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Corcyra: Dissolution of Values
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Authored by Frank Redmond, 2006
The Civil War in Corcyra, like the Plague and Mytilenian Debate before it, is a place where Thucydides can highlight the nature of man. What Thucydides wants to show is that under pressure man is capable of doing heinous things. It is human nature for men to dissolve into chaos if too much pressure is applied. This pressure is caused by excessive amounts of kinesis and tolme.
The first thing Thucydides speaks of is confusion. He says that the Corcyraeans were in a state of utmost confusion because of what was happening to their city and their fleet (3.77). It is this confusion which breeds the heinous acts which are to come. Terror also plays a part in the developing chaos occurring in Corcyra. We are told that “the democratic party in Corcyra were still terrified at the prospect of an attack by the enemy fleet” (3.80). These two things, confusion and terror, are great sources of kinesis. They caused the men to set things in motion and, like a horde of rats pinned in a corner, they all tried to topple one another in order to escape. This is where tolme takes place. Each man tries to outdo his fellow trying to escape out of the corner. And as a result, great horrors occur. Also, in this process, values get revaluated. What was once acceptable is no longer acceptable; what was good quality is now a bad quality. For, Thucydides says, “words, too, had to change their usual meanings” (3.82). So, in all, confusion and terror cause kinesis and tolme to occur. All this kinesis and tolme cause things to get revaluated and men act differently when they are faced with these new circumstances; in a word, men become savages.
Throughout this section of the text, Thucydides presents a topsy-turvy world where values and normalities, where good and bad, are no longer stable. Instead they are in movement. We are told that aggression is now seen as courage, that moderation is an unmanly characteristic, that the ability to listen to all sides means that you are unfit for action, that real men are fanatical, and so on. What we see here is precisely values in movement. Once stable ideas are, because of strenuous circumstances, are given new values and are determined to be good or bad by new criteria. What has occurred is that perverted values, perverted ideas of good and bad, have taken over Corcyra because of men's tolme. They have dared to challenge the norm and as a result new valuations are created.
Thucydides has a generally incorrigible view of human nature. He sees men as fickle, prone to the “ungovernable passions” (3.84), and willing to do anything to get ahead. He insinuates that once man gets thrown into a state of movement and is enraptured by daring, it is inevitable that he will begin to pervert values like justice and honor, and will begin to uphold envy, revenge, vengeance, etc. as the values that are good. So, for Thucydides, human nature has a particular pattern to it. Man is predictable as to what he will do under certain circumstances. This is seen by comparing the Plague with the Civil War. In the Plague, men would do things to try to get ahead of their neighbors. There was also a certain pattern to how men would handle the illness if they were struck. They would despair and believe that this was the end. The Plague also made people generally indifferent to religion or law. The same thing occurred in Corcyra. Cleon also exemplifies a facet of human nature. His attitude of bloodlust and daring would have worked well in the Civil War. Cleon shows that even in the presence of a relatively calm atmosphere, men will still dare to revaluate morals. Certain men are just born with a volatile disposition, but all men, according to Thucydides, are capable of being volatile if kinesis and tolme possess them. It is a pattern of human nature.