Chapter One
Financial Resources in Archaeology
Any study of Thucydides' thought must begin with the Archaeology, the opening chapters of the work (1.1-23), in which the historian analyzes the most notable earlier attempts at power as evidence to support his claim that the Peloponnesian War was "the greatest disturbance" in history, "more worthy of making a logos about" than any previous event (1.1).[1] In an important respect, these chapters are the key to the work as a whole; for, as has long been recognized, the Archaeology introduces many of "the formative ideas of the History ."[2] It is of considerable importance, therefore, that one consistent, developed thread running throughout the Archaeology is the function of financial resources in the development of power. This has not gone unnoticed. De Romilly noted the emphasis in the Archaeology on the underpinnings of Athenian power, its navy and wealth.[3] Thucydidean scholars and Greek historians generally have recognized the author's rejection of the heroic and his
[1] That the Archaeology as a whole is written as an argument intended to support Thucydides' view of the "greatness" of the Peloponnesian War compared with earlier conflicts (as J. H. Finley, Jr., observed long ago, Three Essays , 167) and that he therefore draws support only from those previous conflicts and powers that were commonly believed to be the greatest explain the lack of comprehensiveness troublesome to those who ascribe to Thucydides the intention of generally surveying ancient history or of writing a "history of progress"; e.g., Täubler, Archaeologie ; de Romilly, Histoire et raison , 240-41; de Romilly, TAI , 67; Canfora, REG 90 (1977):460; Hunter, Klio 62 (1980): 205-7; Hunter, PPHT , 167-68.
[2] J. H. Finley, Jr., Thucydides , 87; also e.g., de Romilly, Histoire et raison , 260-62; Wood-head, Nature of Power , 12-13; Schneider, Information und Absicht , 118-19; French, G &R 27 (1980):26; Hunter, PPHT , 45.
[3] de Romilly, Histoire et raison , 247; see her important discussion of the Archaeology generally, 240-98.
"unsentimental approach," as W. R. Connor puts it, in which attention to Machtstellung reveals the significance, emphasized by repetition, of "self-interest and fear in individual conduct, of naval might and financial reserves in military matters, and of imperialism as a source of power and greatness."[4] The full significance, however, of the role of financial resources in the Archaeology itself and, more so, its implications for the History proper, have perhaps not been sufficiently appreciated. Accordingly, this chapter will examine Thucydides' treatment of the role of financial resources in the Archaeology, in order to understand better his perspective on finances in the development of power generally.
In the Archaeology, Thucydides selects the greatest and most noteworthy of previous, mainly military, enterprises in order to compare them to his subject and prove them wanting by means of new criteria that he lays out. What determined his starting point? He chose the episodes from the past that his contemporaries believed to be the most significant,[5] but he actually begins his argument (1.2.1) much earlier than these examples. Why would Thucydides, keenly a; tuned to the precariousness of establishing the accuracy of ancient history (1.1.3, 1.20), begin in the shadowy, virtually irretrievable past? An answer may lie in his attention to the development of the preconditions of power.
In the opening of the History , Thucydides explains how he knew even at the beginning of the war that it would be great and worthy of recording: "I took as indicators that both sides were at their height in every preparation" (he pasa paraskeue, 1.1.1 ).[6] His measure, that is, was the conditions at the beginning of the war rather than its results; his prescience, however, was confirmed by the length of the war and the suffering it inflicted. Moreover, he was not interested simply in the fact of the level of preparedness of both sides on the eve of the conflict, but also in the origins and development of military preparation that culminated in extraordinary dunamis .
This interest may explain why Thucydides began where he did. In his view, the unsurpassed preparedness of both Athens and Sparta in 431 resulted from the convergence of several crucial components of dunamis .[7] Thus, Thucydides likely began the Archaeology at the point in history when at least one of these components could be traced to any signif-
[4] Connor, Thucydides , 27. See also Kleingünther, P PW TOS EYPETHS , 131-35.
[6] For a comprehensive study of this key term in Thucydides, see Allison, PPT .
[7] Cf. Allison, Hermes 109 (1981):119; and Allison, PPT , 11ff.
icant extent. From there, the historian could begin to analyze the conditions that ultimately led to the events chosen as comparative examples for his argument on the magnitude and importance of the Peloponnesian War. In other words, Thucydides began this work by plotting the stages in the development of paraskeue . The factors he focuses on initially make clear the criteria used to judge the ability to achieve power (dunamis ), growth (auxesis ), and the state of preparedness. Let us now briefly follow these stages.
