tained through the following century by the first orators, was at last concluded by Aristotle.

We may remember further, that the drama of the Greeks was now in the height of its bloom; indeed that, for a time at least, it had wellnigh supplanted the other branches of poetry in Attica and Sicily. Plato has already remarked, how closely the oration is related to the drama. And in truth, if the external difference between the drama and the lyric and epic departments, consists mainly in this, that in it the characters all act for themselves, there is no way for history to become more dramatic, than by allowing its heroes to speak. How forcibly the works of Sophocles affected the whole arrangement of Herodotus; how in a thousand ways Xenophon is concerned with Euripides and the later comedy, I must reserve to develop in another place. Thucydides has borrowed nothing more from the drama than the life and oratorical richness of his representation. If hence we ascribe to him a dramatic disposition in particular, a division into acts and the like, as Ulrici has attempted; I can only consider it a piece of that aesthetic trifling against which Niebuhr was so urgent. Even in the conversations of the Sophists, whence indeed, the Socratic method of instruction shortly arose, we may perceive this dramatic tendency of the age. That some universal trait of the Hellenic character was the cause of this, may be shown from Homer, who is already much more dramatic and who gives far more in his heroes' direct speeches than the later epics.

Thucydides generally arranges two formal addresses in juxtaposition. In two places of our author's work, this becomes the dialogue, (3. 112, 5.85). Where he only suffers oblique addresses to be given, a reason is always at hand. For example, there are many places where, if every one were to speak directly, a great multitude of addresses would become necessary-such a multitude, that the simple circumstance lying at the bottom, would be entirely suppressed. Why not any direct addresses occur in the eighth book, may be explained from the fact that the finish of the book is wanting, since death interrupted the historian in his task. From other grounds, it will hereafter become more probable, that the speeches received their present shape only at the last elaboration of the work. There are other places besides, where oblique addresses appear; the contents of these, and the events to which they allude, it is the historian's purpose to draw rather into the background. This is an important accessory to that marvellous gradation of color (abstufung des colorits) that is peculiar to Thucydides. In his introduction, for instance, some speeches of Themistocles are given-all oblique, because they only belong to the

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introduction. In the work itself, Thucydides does not commonly describe the character of his heroes; they must characterize themselves and that by their speeches. In this case too, the introduction follows the opposite course, (see 1. 91, 138).

§2. Preliminary Inquiries upon the Relation of the Speeches of Thucydides, to those really delivered.

Did Thucydides design to report faithfully, as far as he could, the speeches that were really delivered? This is the first question. Although the scholiast answers it in the affirmative, it must be negatived for internal reasons. K. O. Müller has already discovered, that the speeches often stand in a mutual relation, that never could bave obtained. The speech of the Corinthians (1. 120 sq.), answers in a manner to that of Archidamus in the Spartan assembly, and to that of Pericles at Athens, though the Corinthians had heard neither of them. How could the Corcyreans, when they were anxious to become the allies of Athens, in reality have enlarged so much upon their former neutrality, or affirmed that Athens owed them just nothing for it? (1. 32). Moreover, since the Athenians desired still to maintain the peace, they would never have dared to preach up the right of the stronger with such inconsiderateness as in 1. 76. In other cases, on the contrary, they were always provided with some proof of right, as appears from 3. 11. Much more, Thucydides states expressly that the real ground of the war-the growing power of Athens-had previously appeared least of all in the speeches, (1. 23). But with the speeches as reported in the first book, this is not the case. The policy of the king Archidamus was chiefly aimed at creating discord in Athens itself, (2. 20). His speech, however, in which he so fully discusses the means of carrying on the war, knows nothing of it. Finally, when Pericles, in the funeral oration that depicts the magnificence of the Periclean age, breaks out into the complaint, that it is so difficult to gain general belief in this representation; in the mouth of Pericles it is almost without meaning-simply because his actual hearers had that magnificence before their eyes, and were personally interested in it.

Fortunately we possess external testimony besides. In Aristotle's Rhetoric (1, 7. 3, 10), a sentence is quoted from the true funeral oration of Pericles. And this can be compared with the same speech as it stands in Thucydides. It runs thus: τὴν νεότητα ἐκ τῆς πόλεως ἀνηρῆσθαι, ὥσπερ τὸ ἔαρ ἐκ τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ εἰ ἐξαιρεθείη. Of this thought, there is no trace to be found in Thucydides; I could scarcely

name a place where it might be introduced. We may learn from this, that Thucydides disdained a verbal transcript, even where it was possible. If Aristotle could have received that expression, how much sooner the contemporary Thucydides? But more. Since Thucydides himself was sick of the plague (2. 48), and since this plague broke out in Athens immediately after the funeral oration, it is in some degree probable, that he was just at that time in Athens. The plan of writing the history of the Peloponnesian war, he had conceived at its beginning, (1.1). Should he then have stayed at home from the funeral oration of Pericles? It is well known, indeed, that Pericles left no written discourses; that Quinctilian, especially, declared those extracts in his time to be spurious. Spengel infers from this, that Aristotle received this expression only by a tradition of the rhetoricians. That may all be true. But if Thucydides had intended to bring his speeches as near to those really delivered as possible, he would necessarily have received and incorporated this expression, just as much as it was in the mouths of the reading public. Besides, Pericles was accustomed to prepare himself for speaking always with extreme care; indeed he frequently wrote off the sketch of the discourse beforehand. How easily then, might Thucydides have obtained such a sketch just once for inspection! But there is still another consideration remaining. Weber maintains that the notices of Aristotle have no reference to the funeral oration in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, but to another delivered by Pericles after the conquest of Samos. The expression veórηta only suits the later speech. This proof of Mr. W. I must candidly confess I do not understand. The position itself, however, is contradicted by Plato's Menexenus, which was probably written with reference to Thucydides, and consequently must understand by the funeral oration of Pericles, that given by Thucydides. So then it is to be supposed, that Aristotle intended by the funeral oration, xaz' ¿žov this second, not the Samian. This idea Dahlmann, among others, has adopted without scruple.

