6. The Causes of the Peloponnesian War: Ephorus, Thucydides and Their Critics

Giovanni Parmeggiani

The causes of the Peloponnesian War constitute such a persistent theme in discussions of fifth-century Greek history, in part because of the complexity of the aetiological view of our earliest source, Thucydides. Critics tend to admire Thucydides’ subtle distinction between aitiai es to phaneron legomenai and alethestate prophasis, [1] but they are generally less comfortable with his formulation of the two sets of causes: one consisting in individual episodes of tension between Athens and Sparta’s allies, particularly Corinth, in the years leading up to the war (specifically the events of Corcyra and Potidaea); the other a process that followed immediately upon the end of Xerxes’ expedition (the growing tension between the two leading Greek cities, Athens and Sparta).

By qualifying it as alethestate, Thucydides is clearly claiming that the prophasis is more important for a correct understanding of the origins of the war. In other words, he is asserting that a proper perception of the origins of the war depends upon a consideration of the previous fifty years as well as careful attention paid both to the physis of the Athenian arche, as an ever increasing force in Greek history, and to Sparta’s phobos, as a reactive force in Greek history.

Thucydides never implies, however, that the aitiai es to phaneron legomenai are unconnected to the breakout of the war. As he himself observes: “As for the reason why they [sc. the Athenians and Lacedaemonians] broke the peace, I have written first the aitiai and the differences, so that no one should ever have to enquire into the origin of so great a war for the Greeks.” (Thucydides 1.23.5, translation by T. Rood.) The meaning of this statement is clear: if there had been no Corcyra and Potidaea, there would have been no Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE. It is obvious, then, that the relationship between aitiai es to phaneron and alethestate prophasis cannot be presented as if it were a relationship between false and true causes. [2]

In recent years, Tim Rood has argued that the aitiai es to phaneron are deeply related to the alethestate prophasis, that they are, in fact, part of the same aetiological system. [3] Rood’s remarks allow us to recover a unity of thought in Thucydides’ interpretation of the origins of the war. Yet, the problem remains: why does Thucydides make a distinction between aitiai es to phaneron and {116|117} alethestate prophasis? I would suggest that there is something more at stake than the opposition between ‘superficial’ and ‘profound’ causes.

In his disclosure of the alethestate prophasis, Thucydides brings into play the concept of ananke, which is entirely absent from his discussion of the aitiai. [4] In other words, he distinguishes between two sets of causes because there are two different kinds of problems to solve. The first is a problem of historical contingency and properly concerns the origin of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE. How did the war actually break out? This is the problem for which the aitiai are invoked. The second is a philosophical problem and concerns the nature of the war between Athens and Sparta. Was the war accidental or necessary? This is the problem for which the alethestate prophasis is invoked. Thucydides’ answer, in short, is that the war was necessary: if there had been no Corcyra and Potidaea, there would have been no Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE; the war would instead have erupted at a different time. Without depriving the aitiai of their aetiological function, the concept of alethestate prophasis allows Thucydides to emphasize the inevitability of the war. With his alethestate prophasis, then, Thucydides tries to raise his reader’s awareness and encourage an original, philosophical vision of history.

According to Thucydides, the inevitability of the war was not a concept that common people could easily grasp (ἀφανεστάτην δὲ λόγῳ). In fact, unlike the single events that he classifies as aitiai es to phaneron, the ongoing tension between Athens and Sparta was distant in time and more complex in form. Such a relationship, therefore, can only be revealed by a master of history and politics, whose insight is particularly canny. By insight I mean control of the facts from the distant past, knowledge of the physis of man and especially, of the physis of power. In two demonstrations of Book 1, the Archaeologia (1.2–19) and the Pentecontaetia (1.89–117), Thucydides gives a full display of this type of knowledge, which we may consider to be the theoretical backbone of his political science.

