The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

IV

THUCYDIDES

145

gence, dexterity, and will-power of a competent
statesman, in sharp contradistinction to the conventional ap6err of the popular conception. The
only appropriate equivalent by which we can
render in a modern language this Thucydidean
aperr is a key-word of Machiavelli's system, virtt,
a quality possessed by men like Francesco Sforza
and Cesare Borgia.1
It must be understood that this attitude of
Thucydides only concerns international politics,
the subject of his work. Domestic politics lie,
except incidentally, outside his scope. When he
turns aside to describe the disintegrating influence
of party faction on the internal conditions of
Greek states, he recognises the important operation of ethical beliefs and religious sanctions in
holding a society together. But where national
aims are at stake and international rivalries are in
motion, no corresponding beliefs and sanctions
appear, possessing the same indefeasible value for
the success and prosperity of a state. There is
irony in his remark that the Lacedaemonians, after
the first war had come to an end, ascribed their
own want of success to the fact that they had
refused the Athenian proposition to submit the
Peloponnesian grievances to arbitration, in accordance with the Thirty Years' Peace. It is noteworthy that in the Funeral Oration of Pericles,
1 Since writing this paragraph, I observe that Murray had already
compared this cpeTrE to virti (in his chapter on Thucydides, History of
Greek Literature).
L