In 1.2.2, Thucydides notes the reason for the insecurity and instability of early settlements and, consequently, their continual migrations:
It was because there were no commercial centers, nor did people even communicate with each other without fear either by land or sea; instead, each inhabited and reaped from the land just enough to subsist, without accumulating a store of chremata nor by sustaining agriculture, since it was unclear when someone would attack them and, given the lack of walls, deprive them of their land. Accordingly, harboring the belief that they could get their necessary daily subsistence anywhere, they moved from one place to another readily, and therefore built no cities of any great size nor had any other resources.
Even for this early stage of civilization, Thucydides is thinking of the accumulation of chremata ; already, in other words, he considers these early Greeks not merely as subsistence dwellers but as potential amassers of surplus wealth, a precondition, he argues, of stability. From the connection between geographical location and wealth, it follows that communities on trading routes would be the strongest. It is important to recognize the concern in this passage with external relations, clear from reference to the lack of emporia and the need for security. An abundance of chremata would enable one's polis to become strong and secure and to withstand attack. Thus, in this analysis of early settlements, Thucydides focuses on the negative elements that impede stability and security; stated in positive terms, he is arguing that wealth, among other factors, is necessary for lasting strength.[8] This grants immediate prominence to chremata as a precondition of power.
In chapters 2 through 4 of book I generally, Thucydides details not what we may call the "indices of civilization," but rather the hindrances to strength and auxesis .[9] As in 1.2.2, he focuses on what was missing from these loosely defined early communities: they lacked strong cities, settled agriculture, fortifications, periousia chrematon , and common effort and unity. Arguments are presented for both the failure of pre-Trojan
[8] I shall consider below Thucydides' definition of chremata , where we can examine his usage more broadly. For now, it is sufficient to translate as "wealth."
[9] The phrase is from Hunter, Kilo 62 (1980):205; PPHT , 21.
peoples to grow in strength in 1.2.4-6 and the view that stasis prevents auxesis . Fertile !and produces stasis, but as Attica lacked fertile land, it was therefore free from stasis and became a haven for refugees from regions in internal unrest. Immigration resulted in overpopulation and, as a consequence, colonization. Most important, Attica was an exceptional region in which auxesis did occur, unlike other parts of Greece.[10]
A further deficiency of these early peoples emerges in 1.3: lack of unity and common effort. Weakness and isolation prevented common enterprises before the expedition to Troy, and underlying this event were two preconditions: a sense of identity as Greeks and the use of the sea. The latter is crucial to Thucydides' next subject, Minos, who is introduced to provide the earliest evidence of the kind of naval activity that made possible such later expeditions as the Trojan campaign (1.4.1, explaining 1.3.4).
Minos
Minos, Thucydides begins, was "the earliest ruler known from tradition to have acquired a fleet and gained control over most of what is now called the Hellenic Sea: he ruled the Kykladic islands and was himself the first colonizer of most of them, after expelling the Karians and establishing his sons as leaders." Thus, Thucydides starts to analyze the first positive example of the development of power, in sharp contrast to the earlier negative instances designed to show the factors responsible for its absence. His intention to determine the origins of naval activity is made clear by references to "the most ancient" (
Thucydides, then, introduces Minos as the earliest example of a ruler whose power derived from mastery on the sea.[11] He focuses, therefore,
[10] For a detailed discussion of the text of 1.2, see Marshall, CQ 25 (1975):26-40; Biraschi, PP 39 (1984):5-22, with earlier bibliography on this controversial passage.
[11] Herodotos mentions Minos as well, in his treatment of Polykrates (3.122.2), using language of which Thucydides' own remarks are strongly reminiscent. Thucydides, too, mentions Polykrates later (1.13.6) for "possessing naval strength and rendering the islands subject," and for having taken Rheneia and dedicated it to Apollo. Chapter 4, however, directly contrasts with Herodotos 3.122 in relating the earl), thalassocracy of Minos. Herodotos is often thought here to be more critical than Thucydides (e.g., by How and Wells, Comm . l, on 3.122; Gomme, Greek Attitude , 117; Vidal-Naquet, Revue de l'histoire des religions 157 [1960]:65-69. Hunter, PPHT , 19); cf. also M. I. Finley, Use and Abuse , 18. One should note, however, that Herodotos relates Minos' adventures and death elsewhere (1.171.2-3, 173.2; 7.169.2, 170.1), suggesting that he accepts the basic historicity of Minos, and he notes in 3.122 that Polykrates was the first one known of besides Minos. Of relevance in 3.122 is that Polykrates was the first human, whereas Minos, as Herodotos and everyone else knew, was of divine descent (as the son of Zeus and Europa [Iliad 13.450-54; 14. 321-22]). Cf. also de Romilly, Histoire et raison , 274-75.