Naturally, we have the option of trusting Thucydides’ mastery and thus gratefully accepting his lesson about the causes of the war and its historical necessity. However, some critics have noted that Thucydides does not inquire into important events that occurred in the years immediately before the war, {117|118} such as the Megarian Decree. [5] Some have drawn our attention to the artful rhetorical construction of Book 1, or have disagreed with Thucydides’ insistence that the war was unavoidable. [6] Some situate Thucydides’ work within the context of contemporary political debates about the responsibility for the war, debates that were quite animated during and after the Peloponnesian War; in light of this, they find Thucydides’ account unsatisfactory: in their opinion, Thucydides’ explanation is defective and, even worse, biased. [7]

Among Thucydides’ critics is Karl Julius Beloch, who notes that the difficulties experienced by Pericles and his party in the preceding years had a direct impact on the outbreak of war. [8] During this period, Pheidias, Anaxagoras, and Aspasia were all put on trial, incidents that are recorded by sources other than Thucydides, such as ancient comedy and—it is supposed—a pamphletistic tradition hostile to Pericles. [9] Indeed, this is at the core of Diodorus’ account of the causes of the Peloponnesian War (12.38–41), the main source for which, Diodorus tells us, was the fourth-century historian Ephorus of Cyme (FGH 70 F 196).

Modern critics rarely praise Ephorus’ historiography. If we look at F 196, the fragment on the causes of the Peloponnesian War, we can perhaps understand why. Here, besides a reference to Pericles’ personal affairs, we find three citations from ancient comedy, apparently adduced by Ephorus as evidence. The first two, from Aristophanes’ Peace and Acharnians, clearly assert Pericles’ responsibility for initiating the war. If some critics believe that Thucydides defended Pericles too vehemently, many more contend that Ephorus preferred the silly inventions of poets and the vulgar insinuations of pamphleteers over Thucydides’ trustworthy account and subtle aetiological analysis, and that he {118|119} held only Pericles accountable for the war. Such a formulation has long formed the basis for Ephorus’ supposed ignorance in historical matters. [10]

Among Ephorus’ detractors is Felix Jacoby. In his view, Thucydides had unduly neglected Athenian internal politics, and so Ephorus would have written an account of the causes of the Peloponnesian War better than that of Thucydides had he both paid attention to Thucydides’ text and at the same time examined Athenian internal politics without surrendering to the lethal seduction of comedy or pamphlets. [11] I would suggest instead that, as is evident from Thucydides’ text, at the time when he was writing (after 431 BCE, at least), Pericles was commonly viewed as responsible for the war; Thucydides thus writes to counter this opinion. [12] With regard to Ephorus, we could ask Jacoby if it would have been possible or conceivable for a historian of the fourth century to examine the internal politics of fifth-century Athens without considering the comic tradition and, more generally, the literature of the time, which was an {119|120} active part of the ongoing political debate. The answer, I maintain, would be no. For modern historians too, ancient comedy (when correctly used) is a documentary source. The question, then, becomes: does Ephorus make good or bad use of ancient comedy? But there is a second question also: does Ephorus, as has been suggested, simply lay blame for the war on Pericles, thereby neglecting the wider scenario of international politics, or is his aetiological view somewhat more subtle? To answer this, we must take a closer look at F 196, and the other texts apparently indebted to Ephorus for the causes of the Peloponnesian War. [13]

F 196 is a difficult text. Diodorus mentions Ephorus at the end of a long and seemingly lacunose account: αἰτίαι μὲν οὖν τοῦ Πελοποννησιακοῦ πολέμου τοιαῦταί τινες ὑπῆρξαν, ὡς Ἔφορος ἀνέγραψε (“Now the causes of the Peloponnesian War were in general what I have described, as Ephorus has recorded them.” 12.41.1, translation by C. H. Oldfather). By his use of the term τινες Diodorus seems to be saying that this is approximately what Ephorus said about the causes of the Peloponnesian War. [14] But from F 196 we do learn of several matters: first, Pericles’ difficulties in giving an account of his financial administration to the demos, [15] and his will to resolve such difficulties by means of a war (12.38.2–4); [16] second, the trials of his associates Pheidias (charged with embezzlement of public funds that had been allocated for Athena’s statue) and Anaxagoras (12.39.1–3); third, Pericles’ involvement in these charges, which in fact masked political attacks by his opponents, and his aim to resolve these troubles with a war (12.39.3); and finally, the existing problem of the Megarian Decree (12.39.4), and the consequent debate during which Pericles urged his {120|121} fellow citizens not to surrender to Sparta’s ultimatum (12.39.5–40.6). At the end of this account, as we have seen, the reader encounters the term τινες, and is prompted to wonder whether Ephorus actually said all of this. If so, furthermore, can we assume that he said it in this form?

