Thucydides and Oracles

Abstract

‘Thucydides does not himself speak the language of religion.’ Thus K. J. Dover summarizes thecommunisopinioabout Thucydides' attitude towards religion. He is supposed to have been sceptical of oracles and to have rejected them as a form of superstition. This view is not, in my opinion, warranted by the evidence. The object of this paper will be to show that Thucydides accepted oracles, like his pious contemporaries Herodotus and Sophocles, and indeed that he exhibited a consistent interest in oracular puzzles and their correct interpretation. Of the references to oracles in theHistorysome do not merit extensive discussion since they are neutral in tone, and it is evident that Thucydides reports these oracles without any intention of making a special point: no criticism is involved in any of these omitted passages. The oracles on which I will base my argument are united by having ambiguity as a common characteristic. Oracular ambiguity was ‘an article of Delphic belief’, and was accepted as a fact by the ancients.

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