Style and Necessity in Thucydides

Tobias Joho, Department of Classics, University of Bern

Tobias Joho is a lecturer at the Department of Classics of the University of Bern in Switzerland. His research interests include ancient Greek historiography and the modern fascination with ancient Greece. He has published journal articles on various aspects of Thucydides and contributed an essay entitled "Thucydides, Epic, and Tragedy" to the Oxford Handbook of Thucydides. He has also written scholarly articles on Jacob Burckhardt's reflections on the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, on both Burckhardt's and Nietzsche's engagement with the "agonal spirit" of the Greeks, and on the distinctive style of Goethe's novel Elective Affinities.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Thucydides' Abstract Nominal Style: The Main Features and Differences from the Plain Style
2. The Implications of Thucydides' Abstract Style: The Pathology
3. The Passivity of the Powerful
4. A World Governed by Neuters: "The Human" as a Substitute for “the Divine”
5. Decision-Making Overshadowed by Necessity
6. Dual Motivation: The Interaction of Necessity and Individual Choice
7. Necessity and Leeway for Choice: Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides
8. Pericles' Containment of Necessity and the Possibility of Freedom
Conclusion
Bibliography