on those factors that he has judged, partly from probability, essential to the Kretan king's power: his navy, colonization, and island empire and also the likelihood that Minos eradicated piracy, which Thucydides ties to the control of revenue.[12] The very exploitation of an argument based on probability (
Thus far there has been no explicit statement about the precise connection between the use of revenue and the achievement of naval power; but in presenting a picture of regional power stabilized and extended by the elimination of piracy, by the increase in revenues, and by the control of the sea, Thucydides implies a causal relationship among regular revenue, naval power, and control over others (arche ). The link between sea power and colonization is also clear: only the ability to navigate and to
[15] Garlan, DHA 4 (1978):10.
use the sea safely allowed the establishment of colonies. Furthermore, colonization is a means of spreading one's own power over a larger area, with either direct or indirect benefit, as Thucydides later demonstrates in Minos' case: at the same time that the Kretan king was colonizing most of the islands, he was able to expel Karian and Phoinikian pirates from them.[16]
It is evident that piracy is of more than casual interest to Thucydides, as he follows his analysis of Minos' naval power with a discussion of piracy in general and its suppression (chapters 5, 7, and 8). The efficacy of this earliest type of "sea power" for acquiring goods and wealth, as well as its pervasiveness, is well brought out by the historian as he notes that pirates, operating with no hindrances, derived most of their livelihood (
In 1.8.2, Thucydides examines the consequences of Minos' thalassocracy and suppression of piracy, noting an increase in navigation due to security on the seas. He then continues, "Those who lived by the sea had a more secure existence, now better able to obtain wealth (chremata ) for themselves; some also walled [their cities] because of their increased wealth."[18] Greater use of the sea, thus, brings more wealth, which in turn prompts a community to build circuit walls and thereby stimulate the development of the polis itself. Thucydides then explains the circumstances that allowed for the concentration of wealth: "For the weaker, desiring gain, submitted to enslavement by the stronger; while the stronger, since they possessed surplus wealth (periousias ), made the weaker cities subject" (8.3).
As in the case of his argument from probability about Minos, piracy, and revenue, Thucydides here interprets the traditions, deduces, and explains, his views shaped (it is reasonable to suppose) by his understanding of Athens' naval arche . It is becoming easy to discern a pattern:
[16] Cf., among many later examples, Amphipolis, 4.108.1; cf. below, chapter 5, p. 175-76. Noting colonization here is therefore purposeful and part of the historian's evidence for an increase in power, contra, e.g., Ridley, Hermes 109 (1981):39-40, 44.
[17] Piratical naval raids and their effect are not insignificant in the History proper, e.g., 2.32, 69.1; 3.51.2; 4.9.1, 53.3, 67.3; see McDonald, AJP 105 (1984):77-84. On Mediterranean piracy generally and its effectiveness as a way of acquiring wealth, see Garlan, DHA 4 (1978):1-16 (the same as, with a few changes, Garlan, Guerre et économie , 173-201), and Pritchett, GSAW 5:312-63.
a direct connection is once again made between power and wealth; it is implicit in the analysis that the powerful attained their strength through their wealth, that is, wealth is a means to power.
This analysis stands out as a fine illustration of Thucydides' conception of the development of power and the emergence of unequal relationships. It also reflects his view of human nature and behavior, in which those who are stronger will exert power over others, while those who are weaker will agree to submission (literally, "enslavement,"
Thucydides generalizes about the period between the reign of Minos and the Trojan War and focuses on the use of the sea, the accumulation of wealth, and the control of the weaker by the stronger. His comments, however, easily lend themselves to further generalizing; this is surely not fortuitous. The historian is predisposed to see patterns of behavior, given his understanding of human nature. Thucydides' presentation in 1.8 allows the inference that the weak are party to their own subjugation in general because of a desire for gain; the reader likewise draws the conclusion that those who possess periousiai [chrematon ] will generally use them to control others. We shall encounter this argument again.
