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GREEK STUDIESIN HONOUR OF n-vo q eitede;again, exactly as at 11.8], they found it dreadful to have their land openlyravaged, something which the young men had never seen, and even the oidonly in the Persian Wars.

As this makes clear, Thucydides' own idea of eikos is evidently closer to 11.8, so plainlyechoed here, than to that of 1.81.6.

In a subtle and helpful analysis, Virginia Hunter suggested that 11.8 was an ex eventureconstruction of intentions from what really went on to happen. 31 But that is not quiteadequate, for the crucial point is that this is what Archidamus said at 11.8, not what at thatpoint he really thoughf. or at least not what he thought to be the best policy, the one worth

trying first. The point is not so much to make Archidamus seem wiser at 2.1 1 (Hunter), but tomake his certainties seem more misguided at 1.81-2. And, more ironically stiil, though thisirrationalist third policy does almost work, and certainly has a great impact on Athenian

mrale, it is all largely wrecked by the more rational policy that Archidamus had followed first:for, as 18.4 brings out, Archidamus' delay had given the Athenians time to collect within thewalls. 32 This was why the Spartans were so angry with him: if they had attacked straight awayand found people in the fields, they thought they might have had even greater impact, and itwas Archidamus' delay (u.Anai

C. B. R PELLING 129

The effects of it all are made less predictable by Pericles, for Hunter the one factor thatArchidamus failed to take into account:" it is again a little more complicated, for Archidamus'deepest conviction (1.81, the first strand) was rather that the Athenians' would come over toPericles' policy even without a Pericles to persuade them. Pericles indeed manages to combatthe irrational desires of the Athenians to go out and fight, by the simple expedient of not calling

an assembly; but also, in a way that Archidamus at least gives no sign of hving predicted, 36 themost important effect of the ravaging was to turn the Athenians against Pericles. That is one

further reason why the ravaging was worth doing. even if the Athenians finally remained withintheir walls more worth doing than Archidamus himself thought; and at 22.1 Pericles has toconfront the same forces of orge among his fellow-citizens as Archidamus among his. That isyet another aspect of the symmetry of the two rulers, but one crucial difference is that Pericles

is unambiguously right to stick to his guns. Archidamus is more problematic, and there is thissense in which he has emerged as too rational. The reason is in part, as he and Pericles know,that war is always a chancy and unpredictable business: that events can go ignorantly, asPericles puts it so well (1.140.1, cf. Archidamus at 2.11.4). But more than this, it is partlybecause men's passion and anger govern men's aetions more certainly than Archidamusinitially chose to believe, and that was an element which was not unpredictable in principle: hispredictions were simply not as good as they might have been. His policy of not trusting to theenemy's mistakes is all very well, but he does not give them enough chance to make themthose mistakes which Pericles rightly fears more than anything the enemy could devise(1.144. H. If Archidamus' wisdom here founders by being too rational, then of course it doesnot mean that one cannot plan rationally at all: one should surely not talk like the Corinthians at

1.122.1, chirping that there are many ways to fight the war that at the moment they cannotforesee. Even if that is right, it is no way to argue. 37 But it is stiil something of a commentaryon how little human reason and rational foresight can reliably achieve.

There are two pendants. First, the next few events stand in suggestive juxtapostion. At2.23.2 Pericles' hundred ships set off around the Peloponnese; at 24 the Athenians decide to set

up their reserve of money and ships to guard against eventual naval attaek. Both rathervindicate Archidamus' original thoughts of 1.80-5: Pericles' ships reflect the importance ofnaval power, and then the Athenian nervousness is eloquent of the penis of a new type of war,

so different from the old-fashioned ravaging. Whatever the qualifications suggested by the lastfew chapters, we are surely not supposed to think that Archidamus' wisdom is whollydiseredited. One day it will come, this new sort of war, and at 2.7-8 the Spartans were alreadylaying its foundations, busying themselves with building up alliances and fleets. But it is a lngway in the future. The first encounter might have gone differently if the ravaging policy hadbeen pursued with more urgeney, and that would have made all such longer thoughtsredundant.

35 Hunter (n. 20), 13 and 20.36 R. Zahn, Die erste Periklesrede CDiss. Berlin, 1934), 60, followed by Luschnat fn.22), 19-20, suggests that the end

of 1 1 prepares for precisely this Umschwung: in a sense that is right, but it is important that this is not the sort of07'ge-effect that Archidamus seems there to envisage. Similarly at 21.4 Archidamus dpes have in mind thepossibility that devastation may split the Athenians among themselves; but not in this way. (In fact, his preciseexpectation there that the Acharnians may lose their bellicose enthusiasm proves wholly false: cf. Gomme,HCT, ad. loe.)

37 Yet some of the Corinthian points turn out to be quite elose to the reality, at times eloser than Archidamus'predictions. The Spartans will indeed finally turn to epiteichismos (122.1), will detach at least some of Athens'allies (ib.), and will finally defeat Athens at sea (121.4); they are even, ironically enough, right to think that poorcounsel can stiil prevail if the enemy makes even more mistakes (1 20.4-5)! All this is perhaps a refinement of thesuggestions explored above; like Sthenelaidas, the Corinthians may show less euboulia than Archidamus, buttheir words can veer eloser to the truth.

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Secondly, Archidamus' other remaining big seene, another to which Thucydides devotesconsiderable attenon: the attack on Plataea at 2.71-8. 'He invaded, encamped, and was aboutto (eue^Ae) ravage the land...': p.e.Xkr\aiq again, though this time it does not look as if he wasplanning to delay. But this time he did not have to, for 'straight away' the Plataeans sent to beghim to desist, while their land was stiil unravaged. This sequence begins to verify one of theother strands (B): treat the land as a hostage, hope that the enemy may hurry to makeconcessions while-meir land is stiil intaet. And Archidamus, always so concemed to 'bringover the allies' (^up.jxdxov npoaaycoyn, 1.82.1), astutely tries to negotiate a settlement; and thePlataeans are clearly tempted. But again this more rational strand is foiled, by something thatgoes beyond pure rationality: this time, the simple fact that the Plataean families are at Athens,and they are not as free to aet as it seems they would like. Once again, there is a sort ofemotional force in Attica orge, here family ties that is enough to put these rationalstrands firmly in their place: and we see the limits of euboulia, once again.