Scholars of the twentieth century generally agree that Diodorus’ account is only an imperfecta imago of what Ephorus wrote about the causes of the war. In order to reconstruct what one might call ‘Ephorus’ version’, then, Diodorus’ supposed lacunae are often supplemented with information from Plutarch (Pericles 31–32), Aristodemus (FGH 104 F 1.16.1–4), and from scholia of late antiquity on the works of Thucydides, Aristophanes, and Hermogenes. [17] These texts, considered together, constitute the so-called ‘Ephorus tradition’; here, we find both more detailed information than Diodorus alone provides about the cases of Pericles’ associates (Aspasia in particular, notably absent from Diodorus’ account), and more extensive quotations from Aristophanes’ Peace and Acharnians. [18]

Nevertheless, when we look for Ephorus in works other than that of Diodorus, a new question arises. In reading Aristodemus, we find not only information about Pericles’ private affairs, Pheidias’ trial, the Megarian Decree, and extensive quotations from Aristophanes, but also other data, including the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea and—last but not least—the Thucydidean alethestate prophasis, here defined as aitia alethestate. [19] Is Ephorus, then, the source only for the causes that implicate Pericles, or for all the causes named by Aristodemus? Is it possible, perhaps, that Ephorus is simultaneously considering different versions of the causes of the war, not in fact neglecting Thucydides’ version but—as is evident in Aristodemus’ account—redefining it? {121|122}

This solution actually has a longer history than might appear at first sight. Meier Marx, the very first editor of Ephorus’ fragments in 1815, conjectured that Ephorus might very well have included in his history as a vulgate tradition the information about Pericles’ personal affairs that we find in Diodorus. [20] Eduard Schwartz suspected that Diodorus rearranged various tales that Ephorus had collected. [21] Robert Connor’s idea was in some way similar: Ephorus, in a Herodotean manner, might have collected different versions of the origins of the war, without necessarily preferring one over the others. [22] If this were true, Ephorus would approximate the author about whom Jacoby had dreamt, a historian who could present his reader with a complete aetiological picture of the problems connected with the origins of the Peloponnesian War. [23]

But before we draw any conclusions from Aristodemus’ text alone, we need to take a closer look at Diodorus’ account (F 196), for it is the only one in which the name of Ephorus is expressly mentioned. As we shall see, it seems possible to reach, through Diodorus, a different conclusion about Ephorus’ view of the causes of the Peloponnesian War.

The quotations from the comic poets appear only at the end of the fragment, immediately before the concluding mention of Ephorus. Here we find, together with the two quotations from Aristophanes (Peace 603–606, 609–611 and Acharnians 530–531), a quotation from Eupolis’ Demoi (fr. 102 K.A.). This quotation does not concern Pericles’ personal affairs, Aspasia, Anaxagoras, Pheidias, or the Megarian Decree, but rather his rhetorical ability: In editing F 196, Jacoby chose to expunge the Eupolis quotation, believing it to be irrelevant to the problem of the causes of the war. [24] Even if this were the case, it is not reason enough to reject it: we cannot ignore that it is in Diodorus’ text, that it appears immediately before Ephorus’ name, and finally, that it is not the only instance in the fragment that emphasizes Pericles’ rhetorical ability. [25] Given that this quotation could be part of Ephorus’ original account of the causes, it would be better to take it into careful consideration.

At first sight, it would seem that by quoting all the poetic evidence at the end of his account, Diodorus gathered together miscellaneous information, thereby confusing the evidence that Ephorus had originally organized in an ordered manner. But things are probably otherwise. The three quotations from ancient comedy are introduced in this way: As we can see, the quotations from ancient comedy are introduced collectively with a formula that once again underscores Pericles’ rhetorical strength.

