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1 Corruption and the Fatal Power of Envy: Revisiting The Classical Republican Tradition Rebecca Fiske Bard College at Simon’s Rock June 2012 Civil war ran through the city-states; those it struck later heard what the first cities had done and far exceeded them in inventing artful means for attack and bizarre forms of revenge. And they exchanged their usual verbal evaluations of actions for new ones, in the light of what they thought justified; thus irrational daring (tolrna alogistos) was considered courage (andreia) and loyalty to one's party (Reeve 441). At the core of our consideration of corruption must be its definition: the word corruption needs an accepted meaning, a usual verbal evaluation. As any reasonable person might expect, the systematic study of corruption ought to begin with a trust worthy signifier, one that we, as a community, may share. Further, it should be one that meets the test of applicability across times and political systems. The trouble is, perhaps of all words, this one - corruption - is the most vulnerable to the slippery nature of meaningmaking. The very act of assigning a definition to a word implies both mutability and immutability. As the great 19th century linguist Ferdinand de Saussure explained, though it may appear that we freely choose our words with respect to the ideas they represent, those words are fixed, not free, because their meanings depend upon the linguistic community that uses them. However, “the masses have no voice in the matter…language furnishes the best proof that a law accepted by a community is a thing that is tolerated and not a rule to which all freely consent”(Saussure 70). All linguistic communities have a history, and all languages are shot through with the phonetic past, riddled with the promise of the phonetic future. Our words, and the meanings associated with them, reflect the ever-changing and systematic nature of human experience. “Language is a garment covered with patches cut from its own cloth…the vast majority of words are, in one way or another, new combinations of phonetic elements torn from older forms…what predominates in all change is the persistence of the old substance; disregard for the past is only relative. That is why the principle of change is based on the principle of continuity”(Saussure 94). So when Thucydides, the Greek historian of the horrific Peloponnesian War, tells us that on the island of Corcyra, in the year 427 BCE, when faced with civil war and the collapse of political and moral order, a community of speakers “exchanged their usual verbal evaluations of actions for new ones” such that irrational daring became courage and thoughtful appraisal of the future became cowardice, we might be wise to stop and take notice. Here, in this ancient text, we have an example of language, corrupted. We have an example of an exchange, one thing for another, and of a sort of linguistic rent-seeking. One word was inequitably exchanged for another, cowardice for courage, so that the coward might profit. But such a corrupt exchange can never be that neat. Something of the old cowardly carried over into the new courageous, and something of the old courageous carried over into the new cowardly. “Language…for the very reason that it always uses old material for its innovations, is remarkably conservative”(Saussure 172). 2 Perhaps, if we wish to define corruption, we should look to the Corcyraeans, a people, Thucydides says, who became masters of the art of corruption, who corrupted even their chain of signifiers. We might also explore their Athenian hero, Pericles, whom Thucydides calls “incorruptible.” What might we discover about the nature of corruption, conserved in the language of Thucydides’ story of one island, and one society, isolated and crumbling? Without moralizing or romanticizing, without calling on Fate or blaming the gods, and with steadfast belief in accuracy, “always tried by the most sever and detailed tests possible,” Thucydides believed he had written a document of the past so that we, his future, could interpret it, and so that we could recognize ourselves, reflected there. He offered “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it…a possession for all time” (Thucydides 1). Thucydides, therefore, called upon us to read his history carefully in order to see our corruption in the Corcyrean mirror. On the little island of Corcyra (modern Corfu) in the midst of the Peloponnesian War, a people split into the many and the few, and a revolution ensued. The many, the commons, were allies of Athens while the few, the oligarchs, desperately needed the support of the Spartans. The war between Athens and Sparta reached this island in part because Corinth, Sparta’s ally, released some Corcyrean prisoners, charging them to convince their fellow citizens to change allegiance and side with Sparta. Dutiful to their captives, the freed prisoners even brought the civic-leader and Athenian ally, Peithias, to trial for “enslaving Corcyra to Athens” (Thucydides III). The question was a difficult one. With whom should they ally: which power offered the most or threatened the least? Who offered hope and whom should they fear? After much consideration, the question was put to vote, and the people concluded that they should remain allies of Athens and become friends of Sparta. In essence, the island voted to hold hope and fear in an uneasy balance. But this was impossible, and the people fractured all the more as both powers began to apply greater force. When