I

I

II

This [i.e. the Tragic Warner] is part of Herodotus' method which Thucydidescarefully avoids, and if Nicias (vi.9-14) and Archidamus (i.80-85) may betaken as examples of the tragic warner, yet the contrast between good and badadvice is far less clearly mrked. Thucydides gives good arguments even tothe 'wrong' side, to men like Cleon, so that in his debates it is often quite

difficult to teil which advice is meant to be good and which bad. WithHerodotus there can never be any question, given the point of view

Thus Richmond Lattimore, concluding his well-known article on the Wise Adviser inHerodotus. 38 That seems to hint at some reservations about Archidamus, but implies that therecan be no similar doubt about Artabanus' insights. And, whatever may be the case withHerodotus' other wise advisers, 39 Artabanus had indeed enjoyed an even better press thanArchidamus.40

We first see him at 4.83, advising Darius not to invade Scythia. Of course, that Scythiancampaign is full of parallels with Xerxes' great invasion, and Herodotus draws attention to

38'The Wise Adviser in Herodotus', CP 34 (1939), 35 n.31.

3

C. B. R. PELLING 131

them by various techniques of echo and emphasis; 4 ' and of course those parallels aresuggestive, pointing the way in which these very different and individual kings nonethelessinexorably fail into the same pattern of activity and failure, even though both in fact show somewillingness to learn from their advisers. 42 There is stiil a force of history which effectivelytraps both in turn.

Yet the parallel is not complete. In warning Darius against Scythia, Artabanus had anoverwhelming case, and Herodotus knows it: his advice was 'good though unsuccessful',4.83.2: aXk' otj yap enei-fte ovyifiovtevav oi xP^crc- He had pointed out the poverty ofScythia, that aporie which is already familiar to us (4.46.3), and this duly plays a large part inthe campaign itself. It also puts Artabanus firmly in a sequence of advisers stretching back toSandanis at 1.71, who had similarly pointed out the poorness of the land his king planned toconquer, and the consequent slightness of the prizes compared with the vastness of the risk. 4 '

Europe is different, because Europe is indeed worth conquering: primed by Mardonius, thistime Xerxes can even speak of it as 'no smaller nor worse, but more fertile of every product

than our present empire' (7.8oc.2, cf. Mardonius at 7.5. 3). 44 For some time Greece has beenlooming as the ultimate target of Persian expansion; 45 so attractive a prize beckons as well asthreatens. No surpnse, then, that Artabanus has to find much more elaborate arguments, northat their persuasiveness is rather less clear-cut; and no surprise that the process of deliberationis so complicated and protracted. We shall need to consider, first, the well-known sequence atthe beginning of 7 Xerxes' vacillations, first persuaded by Mardonius and reacting againstArtabanus' counter-arguments, then persuaded out of it by his night-time reflections, thenfinally along with Artabanus convinced by the recurrent dream that he has no choice, he has toinvade; and then the second exchange at 7.44-52, as Xerxes reviews the Persian army at

significantly the Hellespont. Artabanus stiil has his- reservations, but by now Xerxes'vacillations have settled into a calmer insight, accepting the risks but feeling that Persia wouldnever have become great if all his predecessors had stayed at home.

I should like to make three points about this sequence, and in each the comparison withThucydides is telling.

First, the depiction of the Persian court, especially in the first of these seenes. Of course, theway these speakers speak is most expressive. Xerxes was initially reluctant to invade, and hisnight-time vacillations stiil point to a deep inner uncertainty: 46 but he nevertheless sets out hisplans as firmly formulated, only at the end asking rather perfunetorily for suggestions 'so that 1may not seem to be self-willed'.47 Those plans are themselves so eloquently confident, with

41 Cf. esp. H.-F. Bornitz, Herodot-Studien (Berlin, 1968), 125-35, F. Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus, J. Lloydtrans. (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1986), 35-40.

42 Especially clear with Darius and Coes, 4.97, then Gobryas, 131 and 134; cf. Bischoff (n.39), 50-52, H. R.Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland, 1966), 174 and 178. Xerxes is more inclined to listen tothe less wise Mardonius, Gobryas" son: both Xerxes and Mardonius have less natural insight than their fathers;but Xerxes learns a ttle from Artabanus too, as we shall see (135 below).

43 Cf. esp. Bischoff (n.39), 78-83 Croesus at 1.207 is an interesting variation, with a more elaborate turning of thesame arguments.

44 The Persian perception is of course awry They wl discover that xfl 'EM,i Jieviri u.ev aiei koxe cuvxpocpi;Ecm (Demaratus at 7.102.1), and has the hardy men to match. The campaign will fit thifSandanis pattern moresurely than the counsellors yet know: cf Pausamas at 9.82.3, echoing Sandanis most pertinently, with Bischoff(n.39), 8 1 . But for the moment the perception is what matters, true or false.

45'Der Kampf gegen die Griechen ist immer "das Letzte" ais grsstes Ziel und ais grsstes Risiko', as Huber(n.40), 128, finely puts it: he compares 1.153 as well as 3.134 and 150.

40 Cf Mrg (n.40), 299 (=1 109-10 of the original); von Fritz (n.39), 247.47 7.8. 1 , l'va yvwyiac, te 7rur|Tai ctpeoDV Kai ambe, iv 7iat einr] xix e'A,ei is a true hysteron proteron. Cf 8. 103,

after a debate which is expressively different, then whether to abandon the expedition in despair, now whether to

132 GEORGICA

Xerxes already using the present tense: this glory 'is accruing' to Persia, they 'are gaining'

revenge and punishment, it is as good as happening already. 48 Then Mardonius produces hisgushful and delusive flattery, with such painfully gaping holes in his argument and insight;then, especially suggestively, Artabanus himself has to tread so very carefully and present hisadvice so very indirectly. It is always a good idea to hear a devil's advocate, he begins, just sothat you can realize how much better your own insights really are (7.10oc.l); then, after givinghis advice, he does not press Xerxes to change his mind openly he simply asks Xerxes todismiss the meeting and think about it (108.1), before drifting into typical and not very coherentsententiousness (108.2-e). He has to speak so generally and obliquely: the direct attack comeswhen he turns on Mardonius, and then it ts very direct indeed (10n,-f>). Not that the obliquityhelps much: Xerxes' response is stiil uncontrollable, as excessive in its rage (11) as in itssudden l-fated collapse (12). This is the sort of behaviour that autocracy imposes. It is all asexpressive as the reaction of the counsellors at 7.13.3, when they hear that Xerxes hasindecisively changed his mind, and is now not planning to invade after all. They may 'not havedared' (10.1) to say anything the day before, but now they fail before him in delight. Thewhole atmosphere contrasts tellingly with the mirroring debate at Athens at the end of book 8,when the civilized and democratic Athenians listen to unpalatable views; and reply with no lessurgency, and much greater dignity and firmness of purpose. 49