The mention of Pheidias’ trial and the Megarian Decree in the verses of Aristophanes’ Peace quoted by Diodorus (verses 603–606, 609–611) obviously draws attention to the fact that, for Ephorus, Aristophanes was a primary source of information regarding Pericles’ private affairs. [26] But the short quotation from the Acharnians (verses 530–531), with its link to Eupolis’ Demoi, also clearly comments on the rhetorical power of Pericles Olympios. [27] We should {123|124} therefore conclude that Ephorus’ primary concern was not to quote the comic poets merely to substantiate the veracity of what had been said about Pericles’ personal responsibilities but, rather, to demonstrate that Pericles’ responsibility was publicly debated by his contemporaries and that the effectiveness of Pericles’ rhetorical strength, which was recognized by his contemporaries, was a decisive factor in initiating the war.

Pericles’ rhetorical strength was surely central to Ephorus’ view of the causes of the Peloponnesian War. We infer this not from Aristodemus or from other texts of the ‘Ephorus tradition’ but, again, from Diodorus. In the section of F 196 that precedes Aristophanes’ and Eupolis’ quotations, Diodorus relates—extensively and in indirect form—Pericles’ oration on the advantages of not abrogating the Megarian Decree (12.39.5–40.5). What interests us here is not the content of the oration itself but the way in which the oration is first introduced, after a brief allusion to Sparta’s ultimatum to Athens: We have to link this incipit (12.39.5) to the explicit (12.40.5), which—as we have just seen—introduces the quotations from ancient comedy. The entire passage reads as follows: This ‘ring composition’ emphasizes the underlying message: Pericles wanted the war, and he succeeded in pursuing it largely because of the rhetorical prowess that he exercised over the masses. Since Ephorus is mentioned at the end of {124|125} Diodorus’ account, we must conclude that Pericles’s rhetorical effectiveness was a major point in Ephorus’ original view.

Obviously, Pericles would have had no opportunity to realize his plan had there not been an ultimatum from Sparta and, consequently, a public debate on the Megarian Decree. This consideration leads us to understand a second underlying message: Pericles wanted the war, and he succeeded in pursuing it because of pre-existing tension between Athens and Sparta.

From this second point a new question arises: did Ephorus, as Aristophanes before him (Peace, verses 603–611), think that Pericles proposed the Megarian Decree with the aim of provoking the war and thereby escaping the current attacks on his associate Pheidias and on himself? That is to say, did Ephorus describe the tension between Athens and Sparta as depending exclusively upon Pericles’ will to defend himself from the Pheidias affair? I would like to make two observations to address these questions. First, according to Aristodemus’ version (FGH 104 F 1.16.1), Pericles proposed the Megarian Decree with the aim of causing the war, thus saving himself from the Pheidias scandal in Athens. But this is not what Diodorus, citing Ephorus, claims. It is worth noting that Diodorus does not connect Pericles’ private affairs (12.38.2–39.3) with the Megarian Decree (12.39.4). After describing Pheidias’ and Anaxagoras’ trials and recalling Pericles’ intention to promote the war, Diodorus notes: If Ephorus, on the basis of Aristophanes’ Peace, had emphasized the Periclean authorship of the Megarian Decree as an intentional weapon for provoking the war, we would expect Diodorus’ text to read somewhat differently. Ephorus may in fact have corrected Aristophanes’ view: Pericles proposed the Megarian Decree and this action was surely a decisive step toward war, but he did not intend to solve, by way of this decree, his personal troubles. [28] My second observation is that Sparta’s ultimatum, as it is represented by Diodorus (12.39.4), seems to be such an aggressive measure against Athens that it is inexplicable as a simple reply to the Megarian Decree. It is clear that Ephorus said much {125|126} more than what Diodorus tells us about the increasing political tension between Athens and Sparta. We must conclude, therefore, that Ephorus did not link this tension exclusively to Pericles’ intention to defend himself from the Pheidias affair but that he took into consideration broader political circumstances, which Diodorus does not choose to include. [29]

Although an imperfecta imago and far from complete, Diodorus’ account does allow us to observe a coherence in Ephorus’ original vision. We have thus far distinguished two different aetiological streams: one concerning Pericles’ political situation at Athens, the other the official relationship between Athens and Sparta in the years before the war. Briefly put, the Peloponnesian War was, on the one hand, provoked by Pericles’ resolution to put an end to personal attacks on himself and his associates through war and to hamper a public inquiry into his financial administration, and, on the other hand, by a pre-existing tension between Athens and Sparta.