Peithias was acquitted, some of the freed prisoners, enraged and frustrated by his counter charges, broke into the senate and murdered him, along with sixty other people, senators and private people. Those who survived the bloody attack took refuge in an Athenian ship about to sail away. The conspirators then called the people to an assembly and declared that the coup was for the best. They sent envoys to Athens to dissuade them from attacking. When the envoys reached Athens, however, they were arrested. In the meantime, a Corinthian ship attacked Corcyra and sent the commons fleeing to the higher parts of the city and into the Hyllaic harbor. The oligarchs held the marketplace and the other harbors, facing the mainland. The poor controlled the high ground and the outermost harbor. The rich controlled the markets and the mainland harbors. Mayhem ensued. The commons were joined by the slaves, and though the oligarchs hired mercenaries from the mainland to defend them, they were over-powered. Indeed, Thucydides tells us that even the commons women fought valiantly throughout the night, “pelting with tiles from the houses, and supporting the melee with a fortitude beyond their sex” (Thucydides III). At daybreak, the oligarchs were in such turmoil that they began burning their own homes and markets so that the commons would not take possession. Their desire not to give over their possessions to those who coveted them 3 over powered their desire to possess. The island society was in flames, consuming itself. The mercenaries stole back to the mainland, leaving the beaten oligarchs to face their doom. The next day, an Athenian general, Nicostratus, arrived with twelve ships and five hundred Messenian soldiers. Nicostratus persuaded the Corcyraeans to make peace with one another and all agreed to ally with Athens. The commons appeared to agree but when Nicostraus left, they herded the terrified, ragged oligarchs and set them next to a temple to be secured. The rich, having destroyed their own wealth, became poorer than the poor who envied them. Four or five days of such captivity, and relative calm, passed. But the island was once again attacked - this time by fifty-three Peloponnesian ships. After a miserable attempt at defense, the commons retreated, gathered up their oligarch and Messenian prisoners, resettled them at the temple of Hera, and kept guard over the city, fearing the worst. The Peloponnesian ships eventually did attack, though they remained only a short time, and quickly fled upon learning of additional Athenian ships arriving. The Corcyraens, newly poor and their poor captors alike, were left to face one another. Thucydides documents the resulting violence: The Corcyraeans, made aware of the approach of the Athenian fleet and of the departure of the enemy, brought the Messenians from outside the walls into the town, and ordered the fleet which they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbour; and while it was so doing, slew such of their enemies as they laid hands on, dispatching afterwards, as they landed them, those whom they had persuaded to go on board the ships. Next they went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The mass of the suppliants who had refused to do so, on seeing what was taking place, slew each other there in the consecrated ground; while some hanged themselves upon the trees, and others destroyed themselves as they were severally able. During seven days that Eurymedon stayed with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those of their fellow citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and although the crime imputed was that of attempting to put down the democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their debtors because of the moneys owed to them. Death thus raged in every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there (Thucydides III). The definition of corruption, which we seek, can perhaps be found in this commentary. “As usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go” says Thucydides. Within his description of the siege and the battles, he makes clear the turmoil: the Corcyraeans are thrown into civil war, in part because of invasion from two opposing forces and in part because of the weakening of the governing body that held the passions of the many and the few in check. The actions he describes: murdering asylum - seekers, rigging trials, inciting mass suicide, revenging private hate, exacting pounds of flesh, defiling sacred spaces, all seem prime examples of corruption. They are violent actions taken by private individuals, unchecked by civil law. They indicate the 4 rupture of the boundary between the personal and the political. Indeed, even here Thucydides makes it clear that illicit language exchange signaled corruption: “fellow citizens” became “enemies.” “Personal animosities” became “political crimes.” Thucydides uses the terms “regarded” and “imputed” to clarify the corruption; fellow citizens were regarded as enemies, and crimes were imputed. But the truth remained: “death thus raged” whatever linguistic shape it took. As Saussure might have pointed out, here in the midst of Corcyraean civil war, new combinations of phonetic elements were torn from older forms. The signifier “enemy” was a patchwork of old comrades, debtors, rivals, sons, and suppliants. Something of the old must have remained in the new, even in the minds of these people enslaved to passion. What allowed them to forget the true value of words, to accept the fraud so suddenly? It is one thing to accept the