ft is quite clear that Herodotus is not simply using speeches to illuminate a moment ofdecision, and the motives for reaching one particular view on one particular day. Just as sooften in Thucydides, the implications of a debate are much more widespread, filling in abackground which informs our view of events against a wider perspective. This tells us a greatdeal about Persia which we need to know to understand a wide range of events, not just thisone. That is largely a question of the content, of course: that grand tradition of Persian

expansionism that we hear, and have already heard and will continue to hear, so much about.But the style of the argument and discussion tells us almost as much about Persian ruie as thecontent. And, indeed, this integration of content and form is typical of Herodotus. As well as8.140-44, we might compare 5.91-2, where again we see the Greek commitment to debate,freedom, and harmonized action (however regularly the harmony collapses in practice); 50 or3.34-6, where the style as much as the substance of Croesus' and Prexaspes' words conveys thenervy atmosphere of Cambyses' court. In all these cases the contrasting political worlds ofPersia and Greece are to the fore. Once again we might be reminded of Thucydides, with theproblematic contrast of Spartan and Athenian which is such a feature of that first Spartandebate.

But, for all the similarities, there is also quite an interesting contrast with the Archidamusdebate: for, in that particular case, Thucydides seems curiously unconcerned to explore any

similar interesting facts of Peloponnesian and Spartan political life. Of course we learnsomething about Spartans, the two forms of bradutes for instance; of course the debate's

launch it in confidence; and Mardonius, with similar arguments and selfish motivation, is as unsuccessful there ashe is successful here. But there Artemisia stiil wins only because Xerxes has decided already, and it is stiil atravesty of a debate. In the Persian court, some things do not change.

48 7.8a.2, with Stein. ad. loe; cf. H. Verdin, Studia Pauh Naster oblata II (Leuven, 1982), 331

.

49 Cf. Solmsen (n.40), 100-7. The civic and civilized immediacy of the Athenians contrasts with the remoteness ofPersian authority, that pyramid of power which the Persian message implies: Alexander is the messenger ofMardonius who is the messenger of Xerxes. There is also, of course, a contrast of Athens and Sparta, withperhaps a hint of Herodotus' contemporary world: cf also L. Solmsen, 'Speeches in Herodotus' Account of theBattle of Plataea', CP 39 (1944), 243-49 (German version in Mrg [n.40], 652-58).

50I owe the comparison with 5.91-92 to Clara Shaw. Soclees 'spoke freely', 5.93.2, an especially suggestive phrase:the whole debate explores the strengths, and also hints at some of the flaws, of freedom.

C. B. R. PELLING 133

content tells us something of the way the Spartans regard their allies, and we may not be veryimpressed. But it does not look as if its form or style is as expressive as in Herodotus. Nor isour attention really drawn to the important general points that so occupy modern scholars,points which might be analogous to those which Herodotus develops about Persia: questionslike the sort of authority a Spartan king can exercise; or the sort of consequences which followwhen a king crosses swords with an ephor; or how either king or ephor can manage anassembly; or the balance of power in decision-making between Sparta and the allies. It is not

that Thucydides was incapable of using speeches in this way or for this sort of purpose. He cancertainly use 'how people argue' expressively; one has only to think of the Melian Dialogue;and anyway we have already seen something of that with the chirpy Corinthians, or withArchidamus himself, so adept at turning opponents' gibes to his own advantage. 5. Andelsewhere Thucydides certainly develops, as a focus of attention and reflection, points about theway systems work. The Mytilenean debate sheds exactly this sort of light on Athenian politicallife, the character of both the politicians and the assembly, and also on the texture of theAthenian empire. But, at least at this point of his work, Thucydides was not interested inexploring Sparta in the same way. The points developed about Sparta are in fact ratherdifferent, and made in a different way more by what is said, especially by the Corinthians,than by the manner in which people say it. And the analysis is restricted to describing Sparta'

s

external behaviour, not really to explaining it, nor to exploring the character of their alliance

This analysis does not go very far.

Nor, indeed, is it very acute, and some parts of it are surely felt to be overstated even as wehear them. For instance, at this point of the narrative Thucydides has already talked of frequentwarfare as a feature of Spartan history since the Persian Wars (1.18-19); he has also allowed us

to know about the congress summoned in 440 to discuss war with Athens (1.40.5), and therecent offer of the Spartan authorities to invade Attica in support of Potidaea (1.58), neither of

them particularly pacific or hesitant gestures. Soon the Pentekontaetia is going lo do much tosupport the Corinthian analysis of Athens, at least as far as Athenian actions before 446 areconcerned; 52 but it will also introduce important qualifications of the views of Sparta, inparticular bringing out that any 'hesittion' was largely conditioned by the internal helotproblem, not simply a congenital feature of their make-up. The Corinthians are in factshrewder on Athens than they are on Sparta, and that may even be part of their rhetoricalstrategy. In part they are simply developing Sparta as Athens' foil; in part, perhaps, they are

painng an overdrawn picture as a means of needling the Spartans into war. But, whatever thereason, we once again see that Thucydidean technique of introducing a erude and shallowanalysis, only to deepen and re-define it as the work goes on. 53 The Corinthians put the pointsin a raw form, and it is the narrative that will re-define them more interestingly. But that re-definition is going to take a lng time, and not much of it is done in Book 1 . Herodotus showsdistinctly more interest in exploring Persia in her own right, and in depth, than Thucydides ininvestigating Sparta at least at this point in his work. And there are reasons for this: we shallreturn to them at the end of the paper.

Stiil, despite the considerable difference of form, technique, and focus pf^interest, there isalso the strong point of parallel. The analysis of Sparta may not be very deep, and it certainly

51 Hornblower (n.7), 57, is right to protest against those who elaim that Thucydides does not charaeterize by style:these methods of argument are certainly stylistic features.

52 An important qualification: cf. e.g. Kagan (n.6), 291. But my point here is not the historical adequacy orinadequacy of the Corinthian analysis, but the way in which Thucydides uses his narrative to support or modify it.and the Pentekontaetia, by emphasising the period of Athenian expansion and enterprise, tends towards support.

"Seep.121.

