the gods would not support this injustice.77 The attack appeared to be unjust because the Athenians were prepared to submit to arbitration, and to proceed against a state that has taken that stance does not conform to “legal usage” (νόμιμον, 1.85.2). Archidamus remains moderate. Although Pericles believes war is inevitable and is not as moderate as Archidamus, he argues strenuously against adopting a militarily aggressive campaign.78
While Cleon embraces the opposite of this type of moderation, his relationship to Pericles’ ideas is not as clear. The growth of Cleon’s power marks for Thucydides the rise of the demagogue in Athens. Cleon transcends his historical role and becomes the type of the violent demagogue who appeals to the passions and self-interest of the people.79 He was the most violent of the citizens and the most persuasive with the people (3.36.4). But this does not at all mean that Cleon was only a foil for Pericles or only a type and not a particular person. While Thucydides does have overriding themes and concerns, he also emphasizes the importance of individual leaders to determine the path of the Peloponnesian War. Thus, Pericles’ particular way of responding to what he believed was an inevitable war enabled him to restrain the worst impulses of the people that can arise in wars.80 Cleon, on the other hand, exploited those impulses.
The debate between Cleon and Diodotus suggests political division within the state. Two opposing points of view divide the people almost into halves (3.49.4). Furthermore, since Cleon takes over the high ground with his simplistic appeals to justice, Diodotus is forced to retreat to the argument from expediency. He does this because he must gain the trust of a people who are somewhat “hardened” to the crude appeals of Cleon.81 The debate also illustrates Thucydides’ statement that in stasis the violent, angry man was trusted, and the one who spoke in opposition was suspect (3.82.5). Cleon himself argues that the one speaking against his point of view (3.38.1) has too much confidence in his own rhetoric or has been impelled by his hope of gain (3.38.1–3.38.2). He even hints that those who have reopened the debate are serving Mytilene’s interest, thus encouraging suspicion, which is one of the clear signs of political decay for Thucydides (3.83.1, cf. 3.82.5). It was absent from the Athens of the Funeral Oration (2.37.2), but by the time of the mutilation of the Herms, it had overcome the Athenians, particularly in their attitude toward Alcibiades (6.53.2, 6.60.1, 6.60.3, 6.61.4).
The sufferings of the Athenian democracy during the first few years of the war promoted the Athenians’ weakness, their pleonexia or the desire for more, which is one of the chief characteristics of stasis (3.82.6). After the Athenians’ good luck at Pylos and the armistice of 425, Spartan envoys came to Athens and proposed peace. But the Athenians, led by Cleon, refused the offer and “grasped at something more” (τοῦ δὲ πλέονος ὠρέγοντο, 4.21.2).82 This pleonexia hardened during the aftermath of the Pylos affair when the Spartans kept sending emissaries to try to recover the prisoners, while the Athenians would not accept their proposals and continued to grasp at something more (4.41.4). Pleonexia thus developed into an important factor in Athenian politics and eventually led to the Sicilian Expedition (6.24.3–6.24.4).83 In the Republic, Socrates ascribes this general development toward pleonexia in democracy to an original focus on the acquisition of money in oligarchy as that regime replaces a regime based on the love of honor, a timocracy (553b–c). In the oligarchic regime those who rule become rulers through their money, but they are unwilling to control their children by managing their spending (555c). In the case of orphans, the oligarch’s worst characteristics would come into view, their lack of restraint (Republic, 554c). While Alcibiades was not an orphan he was turned over to Pericles when his father Kleinias died (Alcibiades I, 104b). Plato does not even mention Alcibiades’ other protector, Ariphron.84
In 424, the Athenians banished the generals Pythodorus