the Eighth Book[1]: but if his general practice is considered, the argument from the absence of speeches will appear questionable. Much of the Eighth Book is occupied with negotiations, either clandestine or indecisive, or both; and in a period of similar character which fills the greater part of the Fifth Book Thucydides nowhere employs the dramatic form[2]. It cannot surprise us that Thucydides has not given a dramatic emphasis to the mere misrepresentations by which Alcibiades and Chalcideus prevailed on the Chians to revolt[3]. The Revolution of the Four Hundred certainly afforded opportunities for the insertion of speeches made in debate. But that Revolution was primarily concerned with the
- ↑ Classen examines the evidence in his Vorbemerkungen to Book viii., with these results:—(1) Book viii. was left unrevised, owing to the author's death while he was engaged upon it, and hence several inaccuracies of expression or statement remain [cf. e.g. c. 8 § 3—4: the notice of the βραχεῖα ναυμαχία in c. 80, compared with c. 102: c. 89 § 2 (τῶν πάνυ στρατηγῶν, κ.τ.λ.): c. 90 § 1, where σφῶν recurs four times in a few lines: c. 101 § 3, where the geographical details are obscure]. (2) Such defects of the text were early recognised, but for a long time no attempt was made to remedy them. (3) In the Alexandrian or Roman age a recension of the whole History was made, of which codex Vaticanus 126 is the representative. For Books i.—vi. the cases in which the codex Vaticanus alone has the true reading are not numerous: in vii. they are more so: in viii. they are so frequent that here the Vaticanus, as compared with all the other mss., assumes the character of a revised text.
- ↑ Thuc. v. 14—83 (422—416 B.C.). In Book v. the direct form of speech occurs only in the harangue of Brasidas (v. 9) and the Melian dialogue (85—116).
- ↑ viii. 14.