134 GEORGICA

needs the later narrative to deepen and qualify it; but Thucydides clearly thinks it important, orat least the part it plays in the developing contrast of the two adversaries. In Herodotus as welithe style of the autocratic Persian court is offset by what we already know of Greece, andparticularly by what is fresh in our minds from the immediately preceding narrative. Theexiled Demaratus has played his part in setting Xerxes on the throne (7.3.3); then a heavy roiewas played by other dissident Greeks in persuading the reluctant Xerxes to invade (6V4 Wecan already see thldisruptive Greek disunity and jealousy which is going to be so distinctiveand so threatening; and that goes pleasingly with Mardonius' dismissive remarks about theridiculous character of Greek warfare at 9p\ the way they always pick the most fertile area toslog it out. Mardonius is abusing an accurate insight: 55 but both the abuse and the insight areimportant, and the insight plays on the destructive internal squabbling which will be so typicalof the Greek side. This is the other side of freedom: the aspect which will leave Xerxes soconfident that the Greeks will disperse, without the cohesion and direction which only tyrannycan give (7.103.4); and which is going to be a recurrent theme through Books 7, 8 and 9,especially at the end of 8 and the beginning of 9 the perpetual danger that the Greek unitywill be shattered. 50

So, just like Thucydides, Herodotus is introducing a clash of national characteristics which isgoing to be central in explaining, not just this decision, but a great deal of what is to come: andtracing a strength Greek freedom, or Athenian energy and innovation which maynonetheless turn out to be aflawed strength. The difference is that our picture of the Persiancourt is much more substantial and satisfying than that of Sparta; that Herodotus' gaze is morebifocal than Thucydides'. That is partly of course a difference between a seventh book and afirst one. Things will be a little different in Thucydides by Book 4, and we shall know a gooddeal more about the world of the Peloponnese by then. But it also captures something moresignificant about the explanations and narrative foci which both writers favour.My second point reverts to Artabanus himself, and the prophecies of the war. He seems so

wise. But how far would Herodotus wish us to think he actually gets things right?In his first speech (7.10) Artabanus concentrates on the failure of Darius in Scythia: and the

Greeks, he warns, are tougher opponents than the Scythians. In particular, Xerxes should

beware the Hellespont bridge. Histiaeus was loyal last time, but it is so perilous to let thewhole Persian empire depend on one man. Then we have the wider sententiousness: it is thebiggest victims that are struck by lightning, the tallest houses and trees that fail, and so on. At44-52, especially 47-9, it is rather the two great enemies, land and sea: the shortage of harbours,the inability even of so fertile a land as Greece to support so large an army. At the end of thissecond seene it is his particular fear of the Ionians that comes back to the surface (5 1 .2-3),picking up some of the ideas already familiar from the narrative concerning the emotional

power of freedom. They must either be the most just of men or the most unjust, most just if

54 Cf. in particular Huber (n.40), 129-30. This has itself all happened before. particularly in the preliminaries of theScythian expedition: then too dissident exiles had been turning Darius' mind to that ultimate target of Greece (cf.esp. 3.133-38, elaborating themes already familiar from 3.1 and 4). The part played by Histiaeus and Aristagorasin the preliminaries of the Ionian Revolt spectacularly intensifies the theme. Cf. Immerwahr (n.42), 94.

55 The way he abuses the insight carries some pleasing ironies. He is now urging Xerxes to invade this beautiful andfertile Greece: in that sense it will now be Xerxes who is picking the fairest field for the battle but the resultingdevastation will turn against Xerxes himself. If the Greeks were wise they should find the terrain that suits thembest, he argues: something which in fact they will do at Salamis, and have already done at Marathon (a battleculpably missing from his analysis). But Mardonius, as he so brashly says. only reached Macedonia (9(3.2); so hewould not know.

56 Once again. a feature that is already familiar from the earlier narrative: cf. esp. von Fritz (n.39), index s.v.eteiiepia; H.-P. Drexler, Herodot-Studien (Hildesheim and New York, 1972), 144-71; and the importantdissertation of S. Ubsdell, Herodotus andhuman nature (Oxford, D. Phil. thesis, 1982).

C. B. R. PELLING 135

they desert to the side of their Greek kin, most unjust if they jin in enslaving them (51.2).Xerxes' response is most interesting. He has by now settled into a calmer insight, and there issurely some force in his argument that, if prior Persian kings had been xasily deterred, theywould never have achieved anything. The way he puts the argument is nonetheless disquieting.His examples from Persian history are uncomfortably selective; like Mardonius ai 7.9, herecalls only the triumphs, not the sequence of setbacks in which he will in fact take his place.There is also an uncomfortable hostility to rationa] thought. One should not considereverything, he claims (iia'ke.y&a^ai becomes the key word): better to take a risk and suffer the

half of what might happen than not do anything at all an interesting, more sombre,adaptation of a view which again Mardonius expressed (9y fin.). 57 It is also one which againelaborates the contrast between Persia and Greece, for Themistocles will say exactly the

opposite at 8.60y, praising good counsel and arguing that fortune favours the thoughtful. 58

Xerxes is now confident; but the structure of his argument, with all that distaste for

thoughtfulness, has encouraged us to be sceptical. It is indeed rather like the exchanges of

Hector and Polydamas in the Iliad, 5,> or Thucydides' contrast of the cautious Archidamus andthe cheerful Corinthians, so sure that the war itself will suggest methods to fight it.

Stiil, rather like Hector and even the Corinthians, Xerxes is not altogether orstraightforwardly foolish. The normal pattern of a Herodotean Warner-scene is that there is noreal exchange of views, no clash of conflicting insights. We simply have the wise adviser, andthe one who intemperately fails to learn. 6" But this is different; in this exchange there iswisdom on both sides, however qualified. For one thing, there is Xerxes' very insight, howeverselective, into his position in Persian history and the pressure it imposes on him. Other kings

have come to insight too lte, particularly Croesus and Cambyses. Now Xerxes comes to hisqualified insight in time, before the crucial invasion and yet this same insight makes it clearthat there is nothing else he can do. The closeness to the world of tragedy is again clear,especially the Oresteia, where Clytemnestra only fully understands her roie after she has played

it; Orestes grasps what he is doing with greater mral fullness, but also knows that there is noway out. And that is close to the mral that is coming so regularly to the surface, the little thatrational euboulia can reliably achieve, when the forces it confronts are so formidable. Thathostility to consideration, imlyzv&m-, begins to look a little less strange, however disquietingit remains.

