Thucydides 7.42.3: an Unrecognised Fragment of Philistus Kopff, E Christian Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1976; 17, 1; ProQuest pg. 23

Thucydides 7.42.3: an Unrecognized 
Fragment of Philistus 

E. Christian Kopff 

• '>.' \ A () 1 ''>.' \ • l \ 1 \ 1 ,.,. 1 
o OE .LJTJfLOC EVT}C LOWV WC E XE Ta 7rpaYfLaTa Kat vOfLLcac ouX OWl' TE 

'9 '>.' IQ ''>.' \ () A" • 1\7 1 " () [( '..I. 1 \ \ 
Ovat OLaTpLJ-'EtV OUoE tra ELV 07rEP 0 .J.vtKtaC E7ra EV a'f'tKOfLEVOC yap TO 

A • 1\7 1 ..I. Q 1 • , '() \ , A C 1 
7rPWTOV 0 LVLKLac 'f'OJ-'EpOC, WC OUK EU UC 7rPOCEKELTO TaLC upaKoucaLC, 

-'_ \ \ ' , rT 1 '>.' 'r • '..1.8 \ "..I.() , \ , -
W\I\ EV .n.aTavn OLEXEtfLa",EV, V7T'EPW'f' TJ TE Kat E'f' aCEV aUTOV EK T7JC 

n \ 1 A • r 1\ ' ..I.' '" '>." '" ',f, EI\07r0VV7JCOU CTpaTLC!- 0 VI\L7r7rOC a'f'LKOfLEVOC, TJV OVo av fLETE7rEfL'f'av 

al (vpaKOCWL, El EKE'Lvoc EV()VC E7r€KELTO' lKavo~ yap aVTO~ olOfLEVOL Elvat 

fit ''1\'' () ~ N \ , I '" ~ ~ ~, , 
afLa T av EfLa OV TJCCOUC OVTEC KaL a7rOTETELXLCfLEVOL av "cav, WCTE fLTJo Et 

I u.l. " ~ , '" , , ',J.., \ ... ) ..... .,., "" t 
fJ.ETE7rEf"'f'av ETL OfJ.OLWC av aVTOVC W'f'EI\OV , TaVTa OW al'aCK07rWV 0 

A ()' ]" I fit \''',.... I ..... , 
.LJTJfJ.OC EVT}C. Kat yLyvWCKWV OTt Kat aVTOC €I' Tep 7rapOVTL TV 7rPWT'[} 

., -'\ 1:" " A' , 'Q'A " , TJfJ.EPC!- fLctI\tCTa oEtVOTaTOC ECTt TOtC EVaVTtOLC, EJ-'OV ETO OTt Taxoc 

a7roxp~cac()aL Tfj 7rapOVCV TOV CTpaTEVJl-aTOC EK7rA~~EL. (Thuc. 7.42.3) 

.. WER DIESE W[orte] mit dem ausfiihrlichen Berichte 
vergleicht, den Th[ ukydides] im 6. Buche und im 
Anfang des 7. tiber den Verlauf der gross en sizilischen 

Expedition der Athener bis zum Erscheinen des Gylippus gegeben 
hat, muss notwendig im hochsten Grade stutzig werden." So Steup 
begins his discussion of this passage.! He points out that the Athenians 
wintered in Naxos as well as Cat ana (6.74.2, 75.2, 88.3 and 5). Before 
going to Catana, Nicias and Lamachus undertook numerous small 
expeditions along the north coast of Sicily, attacked Hybla. and 
finally attacked Syracuse near the Olympieion and were initially 
successful. Although Syracusan contempt for the Athenians before 
the attack on Syracuse is mentioned at 6.63.2. after that attack the 
Syracusans were far from undervaluing Nicias (6.72f. 103.3). 

The only remedy for this gross distortion of the Thucydidean 
account is to attribute it to the irate and polemical Demosthenes. 
This will not do. G. Donini2 has proven beyond cavil that such yap 

1 Thttkydides,3 J. Classen,/J. Steup. edd., VII (Berlin 1908) 254-55. 
2 Guido Donini, "Thuc. 7,42,3: Does Thucydides Agree with Demosthenes' View?" 