The debate on the Megarian Decree that had been going on in Athens since Sparta’s ultimatum clearly marks the confluence of these two streams; at this convergence, the war was decided, and it was decided by rhetoric. Curiously enough, Ephorus—the historian who has been universally credited as having made History the servant of Rhetoric—gives us one of the clearest statements in historiography on the dramatic damages that can result when rhetorical persuasiveness and demagogy enter into politics. It will suffice to recall Ephorus F 207 on Lysander’s revolutionary logos, περὶ τῆς πολιτείας, which was “written,” as we read in the fragment, “in so persuasive a way.” [30] From this fragment we understand that Ephorus’ interest in demagogy and rhetorical persuasiveness was not circumstantial but rather essential to his approach to the internal dynamics of the Greek states.

I think that we have come a long way from traditional views about Ephorus. We understand that Ephorus not only sheds light on Pericles’ responsibilities for the war by pointing out the problematic impact of demagogy on internal politics, but also that he did not ignore the political situation outside Athens, the aetiological stream in Ephorus’ original account that Diodorus chose not to develop. Furthermore, Ephorus’ use of information drawn from ancient comedy was subtler than it is usually considered to be. [31] Ephorus did not employ {126|127} Aristophanes’ and Eupolis’ texts as pisteis in the strict sense of the word. [32] Comic poets witnessed both the political debate on the responsibilities of the war and Pericles’ rhetorical strength; as witnesses they recorded instances that a scrupulous historian should never ignore, [33] in part because Pericles’ contribution to the Athenian debate on the Megarian Decree was deemed by almost every historian (Thucydides included) to have been decisive for the war.

Ephorus did not express the same view as Thucydides about the Peloponnesian War; contrary to Thucydides, he believed that the war could have been avoided, and he investigated the issue of Pericles’ responsibility for the war, his desire for war for personal reasons, and his success through rhetoric and demagogy. Furthermore, Ephorus showed how all these instances worked in the context of the growing political tension between Athens and Sparta. But we can go even further and note, thanks again to Diodorus’ account, that Ephorus began his analysis of Pericles’ situation by focusing on neither polemical passages in the comic poetic tradition nor the aggressive speculations of pamphlets, but rather on an historical event that is not reported by Thucydides in his Pentecontaetia (1.89–117), namely the transfer of the Delian League’s treasure from Delos to Athens in the mid-fifth century. Scholars regard this event as one of the key moments of fifth-century Greek history. The passage reads:

The presence of this last detail no longer takes us by surprise. All the facts concerning Pericles that we find described later in the fragment (i.e. his financial administration, the trials of his associates, and his oration at the debate on the Megarian Decree) derive from this piece of information, which marks the beginning of the entire aetiological report on the origins of the war. Ephorus seems to find the roots of the Peloponnesian War in this historical context. The Athenians’ attitude to thalassocracy looks like an ‘original sin’, in which all the citizens of Athens, including Pericles, shared responsibility. The difficult {127|128} situation in which Pericles was to be involved, after some years of autocratic and certainly flawed financial politics, was intriguing to Ephorus not because of his hunger for scandals. On the contrary, Ephorus was keenly aware that the Athenians’ original ambitions for thalassocracy would and did have a negative impact on the politics of the Delian League. This view is deeply historical and has nothing to do with the supposed fiction or exaggerations on the part of the Athenian comedy or the pamphletistic tradition. Here we touch upon a historical situation to which Ephorus was quite sensitive, and in which he contextualized Pericles’ affairs—quite a different circumstance from what we see in comedy or pamphlets.

In the Life of Pericles 12, Plutarch tells us that opponents of the oligarchic party often attacked Pericles at the assembly for his building projects on the Acropolis. They claimed that funds for this work came from the Delian treasure and that the projects themselves were too expensive. Pericles’ use of the Delian League’s treasure caused disaffection and open complaint from Athens’ allies. In F 196, in his oration delivered during the Megarian Decree debate, Pericles alludes to Athena’s statue and the expenses accrued from building the Propylaia and from the siege of Potidaea (40.2). His fiscal policy was a reality that Ephorus described more accurately and with more detail than Diodorus. [34] Pericles, then, was not only the object of Ephorus’ observations, but also the means by which he explored the nature and the shortcoming of Athenian rule in the fifth century BCE. We should also note that the defects of Athenian imperialistic politics were another reason for the auto-critical meditation on the past by intellectuals in fourth-century Athens, and Ephorus worked in this specific context. [35]