slow, steady mutability of language, that lazy, slipping wherein a story could enfold and a fellow could become a foe or, more in the semiotic register, thou could become you or infection could become corruption. It is quite another to insert change synchronically. When phonemes reconfigure, time and distance are required. Further, “language premeditates nothing” as it changes. “Diachronic facts cannot be reduced to the synchronic system which they condition, when the change is intentional” (Saussure 94). Language changes over time and across geographical space. Regarding and imputing do not constitute diachronic fact. Regarding and imputing are conscious actions. The change is intentional. No matter the phonetics, when a father murders his son, a father murders his son. In the synchronic language-state, signifiers are immutable; they must be in order for the language game to be played, the language strings to be plucked. When a community of speakers, settled into a language-state, encounters diachronic change, the result can only be traumatic for “speaking operates only on a language-state, and the changes that intervene between states have no place” (Saussure 94). To put it simply, when one signifier is exchanged for another, suddenly, intentionally, from within, the rules of the game are broken; the notes of the melody are discordant. In fact, for Saussure, words themselves have a sort of essence as they rest, immutable in their synchronic language-state. “These transformations are basically alien to words and cannot touch their essence. The word-unit is not constituted solely by the totality of its phonemes but by characteristics other than its material quality. Suppose that one string of a piano is out of tune: a discordant note will be heard each time the one who is playing a melody strikes the corresponding key. But where is the discord? In the melody? Certainly not; the melody has not been affected; only the piano has been impaired” (Saussure 94). Linguistic rent-seeking is discordant. Something jangled out of tune on this island as death raged in every shape. Why? It is more than the problem of war, more than the problem of violence, more than the problem of Athens and Sparta. Saussure might say that the Corcyraeans broke the fundamental rule of language: above all else, a word is a “slice of sound which, to the exclusion of everything that precedes and follows it in the spoken chain, is the signifier of a certain concept”(Saussure 103). That certain slice of sound must be accepted by a community of speakers as signifying a specific concept, and no other. Further, this slice of sound 5 must have the appearance of permanence, of immutability. It must be true to its word. That way, a language-state occurs, and speaking subjects exist. If this rule is broken, and the sound and the concept, the signifier and the signified, are divorced, meaning collapses. In fact, when individuals exchange their usual verbal evaluations of actions for new ones, in the light of what they think justified, they lie. They corrupt truth. They use signifiers to justify rather than to signify. They split the two sided linguistic unit: signifier/signified. “The two-sided linguistic unit has often been compared with the human person, made up of the body and the soul. The comparison is hardly satisfactory. A better choice would be a chemical compound like water, a combination of hydrogen and oxygen; taken separately, neither element has any of the properties of water” (Saussure 103). The Corcyraean language-state was in civil-war, and lies replaced truths as usual verbal evaluations. Thus, neither lies nor truths retained their properties. Meaning vanished, and atrocities appeared. Later in his description, Thucydides clarifies his position on the root cause of such atrocities. Some of the many attacked the few out of “pleonexia,” the passionate desire for more than one’s fair share, while others attacked out of zeal for equality. All were carried away by “orgie,” undisciplined passion, and they committed savage and pitiless attacks. He says people do these things when “they have the opportunity, against rulers who have shown more arrogance (hubris) than good sense (sophrosune), and….to escape long-standing poverty” (Reeve 440). This is a complex assessment because at first it appears Thucydides is suggesting that human nature is violent and selfish and that without civil order we would all be carried away by our passions, our emotions. We would abandon logos and exchange it for pathos. But consider this: the historian tells us that the poor of Corcyra acted as all people do when they have experienced long standing poverty and when their rulers have shown more arrogance than good sense. In other words, the badly governed act badly. Unequal distribution of wealth and longstanding poverty caused by arrogant and irrational rulers bred rebellion, and some rebels wished for more than their fair share while others wished for equality. And this is where Thucydides offers a twist - when the opportunity arises, people who are unjustly ruled will rebel, and some will unjustly choose to commit atrocities. On Corcyra, the poor attacked the wealthy. However, the poor who were the most brutal were the ones who wished for equality, not the ones who acted out of “pleonexia.” Most of these acted from a passionate desire for their neighbor's possessions, but there were also those who attacked the wealthy not out of a desire for more than their fair share (pleonexia), but primarily out of zeal for equality, and they were the most