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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
This statement, in Nicias' letter from Sicily, has puzzled readers and editors, and it has baffled translators, who expect phrases with ⋯π⋯ προɸάσει to indicate a pretext or ostensible reason for an action. In my first discussion of prophasis I suggested that ‘what Nicias means is that they are leaving without offering any other reason or pretext’ (except αὐτομολία), and Dover, in the Historical Commentary, goes halfway towards accepting this interpretation (‘though it is obscure, I do not think it is impossible’); but it does not satisfy me now, and it is firmly rejected by Hunter Rawlings. A different approach to the question is needed.
Nicias is not concerned with any excuses or pretexts that these deserters are offering. He is explaining the ‘true prophasis’ of this epidemic of desertion, and does so in terms of opportunity — they can find employment in the enemy's forces and there are numerous opportunities elsewhere (Sicily is a large island). Translators may not want to render ⋯π' αὐτομολίας προɸάσει as ‘taking the opportunity to desert to the enemy’, arguing that ‘prophasis cannot mean opportunity’. But a prophasis is an explanation, true or false, that can be given for an action, and the best explanation (or excuse) can often be found in the circumstances — the opportunity that tempts or encourages. These deserters have a prophasis.
This is not the only passage in Thucydides where ‘opportunity’ seems to be the word that translators need. A good example is in 4.126.5, where Brasidas is explaining how barbarian armies fight: αὐτοκράτωρ δ⋯ μάχη μάλιστ' ἃν κα⋯ πρόɸασιν το⋯ σᾡζεσθαί τινι πρεπόντως πορίσειε.
1 Cf. Dover's note in the Historical Commentary on Thucydides (with references to earlier literature) and Bodin–de Romilly (Budé ed.), Thucydide, Livres VIet VII, Notes complémentaires, 167.
2 TAPA 83 (1952), 215Google Scholar. For the later discussion see TAPA 103 (1972), 381–94Google Scholar. Both articles are reprinted in my Selected Papers, edd. Lateiner-Stephens, (Chico, California, 1983)Google Scholar. Cf. also Chr. Schäublin, , MH 28 (1971), 133–44Google Scholar.
3 ‘Giving desertion as a pretext: Thuc. 7.13.2’, CPh 73 (1978), 134–6Google Scholar. Rawlings follows Grote in believing that Nicias is thinking of the ‘explanation’ that men might have to give when they reached a city in Sicily. He does not explain how readers of the letter could arrive at this interpretation of Nicias' words.
4 I maintained in TAPA 103 (1972), 382–3Google Scholar that πρόɸασις regularly means ⋯ τι ἄν τις προɸαίνῃ (or προɸαίνοι), ‘what one says (or might say) in explanation of one's actions’.
5 Crawley, followed by Rex Warner, solves the difficulty by omitting πρεπόστως: ‘Their independent mode of fighting never leaves anyone who wants to run away without a fair excuse for so doing’. This is not exactly what Brasidas means.