Hermocrates in Thucydides' the Peloponnesian War: The Paragon of Leadership

In Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, many different aspects of the logic and manipulation of power are displayed. Through the depth and variety of content found in the history, the reader is shown with great detail how power operates. Thucydides exhibits, through his detailed accounts and reproductions of speeches, how rhetoric and sophistry are utilized as a means of gaining power over a population. He gives comprehensive accounts of monetary arguments to demonstrate the workings of financial power. Thucydides explains the effect human nature has on power, and vice versa. The actions of Alcibides show the reader that there is a difference between holding personal power independent of a city-state, and having power over a group of people, such as Brasidas. By virtue of its numerous and contrasting characters, The Peloponnesian War gives countless examples of the diverse types of power one can have and the varied methods by which one attains that power.

Several characters in the text exhibit a solid grasp of the concepts within the logic of command and influence. Pericles undoubtedly understands the effect that words have in improving one's own power over a polis, as evidenced in his patriotic funeral oration to the Athenians just before the first plague (2.35-2.46). Yet, despite this apparent feeling of nationalistic strength and supremacy, Pericles knew that it was best for Athenian power in the long run to be patient, defend Athens, take advantage of their navy, and not to be overambitious (2.65.7). The Melians, in their debates with the Athenians, also show a command of how to use rhetoric to gain power, using arguments of justice and Athenian self-interest (5.90, 5.98). They also demonstrate knowledge of how to hold power by pitting two larger powers against each other by stating that Sparta will aid them (5.112).

But perhaps the character in Thucydides' manuscript who shows the most varied knowledge of how authority works is Hermocrates, the statesman and military leader from Sicily. Although the history focuses more on the Athenian viewpoint of the many conflicts and campaigns, the Syracusan Hermocrates stands out by showing up at numerous points in the text and applying a different facet of the logic of power almost every single time. He speaks of, and uses, ulterior motives. He uses money as a form of influence in an argument with Tissaphernes. Hermocrates comprehends how authority can be used for personal gain, and how human nature can affect that. He, like Pericles, desires to use defense as a method to maintain power. Even though there is little in The Peloponnesian War about the civic workings of Syracuse compared to the elaborate detail given about Athens, Hermocrates stands as a paramount example of a leader who understands how power and influence operate.

One central idea in Thucydides' conception of power is that there is often times a difference between the actual reason behind an action or a result and the cause that is stated by a leader and accepted by an opponent or the populace or at large. On the grandest scale, Thucydides' speaks of the Peloponnesian War as a whole. He states: "The real cause, however, I consider to be the one which was formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable (1.23.6)." By saying this, he suggests that the cause was hidden by orators and statesmen, who chose events like those in Corcyra to be the cause accepted by the people.

In bringing this up, Thucydides warns the reader to be skeptical of hidden reasons for an action behind those given by a sophist or military leader. The speeches at Syracuse in Book 6 establish that in successive speeches. During Hermocrates' oration, he states that Athens has a reason other than the one they expressed in coming to their region.
"Much as you wonder at it, the Athenians nevertheless have set out against us with a large force, naval and military, professedly to help the Egestaeans and to restore Leontini, but really to conquer Sicily, and above all our city, which once gained, the rest, they think, will easily follow. (6.33.2)"

Likewise, the next spokesman, Athenagoras, accuses Hermocrates of scaring the people for his own political and private gain (6.36). Thus, in these back-to-back speeches, the reader is shown an example of a speaker using skepticism to improve his standing and power by questioning an enemy's hidden motives and an example of a speaker being skeptical of another's words because of a possible concealed intention.

This uncertainty of a speaker's true intentions is also a vital concept in the Thucydidian view of power. Cleon, for example, accuses the Athenians of giving in too easily to oration; "slaves to every new paradox," he calls them, warning that the words of sophists are not always in the best interests of the citizens (3.38). What is ironic is that Cleon himself was "by far the most powerful with The People," and since in ancient Athens one gained power and influence with The People through words, he himself was an orator, and thus one of the group which he told the Athenians to be weary of (3.36-3.38). Most likely, Cleon had an ulterior motive, wanting all other voices to be oppressed, if not by law, then by the polis in their own minds. That is, if The People are skeptical and not willing to believe other sophists, then Cleon, the most popular, only would gain power among the citizenry.

