Sphinx

Ah, the research-teaching nexus, how I’ve missed you! As I’ve remarked here before, in different ways I do find that my teaching inspires and supports my research as much as vice versa, and this morning was a reminder – admittedly a fairly minimal one. About three years ago, I ran into a dead end trying to establish the origins of another alleged ‘Thucydides’ quotation: “You should punish in the same manner those who commit crimes with those who accuse falsely”. Weird phrasing which actually seems to be the wrong way round, googling the exact line just produces a set of mutually-dependent ‘Great Quotes’ websites with no references, and googling similar phrases gets nowhere because the words are just too common. The best anyone could manage was Jon Dresner’s suggestion that various Near Eastern lawcodes include vaguely similar provisions.

Well, quite by chance, I now have the answer. Gathering material for the course on Greek Tyranny I’m teaching this coming term has led me to read various texts I either haven’t looked at for years or have never actually opened, and that’s brought me to… Isocrates, Discourses 2 ‘To Nicocles’, 29: “Visit the same punishment on false accusers as on evil-doers”. Unmistakably the same sentiment, though much more compact and straightforward – I did for a moment wonder whether the version cited on the internet was the result of someone sticking to the original Greek word order in their translation, but no, Isocrates’ original is basically as the Loeb translation here has it.

Obviously this isn’t an idea we can accept at face value; as we would have needed to suspect manipulation if these had indeed been the words of Cleon in the Mytilene debate, so here we must be aware of the gap between Isocrates’ idealism or wishful thinking and any plausible historical reality. Yes, one might see ‘false witness’ as a problem in any system of justice, but it is especially a problem when all the power of judgement lies in the hands of a single individual who is all too open to manipulation. At any rate I’m using the text as an exercise for students in deconstructing ideology: what do these bits of advice tell us about what one-man rule was normally like? What are the recurring concerns? Why does Isocrates spend quite so much time talking about the ruler’s choice of friends and employment of bodyguards?

And in the meantime I get to update the Wikiquote page…