Agamemnon and the Trojan Expedition
Thucydides' perspective on Agamemnon and Troy is similar to that of the preceding analyses. Beginning in chapter 9, he transmits the essentials of the Trojan legend, but he revises the reasons for Agamemnon's preeminence, presenting a novel interpretation of the Trojan War, and especially its protracted length. As in the case of Minos, hearsay or tradition is as important, in a sense, as verifiable fact, since what matters is what people believe.[21] Because the Trojan expedition was considered
[19] Pabel, CJ 80 (1984):9, n. 8, brings out this point.
[20] "Collaboration"; see above, p. 8-9.
one of the greatest events of the Greek past, Thucydides had to demonstrate its weakness to support his own argument. He did so through his own opinion (
It is characteristic of Thucydides not only to focus on power, but also to inquire into its origins. In tracing the origin of Agamemnon's dunamis to Pelops' plethos chrematon , Thucydides completely overrides a fundamental traditional belief in the authority of oaths in favor of an argument that makes the decisive factor strength through wealth.[22] The explicit statement in 1.9.3-4 that Agamemnon added to his inherited power by acquiring a fleet and ruling over many islands further confirms for the reader Thucydides' argument that wealth and ships must be linked in order to produce arche and achieve dunamis . Indeed, Thucydides' treatment of Agamemnon is reminiscent of that of Minos: both possessed the necessary ingredients of dunamis , namely, chremata and nautikon .
Thucydides' analysis of the Trojan War forms part of his argument about Agamemnon's power; here the historian's perspective on chremata is especially striking. At the end of chapter 10, he concludes that the Greek force assembled at Troy was modest in number (
For due to insufficient supplies they brought a smaller army, thinking that they could acquire what they needed from the land while they were at war; but when, having arrived, they prevailed in battle (as they must have, for otherwise they would not have been able to construct fortifications around their camp), they appear not even from that point to have used all their strength; rather, they turned to farming the Chersonese and to plundering due to their insufficient supplies.... Whereas if they had come with plentiful supplies and, having drawn together their entire force, had waged
[22] On the link between the rejection of the importance of oaths here and the absence of mention of oaths in Thucydides' treatment of the origins of the Delian League, see below, p. 58.
war continuously, without resorting to pillaging and farming, they would easily have prevailed in battle and been victorious; this is certainly evident from the fact that even when they were not all together in a body but had only part of their force available, they were able to resist the Trojans. Thus, if they had settled down to a siege, they would have taken Troy in less time and with less trouble. (1.11.1-2)
The argument of this chapter, presented in rather elegant chiastic form, may be reduced thus: the problem at Troy was achrematia , for the Greeks lacked supplies (aporia trophes ). If they had come with an abundance of supplies (periousia trophe ), they would easily have won early on. But what does achrematia mean here? Is it equivalent to trophe —that is to say, is it being used with reference to goods and supplies, or in a financial sense?[23]
First, if chremata in 1.11 is synonymous with trophe , the resulting redundancy is difficult to accept in an analysis clearly sensitive to style and presentation of argument. But there is also a more substantive objection. Thucydides uses the same term, achrematia , again at the end of chapter 11 to sum up the difficulties encountered not only in the Trojan expedition but in all other early ventures as well. Although he is not explicit, the instances of chremata are most intelligible as conveying the idea of financial resources in that chremata is accumulated and connected with naval power. In 1.2.2, a reserve, periousia chrematon, is dearly something distinct from trophe , and its absence helps to explain the instability of early settlements. Further on, in 1.7, periousiai chrematon belonging to those on or near the sea are linked with the building of walls; this context again suggests financial resources, not supplies. Similarly, in 1.825-4, Thucydides connects the acquisition (ktesis ) and accumulation (periousia ) of chremata with the building of defensive walls and suggests a causal link between chremata and naval power. Finally, Thucydides argues that the source of Pelops' power was his plethos chrematon ; this context confirms that the historian is referring to wealth, though not necessarily financial in nature.
