Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/397

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higher pay. They could acquire naval skill by practice. And among the possibilities of the war he suggests the occupation of a fortress in the enemy's country[1]. The speech of Pericles answers these arguments point by point. But the correspondence is not merely in the topics. The very phrases of the Corinthian speech are repeated by Pericles in his reply[2]. Similar parallelisms may be traced between the Corinthian speech and that delivered by the Spartan Archidamus on the occasion of the former congress: one with which the Corinthians cannot be supposed to be acquainted in detail, since it was made to the Spartans only, after strangers had withdrawn[3]. The fact is that the eight[4] speeches recorded by Thucydides as delivered at Athens or Sparta before the commencement of the war form, for his purpose, a group by themselves. In these he has worked up the chief arguments and calculations which were current on either side. Collectively, they are his dramatic presentation of the motives at work, the grievances on each side, the hopes and fears, based on a comparison of resources, with

  1. i. 121 §§ 3—4; 122 § 1.
  2. Compare (1) Pericles, i. 143 § 1, εἴ τε καὶ κινήσαντες τῶν Ὀλυμπίασιν ἢ Δελφοῖς χρημάτων μισθῷ μείζονι . . . ὑπολαβεῖν τοὺς ξένους τῶν ναυτῶν, with the Corinthian speech, i. 121 § 3, ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν Δελφοῖς καὶ Ὀλυμπίᾳ χρημάτων . . . ὑπολαβεῖν μισθῷ μείζονι τοῦς ξένους αὐτῶν ναυβάτας: (2) Pericles, i. 142 § 6, with Corinthian, i. 121 § 4; (3) Pericles, i. 142 § 2, with Corinthian, i. 122 § 1.
  3. Compare i. 120—4 with i. 80—85.
  4. See the Table at the end of the Essay; cp. i. 21, ὅσα εἶπον μέλλοντες πολεμήσειν.