Ch. 4. The Death of Nicias: No Laughing Matter

Abstract

Thucydides’ brief obituary for Nicias (7.86.2) is instructively challenging. Scholars largely agree that the historian ‘respects’, ‘praises’, ‘endorses’, or ‘pities’ Nicias, without ‘scorn or irony’: but their agreement is nervous, since its authors have also keenly noted Nicias’ political, strategic and tactical mistakes. Thucydides’ text is ‘nervous’, too. Surprises, double meanings, and incongruities permeate both the obituary and the broader arc of the Nicias narrative, creating a discursive zone or borderland that has structural similarities to comedy. The text is grim, not ‘funny’, but viewing it through a comic prism reveals new and important levels of meaning. Published in Emily Baragwanath and Edith Foster, ed., Clio and Thalia. Attic Comedy and Historiography (HISTOS Supplement 6), p. 99-128.