The History of the Peloponnesian War
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The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides
History
James Mustich
Aug 10, 2018
Born a generation after Herodotus, Thucydides chose a different tack in his approach to writing history. His account of the epic struggle between Athens and the Peloponnesians (Sparta and its allies), a conflict that lasted nearly three decades (431 to 404 BC), focuses on political and military issues to the exclusion of the wandering curiosity and ethnographic concerns that characterized the Histories of Herodotus. Thucydides begins his history of the war “at the moment it broke out,” and his readiness to collect and compare eyewitness accounts of the various campaigns combines with his direct, incisive style to make his book lively reading. To sample Thucydides at his best, go straight to his intricate account of the Athenians’ invasion of Sicily and their ultimate defeat by the Spartans at Syracuse (books 6 and 7): “This was the greatest Hellenic achievement of any in this war, or, in my opinion, in Hellenic history; at once most glorious to the victors, and most calamitous to the conquered.”
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Tom Horne
Dec 25, 2018
Unlike almost all history these people have minds and conversations just like us
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