Justice, Interest, and Political Deliberation in Thucydides
Justice, Interest, and Political Deliberation in Thucydides

Summary/Abstract: The opposition of appeals to justice with appeals to interest is, of course, a dominant theme in the much discussed Melian Dialogue in Book V of Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War. Rather than add yet another commentary to the already overabundant literature on that difficult and problematic passage, I would like instead to analyze the role that the antinomy of justice vs. interest plays in the rest of Thucydides, and particularly in Book III. I shall argue that the motif of justice vs. interest, in combination with two other related rhetorical antinomies, forms the basis for two models of political deliberation which Thucydides intends to contrast, and also provides a means of assessing Thucydides’ commentary on the events which he describes.

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