Hence too, we derive a still stronger support for my whole opinion. If antiquity, of Plato's time, declared the nominal orations of Pericles to be spurious, so it found in Thucydides no real orations of Pericles.

Now the inquiry arises in the second place, Was the content of the Thucydidean orations, some personal view of Thucydides-some assertion or opinion. Not entirely so. For among other things, it surely was not the real opinion of Thucydides, if he makes the Corinthian ambassadors at Athens maintain that, for this reason only had Cor

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cyra remained neutral, because she alone desired to act unjustly-to escape all observance of her shameful deeds, (1. 37). The sketch of their former conduct, which the same Corinthians draw (1.39), stands almost in direct contradiction to the narration of Thucydides himself, (1.28). In the speech of Euphemus at Camarina, every one will admit, that the real designs of the Athenians are concealed, (6. 82 sq.). My position, however, hardly needs a further induction of evidence, since now, in the speeches that have a mutual correspondence-and here belong the greater number-while, for the most part, the subject is only variously regarded from various points of view, yet many particulars are expressly affirmed in the one speech that are expressly denied in the other.

§ 3. True Relation of the Speeches of Thucydides to those really delivered. In his preface, Thucydides declares, that with all possible exactness he has retained the Evμnaoa proμn of the real speeches; but that besides, he has put into every one's mouth, what may have appeared và déovra páhora for the circumstances of each occasion, (1.22). In the words that follow, where he discloses his manner of treating the facts, it is evidently a different method from that pursued towards the speeches. He secured for those a severer exactness.

No one

We are to regard the speeches of Thucydides as his special means of tracing back the visible facts to the internal moving causes. better understood the art of thinking or feeling every one of his characters. From an Athenian, he can become Archidamus and Hermocra tes; from a partaker of the spirit of Pericles, he became Alcibiades ; from a polished Optimate, he became Athenagoras and Cleon. He can doff all his habits and relationships-the historian, the artist alone, he cannot resign.... What proper view of this can we attain?

A. Most of the speeches, Thucydides puts into the mouth of his chief characters. The words really spoken, could have served the historian only as outward facts. In his own speeches, however, where, at the same time, the interior of the characters is to be disclosed, Thucydides must comprehend the whole life of every person. He must have looked through his past and even his future, so as to be able, from these sources, to complete the sketch of his character. Thus what lay behind and before the period of the address, was collected into it. The unaσα proμn, the main design of the discussion itself, needed not meanwhile to be laid aside-the speech actually delivered, was no less a result of the speaker's character. I cannot help noticing, in this connection, a point of superiority peculiar to Thucydides. There

are certain judgments that historians are in the fashion of giving, among which belong those that I might call hypothetical judgments. Thus it is maintained: if instead of the fact a, the fact b had taken place, then not c, but d would have followed. The great fault of such judgments is, that they are never reliable; indeed, that they are digressions into a province, totally disproportioned to the historian's standards of measurement. How does Thucydides act in such a case? With very few exceptions, he confines this hypothetical judgment to the speeches. There, however, it is perfectly appropriate. There, it can only declare the calculations of the speaker, the expectations of the hearers-a matter which is often mentioned in the direct narration of Thucydides. Before the deed, it is a matter of interest whether anything else may happen; afterwards, it is useless speculation.

B. But at the same time, Thucydides well understood, that everything is not attained with the character of the principal actors. These, by themselves, make no history. It is only when the historian has characterized the adherents who connect themselves with the chief personage, that he may presume he has interpreted the facts by their spiritual causes. Hence Thucydides' speeches are not only for the orator himself, but also for his audience's character. Where he paints Pericles, he paints, too, the Periclean age. With Alcibiades, that peculiar party of the young Athens is represented, that afterwards occasioned the tyrannical and aristocratical movements; with Nicias, the remnant of Pericles' Athens, whose age was now past, whose spirit was now flown. Where Archidamus speaks, we recognize at once the Old-Doric party, that resisted the innovations even of the Doric spirit of the age. A few speeches rise from the limited sphere of Greek history to the universality of general history. Thus, in the struggle between the Thebans and Plateans, the case of the old right against the new is tried; and in the transactions at Melos, the ever-recurring dispute of the oppressor against the oppressed is argued out.

And we may learn the great, the truly Hellenic art of Thucydides particularly in this: that, without the least affectation, he has connected all this to whatever circumstance at the time commanded the attention. A reader not thinking of history, might well imagine that it was simply a series of diplomatic or "demegoric" transactions of a high order, that he had before him.

To make these two points clear, I choose now the speeches of Cleon and Diodotus, from the third book. With a delineation of the character of that remarkable demagogue, they unite a portraiture of the people that could endure him. My choice has been decided in this direc