On the details too Xerxes is no dimwit. At 50.4 he is right in insisting that the Greekoperation is less crazy than the Scythian; but he also knows not to underestimate the opposition."We need to fight with vigour, for we are campaigmng against good men ...' (7.53.2): Xerxeshas clearly seen through Mardonius' silly and dismissive underestimation (7.9), and prefers theview of Artabanus himself (7.10a.3-(3.1 and n.; cf. Artabanus' son Tritantaichmas at 8.26.2-3).Most strikingly, at 52.1 Xerxes neatly turns Artabanus' own earlier advice against him.

Artabanus himself, after all, had at ly commented on how Histiaeus had in the end remainedloyal, despite all the temptations, and Xerxes now reminds him of this (52.1). He is learningfrom his wise adviser, but learning the wrong lesson. 61 And then at 52.2 we have the realisticand intelligent remarks about the Ionians Ieaving wives, children, and posse>sions within the

57 Though even when expressed by Mardonius it was disquieting: cf Bischoff (n.39), 59.58 Cf. M. Lang, Herodotean Narrative and Discowse (Harvard, 1984), 34-35; Huber (n.40). 150-52. For the distaste

for 87ttXcyEai cf. 7.236.3, where Achaemenes knows the right argument to appeal to Xerxes.59 See abovepp. 120-21.6(1 Bischoff (n.39). 59 and 64-66.61 Cf von Fntz (n.39). 253; Bornit? (n.41), 128-29.

136 GEORGICA

Great King's power: they will not be quick to defect. These Ionians have in fact as little

freedom of action as Thucydides' Plataeans.Lattimore thought the Adviser's wisdom unquestionable; but how unequivocally right is

Artabanus? His detailed warnings concentrate on the Hellespont and the Ionians; 62 and in each

case we get qualified verification rather like Archidamus' insight about the ravaging, but insome ways even more qualified. It is certainly a real danger that the Ionians may desert, andThemistocles tries"tb exploit it: especially striking is his message of 8.22.1, 'men of Ionia, it is

unjust (oti noieexe Simm, just like Artabanus' dSiKrotaxoi) for you to campaign against yourfathers and enslave Greece'. But Themistocles has very scant success before or at Salamis. He

urges them to play the coward (8.22.2), but only a few do so (85.1); the most striking disproofof the slanders is offered by the Samothracian ship at 90.1-2. The slanders are worfh making,and the threat is a real one; suspicions are even felt during the battle itself (8.87.4 and 90.1); butthe danger does not quite materialize. 63 There are thoughts of revolt again at 8.132, but it only

really comes out at Mycale (9.90ff). This was not at all the reason the expedition failed, thoughit was perhaps the reason why the failure was so complete. Here, in some ways, Xerxes'rational sanguinity was the more correct response.

What about Artabanus' other point, the threat to the Hellespont bridge? Much the same.The fear is rational, but turns out to be ill-founded; Artabanus is giving a version of somethingtrue and important, but an off-key version. After Salamis Xerxes' own initial fears centred on

the bridge (8.107.1), and that was the content of Themistocles' immediate advice (8.108.2).But the Greeks did not take it, and it was again important here that the Ionians stayed loyal.

Stiil, the biggest irony here is that the bridge was indeed destroyed, but not by the Greeks: it

was by a storm (8.1 17.1). More on this in a moment; but, by then, this does not even seem tobe particularly damaging, even though 'many of the survivors perished here'. By then farbigger catastrophes.have overtaken Xerxes, and this one comes to seem relatively minor.

So in these two detailed prognostications Artabanus turns out not to be so very different from

Archidamus, and Herodotus' technique rather like Thucydides'. The prophecies may berational, but they are also wrong. As far as these go, Xerxes would have been wrong to bedeterred, as would Sthenelaidas and his like. The forces of unreason turn out to be not thatunreasonable. As in Thucydides, euboulia turns out to be elusive and quizzical.

But there is also the question of land and sea, complex enough to deserve separate treatment,and this will be my third point. We need to distinguish two aspects of this. The first, perhapsmajor one, is the sense of land and sea as the elemental forces which Xerxes confronts, andwhich eventually conspire to defeat him: a supernatural, even magical sort of point or so itwill emerge. 64 But Artabanus lmtially presents the idea in the other way, a much moremechanical and naturalistic way (7.49): the shortage of ports, the difficulties of provision.

62 Like Gobryas' before him, 4.134: and Gobryas too turned out to be mistaken, for the Ionians remained loyal andthe Hellespont remained safe. But only just. It was in many ways a closer thing then than now: Gobryas' adviceis more straightforwardly 'wise', just as the whole Scythian sequence is more straightforward than the Greek.

63 Cf. von Fntz (n.39), 253-54. Both the pertinence and the final inaccuracy of the slanders are prepared by theearlier narrative. In a tyranny there is a constant danger that subjects may eeXoraKEeiv: cf. 1.127.3, 5.78,6.15.1. But the Ionian acquiescence in Persian ruie has also been familiar since 1.76.3, 141.1-3, 169: the wholesequence at 4.133-142 is indeed telling; and they need to have unity imposed on them, 6.42.1, understandablyafter the disunity of e.g. 1.149. 170,5.36. True, 1.169, like 5.27.1 and 112.1, also shows them capable of fightingwell when freedom is at stake; but on the whole they cut a sorry figure in the Ionian Revolt, especially at Lade.Cf. esp. M. Pohlenz, Herodot (Leipzig, 1937), 12-18; Immerwahr (n.42), 230-33; J. Neville, 'Was There an IonianRevolt?', CQ 29 (1979), 268-70.