Hermes 92 (1964) 116-19. K. J. Dover, in A. W. Gomme et al., A Historical Commentary on 
Thucydides IV (Oxford 1970) 419 [hereafter, DOVER], and H. D. Westlake, Individuals in 
Thucydides (Cambridge 1968) 182 n.1 [hereafter WESTLAKE]. agree with Donini. 

23 



24 THUCYDIDES 7.42.3: UNRECOGNIZED FRAGMENT OF PHILISTUS 

clauses in the indicative represent the opinion of Thucydides. If they 
are also the opinion of the speaker, Thucydides says so. 

No more impressive testimony to the difficulties of the text exists 
than recent attempts to deal with it. W. Liebeschiitz,3 after a thorough 
analysis of Thucydides' account of the Sicilian Expedition, concluded 
that «the narrative of the operations before Syracuse ... by no means 
suggests that Nicias must have succeeded if only he had started 
the siege late in 415 instead of in summer 414." Since the narrative 
shows "that we are not justified in deducing from 7,42,3 and 2,65,11 
that Thucydides thought the design of capturing Syracuse had reason­
able prospects of success but was ruined by Nidas' mismanagement, 
... the passage must be intended to have less wide scope than it would 
have if considered in isolation or in the context of another author." 

K. J. Dover' admits that the passage is grossly out of line with the 
narrative in Book 6: "If we had lost book vi and knew only that the 
Athenian expedition arrived in Sicily during the summer of 415, we 
should infer from this passage that there was no attack on Syracuse 
until the spring of 414." Dover suggests two alternative interpreta­
tions: 

(i) "[Thucydides] is condemning the failure of Nikias-and of 
Lamachos, who was not killed until the summer of 414-to press 
the advantage they gained by their surprise landing and victory in 
the harbour, described in vi. 64-71. This interpretation makes the 
clearest contrast with 'spent the winter in Katane'. It necessitates 
reference of ac/HK61-'€JIOC to the landing in the harbour, not to the 
Athenians' arrival in Sicily." Dover is right that "this interpretation" 
provides the only decent contrast with wintering in Catana. To extract 
this meaning, one must add <Jc 'TOV Atl-'£va) to the first clause. The 
meaning which results is false; for the Athenians did attack immedi­
ately after landing in the harbour, a surprise attack meant to take 
advantage of the temporary absence of the Syracusan cavalry. The 
interpretation is unfair in blaming Nidas for the action undertaken 
by both Nicias and Lamachus and ignores Thucydides' explicit state­
ment (6.71.2) that the lateness of the season and the superiority of the 
Syracusan horse were the reasons for the Athenian withdrawal to 

winter-quarters at Cat ana and Naxos. 

3 Histcria 17 (1968) 289-306. The quotations are from 301, 289 and 302. 
t Dover 419-21. All quotations are from 420. 



E. CHRISTIAN KOPFF 25 

(ii) "He is condemning the adoption by the three generals of Alki­
biades' plan instead of Lamachos' (vi. 49). This accords well (cf. 
vi.49.2) with a.c/HK6f-LEVOc-cfw{3Ep6c and with his representation of 
Demosthenes' insistence on the importance of seizing the initiative 
while the enemy's morale is still affected by his arrival. tJ1T€pcJx/JfJ1J 
also accords well with the description (vi.63.2) of how the Syracusans' 
courage revived before the landing in the harbour. But it means 
that <spent the winter in Katane' is a compressed and misleading way 
of saying <established a summer base at Katane with the intention of 
returning there for the winter' (hence S£Exp6v£'EV cj. J. Weidgen, 
RhM lxxvii [1928], 385 f.)." Dover goes on to point out that this interpre­
tation is inconsistent with Thucydides' account of the Athenian vic­
tory near Syracuse and its frustration by the return of the Syracusan 
horse (6.64-71). He also calls casting the blame on Nicias for the 
choice of Alcibiades' plan "rhetorical distortion." In fact, one cannot 
assert that Thucydides blamed Nicias for the choice of Alcibiades' 
plan after the expedition's arrival in Sicily. After Lamachus' speech in 
6.49, the historian says clearly :l1&f-Laxoc f-L£V 'TaiiTa El7TC1v Of-LWC 7Tpod8E'TO 
Kal athdc rfj 'ANa{3,&8ov yvciJfLTI' Lamachus, not Nicias, was to blame 
for the choice of Alcibiades' plan. The rest of Dover's note discusses 
whether or not Thucydides approved Lamachus' initial plan of 6.49 
and muses on what the historian thought Alcibiades would have 
done had he been in Sicily after the death of Lamachus. 