Similarly, in his speech to the assembly at Gela, Hermocrates could be seen as possibly having an unstated personal rationale behind his words. He states that "the incalculable element in the future exercises the widest influence, and is the most treacherous, and yet the most useful of all things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus makes us consider before attacking each other (4.62.4)." This is on the surface a military reference, but it is also likely to be an allusion to the plague of Athens, which took place six years earlier. Regardless, it is somewhat odd that Hermocrates places this line in between passages in a speech about how peace and unity will benefit all of Sicily. Perhaps he is frightened by the possibility of continual war and having Syracuse suffer a similar fate as Athens had earlier, with himself losing power the same way Pericles did. A strong Athenian presence on Sicily would mean that Hermocrates would no longer be "the most influential man among them (4.58)." Maybe it is inferring too much from the text, but it appears that peace among the Sicilians and a united defense and hatred of Athens is the option best for Hermocrates' personal interests.

The Syracusan leader acknowledges that there is something about human nature that drives men to seek rule over others (4.61.5). However, by telling his fellow assembly delegates to make peace with each other while they seek to gain power through fighting amongst themselves, he is asking them to reject a piece of human nature to protect themselves. He claims that peace is a goal worth achieving separate from any Athenian threat; that it "is the first of blessings (4.62.2)." In saying that "it is just as much in men's nature to rule those who submit to them, as it is to resist those who molest them," Hermocrates basically argues that war and strife are natural occurrences (4.61.5). It logically follows that peace and stability are unnatural concepts. In asking the city-states to make peace to drive Athens away, he is asking for relative cultural and political stability, though he finds it against human behavior. If strife comes and social norms and customs are altered, Hermocrates understands that his personal strength and influence will be gone. Therefore, under the surface of his words at Gela, Hermocrates shows an understanding of using rhetoric and one's already-established power to cause a result that is most beneficial to keeping or expanding power.

Admittedly, what Hermocrates literally says at that assembly is more important to a general understanding of Thucydidian ideas on the logic of power than his hidden personal agenda. Using unity through a common idea, enemy, or trait is a central idea in this text, as well as in world history. Hermocrates maintains that above all else, they are Sicilians, and that despite their differences and battles against each other, they should always unite against a non-Sicilian (4.64). In sacrificing a small bit of their own agendas and sovereignty, the Sicilian states remain free and preserve the power they already hold by recognizing a similarity amongst themselves and finding a common enemy. Alliance against a common threat was an integral part of the Peloponnesian War, but the Sicilian case is different because it did involve Athens, Sparta, or Persia, and the group had a collective name, thus having unity in more than just a military alliance. Perhaps that is one reason why the Sicilian alliance that makes peace to force the Athenian departure appears stronger than the other seemingly more tenuous alliances.

This concept that unity brings an increase in power among a group or people can be easily witnessed outside of Thucydides. Take the United States of America for example. At its founding, there was an assembly, more or less like the one at Gela, where they agreed that they had a common geographical area and a shared enemy, and thus sacrificed their individual independence to increase their power against the British. The colonies were not fighting against each other the same way the Sicilians were, but the point that through an alliance by a shared trait they enhanced their own power against a larger enemy holds true. American history gives us an example of an alliance formed between radically dissimilar nations solely to fight a common enemy. In World War II, Britain and the United States allied with the U.S.S.R. to fight Germany, yet almost immediately after the war ended, hostilities between the U.S. and the Soviets emerged. Consequently, the ideas of how alliances and unity affect and play a role in the logic of power that figure greatly in Thucydides' text and are shown through the actions of Hermocrates remain just as viable outside the context of the Peloponnesian War.