carried away by their undisciplined passion (orgie) to commit savage and pitiless attacks (Reeve 441). Perhaps it is no surprise that the weakening of an oppressive government unleashed human passion. Perhaps it is no surprise that Thucydides viewed human nature, ungoverned, as enslaved to passions and “accustomed to violate justice and laws.” And perhaps it is no surprise that the historian saw two forms of desire: one for equality and one for excess. But what might be surprising is his firm belief that the citizens motivated by a desire for equality would be the ones to commit the more savage and pitiless acts. 6 Why would Thucydides, a self described realist and chronicler of “the nature of mankind” view desire for equality as the more savage and ruthless passion? Finally, why would the zeal for equality cause a father to murder his son or a lender his borrower? Perhaps such zeal holds the answer to the nature of corruption, for it is this zeal that caused meaning to vanish and atrocities to appear in Corcyra. How are corruption and the zeal for equality linked? Let us begin with Thucydides’ general concept: passion. Undisciplined, it causes human beings to become carried away and to lose sight of law, of “hosios.” And here may be the key, for this law - “hosios” - is not human/civil law - “dikaios” - but divine/natural law. Thus, when our passion is undisciplined, we lose sight of those laws “sanctioned or approved by the law of nature.” Uncontrolled, passion tears human beings from themselves, from their very nature, “hosios.” Indeed, human/civil law, “dikaios” is subject to the power of passion, unleashed, since civil laws are made by humans. The civil laws promoted by the rulers of Corcyra were perfect examples. Thus, it is not that human nature is corrupt and requires civil law to restrain it. Rather, civil laws, and the civil servants who make and enforce them, are in danger of “the desire to rule arising out of pleonexia and ambition, and the love of victory that proceeds from these two” (Reeve 441). Civil law is a tool of rulers who may be corrupted by undisciplined passion. Thus, “dikaios” is corruptible, and once corrupted by “orgie,” it can not shield human nature from “phthonos” the fatal power. The cause of all this was a desire to rule arising out of pleonexia and ambition, and the love of victory that proceeds from these two. Those who led their parties in the cities promoted their policies under decent-sounding names: "political equality for the multitude" on one side, and "moderate aristocracy" on the other. And though they pretended to serve the public in their speeches, they actually treated it as the prize for their competition; and striving by whatever means to win, both sides ventured on the most horrible outrages and exacted even greater revenge, without any regard for Justice or the advantage of the city-state. Each party was limited only by its own appetite at the time, and stood ready to satisfy its ambition of the moment either by voting for an unjust verdict or seizing control by force (Reeve 442). Again, Thucydides used the corruption of the signifier as the signal for passion’s dominance. The leaders engaged in verbal rent-seeking, used “decent-sounding names” and pretense in their speeches. The result was horrible outrages and revenge. They disregarded justice in favor of the “ambition of the moment.” The oligarchs claimed “moderate aristocracy” and the democrats claimed “equality” but they all merely strove to win. Recall, Thucydides believed that people would always rebel against arrogant rulers who lacked good sense and who caused long-standing poverty through their selfish desire for power. It seems clear, therefore, that Thucydides believed that undisciplined passion overpowered individuals and their laws; spilled into political and private arenas; and caused justice and “hosios” to be disregarded. Such disregard satisfied the ambition of the moment - the future was abandoned, and the past forgotten. Words lost their meaning, but only within the realm of “dikaios.” Civil law, civil life, and 7 civil language all fell prey to “orgie.” Corcyra collapsed into uncontrollable desire, leaving “phthonos” -envy - free reign. But what did the Corcyraeans desire? What is left to want when the past is forgotten and the future abandoned? Just as “language is a garment covered with patches cut from its own cloth,” and “…the principle of change is based on the principle of continuity,” so all desire needs an aim beyond itself. When civil law is corrupted by undisciplined passion, the signal is sounded by discordant language. But such discord can only jangle so long and so far before it is out of range. The laws that govern language are natural not civil, “the masses have no say in the matter.” However much passion enslaves civil life, the natural life, based on the principle of continuity, remains, immutable. This immutability may be disregarded, but it can not be corrupted, according to Thucydides. Natural law is both diachronic and synchronic, mutable and immutable, absent and fully present. It is conservative and radical, oligarchical and democratic. Passion, undisciplined, can not have an aim because it is not conscious of its limitations. It lacks an object. “Orgie” can never be satisfied - it is always, already envious. Undisciplined passion leads to envy; envy leads to revenge; revenge leads to loss of the only thing of value: the natural law. Now that life had been thrown into confusion in the city, human nature - which is accustomed to violate justice and laws - came to vanquish law altogether, and gladly showed itself enslaved to passion (orgie), stronger than justice, and enemy of any superior. Without the destructive force of envy (phthonos), you see, people would not value revenge over to hosion,nor profits over justice. When they want revenge on others, people are determined first to destroy without a trace the laws that commonly govern such matters, though it is only because of these laws that anyone in trouble can hope to be saved, and even though anyone might be in danger someday and stand in need of such laws (Reeve 443 ). It is the destructive force of this envy that causes people to value revenge and profits over “hosion” and justice. “Phthonos” has a grand and glorious sound/slice for such a tiny and pathetic concept. Indeed, the slaves of passion are heir to nothing but “phthonos.” They want revenge; however, their enemies are themselves. The fatal force, envy, drives these slaves to eradicate any sign of the very laws that could save them. Undisciplined passion breeds envy because aimless passion is insatiable. Thucydides views envy as a sad sort of desire; it wants what it can not possess, and it is blind to what it does possess. It knows no limit, is enemy of any superior, ignorant of “those unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the general sentiment.” The “unwritten laws” that “commonly govern” are laws for “anyone” and “general sentiment” respects them. For example, good sense “sophrosune” tells anyone that justice and fairness lead to well being, and arrogance leads to revenge. But on the island of Corcyra, the citizens forsook these laws, the natural laws. In such a state, zeal for equality could only have been oxymoronic. When uncontrolled passion turns its desire toward equality, when individuals, enslaved by passion, envy equality, only atrocities may follow. Blind to what they do possess, zealously wanting what they can not possess, the envious are in a state of perpetual inequality. Thus, for Thucydides, the 8 most vicious form of passion is envy, for it corrupts perfectly. How are corruption and the zeal for equality linked? They are linked through envy. he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity ( Thucydides IV ). Consider Pericles, the “incorruptible” leader of Athens. Thucydides provides his readers with only one man who is free of corruption. Through the character of Pericles, we learn how to discipline passion and live free and independent lives. We learn how to avoid the disastrous Corcyraean trap. In Pericles’ Funeral Oration, the just ruler outlines the “principles of action…institutions and…manner of life necessary for an empire to become great” (Thucydides IV). He begins with a warning: do not be led by envy, for envy brings with it incredulity. Interestingly, his first warning as he is about to praise the war dead, is against envy, against the zeal for equality, the desire to be “equal to the actions recounted.” Why should we not envy our fallen heroes? How are their actions not validation of our own cowardice? Pericles’ answer is that “our form of government does not enter into rivalry” (Thucydides IV). Instead, the Athenian Democracy is an example to its neighbors. Further, even though the democracy maintains equal justice for all citizens in their private lives, “the claim of excellence” is recognized. Those who are excellent are best suited to service, regardless of their economic status. What matters is only merit. The Athenians are not exclusive in public life, and they are not suspicious or controlling in private life. Indeed, it is here where we may see the manner in which passion is disciplined. While private life is unconstrained, public acts are pervaded by a spirit of reverence which prevents citizens from doing wrong. While we are thus unconstrained in our private business, a spirit of reverence pervades our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws, having a particular regard to those which are ordained for the protection of the injured as well as those unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the general sentiment ( Thucydides IV). Pericles separates life into the private and the public. He gives private life free reign and disciplines public life with a “spirit of reverence.” This spirit controls passion, preventing private citizens from “doing wrong,” from corrupting the public life. Infused with a spirit of reverence, the public life respects authority and civil law, especially laws which protect the weak. Finally, it reveres “hosios.” those unwritten laws of nature. This notion that envy can be avoided by dividing life into the private and the public and thereby offering all citizens equality and security, suggests that Pericles has a keen sense of the human psyche. The fatal power of envy rests in its ability to break the barrier between private and public life. When unconstrained private passion spills over into public life - the fortress that protects and allows equality its security dissolves. In other words, public life provides private life the security it requires in order to be free. Repression and splitting 9 offer equal justice, offer balance, offer freedom. Of course, it is a sort of bounded freedom, since passion must reside in the private domaine and spirit of reverence in the public. Still, the state of confusion which Corcyra experienced occurred because this barrier between the private and public collapsed. Respect for civil and natural law vanished. A zeal for equality, the most terrible form of passion, was let loose, and “there was no length to which violence did not go.” Recall, the reason for such collapse was that public servants were infused with passion rather than the spirit of reverence. Though they “pretended to serve the public in their speeches, they actually treated it as the prize for their competition (Thucydides IV). Such corruption had natural consequences: long-standing poverty, injustice, and, finally, rebellion and civil war. Unable to separate themselves into their two aspects (private/public) citizens selfdestructed. The dialectical relationships were forgotten. Father killed son and lender killed debtor because the spirit of reverence was exhausted and the passions stolen. This could not happen in Athens. And we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many relaxations from toil; we have regular games and sacrifices throughout the year; our homes are beautiful and elegant; and the delight which we daily feel in all these things helps to banish sorrow. Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us; so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as our own (Thucydides IV). Here Pericles reminds his Athenians that when private and public lives are in their proper order, such depletion is impossible. The weary spirit rests, and the passions banish sorrow. There is no need for envy because public and private are in perfect balance. Further, this balance is natural, and it naturally is rewarded. Just as Pericles displays an understanding of human psychological process when he articulates the need for repressing passion and splitting the citizen into a private and a public being, here he gestures toward a materialist sense of the conditions of life. Athenian homes are beautiful and elegant, and their social existence allows for a consciousness filled with “delight.” Pericles describes his democracy as a harmony between the social forces of production and the relations of production. The real foundation of Athens is “great,” and because of the greatness of its economic structure, the legal and political superstructure (the public life) and its corresponding consciousness (the private life) are in perfect harmony. There is no conflict, no property relations trouble, no fetters. “The fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us.” Since envy depends upon the material productive forces of society coming in conflict with the existing relations of production, as they did in Corcyra, this fatal power holds no sway in Athens. In Athens, then, citizens “live at ease.” They rely on their “own hearts and hands” and they regard themselves as free. Our city is thrown open to the world, though and we never expel a foreigner and prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret if revealed to an enemy might profit him. We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands. And in the matter of education, whereas they from early youth are always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we live at ease, and yet are equally ready to face the perils which they face (Thucydides IV). 10 It is a curious understanding of freedom, this notion of a split subject: both public and private. While private life is unconstrained and the public life disciplined, the Athenian seems to move between the two, in a dialectical relationship. It is not that the private life takes on the privileged position of an egoistic individual, the one with inalienable rights, while the public life remains somehow abstract, the citizen, the juridical individual. Rather, the Athenian seems to be free because he is always already a private/public being, his passion disciplined, housed beautifully, elegantly. The Athenian is emancipated because he is Athenian. Further, Pericles explains that the Athenian is fully human because he is able to recognize himself as private and public, rather than a corrupted version, always glancing nervously about, demanding of the private self passion and the public self restraint. Given the manner in which Pericles envisions the Athenian, it seems clear that his form of democracy brings into being a peculiar form of human - emancipated and fearless. For we are lovers of the beautiful in our tastes and our strength lies, in our opinion, not in deliberation and discussion, but that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection… We alone do good to our neighbors not upon a calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom and in a frank and fearless spirit (Thucydides IV). The Athenian empire and the Athenian are one, public and private. The “individual Athenian in his own person” and “the state” are joined, always, already. There is no need for envy because there is equal distribution of wealth, in all its manifestations: “Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf” (Thucydides IV). Pericles’ Funeral Oration delivered just what we wanted - an answer to our question regarding the nature of corruption. Corruption is the result of envy, and envy is the condition brought about by a misunderstanding of the dialectical nature of public/private being. Corruption is a collective issue, neither the public nor the private alone holds the blame. Rather, like two sides of a sheet of paper, public and private form a whole. Athenians are public and private. They are confident of their freedom because they discipline passion with a spirit of reverence and reverence with passion. Civil laws, “dikaios,” act as a tangible reminder to Athenians of divine/natural law, “hosios.” Athenians revere civil laws because they mirror natural