Luschnat's notion,5 that the point of the parenthesis at 7.42.3 is to 
give us the historian's personal opinion of the withdrawal from 
Syracuse in 6.71-72, is supported by Westlake6 in his discussion of 
7.42.3, which he calls: HAn important but strangely neglected passage 
in the seventh book ... a long parenthesis criticising Nicias, as though 
he had been in sole command, for having committed strategic blun­
ders at earlier stages of the campaign."7 ... "There is certainly some 
confusion of thought, but the main criticism is of the withdrawal from 
Syracuse, as is shown by the references to the Athenians wintering 
at Catana and to the Syracusans sending to the Peloponnesians for 
aid (cf. 6.73.2). This confusion and the <rhetorical distortion' with 
which Dover charges Thucydides may owe its origin to the fact that 

Ii Otto Luschnat, Die Feldherrnreden im Geschichtswerk des Thukydides (Philologus Supplbd. 
34/2, Leipzig 1942) 78 n.2. 

6 Westlake 181-82 with 182 n.1. 

7 Westlake 181. 



26 THUCYDIDES 7.42.3: UNRECOGNIZED FRAGMENT OF PHILISTUS 

the sentence is first and foremost reporting the views of Demos­
thenes."S 

Westlake must ignore the difficulties of the clause WPLKO/LEVOC ••• 
CPO{3EPOC. The views expressed in 7.42.3 are not confused; they explicitly 
contradict Thucydides' account. Further, Donini has shown that these 
views are first and foremost those of Thucydides. Finally, Thucydides 
did not disapprove of the Athenian withdrawal of 6.71. Not only are 
the motives for the withdrawal given in a yap clause in the indicative 
(the presence of EOOKEL may weaken this argument), but these reasons 
are in line with Thucydides' entire analysis and account of the expe­
dition. H.-P. Stahl has shown that Nicias' predictions in the second 
debate on the expedition (6.8-24), especially those concerned with 
horse and money, are fulfilled and that Thucydides goes out of his 
way to emphasize this.9 

Let us return to Steup, whose solution involved the insertion of a 
phrase mentioning Naxos to restore concinnity with the rest of the 
work. "Die Schwierigkeiten, welche die W[ orte] &A'" EV Ka'Tavy), 
O'EXELfLa~Ev hie mach bieten, sind so gross, dass der uberlieferte Text 
unserer St[elle] unmoglich der urspriingliche sein kann. Die bezeich­
neten W[orte] sind aber, wie wir sie vor uns haben, auch von allzu 
seltsamer Beschaffenheit, als dass man daran denken konnte, sie 
fur einen Zusatz von fremder Hand zu erkHiren."lo Here I venture to 
disagree with the great commentator. What we require is a careful 
imitator of Thucydides' style who detested Nicias with the persistency 
of a Westlake. Such an historian existed. He was widely read in antiq­
uity-Philistus of Syracuse. Indeed, his imitation of Thucydides, 
attested by the best ancient critics, and his detestation of Nicias are 
among the most assured parts of our lacunose knowledge of his 
work. 

