‘And yet we that live remissly, undertake as great dangers as they’: Thucydides 2.39–40 and the reappropriation of anti-Athenian slurs

Abstract

This paper argues that Thuc. 2.39–40 offers an ironic response to contemporary criticism of Athens by positively reframing the key terms associated with anti-Athenian slurs. It traces the use of aneimenōs , rhaithumia and related concepts in Thucydides and other Classical sources, showing how these terms were appropriated as part of ongoing debates about paideia in the Greek world and in the face of criticism of the Athenian lifestyle. It also examines the history of the interpretation of these passages by translators and commentators, starting with Lorenzo Valla and Thomas Hobbes, and suggests that this context helps explain both the passage’s resistance to straightforward translation and the tendency of modern translations to smooth out its evaluative language.