64 Similar things have already emerged in the earlier narrative, especially at 1.174 and 189.2; and Immerwahr inparticular has brought out the importance of crossing water-boundanes as a prelude to an extravagant and usuallydisastrous campaign: cf. Form and Thought (n.42), index s.v. 'river motif.

flg

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These two great enemies are land and sea ...'. It is a portentous way for him to make what isfundamentally a quartermaster's point, but that suits what we already know of his character (cf.16a and 51.3 as well as 105-Q: the grandness of the expression reflects his personality, notany particular cosmic register. Stiil, even here we may already be suspecting that there issomething of the supernatural aspect as well. For one thing, this is the setting, in this second

wave of Artabanism, for the roistering echoes of Solon and Croesus at 46.3-4 - the roie of

contingency (sumphorai) in life, the turbulence (tarache) it brings, the way god emerges asenvious (phthoneros): cf. 1.32. 65 Some of this was already clear in his earlier sententiousnessat lOe, but it is much more dominant in the scene-setting here; everything is put morecosmically and religiously, and with the same grandeur of language. 66 That is not

inappropriate, for we have just been seeing Xerxes confront land and sea in a much bigger way.At 7.23-4 we have had the Athos canal, when Xerxes turned land into sea: and Herodotus haddeliberately mrked it out as unnecessary, a simple hybristic display of power, when- Xerxescould simply have dragged his ships across the isthmus instead. Athos is normally paired with

the Hellespont, which we might have expected in the same context, as Xerxes turns the landinto sea and the sea into land. For his own reasons, Herodotus preferred to hoid the Hellespont

back till 34-5. 67 Stiil, even before we get there we find the Strymon taking its place as the twin

of Athos, with its bridging at 7.24 described in the sort of language much associated with theHellespont: it is to be 'yoked'. 68 And the Hellespont itself is worth waiting for, with all thoseppfkcpa te Kai oaa-aka words 'who would pray to such a muddy, salty river ...' (35.2).The answer is of course Xerxes himself, a little later when he is being calmer and less hybristic:54.2. 6 All this points to the more magical turning of 'land and sea', more magical indeed than

Artabanus himself seems to intend, despite his taste for portentous, cosmic utterances.Artabanus' words come true, but in a way which is not quite what he is imagining. As often intragedy, it is more that supernatural truth and wisdom speaks through him, rather than that hehimself speaks with precise insight. His words are truer and deeper than he knows just,indeed, as Xerxes' are deeper, when he ties himself into the pattern of his ancestors.

65 Just as 3.40 introduces echoes of Solon at the outset of another sequence where supernatural elements are vital andirreducible. In the present instance, there is a sense in which Xerxes mitially plays Solon to Artabanus' Croesus:Xerxes is now the wise instructor. That goes with the sort of insight which he has now attained: shallow, perhaps,incomparably shallower than Solon's: but none the less real. Cf. Reinhardt (n.40), 360.

66 Solmsen (n.40), 96, claims that 'Artabanus nowhere raises his voice to the same pitch as in the council seene', buteh. 49 is surely an exception. with its rare and powerful style and diction. The Solonian echoes are phrased almostas pointedly as at 1 .32; the personification of yf\ te Kai Xaaca is as striking as at Pers. 783, in some ways themore striking because the cosmic register is for the moment so muted: these are indeed personifications, notdeities. Artabanus' initial cmq "ys crvecrtv %i is unusually sharp before a king, for one who usually treads socarefully: cf. the gibe at (presumably) Hecataeus at 2.5.1. The comparative 7toXp.icbtpoq, twice here at 49.1and 4, is not found elsewhere in Herodotus, nor (apart from [Hipp.] 16.45) elsewhere in Greek literature untilDiodorus; it is one of several striking comparatives in this part of Herodotus (cf esp 8ouA.oxepr|v at 7.7,elsewhere not until Libanius). eTEiponevou %ip.)vo

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And it is this cosmic register that turns out to be the vital one. At the moment Xerxes may bedemanding 'land and water', yf|V te rai i)8cop, of the Greek states (7.32.1, then 13lff). Buteventually land and water will get their revenge. It is already proleptic that the storm destroysthe Hellespont bridge at 7.34, just as the Persians will find it destroyed on their return at8.117.1. This force of nature, rather than the unreliable Ionians, will turn out to be the real

danger. And storms are going to come in a good deal, especially at 7.188-93, so tellinglyjuxtaposed with the stupendous size of the Persian fleet at 184-87: the sea dashes the fleetagainst the land, and destroys it. 70 Not that the cosmic and the naturalistic are wholly divorcedfrom one another. Here indeed they are causally linked, for it was precisely because the fleetwas so hybristically big that it had to be so vulnerably anchored, with so much double-parking(188.1). But one cannot exclude the cosmic completely, cannot reduce it to the mechanical.The wind that destroyed the fleet came from the east, the one they call the 'Hellespontine' wind(188.2): that is not coincidence, and not naturalistic either. 71 Herodotus may leave it openwhether the Attic prayers to Boreas and Oreithyia had any effect (189.3, cf. 178). Butsomething, clearly, is going on; and it is not wholly natural.

This is even clearer at the repeat sequence of the storm at 8.12-13, where explicitly'everything was done by God to equalize the Persian and Greek forces' (13). Nor is the seaidle later on, for instance in destroying the Persians at Potidaea when it first changes to land,and then, catastrophically, back again: and here it is explicitly because of the Persians' impiety,their asebeia (8.129). It is utterly appropriate that the Greeks will first of all fight the

symmetrical land and sea battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium, then win first on sea andthen on land (cf. Artabanus at 7. 10(3); and it is appropriate too that the entire History will endwith Mycale, represented as the battle for the Hellespont, and Sestos, with the suggestivesacrifice of Artayctes on the beach where Xerxes began his bridge. 72

This supernatural aspect is irreducible. It indeed reminds us of the Persae, where again theelemental combination of land and sea is important, though Aeschylus' treatment is not quiteidentical. 73 But the way it relates to the other, naturalistic dimension is most interesting. Forclearly the quartermaster's point matters too: this army is indeed too big to feed, and the navytoo big to anchor74 its very numbers indeed prove its catastrophe, already at Artemisium(8.16.2). And it is precisely at the crucial 'magical' junctures the Strymon, Athos, theHellespont that the naturalistic points are felt too, particularly those connected with hunger,

limos; indeed, one can often sense Herodotus straining to bring them out at exactly thosemoments. For instance, we should not naturally have worried ourselves about how theworkmen on the Athos canal were fed, but Herodotus tells us - food needed to be transported

70 Just as it did with Mardonius before, 6.44.2-371 Cf. the 'Strymonian' wind in the story at 8.1 18.2: suggestive, even though Herodotus himself is unconvinced by

the taie. Also significant is the thunder that comes from Pelion, the site of the previous storm, at 8.12.1: thatstresses the continuity and connexion of the vanous catastrophes.