For Philistus as imitator of Thucydides, see Jacoby, FGrHist 556 
T 14-21, especially Dionysius Halicamasseus, De Imitatione 3.2: t:PLALC'TOC 
oE /LL/L7JnJC Ecn 90UKuoLoov ;,w 'TOU "i0oue ... Cicero, Ad Q. fratrem 
2.11.4: Siculus ille capitalis, creber, acutus, brevis, paene pusillus Thucy­
dides; De Oratore 2.57: Syracosius Philistus . . . maximeque Thucydidem 
est (ut mihi videtur) imitatus. 

8 Westlake 182 n.l. 
t Hans-Peter Stahl. "Speeches and Course of Events in Books Six and Seven of Thucyd­

ides," in The Speeches in Thucydides, Philip A. Stadter, ed. (Chapel Hill 1973) 66-69. 
10 Steup, op.cit. (supra n.l) 255. 



E. CHRISTIAN KOPFF 27 

For Philistus' negative view of Nicias, which on occasion explicitly 
contradicts Thucydides, the best evidence is Plutarch's Nicias, brilliant­
ly analysed by Georg Busolt,ll whom I follow here. The most striking 
passage concerns the capture of Demosthenes and Nicias at the end 
of the Sicilian expedition. Pausanias 1.29.12 (= FGrHist 556 F 53) 
explains the absence of Nicias on the casualty list in the Ceramicus of 
men lost in the Sicilian expedition: "Nicias was omitted for the 
following reason. I write nothing different from Philistus, who said 
that while Demosthenes made a truce for the others but not for 
himself, and when he was captured, attempted suicide, Nicias sur­
rendered voluntarily." The account of the capture of Demosthenes in 
Plutarch, Nicias 27 includes Demosthenes' attempted suicide and a 
detail on the location (TT€P~ Tijv llOAV'1}A€tOV a~A1}v) that seems, like 
other bits of local color in Plutarch's account, to derive from Philistus. 
The strong words at the end of the syncrisis of Crassus and 
Nicias (5.4) reflects Philistus' harsh judgement on Nicias: J 8e NLKtac 

• - ,., - " '<:! ,. , - " ., 
aLcxpac KaL aKI\€OVC EI\TTtOL CWTYJpLac VTTOTTECWV TOLC TTOI\Ef.LtOLC, aLCXLOva 

• - '8' ., €aVTcp TOV avaTOV €TTOL1JC€V. 

Thucydides' account is very different. The report of the surrender 
of Demosthenes is sparse, but we have been told earlier that Demos­
thenes had temporarily yielded to panic and his delay allowed his 
troops to be surrounded. The account of Nicias' surrender is also 
brief, but includes Nicias' touching plea to Gylippus, who owed him 
favors and whom he trusted more than the Syracusans-with reason 
-to use him as he liked, but to stop slaughtering his men (7.85). 

We can discover traces of Philistus and his views of Nicias in the 
varying accounts of the very incident with which we are dealing, the 
counsels of the Athenian generals after the arrival of Demosthenes. 
In Thucydides (7.43.1), Demosthenes has everything his own way at 
first. There is no sign of dissent or disagreement among the generals. 
Demosthenes "having persuaded Nicias and the other generals, began 
to put into effect his plan of an attack on Epipolae." In Plutarch's 
account (Nic. 21), Nicias tries to dissuade Demosthenes from rash 
action, hinting at secret information he has about dissent and treach­
ery within Syracuse. He is savagely attacked by his fellow generals. 
"Nicias, by hinting at some of these things [his secret information] 

11 Hermes 34 (1899) 280-97. See also his Griechische Geschichte III.I (Gotha 1904) 729-36 and 
then effectively passim [hereafter, BUSOLT]. The assertions of Richard Laqueur, RE 19 (1938) 
2418-28, do not refute Busolt's evidence. 



28 THUCYDIDES 7.42.3: UNRECOGNIZED FRAGMENT OF PHILISTUS 

but not being willing to speak openly, gave his colleagues the im­
pression of cowardice. They sided with Demosthenes, saying that this 
was the same old story from him, the delays and procrastinations and 
nitpicking with which he had lost the best moment, by not attacking 
the enemy right away, but becoming stale and despised. Nicias, under 
compulsion (JK{JuxcfJElc) eventually gave in." 

