Shifting and Permanent Philia in Thucydides

As an ethical principle, philia represents a continuum of attachment that extends in a stable system of relationships from the self to one's immediate family and friends and then outwards to one's polis and one's race. Furthermore, shared attachment or philia also involves shared hostility or echthra, which can be as permanent as philia. But already in Sophocles' Ajax the idea of such fixed relationships is seen as old-fashioned and incompatible with practical life. In his pretended transformation from a rigid adherence to the principles of permanent philia and permanent echthra (particularly the latter) to the flexible morality of an ‘organization man’, the hero realizes that ‘we must hate our echthros only so far, since he may become our philos again later, and I am only ready to do so much to aid and assist aphilos, since he may not remain a philos forever…’ (672–81).