American Journal of Philology

In the midst of his account of the Sicilian expedition Thucydides pauses to describe the economic and financial effects of the Spartan fortification of Dekeleia in Attica in 413 (7.27–28); one result of signal importance for the empire was Athens' decision to abolish tribute, and in its place to levy a harbor tax, the eikostē. Following this digression the historian relates an episode emblematic of the atrocity of war, the wholesale slaughter of the inhabitants of the defenseless Boiotian town of Mykalessos by 1,300 Thracian mercenaries. Most scholars would not adhere to Eduard Schwartz's view that the financial/economic digression has nothing to do with the representation of the Thracians' savagery;¹ nevertheless, the two sections have tended to be examined separately, the former by historians of the Athenian empire and finance² or by Thucydidean scholars looking at the passage historiographically but as distinct from 7.29,³ and the latter by Thucydidean scholars exploring its function in the History.⁴ There are, however, strong grounds for reading them together: in particular, a degree of detail in each not otherwise warranted by the narrative, a framing device, and the shared use of language common to the description of disease, all suggest that Thucydides was intentionally linking the two sections. By this linkage, I propose, Thucydides not only draws a connection between Athenian public finance and human suffering, but also develops themes central to the work as a whole, namely, those of moral responsibility, human nature, [End Page 223] the conflict between reason and passion, and the nexus of finances, leadership, and military power.

First, the detail in both the fiscal digression and the episode at Mykalessos immediately stands out, given their placement within the Sicilian account, the most self–contained and focused part of the History.⁵ Much of the substance of 7.27–28 concerns a gradual process of fiscal and economic deterioration, yet Thucydides is prompted to embed a diachronic, thematic account in the context of an event utterly trivial to the expedition and the entire course of the war, namely, the tardy arrival of Thracian mercenaries in Athens and the decision to send them home. Moreover, shocking atrocity that the massacre at Mykalessos was, it was peripheral to the war, a minor event that could have been easily omitted, or relegated to a sentence. It is relevant to note in this connection the differing treatments of Skione and Melos. What happened in those places, in 422 and 416 respectively, was identical—a siege and subsequent massacre of the males and enslavement of the women and children—yet Thucydides relates the information about Skione as a passing mention in one sentence (5.32.1), whereas he devotes pages to Melos (5.84–116).

The prominence given to the fiscal digression and to what happened at Mykalessos, through such detailed narrative and especially the juxtaposition of the two sections, is in itself a sign that Thucydides intended a larger significance—through their interrelation—to be accorded to these events. The comparative example of Melos is again relevant, for its significance lies partly in its juxtaposition to the Sicilian books (which would explain why Thucydides chose to highlight it, rather than the identical case of Skione's treatment), as is similarly the case with the juxtaposition of the Funeral Oration and the plague (and Perikles' last speech).

Thucydides constructs a second link between the two sections by using the subject of the Thracian mercenaries as a framing device for his digression on the economic effects of Dekeleia: in 27.1–2, the Thracians arrive in Athens too late for the expedition for which they had been intended, that of reinforcing the army in Sicily. The Athenians, Thucydides continues, decided to send them home, because "to keep them for the Dekeleian War seemed very costly; for each received a drachma a day" ( [End Page 224] ).⁶ Yet rather than immediately return to Sicilian events, or continue with the Thracian narrative, he instead undertakes a lengthy analysis of what was a gradual process of fiscal deterioration that could have...