The problem is one of translation, not, I think, of Thucydides' meaning. I have shown that, in 1.11, chremata differs in nature from trophe , in other words, that chremata is not equivalent to "supplies." To get from there, however, to determining whether in the Archaeology, chremata
means "money" or other forms of wealth is a difficult step to take, but one which becomes easier as the Archaeology proceeds.[24] In general, the instances of chremata thus far suggest a concern above all with usable wealth: in particular in 1.11, as in 1.8.3, Thucydides' discussion necessitates the idea of expenditure, whether put in positive or negative terms. In the case of the Trojan expedition, the Greeks did not have the chremata to acquire trophe ; he calls this condition achrematia . It is significant that, once again, as in the analyses of Minos and Agamemnon, Thucydides probes back to the origins, in this case, tracing the cause of failure or weakness not simply to aporia trophe , but ultimately to a state of achrematia , which explains why the Greeks could not procure the necessary supplies (trophe ). Therefore, Thucydides found the Trojan expedition deficient in complete paraskeue .
Tyranny
Having established the central importance of chremata and nautika , or financial resources and ships, Thucydides goes on to consider the phenomenon of tyranny (1.13):
As Hellas was becoming more powerful and the acquisition of chremata a greater possibility than before, tyrannies were set up in poleis in many areas, since revenues were increasing (before this there had been hereditary kings with fixed prerogatives); Hellas was fitted out with ships and turned more to the sea. (1.13.1)
Tyranny merits inclusion in the chronological progression of Thucydides' argument for two reasons, both related to financial resources: wealth is the tyrants' means to power, and the tyrants occupy a pivotal place, in his view, in the development of poleis attached commercially and militarily to the sea.[25] That is, the most significant result of the acquisition of chremata , in Thucydides' view, is the building of fleets. Thus, financial resources, maintained and replenished through revenue, are a crucial prerequisite for naval power.
During the rule of tyrants, according to Thucydides' analysis, two of the essential criteria for extraordinary dunamis —money and ships—were present for the first time in history. Yet, as he brings out in 1.17, a third element of dunamis was absent, namely, unity, for the tyrants were concerned primarily with maintaining the security of their own position in a polis. Thus, they could not accomplish anything notable, except con-
[24] See appendix to chapter 1.
[25] As Gomme noted: "The tyrants are mentioned because the increasing wealth was their chief cause, and because in turn they added to it, and paid especial attention to naval power" (HCT 1, ad loc.).
trolling their neighbors, an area in which the tyrants in Sicily were most successful. The Sicilian tyrants represent a development in the use of wealth for power, as M. I. Finley observes, "whereby military commanders obtained control of substantial financial resources and used them for personal, political ends, for the seizure or the expansion or the stabilization of power."[26] It is here that the similarity between these archaic tyrannies and the Athenian empire begins and ends; for, as Connor points out, Thucydides' depiction of early tyrannies as unable to accomplish much and excessively concerned with security suggests contrast, not comparison.[27]
Korinth and Naval Warfare
In analyzing the significance of tyranny in 1.13.1, Thucydides perceives a cause-and-effect relationship between the acquisition (ktesis ) of chremata , increased prosodoi , and naval strength; he immediately considers more closely one specific historical example that illustrates his arguments about the combination of reserve, revenue, and ships. The Korinthians, he notes, are said to have been the first to use near-modern ship technology and to build triremes. He cites a tradition giving credit to a Korinthian, Ameinokles, for building four ships for the Samians and identifies the earliest sea battle as having occurred between the Korinthians and Kerkyraians some 260 years before (1.13.2-4). Finally, he explains the reasons for Korinth's early nautical achievements: Korinth had always had an emporion because of its geographical position on overland trading routes, and thus it was very wealthy (chremasi dunatoi ), as the poets confirm in referring to the place as "rich" (
This analysis is the positive counterpart of the arguments presented in 1.2 derailing the causes of weakness in early Greece. The Korinthians' dunamis is explicitly tied to their wealth in the form of reserve and revenue, which enabled them to attain naval power. Thucydides drives home the extent of their revenues not only by drawing attention to their near monopoly of commerce but also by mentioning their suppression of piracy. Characteristically, the historian goes beyond the mere fact of wealth and its link to naval power to seek the origins of Korinthian wealth; he finds that geography was the crucial determinant. Finally, he highlights
[26] Finley, Ancient History , 83.
[27] Connor, "Tyrannis Polis," 105-6.
the Korinthians' obvious vigor in exploiting their natural advantage and in gaining preeminence in the Greek world as a commercial and naval power, thus stressing their active role in developing dunamis , as he had done earlier in the examples of Minos and Agamemnon. Here, however, for the first time, the polis emerges as the beneficiary of this prosperity and consequent power. This marks a decisive stage of development: previously; power was concentrated in the hands of a single ruler.
