VI. Athenian Imperialism

Abstract

Thucydides had an obsessive interest in the nature of Athenian imperialism, and returns to the subject again and again. He would have his readers believe that the Athenians saw nothing wrong in exercising the power which nature had given them, and that, since it is natural to prefer freedom to subjection, the members of the Delian League all resented their inferior position. Within individual states Thucydides clearly preferred the restraints of law and morality to uninhibited self-seeking (2.53, 3.82-3, cf. Pericles ap. 2.37.3); yet Athens’ building up of her empire could be regarded as uninhibited self-seeking on a large scale; but Thucydides was a patriotic Athenian (e.g. 1.10.2) and an admirer of Pericles (esp. 2.65.5–13), and represents Pericles as one of the men who saw nothing wrong in Athens’ imperial stance (1.144, 2.13.2, 36.2–3, 62.2, 63–4). This, perhaps, was Thucydides’ dilemma: at a time when up-to-date and ‘emancipated’ men were claiming that one should despise conventional restraints and live in accordance with nature, he was aware both that Athens on the level of state activity had achieved unprecedented success by behaving in this way and that on the level of individual activity within the state life is better for everyone if the conventional restraints are upheld.