Reason and necessity: Thucydides iii 9–14, 37–48

The speeches concerning the Mytilenean revolt in Thucydides III present three speakers trying to justify or commend a decision: they are, in Aristotelian terms, examples of symbuleutic oratory. The purpose of such oratory is naturally to identify the right course of action, to achieve ϵὐβουλία. But Thucydides is writing about facts; he is also intensely aware of human nature, a force more powerful than reason. So his characters cannot be simply models of wisdom. They are human beings, and they feel the pressure of war or empire. Thus the rhetoric which they employ to convince their hearers is for the historian a way of discovering to his readers the limits, or the failures, as well as the powers, of reasoning; and in this exposure of human weakness Thucydides' work is both rationalistic and tragic, an analysis of human error, be it corrigible or otherwise. If, then, he puts into his speakers' mouths the arguments he himself thought they should have used (i 22.1 τὰ δέοντα), he does so in the service of historical truth (i 22.4 τὸ σαφές). Reality is portrayed realistically, through a portrayal of the minds of those who were part of it; for all action must originate from beliefs and be contemplated through them. Further, the complex or problematical nature of reality is mirrored in his speakers' opposing interpretations of the issues at stake.