The Tragedy of the Athenian Ideal in Thucydides and Plato. John T. Hogan

that it ought strictly to mean “act of assigning worth or value.” To express this in idiomatic English, axiosis should be translated “valuation,” “estimation,” or “evaluation.”¹⁰ The virtue of these translations in place of the customary ‘meaning’ is that “valuation” and “estimation” carry with them implications of judgment and opinion, while “meaning” is too close to “dictionary definition.”¹¹ For Thucydides, writing before our modern fact/value distinction,¹² it is possible or even likely that there was no fixed difference between what we would call the meaning of a value-laden term and its actual moral significance. Yet this should not in any way obscure Thucydides’ intensely expressed interest in the moral significance of the words and deeds in his Histories.¹³

      Different and specialized meanings have also sometimes been given to τῇ δικαιώσει (dikaiosis in the nominative case).¹⁴ Dikaiosis basically means “making or setting right,” and Thucydides’ use of it conforms to this core meaning.¹⁵ τῇ δικαιώσει is a type of instrumental dative, the dative of cause, expressing a motive.¹⁶ Since this dative is frequently used with verbs of emotion, it is appropriate here in the context of the heightened emotions of partisans in stasis.¹⁷ Because people made their own self-serving judgments of what right was, they changed the axiosis of words to suit and support their judgment.

      The phrase ἐς τὰ ἔργα (transliterated es ta erga) “for the things or deeds” has also created some difficulty. Classen-Steup take the phrase with τὴν εἰωθυῖαν ἀξίωσιν τῶν ὀνομάτων (the customary evaluation of words) and translate it “für die Dinge.” Gomme, on the other hand, asserts that ἐς τὰ ἔργα (transliterated es ta erga) goes surely with ἀντήλλαξαν (“they exchanged”) “with a view to their actions,” not with τὴν εἰωθυῖαν ἀξίωσιν.¹⁸ But ἐς (es) often means “with respect to” in Thucydides and it can easily mean that here. There is no reason to regard es ta erga as narrowly referring only to the purposes of each party and to say that party members changed the axiosis of words in order to accomplish (“with a view to”) certain ends (ta erga). Rather es ta erga goes with τὴν εἰωθυῖαν ἀξίωσιν and with ἀντήλλαξαν.¹⁹ The partisans changed the sense of words as applied to deeds, but they had their own purposes in mind. Another real point of es ta erga, however, is that valuations of words were changed in respect to the true sense or value of the deeds (in the eyes of a neutral observer).²⁰ Thucydides uses the ambiguity of grammatical reference to make the reader stop and consider how disturbing it can be when speakers change customary valuations of moral and emotional terms both relative to the deeds they describe and at the same time with a view to furthering those deeds.

      ἀντήλλαξαν literally means “exchange” rather than “change,” but the latter translation better conveys the import of the sentence, for “exchange” requires that what a thing was exchanged for be specified, which Thucydides does not do. He only implies that the customary senses of words were exchanged for new ones. The sentence may now be translated: “Men changed the customary valuation of words in respect to deeds in judging what right was.”

      Thucydides’ full meaning becomes clear in an examination of his examples: τόλμα μὲν γὰρ ἀλόγιστος ἀνδρεία φιλέταιρος ἐνομίσθη, μέλλησις δὲ προμηθὴς δειλία εὐπρεπής (“Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice,” 3.82.4). The traditional interpretation of these clauses originates with Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who understood the introductory sentence to mean: τά τε εἰωθότα ὀνόματα ἐπὶ τοῖς πράγμασι λέγεσθαι μετατιθέντες ἄλλως ἠξίουν αὐτὰ καλεῖν (“Changing the names customarily applied to deeds they deemed it right to call them by new names”). They gave new names to the erga.

      Friedrich Solmsen asks the following question about the examples Thucydides offers:

      The longer we look at the sentences purporting to acquaint us with the new meanings of words, the more we are bound to wonder whether people really developed the habit of praising a man for ἀνδρεία φιλέταιρος (“the courage of a loyal ally” [translation Crawley]) or blaming him for δειλία εὐπρεπής (“specious cowardice” [Crawley])

      Had they ever, when discussing ruthless daring, spoken of τόλμα . . . ἀλόγιστος? (“reckless audacity” [Crawley])²¹

      No satisfactory answer to this question can be given unless it is kept in mind that Thucydides does not use the verb “to call” or “to name” but rather νομίζω, which means to “think” or to “consider.” If he had used “was called” or “was named,” this would have supported Dionysius’ interpretation: deeds were called by new words and a change in referent occurred.

      But ἐνομίσθη (“was considered [to be]”) invokes not what men said but what they thought,²² and Dionysius’ interpretation is not so much wrong as incomplete. During stasis citizens confounded in thought previously distinguishable concepts. This confusion revealed itself in two different ways. When men saw an action that was objectively τόλμα ἀλόγιστος (“reckless audacity”), either they thought (or pretended to think) that it was ἀνδρεία φιλέταιρος (“the courage of a loyal ally”) and called it that (Dionysius’ interpretation), or they considered reckless audacity to be a good thing and when praising it called it by its right name. Certainly the latter is not an impossible occurrence, and Thucydides knew of examples similar to it. Cleon, for instance, in his speech concerning the Mytileneans, praises stupidity (ἀμαθία) (3.37.3–3.37.4) and urges the Athenians not to show themselves soft.²³ In a similar fashion, during normal times men would consider μέλλησις δὲ προμηθὴς (“prudent hesitation”) a good thing, a sign of intelligence and wisdom, while in stasis they might sometimes have called it μέλλησις δὲ προμηθὴς (“prudent hesitation”), but used the phrase to express disapproval. It is precisely because Dionysius does not take account of this common phenomenon, in which there is no change of denotation or referent, that his interpretation is insufficient.²⁴ Yet of course his interpretation is partly correct. Politicians very often call bad deeds by good names (or vice versa), as Thucydides was well aware: ὥστε εὐσεβείᾳ μὲν οὐδέτεροι ἐνόμιζον, εὐπρεπείᾳ δὲ λόγου οἷς ξυμβαίη ἐπιφθόνως τι διαπράξασθαι, ἄμεινον ἤκουον (“Thus religion was in honor with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation,” 3.82.8).

      To reinforce the point that in commenting on the change in the axiosis of words Thucydides has in mind a change in habits of praise and blame, that is, a change in values, it is instructive to consider several of his examples.

      τόλμα μὲν γὰρ ἀλόγιστος ἀνδρεία φιλέταιρος ἐνομίσθη, μέλλησις δὲ προμηθὴς δειλία εὐπρεπής, τὸ δὲ σῶφρον τοῦ ἀνάνδρου πρόσχημα, καὶ τὸ πρὸς ἅπαν ξυνετὸν ἐπὶ πᾶν ἀργόν: τὸ δ᾽ ἐμπλήκτως ὀξὺ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη, ἀσφαλείᾳ δὲ τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος. [5] καὶ ὁ μὲν χαλεπαίνων πιστὸς αἰεί, ὁ δ᾽ ἀντιλέγων