In 1.13.6-1.14, Thucydides identifies the most powerful navies following the Korinthians' achievement, citing those of the Ionians, Polykrates, and the Phokaians; the importance of these three, he adds, was diminished by their lack of triremes. He notes that the Sicilian tyrants and Korinthians began to maintain a significant fleet of these warships only shortly before the Persian Wars. Thus, evidently measuring naval power by numbers of triremes, not ships in general, he traces the first navy of any real account to the Athenian fleet built at Themistokles' instigation for the war with Aigina and defense against the anticipated Persian attack. Even this navy, he comments, was limited by the lack of complete decks (1.14.3). Thucydides summarizes the preceding argument in 1.15.1:
Such, then, were the fleets of the Hellenes, those of both ancient and later times. Those possessing them, nevertheless, derived great strength from them, both from the revenue of chremata which came in, and from ruling over others.
Strength comes from prosodos chrematon and from arche . But the strength of the great rulers or poleis before the Peloponnesian War could not compare to the power mustered at the beginning of that event, for the reason given at the end of 1.17: they did nothing in common.
Sparta and Athens
In 1.18-19, Thucydides turns to the development of Sparta and Athens, to the growing division between them despite the Persian Wars, and to the military preparation through which both cities achieved unprecedented power in Greece. The analysis presented in the Archaeology has not only provided the evidence to support Thucydides' assertion about the weakness of kineseis before the Peloponnesian War but has also established the historical context for the development of Athenian power in the fifth century. Since the historian has already directly linked the origins of naval military activity to the acquisition of financial resources, we expect to be informed likewise about the role played by financial resources in the development of Athenian power. Sparta, however, does not fit into the same historical pattern. In 1.18, Thucydides notes that the key to Sparta's power is its influence over others; the significance of
this becomes dear in 1.19, which discusses the concrete means by which Sparta and Athens were able to exert their control:
And so the Lakedaimonians held the leadership of allies who did not pay tribute but insured that they were governed by oligarchies so that they would work in the Spartan interest, while the Athenians, on the other hand, having gradually taken over their allies' fleets, with the exception of Chios and Lesbos, rendered the rest tributary.
The external measure of dunamis is the ability to compel; this demonstrates in practical terms the importance of both Athens' naval arche and Sparta's authority by virtue of its unsurpassed military superiority on land maintained by a stable politeia and the ability to impose similar politeiai on its allies.
We need now to consider the overall argument and its implications presented in these opening chapters of the History . In his treatment of the power of Minos, Pelops, and Agamemnon, as well as in his discussion of the weakness of early communities, Thucydides manipulates and reworks traditions in order to make repeatedly a central point about naval power and also to demonstrate the method and criteria by which he analyzes power. The pattern that emerges illumines the purpose of the Archaeology as a whole and its relationship to the rest of the History . In 1.1, Thucydides presents no specific reasons for asserting the primacy of his subject other than the general magnitude and all-encompassing scope of the Peloponnesian War. However, as he begins in the Archaeology to support his contention with evidence from past events considered to be "great" from the standpoint of military might and scale, we quickly learn the precise criteria by which he reveals, analyzes, and judges their significance. These are financial resources (consisting of revenue and reserve), navy, arche , and consequently unity; together, these lead to superior dunamis . Of these criteria, the one that is of central importance as the sine qua non of naval power is financial resources, consisting not simply of chremata itself, but rather of periousia chrematon , supplemented by prosodos .
Thucydides, then, in reworking the traditions concerning power, presents a view of military success that differs fundamentally from the customary explanations derived chiefly from the epic, heroic conventions. He does not reject the events embedded in traditions; rather, he considers the reasoning underlying earlier accounts to be faulty.[28] Thus, ele-
ments such as individual prowess, bravery, or nomoi to which military success is often ascribed, for example, divine favor, retribution, or oaths, have no place in his dissection of power. Dunamis , in this context, is material and tangible, not abstract. Success and failure are measured by the presence or absence, respectively, of periousiai chrematon ; the greatest kineseis of the past had as their basis the goal and/or use of profits and power.
