Reading the Paradox in Thucydides 2.45.2

This translation is adapted from Rusten 1989, 175. All other translations are my own. I use the OCT editions of the relevant texts throughout. For a survey of Thucydides' general presentation of women, see Harvey 1985, and more recently Shannon-Henderson 2018. 2 Some admission of the inadequacy of words to do justice to deeds seems to have been customary in funeral orations: see, for instance, Ziolkowski 1981, 72, 131-132. 3 Winton 2010 offers a detailed comparison of this passage with 2.45.2, which also looks at how both passages address the topic of and the dangers of speaking about it, but his reading of 2.45.2 differs substantially from mine. 4 Hardwick 1993 and Tyrell and Bennett 1999 are two recent examples of detailed analyses based on rooting Pericles' words in their precise historical context.