72 As Immerwahr brings out so well (n.40), 26-27 (= Mrg [n.40], 51 1 -14). and (n.42), 43; cf. Bischoff (n.39), 81-83.73 In the Persae the 'yoking' (not, interestingly, the scourging) of the Hellespont is more stressed than the Athos

canal: 71, 722ff, 736, 745 ff, 799. That suits a characteristic imagistic pattern of the play, where yoking is soimportant: cf. the ambitions to 'yoke' Greece at 50, the 'yokings' of the marriage-partners that will be destroyedat 136, the yoking of the two daughters in the dream at 191. The emphasis on the Hellespont also goes better withAeschylus' stress on the peripeteia at sea, as the outraged sea takes its revenge at Salamis. But there too we findideas of the elemental combination of land and sea, for instance in the striking roie played by Psyttaleia, whereagain the sea throws the Persians up on to the land (447ff); and the Strymon episode is thought-provoking at496ff, where the sea again turns into land and catastrophically then turns back again, all clearly through divinecauses. Xerxes is indeed beset by 'many evils from land and sea', 709, and 'land itself is the Greeks' ally'.792-94. Famine has already struck at 491; then the land defeat at Plataea is also pertinent, 800f.

74 Cf. esp. Bornitz (n.40, 132-33.

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from Asia (7.23.4). In one breath he then tells us of the ropes for the Strymon bndge and of thefood dumps to be organized along the route, 'so that the army and its animals should not sufferfrom hunger on their way to Greece' (25.1). Significant phraseology, perhaps, for the journeyto Greece will eventually be relavely unproblematic; there is as yet no thought of the return,

when the problems will come. When they reach the Strymon (1 15) and then Athos (122.1) onthe march, that is where Herodotus places all his details of the army's voracious demands(118-19); especially suggestive is that wise, morose remark of the man of Abdera, again asignificant provenance thank God that Xerxes is content with only one meal a day (120.1-2).All this is in Thrace and then Macedonia, where the worst ravages do indeed hit them on theirreturn (8.115): one reason, perhaps, why Herodotus initially chose to elaborate the Strymonrather than the Hellespont as the twin of Athos at 7.22-5. Rivers too tend to be drunk dryespecially close to these points in the narrative (7.108.2, 109.2, 127.2, and soon after the

storm 196). And it is then a particular irony that the Greeks decide not to destroy theHellespont bridge because they do not wish the Persian army to be driven to starvation(8.108). The two registers, human and divine, quartermaster's and cosmic, have finally cometogether in a very strange way.

The magical and the mechanical, the demonic and the naturalistic clearly co-exist verytightly, and the themes are heard in close counterpoint; they are evidently not independent of

one another; but it would also be a great mistake to try to reduce either to the other. Just as intragedy, it may well be that often (but not quite always) the divine aspect only explainssomething which would anyway be explicable on the purely human level; 75 and it certainlyseems that here we have closely intertwining cosmic and naturalist registers of this 'land andsea' theme. But that does not mean that we can always find a neat naturalistic cash-value for

every single element in the divine any more than we can, for instance, in the Bacchae, the

Hippolytus, or the Heracles, even though the natural and the supernatural intertwine equallyclosely in such plays as those. Ultimately, that storm just cannot be explained away in thoseterms, any more than Hippolytus' bull from the sea or the Bacchants' supernatural strength;and in Herodotus there are any number of other similar cases, from the stories of Atys andAdrastus or of Croesus' pyre onwards. 76 Human and divine elements simply co-exist side byside, and reinforce one another just, indeed, as they had done in Homer. 77 We should beused to Herodotus' habit of accumulating different causal explanations, without always feeling

he has to decide which is primary: that is clear enough on the wholly human level, famouslywith Croesus (1.46.1, 73.1) and Cyrus (1.204) and Darius (6.94), but in many other cases too.This duplication of human and divine is simply a more refined example of that accumulativetechnique.

The clearest instance is Xerxes' dream, again surely not explicable on the human level.After the human debate, we now see the divine constraint in turn, the two types of forcewhich alike prescribe the inevitability of invasion. Xerxes does change his mind, andArtabanus' advice comes within an ace of being taken but the dream-sequence shows that

75 Cf. the formulation of P E. Easterling, 'Presentation of Character in Aeschylus'. GR 20 (1973), 6: 'such anexplanation [i.e. a supernatural one] is a diagnosis of something actually observed in human"behaviour, and not apiece of mumbo-jumbo independent of observed phenomena'

76 To take a nearer instance, cf. Artabanus' prophecy at 7.10e, where he foresees that god in his anger may send'panic and thunder',

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the advice cannot be taken. And it will not do, with Huber, to suspect that in his heart of heartsXerxes' mind is unchanged; or, with Evans, to think that to desist will endanger the Persianempire, so accustomed as it is to warfare; or, with von Fritz, to take this as a supernatural reflexof the simple human insight that 'monarchs cannot go back on their decisions once they aretaken'. 78 He could on this one, as the Persian delight when he changes his mind makes clear.Such reductionism is wrong in principle, suggesting precisely the sort of naturalistic cash-values that are so elusive elsewhere. It is telling that Artabanus himself tries to explain it all

away rationalistically, but he cannot succeed, and he himself is cowed into accepting it. It isinevitable, and for divine reasons, that Xerxes must invade, and suffer what he must suffer.

Certainly, there is a sort of human counterpart of this divine inevitability, the pattern of Persianhistory which Xerxes himself has sketched already, and will revert to at 7.50: he has no choicebut to play out his roie. In a different way, he is as caught as Croesus with his five-generation

curse (1.13.2 and 91). 79 But once again the 'counterpart' is only a rough one, which resists one-to-one equivalences. And we are again touching on the limits of Artabanus' rationalism, thelimits imposed on how much his human wisdom and foresight can achieve. There are divineforces too, and they are insurmountable.

III

That brings us back to the comparison with Archidamus. Sparta is going to win, Persia is not:thus far Archidamus might seem to be wrong, Artabanus right. But the blend of right andwrong is of course more complex in both, and if Artabanus is vindicated it is not because hereads events more surely. His specific forecasts are more wrong than right, and it is in theportentous way he chooses to turn them, touching this 'land and sea' theme, that heunconsciously comes closer to the truth. The insights of Thucydides' Archidamus are no betterand no worse than Artabanus': they too illuminate so much of the war once it begins; and thereasons why Sparta eventually wins might already be sensed are partly even sensed byArchidamus himself, in his longer views in Book 1. Stiil, if Archidamus touches on much ofthe truth but nevertheless finally gets a great deal wrong, the explanation is wholly on the

human level, in particular the possibility of human rashness and error, which he knows butdiscounts. In Herodotus the human side is just part of it: the forces which are opposed toXerxes are more complex and not wholly human, and Artabanus himself is brought by thedream to concede their power. Like Archidamus when he taiks of war's essentialunpredictability, Artabanus comes in the dream sequence to accept precisely the forces whichmean that his wisdom is finally bound to be impractical: but the nature of those forces is verydifferent in each author, in Thucydides human, in Herodotus a blend of human and divine. In