Given the purpose of the Archaeology, in support of which Thucydides rejected traditional beliefs about the great military events of the past partly by redefining the criteria by which they were implicitly judged, its polemical tone is not surprising. Thucydides intends to set the record straight on the question of what precisely does power consist. We cannot know whether his particular kind of "nuts and bolts" analysis of heroic traditions was unique or in what specific respects it was highly original. Certainly, the rationalizing spirit of the Archaeology has much in common with other literary products of the late fifth-century sophistic climate.[29] It may be similar in spirit to other contemporary archaiologiai , but our knowledge is too meager for a fruitful discussion.[30] We know that Hellanikos wrote an Archaiologia as part of his work on the history of Athens, as did other Atthidographers as well. Their treatment of myths especially popular in tragic works, for example, those dealing with Minos, put into prose rationalized accounts that reduced the fantastic to the realistic, the heroic to the mundane.[31] According to Jacoby, the Atthidographers "very audaciously made an historical narrative of the
It is reasonable to suppose that Thucydides went further, taking an even more ostentatiously revisionist, analytical stance on the use of myth, extracting from the traditional materials the minimum elements necessary as evidence for his new treatment of power. Most important, unlike other treatments of the past, Thucydides' Archaeology is not an end in itself, a reinterpreted history of early civilization, an excursus on progress, or a general introduction to the work, but rather an analysis of a group of events carefully selected to support his views on revenue, fleet, and arche .[33]
With a clinical eye, Thucydides analyzes the phusis of power empiri-
[29] De Romilly, ASNP 35 (1966):159.
[30] See Connor, Thucydides , 22-23, and the references in n. 8.
[31] Such as Hellanikos' account of the treaty between Athens and Minos (323a F14).
[32] Jacoby, Atthis , 136.
[33] As Erbse has noted, AA 10 (1961):19-34. Indeed, given the purpose of 1.1-19, the term "Archaeology" is hardly warranted and is certainly misleading.
cally and breaks it down into discrete, nonsupernatural components that must be combined and exploited by human agency in order for power to result. Then, based on a conviction of the consistency of human nature in accordance with circumstances, he draws conclusions about the anatomy of arche and dunamis that could be applied universally. What are his conclusions?
In these early chapters of the History , Thucydides presents several important lessons about power, in such a way as to suggest their universality: that revenue and wealth are tied to naval power (Minos, Agamemnon, tyrants, Korinth, Athens); that might derived from chremata compels unity (Agamemnon, Athens); that naval power through the accumulation (and use) of wealth can be increased in a way that land power cannot (Minos, Korinth, Athens); that reserves, not emergency provisioning, are necessary for success in long wars (Trojan expedition); and, finally, that exploitation of inherited power can be key in developing overall strength (Pelops). The principles of selection used by Thucydides in producing this extended comparative argument reveal the criteria he thinks are crucial for assessing and explaining naval power historically. His method, moreover, is designed to promote a particular response: it conditions the reader to expect similarities between the examples presented in the Archaeology and Athens' arche . Indeed, the emphasis on financial resources in the Archaeology surely is explained by an abiding concern with the intimate link between financial resources and naval power in his own day, and this fosters a strong presumption that he will be attentive to this relationship in the rest of the work. We shall explore in the following chapters whether and, if so, how, these expectations are met. For as we shall see, the argument developed systematically in the Archaeology directly informs the narrative to come. This will become especially dear as we consider the origins of the Delian League, the focus of much of the next chapter.
Appendix: Financial Terminology in the Archaeology
It is important to try to determine what Thucydides means when he mentions chremata in reference to early Greek societies. In his analysis of ancient warfare and power, he expresses himself in such a way as to stress the connection between the past and present; thus, when he arrives at the fifth century, he uses the same terminology and method as for the earlier periods (cf. the remarks of Jacoby, Atthis , 87). Accordingly, he speaks in 1.19 of the state of preparation (paraskeue ) on both the Lakedaimonian and Athenian sides and refers to the chremata that the Athe-
nians received from their allies as assessed tribute. But in Thucydides' conception, has the definition of chremata changed from that used elsewhere in the Archaeology?
In Thucydides' time, chremata could refer not only to coined money but also to objects of monetary value and, for example, sacred treasure generally; it is therefore an ambiguous term, and the context must provide its specific application. In 1.19, chremata dearly refers to coined money; but what about earlier instances? The contexts for the word earlier in Archaeology fairly consistently suggest expenditure with the aim of acquiring power and, therefore, something distinct from supplies or provisions. This seems to me to be its meaning in chapters 2.2, 7, 8.3, 9.2, 11.1, 11.2, 13.1, 15.1, and 19. Its meaning in 13.5 in connection with the wealth of the Korinthians (
