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Athenian Stasis and the Quiet of the Mob 1 i. introduction Before turning more directly to democratic politics in Thucydides’ Athens, I consider in this opening chapter Thucydides’ accounts of stasis, Wrst at Corcyra and then at Athens. As I noted in the Introduction, Thucydides in both cases deploys the language of stasis to describe oligarchic movements against established democracies.1 In this sense, his understanding of revolutionary politics apparently stands opposed to contemporary work— most notably that of Sheldon Wolin—that sees democracy itself as the revolutionary overturning of existing forms. In the case of Athens in particular , Thucydides’ different understanding of the phenomenon to which stasis properly refers in turn reXects a different understanding of the role of the mass of ordinary citizens in stasis. Where Wolin and others see stasis as the activation of the demos, Thucydides in describing the oligarchic revolution at Athens in book 8 of the History leaves us a complex account of the “quiet” of the “mob.” In this chapter I explore the way in which the mass of Athenians keep quiet during stasis. My purpose here is twofold. First, I mean to show that quiet and silence work at a thematic level in the History. That is, Thucydides makes it clear in book 8 that he Wnds quiet and inaction as important as speech and action. Second, I mean here to set up the quiet of the mob in the face of oligarchic plotting as a comparison point for the silent role of the mass of ordinary Athenians in moments of democratic politics. At a basic level, silence sets book 8 as a whole off from the rest of the History, for here Thucydides records no speeches in direct discourse. Where many have found here evidence of the unWnished state of the History’s 1. As Proctor, Experience of Thucydides, 53, notes, “revolution, in [Thucydides’] eyes, was generally an oligarchical, not a left-wing, activity.” This is certainly the case at both Corcyra and Athens. concluding book, others have suggested that Thucydides’ omission of speeches reXects his sense of the decline of deliberation or the disintegration of civic unity in the face of the trials of war.2 In arguments to follow in later chapters, I Wnd such arguments about decline and disintegration problematic. Still, I too begin from the idea that the silences of book 8 reXect changes in Thucydides’ perception of the war and its impact on politics. The absence of speeches in book 8 and especially Thucydides’ emphasis on the quiet inaction of the Athenian people suggest a shift in his ongoing thematic concern with the tension between plurality and unity in the city and with the interplay of speech and silence as a way of grappling with that tension. Put differently, an understanding of the quiet mob’s interaction with the oligarchic conspirators of book 8 can provide us with a backdrop for understanding the interaction of elite speakers and silent demos that Thucydides calls democracy. Before turning to the oligarchic revolution at Athens, though, I set the stage by considering Thucydides’ account of stasis at Corcyra, which, perhaps because it is noisier, has drawn more attention. ii. revolution at corcyra And in self-justiWcation men inverted the usual verbal evaluations of words. (III.82) Thucydides’ description of the stasis or “revolution” at Corcyra marks one of the longest and most directly analytical authorial interventions in the Xow of his narrative. The struggle between oligarchs and democrats in Corcyra was facilitated and abetted by Corcyra’s situation during the war between Sparta and Athens. The revolution started when the Corinthians 28 silence and democracy 2. Cogan, The Human Thing, thus argues that “the absence of speeches from book 8 of the history—usually attributed to its unWnished state—might well be deliberate rather than accidental.” In particular, Cogan thinks that Thucydides’ decision not to record speeches may reXect his sense that, because the war had rendered political positions between and within cities “rigid,” the deliberation reXected in earlier speeches had disappeared (165). In a similar vein, Connor, Thucydides, sees in the general roughness of book 8 a “disintegration of the units and techniques” Thucydides has employed before. More than simply a consequence of Thucydides’ failure because of his untimely death to edit and polish the book, this disintegration is the “literary analogue” to the political disintegration of Greece, including the disintegration of internal harmony in Athens. “The reader,” Connor concludes, “can no longer assume civic unity” (215). See...

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