78 Huber, (n.4), 147-48; J. A. S. Evans, 'The Dream of Xerxes and the Nop.01 of the Persians', CJ 57 (196V),109-11; von Fritz (n.39), 248-49; cf. H. A. Grtner, Ktema 8 (1983), 14. Solmsen (n.40), 88 n.34, and Immerwahr(n.40), 33-36 (= Mrg [n.40], 518-23), have the surer judgement here. though Immerwahr's phrase 'historicalobfuscation' is unfortunate. It may be unclear exactly how the supernatural or demonic force is to be defined ordescribed, just as it is often unclear in tragedy (not least the Oedipus Rex). But there is nothing obfuscatory aboutthe combination of two different modes of explanation. Most deistic explanations of history find such dualitynatural; and if one asks non-religious questions in everyday life - how two people come to be sitting in the sameroom discussing Herodotus, for instance all sorts of 'explanations' may be possible, ranging from aneurological analysis of psychic antecedents to a sociological analysis of the British educational system. Theexplanations are not rival, nor mutually reducible, nor even formulable into a hierarchy: these are simply differentregisters. Herodotus' approach is not too different.

79 Von Fritz (n.39), 249-50, distinguishes perceptively but perhaps too sharply between the cases of Croesus andXerxes.

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Herodotus it will all become even more sharply focussed a little later, at the memorablebanquet in Thebes at 9.16, the story of Thersander of Orchomenos: a Persian pointed to all hisfellow-diners, reflected how few of them would shortly survive, and burst into tears. Of coursewe remember Xerxes at the Hellespont, gazing at his hosts and weeping at the thought thatnone would Iive a hundred years. 80 Most of them would in fact survive a good deal less thanthat, and the Solonian insights are now coming home with much greater precision and urgency:these tears are more immediate, less perplexing. Yet the Persian knew that nothing could bedone: he talked of the inevitability of the divine will, the necessity in which they were trapped 'the worst pain in human life is to have much wisdom and no power' (9.16.5). This stresson necessity gives some clear contact with the world of Thucydides, but the stress on the divine

affords the contrast as well.

At the end of his famous paper on 'Herodots Persergeschichten' Reinhardt hazards twofascinating generalizations, both trying to capture that essential difference between Herodotusand Thucydides. 81 Perhaps those points are stiil worth discussion, as they summarize so veryinfluential a view of both authors: and, as it chances, the comparison of Artabanus andArchidamus offers a fruitful test-case. The first difference, Reinhardt says, is the greater degreeto which Herodotus' speeches are anchored to the character of their speakers; Thucydides ismuch more concerned to stimulate trains of thought for their own sake, further removed fromthe speaker and context. Thucydides' kernel, the independent train of thought, becomesHerodotus' shell, and vice versa. There is perhaps something in that, but it is very easy tooverstate. In Thucydides it matters greatly that Archidamus is the person giving this speech:the irony is vital that he, of all people, will have to fight the war in this antediluvian way, andyet will have the flaws of his scepticism brought home to him. It matters too that herhetorically meets so many points, yet leaves the central one neglected: that is a point crucial toboth speaker and context. And equally Herodotus is as concerned as Thucydides to stimulatetrains of thought about the whole course of the war, aspects of the Persian court and Greekfreedom that go well beyond the significance of the present context. Artabanus' words hint at amagical truth which turns out to obtain in a way rather different from the one he envisages, andone that only becomes clear in the later narrative: the same is true of Xerxes' reflections on hisplace in history. In fact in both authors the characterization is vital, but in both authors trains of

thought and theme run way beyond the context; in both authors the suggestions of a debateregularly illuminate far more than the immediate decision it inspires.

Reinhardfs second point is to claim Thucydides as the father of 'causal' history, butHerodotus as a distinguished practitioner of something else, 'symptomatische' history, aplotting of the human experience less concerned with explanation: he also claims Tacitus for apractitioner of this 'symptomatische' variety. This distinction seems to me clearly wrong.

Herodotus is vitally concerned with explaining things; all the themes we have been discussingcombine to make it intelligible why Xerxes invaded, and why he failed. lndeed, if anything heexplams things too much, with his distinctive habit of accumulating causes rather than trying toorder them. For all the sophistic flavour of Herodotus, the critical ordering of causes was a

distinctive fifth-century fad82 which he did not develop in his narrative^-

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would have been as unnatural for Herodotus to ask what was the reason, rather than a reason,for Xerxes' failure as for Homer to worry whether Troy fell because of the gods' will, becauseof the Greek toughness and Trojan frailty, or because of a particular bright idea which came toOdysseus. But this was where Thucydides differed, with his urgent insistence on working outwhat the 'truest' cause was, and operating with such irritating efficiency to play down, andoften omit, material which could distract from that. Of course he knew that you could notalways reduce things to a single cause: Corcyra and Potidaea have their explanatory force too,otherwise it is so desperately hard to explain why they are given space and Aegina and Megaraare not. It was just that, with so many different causes, some ordering of significance could bedone, and when things did not explain they also were not explored and often not evenmentioned.

That finally helps to understand why in Book 1 Thucydides was so uninterested in Spartanand Peloponnesian politics. It was not that he was a myopic Athenian, and certainly not amyopic Periclean; but this was a war which Athenian expansion brought on and Sparta had nooption but to fight; and eventually it was a war which Athens lost, not one which Sparta won.In Book 4 alone does Spartan political life become a focus, for then it does explain somethingimportant, Sparta' s readiness to come to terms after Pylos, partly because of the prisoners and

partly because of the helots. Elsewhere Athens had to be Thucydides' focus. Athens explainedthings; Sparta usually did not. 83

University Cullege, Oxford

83 This paper was originally given at an Oxford seminar in October, 1988, Ihen at Brown University in April, 1989. Iam grateful to both audiences for passionate and helpful discussion, and especially to Robin Osborne, SimonHornblower, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Judith Mossman, Kurt Raaflaub, and Clara Shaw. It will also be clearhow much I owe to the lte Cohn Macleod (cf. for instance his remarks on euboulia in the Mytilenean Debate,Collected Essays [Oxford, 1983], 88-102). In particular, my comments on Artabanus and the land-and-sea themedraw on remarks he made in informal discussion ten years ago.