Style and Necessity in Thucydides

Tobias Joho (Lecturer in Classics, Department of Classics, University of Bern)

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English

Oxford University Press
09 February 2023

Literary studies: classical, early & medieval; Historiography; Ancient history: to c 500 CE

"Ancient literary critics were struck by what they described as Thucydides' ""nominal style,"" a term that refers to Thucydides' fondness for abstract nominal phrases. As this book shows, Thucydides frequently uses these phrases instead of approximately synonymous verbal and personal constructions. These stylistic choices tend to deemphasize human agency: people find themselves in a passive role, exposed to incidents happening to them rather than being actively in charge of events. Thus, the analysis of the abstract style raises the question of necessity in Thucydides. On numerous occasions, Thucydides and his speakers use impersonal and passive language to stress the subjection of human beings to transpersonal forces that manifest themselves in collective passions and an inherent dynamic of events. These factors are constitutive of the human condition and become a substitute for the notion of divine fatalism prevalent in earlier Greek thought. Yet Thucydidean necessity is not absolute. It stands in the tradition of a type of fatalism that one finds in Homer and Herodotus. In these authors, the gods or fate tend to settle the outcome of the most significant events, but they leave leeway for the specific way in which these pivotal events come to pass. Thus, the Greeks endorsed a malleable variant of necessity, so that considerable scope for human choice persists within the framework fixed by necessity. Pericles turns out to be Thucydides' prime example of an individual who uses the leeway left by necessity for prudent interventions into the course of events."

By: Tobias Joho (Lecturer in Classics Department of Classics University of Bern)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 223mm, Width: 145mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780198812043
ISBN 10: 0198812043
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 09 February 2023
Audience: College/higher education , A / AS level
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Tobias Joho is a lecturer at the Department of Classics of the University of Bern in Switzerland. His research interests include ancient Greek historiography and the modern fascination with ancient Greece. He has published journal articles on various aspects of Thucydides and contributed an essay entitled ""Thucydides, Epic, and Tragedy"" to the Oxford Handbook of Thucydides. He has also written scholarly articles on Jacob Burckhardt's reflections on the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, on both Burckhardt's and Nietzsche's engagement with the ""agonal spirit"" of the Greeks, and on the distinctive style of Goethe's novel Elective Affinities."

Reviews for Style and Necessity in Thucydides

The monograph covers a lot of territory and on the whole makes a good case for Thucydides' use of style to underscore ideas about necessity in the History. It should, in fact, convince J.'s own audience to consider more carefully the implications of Thucydides' style, while it also encourages readers of the History to continue to wrestle with the profound questions that the historian raises. * Paula Debnar, Anzeiger für die Altertumswissenschaft 76/4 *