The Virtue of Thucydides’ Brasidas

Bibliographic Data

ID10185338
AuthorsTimothy W Burns (Skidmore College, corresponding author), Timothy Burns (0000-0001-9515-5088)
Year2011
Volume73
Issue2
Pages508-523
Publication date2011-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3816 • E-ISSN: 1468-2508
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/s0022381611000065
OpenAlexW2097165408
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

In his account of the 27-year Peloponnesian War, Thucydides makes virtue the theme of his presentation of the most outstanding Spartan, Brasidas. That presentation can guide us to an understanding of moral virtue in all its richness and complexity. We learn from a careful analysis of Brasidas’ deeds and speeches, and of Thucydides’ assessment of him, that Brasidas’ virtue, remarkable as it is, is problematic. Thucydides’ account of it may move us, in fact, to abandon our own attachment to this kind of virtue, as we find ourselves in need of a more consistent kind of virtue, one that becomes visible above all in the first speech of the Syracusan Hermocrates. The conversion to this kind of virtue constitutes Thucydides’ grounding of the life guided by reason

Art · Epistemic virtue · Epistemology · Literature · Presentation (obstetrics · Theme (computing · Virtue · Computer Science · Free Will and Agency · Law in Society and Culture · Philosophy · War, Ethics, and Justification