Daring and deliberation: Virtue, rhetoric, and diplomacy in Thucydides’ account of the Athenian empire

Abstract

In Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War, the juxtaposition between the speeches in defense of the Athenian empire and their political effects uncovers critical insights into the need for rhetoric to balance the tasks of domestic enthusiasm and diplomatic interaction. In Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles boasts that Athens has perfected “daring and deliberation,” having built an empire through courageous deeds while maintaining a democracy in which competing interests and perspectives receive a fair hearing. These qualities justify Athenian supremacy, but actually maintaining it instead calls for Athens to be cautious and for its subjects to accept the status quo without question. As Athens perceives a decline in its wartime fortunes, it struggles to preserve a reputation for daring and deliberation without undertaking actions that would falsify its self-representation. Its virtues become a substitute for its interests, so that it can no longer act with either morally or prudently. The declining effectiveness of Athenian rhetoric speaks to Thucydides’ teaching that warfare, while presenting an opportunity for a city to display its greatest traits, is far more likely to corrupt them, which requires that orators reconcile the city’s sense of its own righteousness with the realities of its situation.