law. They make and follow civil law because they understand that “ it is only because of these laws that anyone in trouble can hope to be saved, and…anyone might be in danger someday and stand in need of such laws” (Reeve 441). Thus, Pericles explains that when an individual human being recognizes his double self, when he understands that he is free because he is social and that neither the public nor the private self exists in isolation from the other, he is Athenian. “And his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual” (Thucydides IV). Athenians are incorruptible because they are Athenians and in actuality “could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them.” 11 But taken from them she was. When the conditions of life are “at ease” and wealth is evenly distributed, freedom is pleasant. When the conditions of life are rank with plague and poverty, freedom is bitter. Although Pericles’ Oration described the Athenian, he was not foolish enough to believe such a creature existed in realpolitik. Instead, according to Thucydides, his orations were all designed to call forth the Athenian from the individual muddled bodies who were perpetually in danger of the fatal power: “phthonos.” Thucydides explained that “Athens was in name a democracy, but in fact was a government by its first man…Pericles tried to appease the anger of the Athenians and to divert their attention from their present afflictions” (Thucydides II). Thus, his Funeral Oration articulated a truth about the nature of corruption, but it could not prevent it. When the ravages of war and plague attacked the city, public and private parted ways, and the structure that allowed passion to be disciplined and individual beings to be free, to be Athenians, crumbled. Athens did, indeed, open its gates and let in the foreigner, or rather the country folk, in order to protect them from invaders. They did, indeed, rely on their own “hearts and hands.” But the result was overpopulation and disease. An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water. The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of persons that had died there, just as they were; for as the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or profane. All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger's pyre and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another that was burning, and so went off (Thucydides II). This horrific situation would seem to belong on Corcyra, the corrupted island. Instead, it is in Pericles’ Athens, and the corpses are his Athenians. Here we have a fundamental question regarding Pericles’ definition of corruption. Shouldn’t corruption bring punishment and its opposite bring reward? Shouldn’t natural law be just? And shouldn’t justice reward the good and punish the bad? How could the hearts and hands of Athens be burning? Indeed, the primary lesson of natural law - “it is only because of these laws that anyone in trouble can hope to be saved, and…anyone might be in danger someday and stand in need of such laws” appears to be mocked as the Athenians struggled to manage a natural disaster: the plague. “There was the awful spectacle of men dying like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each other. This caused the greatest mortality” (Thucydides II). Could it be that Pericles’ philosophy is flawed and that his notion of Athenian greatness is mere ideology? Although Pericles himself perished in the plague, his impassioned response to these questions resonates. 12 I am of opinion that national greatness is more for the advantage of private citizens, than any individual well-being coupled with public humiliation. A man may be personally ever so well off, and yet if his country be ruined he must be ruined with it; whereas a flourishing commonwealth always affords chances of salvation to unfortunate individuals. Since then a state can support the misfortunes of private citizens, while they cannot support hers, it is surely the duty of every one to be forward in her defence… Born, however, as you are, citizens of a great state, and brought up, as you have been, with habits equal to your birth, you should be ready to face the greatest disasters and still to keep unimpaired the lustre of your name. For the judgment of mankind is as relentless to the weakness that falls short of a recognized renown, as it is jealous of the arrogance that aspires higher than its due. Cease then to grieve for your private afflictions, and address yourselves instead to the safety of the commonwealth…Again, your country has a right to your services in sustaining the glories of her position. These are a common source of pride to you all, and you cannot decline the burdens of empire and still expect to share its honours (Thucydides II ). Here, the leader articulates the dialectics of being Athenian in a very concrete and practical way. A great nation is more valuable than individual well-being; natural law dictates that the individual who is well off now will lose his fortune, in “the general law of decay.” Then, he will find himself in need of the support of the state. Thus, without the state, the individual will face ruin, eventually. Further, being born into a particular society, Athens, a “great state” and raised “with habits equal to your birth,” the fact of being the sum of interrelations, of being public/private, should be obvious. Pericles claims that there is no sense in lingering on a false split. Whatever the appearance or the current sentiment, there are no private selves pitted against public selves in