And I am not unaware that these utterances are insignificant. But I judge this to be admirable in the man, that when death was at hand neither his good sense nor his playful wit deserted his spirit.
Thus does Xenophon defend his inclusion of various witticisms uttered by Thera-menes on his way to execution under the tyranny of the Thirty Tyrants. The remark confirms, if confirmation were needed, that the historiographers were every bit as aware as Plutarch (cf. the opening quotation) of how useful small deeds, sayings, or jokes can be in establishing a picture of an individual. Individuals may be characterized as much by what they say or do as by overt commentary on their personalities from others, whether the narrator or others in the text.
It comes as no surprise that Xenophon himself is a notable exponent of this approach. He has a particular knack for catching what he sees as a person’s essential characteristics from the way in which they behave on a first or early appearance in his narrative. A vignette concerning Clearchus from the first book of the Anabasis is a case in point (1.5.11-13):
When a dispute arose between one of Menon’s men and one of his own, Clearchus, judging the former to be in the wrong, beat him... One of Menon’s men, who was chopping wood, saw Clearchus riding past, and threw his axe at him. He missed, but one started throwing rocks, then another, and soon there was an uproar. Clearchus fled to his own camp, and issued a call to arms.
In due course, Cyrus himself has to resolve the resulting mess. Xenophon thus succeeds in making some important points about Clearchus’ character, without passing any overt judgments himself as narrator (Braun 2004: 101). The general is decisive and harsh in his judgment of situations, characteristics which can be productive of trouble, and which the narrative voice does eventually spell out in his ‘‘obituary’’ (Anab. 2.6.9; mentioned above, p. 105). In a similar vein, Menon, whom the narrator ultimately condemns for his untrustworthiness and lust for power (Anab. 2.6.21-22 and p. 105 above), is glimpsed early on (1.4.14-15) exhorting his troops to steal a march on their comrades in an effort to curry favor with Cyrus.
Although the Anabasis is in any event a work where the personalities of individuals and clashes between them bulk large, this technique of introductory characterization by word or deed may be seen operating in the Hellenica as well. The Spartan admiral Callicratidas is a fine example of this. He is presented from the outset as a blunt and no-nonsense individual by his sharp comments at the expense of, first, his predecessor Lysander (Hell. 1.6.2), and then Cyrus (1.6.7).
Personality and character can also be expressed not only in what is said or done, but how it is said or done. The speech of Sthenelaidas at the debate in Sparta just before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 1.86) is a celebrated instance of this: opening with a sneer at the ‘‘many words’’ offered by the Athenian ambassadors before it, it is itself notably short, at less than a sixth of the length of the speech by Archidamus which immediately precedes it. Brevity and terseness were famous Spartan virtues; with a speech of this concision, Sthenelaidas presents himself as a guardian of true Spartan values.
Less well known, but equally effective in its own way, is the speech that Xenophon puts into the mouth of Critias in the Hellenica (2.3.24-26), which speaks volumes about the character of the most cerebral of the Thirty Tyrants through its combination of ostentatiously displayed rationality - note the plethora of words indicating reasoning, recognition, causation, or deduction (italicized below) - and sinister euphemism (likewise italicized):
If any of you thinks that more are dying than is appropriate, let him consider that these things happen everywhere where there is a change of constitution. And it must befall that very many are hostile to those engineering a change towards oligarchy, on account ofthis being the most populous of Greek cities and on account of the people having been nurtured in freedom for the longest period. But having recognized... that the people would never be well-disposed to the Spartans who had saved us, but that the best sort of people would by contrast always remain trustworthy, on account of this we are putting into place this constitution with the approval of the Spartans. And if we perceive that anyone is opposed to oligarchy, we will expedite the inconvenience to the best of our ability.
Manner of action can be as significant for the delineation of character as manner of speech, although its effects tend to be more diffuse, and so not susceptible to abbreviated treatment here. One example to note in passing is Appian’s penchant for the use of verbs with the prefix pro - (indicating, amongst other things, the doing of things beforehand, in anticipation, or in advance) when speaking about the activities of Julius Caesar. While the collective impact of lexical choices such as these is subtle, their effect is undeniable. Appian uses them to build a picture of the dictator as ever active, preemptive, insightful and alert, a trick which Caesar himself achieves in his narratives of his campaigns through rather different means (below, p. 114).
In summary, then, the classical historians had numerous resources at their disposal to offer up characterizations of individuals within their works, through the selection of telling words or deeds and the style in which they were executed. One other such technique, however, calls for special consideration. This is arrangement and manipulation of the structure of the text itself, in order to highlight particular aspects of the individuals within it.
World History