Westlake noted 12 that "The arguments here attributed to Nicias 
are among those which in Thucydides (vii.4S) he uses in opposing 
withdrawal from Syracuse" and concluded "They appear to have 
been deliberately misplaced by some writer who wished to represent 
him as incapable of consenting to offensive action even when it was 
clearly desirable." (In Individuals in Thucydides this reason is modified 
to "presumably to accentuate the contrast between Nicias and 
Demosthenes.") Whether this plausible reconstruction is true or not, 
the two passages are parallel. In Thucydides, people are impressed by 
Nicias' hints; in Plutarch his intelligence draws down on him abuse 
and the appearance of a ToApla. 

The theme of dissent among the Athenian generals appears else­
where in Plutarch where it is absent from Thucydides, most notice­
ably in the account of the sea-battle that precedes Demosthenes' 
arrival. In Plutarch (Nic. 20), Euthydemus and Menander force 
Nicias into a disastrous sea-battle through c/nAonp.la and ~fjAOC. In 
Thucydides' version (7.36-41) it is the Syracusans who want to attack 
before Demosthenes arrives, and there is no mention of strife on the 
Athenian side. 

The characterization of Nicias in Plutarch is simple and of a piece. 
Busolt argued convincingly that the source must be Philistus. Nicias 
is consistently blamed for delay and disheartening his staff and men, 
e.g. Nic. 14.2; 15.3; 16.7,9; 21.6; 24.1. These passages resemble closely 
Thucydides 7.42.3 and frequently occur in contexts where there is no 
corresponding remark or implication in Thucydides. The major 
sources of Plutarch according to his own account (Nic. 1.1) were 
Thucydides, Philistus and Timaeus. At least some of Plutarch's 
account can not be attributed to Thucydides. The source adds local 
details not in Thucydides and betrays some knowledge of strategy. 
This latter effectively rules out Timaeus, who, according to Polybius 
12.25 (= FGrHist 566 T 19.25h) O:1Tac1]c op.oAoyovp.lvwc a1TE£poc JylvETo 

12 H. D. Westlake, "Nicias in Thucydides," CQ 35 (1941) 64 n.2; Westlake 197 n.l. 



E. CHRISTIAN KOPFF 29 

'1TOA€I-'LKfjC XP€{ac. Philistus, we know, was an experienced general. 
Further, like a proper historian, Philistus distributed praise and 
blame to the deserving: FGrHist 556 T 16 b(6)13 Uv 'T€ J7Ta{vovc, Jav 

'TE r/J6yovc oLa7Topev't]'TaL. 

The attribution of Thucydides 7.42.3 to Philisrus solves a major 
problem of Thucydidean scholarship, the seeming approbation given 
in this passage to Lamachus' plan at the start of the expedition to 
seize Syracuse immediately. This has seemed to many to contradict 
Thucydides' explicit statement at 2.65.11, which may imply that the 
recall of Alcibiades doomed the expedition. In Plutarch, Nicias 14 we 
have a denunciation of Nicias similar in tone to 7.42.3: "[The start of 
the expedition] was no longer a time for his excessive caution and 
delay, which resulted in his looking back from the ship like a child 
and repeating that he had not been defeated with rational arguments 
and twisting and blunting the courage of those commanding with 
him and losing the right time for action, but he ought to have attacked 
the enemy right away and relying on his luck ('TVx't]v) have put it to 
the test in battle." Busolt14 deduced that this passage derives from 
Philistus and indicates that Philistlls was the first historian to hold the 
now popular view that Lamachus was right. Thucydides 7.42.3 is the 
only passage that suggests that Thucydides thought so and, as 
Liebeschiitz pointed out, it goes against the whole tenor of Thucyd­
ides' presentation of the Sicilian Expedition.Is HA rare but interest­
ing corruption is the addition to a text of a parallel passage originally 

13 Praise for Nicias' strategy when aggressive is cited by Busolt (Hermes 34 [1899] 292-
93), e.g. Pluto Nic. 16.3,17.1,26.4. 