Athens. There are only Athenians, and, as such, the individual bodies who make up the commonwealth, “cannot decline the burdens of empire and still expect to share its honours.” It seems clear that Pericles is speaking in such a way because the fatal power threatens. His people are angry; they “shrink before the exertions which war make necessary” and they fear an “unhappy result” (Thucydides II). They point their private fingers in the direction of their public aspect and complain. They blame Pericles for having counseled war, but not themselves for having voted for it. His people are not Athenian any more than the people of Corcyra were Corcyraean. At least, they are not acting the part. Rather, Pericles speaks to some part of people capable of hearing his words and recognizing the truth of his statements. Pericles reminds his audience that he is, indeed, “not only a patriot but an honest one.” He seems firm in his sense that the greatness of Athens brings forth Athenians, or at least individuals capable of comprehending the essential nature of striving to be Athenians: incorruptible, whole citizens. He offers himself as an example of an Athenian, and urges his audience to strive toward this model. But he is also aware that this striving is not a guarantee of continuous balance. In fact, it is recognition of imbalance, of desire, of uncontrolled passion. The presence of the greatness of Athens is shot through with the anxiety of its realpolitk: individual human beings, regardless of their place of birth, fall short, lose their “confidence of freedom and frank and fearless spirit” and become corrupted by the fatal power of envy, 13 when the burden of poverty is upon them. “For before what is sudden, unexpected, and least within calculation, the spirit quails” and envy arises. How could this have happened in a great democracy with unconstrained private business and with a spirit of reverence pervading public acts? How could this have happen when these people were “prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws, having a particular regard to those which are ordained for the protection of the injured as well as those unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the general sentiment,” as Pericles claimed? Recall that the Athenians are the very people who loomed large in the terrified minds of the Corcyraeans, those unfortunate, corrupted people who “exchanged their usual verbal evaluations of actions for new ones” so that irrational daring became courage and thoughtful appraisal of the future became cowardice. Such linguistic rent-seeking, such jangling, is the very manner of discord Pericles’ orations are designed to halt. But, just as the Corcyraeans split into the many and the few and turned against one another, so the Athenians faced collapse of their state. Why? What was the cause of such turmoil? According to Pericles, it was desire, expansion, growth of an empire, calculated interest, tyranny. You should remember also that what you are fighting against is not merely slavery as an exchange for independence, but also loss of empire and danger from the animosities incurred in its exercise. Besides, to recede is no longer possible, if indeed any of you in the alarm of the moment has become enamoured of the honesty of such an unambitious part. For what you hold is, to speak somewhat plainly, a tyranny; to take it perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe (Thucydides II). At least Pericles tells the truth. He speaks plainly, calling Athens a “tyranny.” But he consoles his crumbling state with images of the “greatness of dominion” and of an empire that extends across “land and sea.” He says Athenians “are completely supreme.” This rhetoric of dominion clashes with the language of balance, and it is here where we might rest. When Pericles promises “that liberty preserved by your efforts will easily recover for us what we have lost,” he exchanges his usual verbal evaluations of actions for new ones. Tyranny is exchanged for democracy, and corruption is signaled in language once more. What can we learn from a close reading of Thucydides’ document of the past? How can we recognize ourselves, reflected there? If, indeed, he offered “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it…a possession for all time,” what lessons might we in 2012 CE take from 427 BCE Greece? What part of democracy is left in tyranny and what part of tyranny in democracy? Since Thucydides called upon us to read his history carefully in order to see our corruption in the Corcyraean mirror, let us reflect on the uncanny resemblance. It is beyond the scope of this short paper to offer an account of the history of ideas which developed from the classical Athenian democracy. However, issues of the conflation of the public and private, the degree to which a republic relies upon a virtuous and self-sacrificing citizenry, and the problem of individual desire and 14 envy have been, and remain, central. Must individuals squelch their private desires in favor of public virtue? How can individual rights be protected from government intrusion? Conversely, how can governmental rights be protected from individual intrusion? How can free, independent humans govern themselves? Finally, how does the desire for expansion, growth and calculated interest herald the fatal power, envy? References Reeve, C.D. 1999. Thucydides on Human Nature. Political Theory. Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. New York. Philosophical Library. Thucydides, 1954. The Peloponnesian War. Harmondsworth: Penguin.