Thucydides' Great Harbor Battle as Literary Tomb

This article argues that Thucydides' Great Harbor scene (Th. 7.69–71) recalls the imagery of the public funerary monuments of this time. Internal focalization encourages the reader to visualize a conflict which remains fixed at a moment of peak strain for a long period in a densely crowded field, the historian directing the reader's attention to one individual conflict after another, an experience much like viewing a frieze. Internal viewers, meanwhile, wail and lament. This ersatz funerary monument complements Nicias' pre-battle harangue, which has long been recognized as unsettlingly funerary, to memorialize men who soon will lie unburied.