Discrediting the Corcyraeans

Reciprocity, in both a positive and a negative sense, is the cornerstone of the Corinthian argument. Their attack on the Corcyraeans has struck many readers as odd. The Corcyraeans had appealed to traditional elite values in defending their lack of political alliances. They describe their previous policy as now “that which seemed before to be our self-restraint (sôphrosunê)” (Thuc. 1.32.4)—an attempt at virtue. They deserve sympathy: “It warrants forgiveness if we make bold a policy opposed to a previous political inactivity (apragmosunê) that resulted not from moral turpitude (kakia), but rather from an error (hamartia) of judgment (doxa)” (32.5). They had previously acted not through moral turpitude (kakia) but through a miscalculation. Only now do they turn their backs on their previous apragmosunê, and in choosing this loaded term they appropriate yet another conservative value to legitimate their position.^[45] The Corinthians move quickly to discredit this image of the “genteel” (apragmôn) Corcyraeans. Corcyra’s position on the edge of the mainland Greek world made its inhabitants unusually self-sufficient (37.3), and outsiders had to visit Corcyra while Corcyraeans could remain at home. The Corcyraeans could thus pass judgment on others without having to undergo the same process. If the Corcyraeans had refused all offers of alliance, they did not do so “on account of their self-restraint” (37.2: dia to sôphron). Rather, they had “cultivated this habit” (37.3: epetêdeusan) so that they might perpetuate base deeds (kakourgia), and not because of any moral virtue (aretê). They preferred isolation because they were ashamed (aischunesthai) to have witnesses of their crimes.

Neither the Corcyraeans nor the Corinthians adduce any ongoing bilateral relationships between Corcyra and the rest of the Greek world. According to the argument that the Corinthians construct, this at most discredits the Corcyraeans, or, perhaps more accurately, it provides them with no credit by which they can withstand the insinuations against them. A bit later, the Corinthians present the following reason for Athens to support them. The Athenians are “bound by a treaty” (enspondoi) with the Corinthians (Thuc. 1.40.4), but they have not even arranged a “suspension of hostilities” (anokôchê) with the Corcyraeans. Gomme, commenting ad loc., remarks that this is “an illogical point,” but the argument is serious and revealing. The Corinthians imply not only that it would be better to be enspondoi than to be subject to a mere suspension of hostilities, but that a state with whom one has gone to war in the past (and with whom one has shared the ritual of butchering one another’s citizens) is more trustworthy and deserving of support than a state with whom one has had no relations. The absence of bilateral exchanges of any kind, even hostility, means that a state cannot be trusted.

This attitude underlies another theme that appears in the two speeches: actions must be open and public to have their full effect. The Corcyraeans promise that if they only accept the power that the Corcyraean alliance offers, this dunamis will, among other things, “contribute to [Athenian] aretê in the eyes of the world” (Thuc. 1.33.2). Athenian help consists of more than men and ships: the public act of support has its own value. The Corcyraeans thus urge the Athenians “to accept and aid them publicly ”(35.4) so that Corinth and its potential allies will know what they are facing. Whether the Athenians are fearful or courageous is less important than the impression that Athenian power will have upon their adversaries. The surfaces of things, whether they are deceptive or not, have real impact. Thucydides constantly wrestles with the contrast between appearance and reality. While he can dismiss the physical show of an Athens (1.10.2), his Corinthians bitterly accuse the Corcyraeans of cynically appropriating first “the fair appearance (to euprepres) of nonalignment” (37.4) and then a few lines later “the fair appearance (to euprepes) of justice (dikê)” (39.1). The self-serving moral veneer is a weapon that speakers throughout the text of Thucydides fear.^[46] Moral values matter primarily when they are on display, and hidden qualities are adduced primarily to discredit the surface.

The Corinthians bring this attitude to bear during their attack on Corcyra. They declare that the power of Corcyra’s natural position places a strong moral burden on it:

And yet if they were the good (agathoi) men they pretend to be, the less hold that others had upon them, the stronger would be the light in which they might have put their honesty by giving and receiving what was just (ta dikaia).

They thus link three themes. First, poleis are to be regarded as dishonorable and untrustworthy unless proven otherwise. Second, exchanges between parties are an index of the reliability and moral worth of the participants. Third, these exchanges must be conducted in full view for the public inspection of the Greek world.

The Corinthian attitude is an important one. Individuals (and poleis when they are described in terms applicable to individuals) are not autonomous entities, with a worth inherent in themselves. They are social beings whose character is, in a sense, only the sum total of all dealings that they have ever had with others. Inner feelings, where they count at all, can be a sign of duplicity and bad faith. This conception of the self finds parallels in other societies and is at least as common as the Western view of the disembodied individual as atom and building block of society.^[47] The Corcyraeans have no allies because they do not want to be ashamed (Thuc. 1.37.2: aischunesthai). Thucydides, of course, is particularly sensitive to the gap between external appearance and inner feelings (see, for example, his ruthless analyses of Spartan actions). Yet even as Greek poets fret over who is and is not a true friend, the issue primarily boils down to the question of who can and cannot be trusted to stand by their friends or do something in a time of need.

The Corinthian attack is odd. They not only deny that the Corcyraeans had anything to do with sôphrosunê, but they attribute their base behavior in part to autarkeia, or self-sufficiency, and, although they do not use the word itself, they attack the Corcyraeans for their apragmosunê. Their criticism is more than standard rhetorical opportunism, in which the speaker picks and chooses which qualities deserve praise at any given time according to the needs of the moment. Apragmosunê is not absolute, but relative. Elites do not pride themselves on having nothing to do with anything or anyone, but with anything or anyone outside of their own sphere, and an admired agathos should maintain relationships with philoi at home and many xenoi scattered throughout the Greek world. Apragmosunê is an ideological weapon to discourage members of established elites from consorting with those outside their proper sphere and from thus implicitly legitimating those who seek to join the chosen few.