I would like to conclude with a passage from Plutarch’s Life of Pericles, which seems to me to retain the principal features of Ephorus’ view of the causes of the Peloponnesian War. At 32.6 we find a curious new version of the metaphor of the fire employed by Aristophanes in his Peace 608–611: Whereas in Aristophanes’ version, Pericles stirs up the fire of the war with the Megarian Decree (ἐξέφλεξε τὴν πόλιν / ἐμβαλὼν σπινθῆρα μικρὸν Μεγαρικοῦ ψηφίσματος· / κἀξεφύσησεν τοσοῦτον πόλεμον ὥστε τῷ καπνῷ / πάντας Ἕλληνας δακρῦσαι, τούς τ’ ἐκεῖ τούς τ’ ἐνθάδε, “he threw out that little spark, the Megarian Decree, set the city aflame, and blew up the conflagration with a hurricane of war, so that the smoke drew tears from all Greeks both here and over there.” Translation by E. O’Neill Jr.), in Plutarch’s narrative, Pericles is blowing on a fire already kindled (μέλλοντα τὸν πόλεμον καὶ ὑποτυφόμενον ἐξέκαυσεν, “he kindled into flame the threatening and smouldering war”). There is a slight difference between the two texts, and I am inclined to think that Plutarch’s version reflects an important aspect of Ephorus’ view. Pericles took advantage, for his own good, of pre-existing international tensions that would eventually lead to war regardless of Pheidias’ trial and Pericles’ own difficulties in Athens. The tragedy of the man who choses to save himself rather than his fellow citizens [37] was not disconnected from another great tragedy, that of the two leading cities of the Greek world on the brink of war. The picture we have, then, is perfectly congruent with the two aetiological streams that we have indentified in studying Ephorus F 196.

Plutarch’s passage confirms our impression that Ephorus did not quote Aristophanes as an authority to be blindly followed. Ephorus felt free to craft new historical concepts by drawing on comedy’s most evocative images. In Thucydides’ view, if there had been no Corcyra or Potidaea, we would not have had the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE. In Ephorus’ view, if Pericles had not resolved to uphold the Megarian Decree, there would have been no war in 431 BCE. At that time, war was still avoidable, but it was only a matter of time before {129|130} tensions broke out between Sparta and Athens. Among the culprits behind the war of 431 BCE, Pericles was certainly predominant. But Sparta and Athens were both responsible for bad choices that they had previously made, when each willingly pursued political hegemony; their choices were going to be decisive. We can surmise from the reference in F 196 to the removal of the Delian League’s treasure that Ephorus considered the collapse of the Panhellenic alliance between Athens and Sparta (ca. 462 BCE) to have been a negative turning point in the fifth century. [38]

Far from being a corrupter of the science of history, Ephorus of Cyme proves to be a very competent historian in matters of aetiology. Looking backward from the fourth century BCE, he did not believe the war of 431 was inevitable; he believed, like many modern historians, that Thucydides’ thesis of ananke was unconvincing. When addressing the much-debated question of the causes of the Peloponnesian War, he chose to consider data that Thucydides had neglected. In so doing, Ephorus conformed to the fundamental methodological principle that he had proposed for his own research (διακριβοῦν εἰώθαμεν, ὅταν ἦι τι τῶν πραγμάτων ἢ παντελῶς ἀπορούμενον ἢ ψευδῆ δόξαν ἔχον, “I am accustomed to examine such matters as these with precision, whenever any matter is either altogether doubtful or falsely interpreted.” Translation by H. L. Jones, modified). [39] Finally, he succeeded in forwarding a new aetiological scheme, which was wide and complete in all respects (he devoted attention to such matters as Athenian internal dynamics, the politics of the Delian League, and the relationship between Sparta and Athens, approaching them as reciprocally interwoven problems), and in fact more satisfying than the one Thucydides provided. A careful analysis of Ephorus’ F 196 uncovers broader and more balanced insights into the origins of the Peloponnesian War and helps us see how, contrary to the communis opinio, fourth-century historiography is closer to the best examples of modern inquiry, both in its aetiological sensibility and its historical perspective. {130|}