survivors pass into a horrible slavery. Thucydides feels that the ways of Heaven are hard to understand, but he does not complain of them; they are matters not for reasoning but for resignation[1]. He regards the fear of the gods as a potent check on the bad impulses of men, and notices the loss of this fear[2] as a grave symptom of moral anarchy. As to omens, oracles, and similar modes of seeking miraculous light or aid, he nowhere denies the possibility of such light or aid being occasionally given, though his contempt is excited by the frequency of imposture[3]; this, however, he would affirm—that such resources are not to be tried until all resources within human control have been tried in vain[4]. There is one way only, Thucydides holds, by which man can certainly influence his own destiny, and that is by bringing an intelligent judgment (γνώμη) to bear on facts. Some have traced the influence of Anaxagoras in the prominence which Thucydides gives to the intellectual principle; but no such prompting was needed by a strong understanding of sceptical bent, and it may be observed that Thucydides has at least not adopted the language of Anaxagoras[5]. It is the peculiar merit
- ↑ ii. 64, φέρειν τε χρὴ τά δαιμόνια ἀναγκαίως τά τε ἀπὸ τῶν πολεμίων ἀνδρείως.
- ↑ ii. 53; iii. 82.
- ↑ E.g. ii. 21; v. 26, 103; vii. 50 (of Nicias), ἦν καὶ ἄγαν θειασμῷ τε καὶ τῷ τοιούτῳ προσκείμενος.
- ↑ v. 103.
- ↑ νοῦς, in Thucydides, occurs only in the phrases ἐν νῷ ἔχειν (to intend), τὸν νοῦν ἔχειν πρός τι, or προσέχειν, and κατὰ νοῦν, "to one's mind." The general term for the power of the intellect is γνώμη, with which διάνοια and σύνεσις are sometimes nearly synonymous.
