A Commentary on Thucydides. Volume II, Books IV-V.24

On the morrow of finishing the commentary on Thucydides of Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover, the Clarendon Press asked Hornblower for a short companion, on the model of How and Wells on Herodotus. But even as Gomme's projected three volumes grew to five, Hornblower's two volumes will eventually swell to three. The present commentary, essentially on book 4, is more than one hundred pages longer than Gomme. There is but one map (Amphipolis); one of Pylos would have been welcome.

Volume I (1991) lacked an introduction. Hornblower now supplies one, about as long as his Thucydides (London 1987) and, like that book, comprising separate parts. (Note "finally, I shall talk about . . . ," 70, and "in this part of my paper . . . ," 83—apparently deriving from his Oxford classes in 1995.) He opens with a respectful nineteen-page review of Gomme, including possible improvements on the master. One such improvement is in translating every single lemma, including even all proper names. And Hornblower does much more with narratology, which to him (see OCD³ 1521) is nothing more threatening than attention to the design and structure of a narrative. Those who deplore literary jargon have little to fear: the term "focalizer" often appears, but the language is not excessively trendy.

Hornblower then considers the article by R. S. Stroud, "Thucydides and Corinth," Chiron 24 (1994) 267-304. Both the present volume and Stroud's paper are important for our understanding of Thucydides' career; unfortunately, it appears that both scholars at times misunderstand each other. Stroud shows that the historian had "excellent detailed knowledge of Corinthian affairs" (as Horn-blower, 21, agrees) and suggests that he got this knowledge in the course of a residence in the city. Stroud nowhere says that Thucydides stayed there all twenty years, and Hornblower, for some reason eager to demolish this nonsug-gestion, edgily allows him only visits to Corinth (22).

Then comes the pleasant tale (Marcellinus Vit. Thuc. 25) that Thucydides retired to Thrace in his exile and there wrote his work beneath a plane tree. In 1987 Hornblower (Thucydides 3) suggested that the historian "remained at least based in Thrace"—but did not (as Stroud comes close to implying) say he spent twenty years there, much less that he wrote beneath a plane tree—and pointed to some Greeks who traveled in northern Greece and might have given him information. This is possible, but it does rather undervalue Thucydides' statement (5.26.5) that he spent most of his time (, Thucydidean litotes for "above all") with Peloponnesians.

Another misunderstanding then comes when Hornblower criticizes Stroud for the a priori assertion—one not made by Stroud, as far as I can see— that "because ancient historians spent 'most of their time' looking at places and talking to people other than historians, it follows that they never read or heard or were influenced by or tried to correct each other or earlier literary figures" (25). If I have quoted his words exactly, it is because this accusation against Stroud need not have been made. Hornblower then shows clearly that Thu-cydides read Herodotus, who published (let us leave the meaning of the word open) before him. But in doing so he is unnecessarily severe on a young scholar who has not yet presented his work in final form: much of this criticism could have been postponed until such a time.

So there is plenty of lively argument in this section, but it will date quickly: such controversy belongs in a journal somewhere, not in a commentary that will last many years. As Wade-Gery said in his review of Gomme's first volume (JHS 69 [1949] 84), an editor is no longer a member of the Opposition, he holds a portfolio and sits on the other side of the House.

Next, Hornblower gives us an interesting section on the portrait of Brasidas (4.11-5.11), arguing that Thucydides wanted to write an of Brasidas on a Homeric model (wounds, success, confrontation with his main...