Another idea seen in the speech at Gela that Thucydides wants the reader to take away from his text is that often times peace and defense are the best ways stay free, maintain power, and achieve victory. He advises them to peace, and then says:

"In short, let us recognize that the adoption of my advice will leave us each citizens of a free state, and as such arbiters of our own destiny, able to return good or bad deeds with equal effect; while its rejection will make us dependent on others, and thus not only impotent to repel an insult, but on the most favorable supposition, friends to our direst enemies, and at feud with our natural friends (4.63.2)"

The Sicilians adopted his recommendations and cease fighting, the states in treaties with Athens told them of this peace, and accordingly, the Athenians left (4.65).

Although it is not an exact parallel, this situation could be compared to Athens' war strategy. Thucydides is critical of their plan after they reject Pericles' advice to stay within their walls and fight more of a defensive war, instead of being as aggressive as they were, saying that failure to adopt this policy is what cause the Athenians to lose the war (2.65). He constantly portrays the Athenians as aggressive, even once saying that they "kept grasping at more (4.41.4)." It can be inferred that part of the reason he chooses to portray Hermocrates' speech at Gela the way he does is possibly to show the Athenian posterity that sometimes to put one's city-state is the best position possible, it is necessary to make peace and to fight defensively, and that taking the aggressive angle the Athenians did on many occasions was not in their best interests.

Another facet of the Thucydidian understanding of power that Hermocrates exhibits is that there is a difference between power in the form of influence over a population and power in the form of personal knowledge or action for personal gain independent of the polis. In the history, this principle is best seen in Alcibides, who uses his information, wisdom, and personal vengeance to aid the Peloponnesians after he is expelled from Athens in order to boost his private power. Hermocrates does a similar action when he sails to Sparta to charge Tissaphernes of conspiring with Alcibides to hurt the Peloponnesians. He had a monetary dispute with Tissaphernes at the time, and was also exiled from his homeland of Syracuse (8.85).

Thucydides gives no account of how Hermocrates came to be exiled, nor does he ever give much detail about the inner workings of Syracuse, naturally when compared to Athens or Sparta. Hermocrates is thus a more intriguing character. He is active during a good 13-14 years of the war, and even though he is neither a Peloponnesian nor an Athenian, he still manages to act and speak in such a way that allows the reader to see a rich and varied understanding of the different sides, causes and views, of power.

When the many different factors of what causes power are considered, it can be concluded that authority and influence are very complex ideas that take shape in many different forms. In the end, many different assessments of how power comes about and changes can be made. Cleon, for example, takes a view of justice and action, and feels that The People should dismiss excessive debate in order to increase their power (3.37-3.40). He was considered "the most violent man at Athens (3.36)." Therefore, his understanding of power could be summed up as strength, a muscular view of power compared to the self-interest view of power held by Diodotus when they each spoke on the Mytilenian Affair.

A review of Hermocrates' actions as discussed in this paper would show him to hold more of a Diodotus-like view of power. Over and over again, he evaluates what is in his and his land's best interests, despite what justice would require. This brought him to the conclusion that the Sicilians must ally against a foreign threat, a view which he stuck by until the Athenian campaign in Sicily, where he addressed the Camarinaean assembly, blaming certain Sicilian states for not unifying (6.77). On the same level, he might have been upset because he knew his personal power that he held over the people was now at risk with the arrival of the Athenian forces. Therefore, Hermocrates' understanding of power stems from awareness and balance between private and public goals.

Possibly no other character in Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War is involved in such a varied number of situations that show an alternate part of how power can be viewed and understood than Hermocrates. Through being an influential leader of his people giving speeches to being a man in exile the reader can see how his view of power shifts from a public-oriented view to a more personally-oriented view. By his finding an unspoken motive in the Athenian voyage to Sicily and being accused of speaking solely for personal gain, his actions show the roles that questioning and having skepticism play in both keeping and using power and checking those in power. In his portrayal of Hermocrates, Thucydides shows an individual who, by his words and actions, shows a comprehensive and varied knowledge of how power can be obtained, used, manipulated, and maintained.