a Busolt 1305 n.6. 
15 The idea (found twice in 7.42, once in, once just after the parenthesis) that an invading 

army is most frightening when it has just arrived, is also found at 6.63.2, and this passage 
may well have influenced 7.42. It is, however, a pseudo-parallel. In 6.63, the Syracusans lose 
their initial fear of the Athenians when they are not immediately attacked. When the 
Athenians fail to take Hybla, the Syracusans despise them even more and vote for their 
generals to lead them against Catana, "as the mob (oX'\oc) is prone to do when it gets its 
courage up." The Athenians act intelligently. They decoy away the Syracusan horse, 
attack and win a victory, which they are unable to follow up because of the return of the 
cavalry (6.63-71). The Syracusan courage after the Athenian failure to attack does not cause 
them to win when the Athenians do attack. Again, when the Athenians, persuaded by 
Demosthenes' arguments, attack Epipolae, they are defeated. Thucydides knew that an 
army is most impressive on its first arrival. He also knew what Philistlls and the historians 
mentioned by Busolt in his n.6 (cited supra n.14)-to which we may add Luschnat, West­
lake and Dover-have forgotten, that this impression is no assurance of victory. That lies 
in the hands of tyche. 



30 THUCYDIDES 7.42.3: UNRECOGNIZED FRAGMENT OF PHILISTUS 

written in the margin of a book by a learned reader. This may happen 
in verse or prose. Cases are known from Greek tragedy, and Galen 
(17[1 ].634) noticed that it had happened in one of the Hippocratic 
treatises."16 The interpolation is a parallel added to explain Demos­
thenes' thinking in 7.42.4 from a parallel source. Theon, Progymn. 
II, 119,2 Sp. (=FGrHist 556 T 20c), shows that the accounts of the 
attack on Epipolae in Thucydides and Philistus were compared by 
ancient rhetoricians. There are other interpolations in Thucydides. 
Most scholars take 3.84 to be one and many scholars think 3.17 an 
interpolation, too. 

I have bracketed the interpolation in the text printed at the begin­
ning of the article. The last five words, 'Taiha oJv avaCK07TWV 0 
LJ1J!-,OC8EV'1}C, were added to accommodate the interpolation to the 
grammar of the passage. The rest give us our longest quotation from 
the work of the Sicilian historian and politician, Philisrus of Syracuse.17 

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO 

November, 1975 

18 L. D. Reynolds and N. C. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars (Oxford 1968) 157. I should 
adduce the following examples. Eur. El. 1097-99 are quoted by Stobaeus after two other 
lines as from Eur. Cretan Women (fr.464 N.B). Denniston ad loe. suggested an intrusive 
parallel to 1090. Epicurus, Ep.Hdt. (=Diog. Laert. 10.35-83) contains a mass of incorporated 
marginal scholia; see Robert Renehan, Greek Textual Criticism (Cambridge (Mass.] 1969) 
39-41. Julian, Ep. 98b 294c warns the devout pagan of the two-fold danger of taking idols 
for merely wood or stone or for the gods themselves. It is preceded by a violent denuncia­
tion of pagans "who are led by the nose by accursed demons." Horkel saw that this was 
the attack on Julian of an irate Christian, written first in the margin as a parallel and then 
incorporated into the text; see Bidez-Cumont, I.1 (paris 1932) xix; 1.2.161-62 (ap.crit.). 
For Thuc. 3.17 and 3.84 as interpolations, see the standard commentaries. Note that C. C. 
Cobet, Mnemosyne N.S. 8 (1880) 143, assigned 3.84 to Philistus. This assertion was denied by 
S. A. Naber, Mnemosyne N.S. 14 (1886) 139. lowe the Theon reference to Professor Calder. 

171 owe thanks to Nanno Marinatos Kopff for first alerting me to the problems of the 
passage and for other help and encouragement, and to Sir Denys Page and Professor 
William M. Calder III for comments and suggestions.