The Landmark Thucydides Summary

Thucydides also used other’s speeches as resources to show insight into the events occurring. He used the Melian dialogue to show the wit of the Athenians and illustrate their impulsive desire to conquer independent cities (Thucydides p. 102-108). This passage illustrates the beginning of the end for the Athenians. The Melians were a colony of the Lacedaemonians and did not take a side in the ongoing war, but Athens eventually probed them to war (Thucydides 102). This foreshadows the battle at Syracuse in which Athens went blindly into out of desire to simply slight the Spartans. Thucydides uses speeches to show insight to the people’s thoughts and to add foreshadowing to future events.

Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian war served as a window into Athenian societal culture. Carrying the reader from Pericles' moving speech to the assembly, through Cleon and Diodotus' oratory battle over the fate of Mytilene, and finally to the Athenian proposal to the Melians, Thucydides detailed the transformation of Athens from a state based on justice and freedom to a empire with a corrupted soul. This corruption did not occur over night, but was the result of increasing tyrannical behavior by the part of Athens in its interactions with other Greek city states. The stages of this development can be analyzed into three parts: Pericles' war speech, the dialogue on Mytilene, and the Melian debate.

History tends to repeat itself throughout the years, and Looking back on at past events can help us understand why some things occur and how we can resolve certain issues. The Peloponnesian War was a significant event that occurred in history, and a lot of the events that occurred throughout the war have helped us to understand politics better. Thucydides’ documentation and interpretation of some of the events of the war have helped us to understand why states make the decisions they do, and some of the implications of those decisions. It is useful to know why states make the decisions that they do because their decisions can impact the actions of other

The perspective that Thucydides took to write History of the Peloponnesian War gave his work, on a first read, the impression that his opinion was removed to provide an objective analysis of the destruction of the greatness of Athens over the period of the war. He began with a “medical history” of how humanity structured the first societies based on the interplay between fear, interest, and honor. Then, progressed to how war devolved the great Athenian society. Which took Thucydides from revisiting eloquent speeches over strategy to simpler retellings of brash disputes. Thoughtful placement displayed Thucydides’ opinion of Athens’ actions, how he viewed the other city-states’ positions on various issues in the book, and emphasized

Some features of the institution of law which we take for granted today, which were absent in ancient Athens, include traits of peace and equality. It is worth noting that Athenians based their daily lives and societal structure off of their values of honour and victory. The desire to achieve these brought out a more aggressive nature in Athenians, as the only way to achieve honour was to achieve victory, which consequently meant a constant inner turmoil for Athens, as David Cohen specifically states in regard to the nature of Athenian men in terms of their desire for victory, “the vice of these men is that their desire for victory or honour is excessive and leads them to commit injustice in pursuit of them.” This is proven to be true through

Surprisingly, Thucydides maintained an objective perspective through much of his history. One assumes that as an Athenian, he would take a pro-Athens approach. However, two reasons provide balance and significance to his work. First, following the loss

It is in this context that the four grievances of Thucydides arise. In great detail, Thucydides describes the conflict between Corcyra and Corinth over the control of their mutual colony Epidamnus, in which Corcyra sought aid from the naval power of Athens. He states “this was the first cause of the war that Corinth had against the Athenians, viz. that they had fought against them with the Corcyraeans in time of treaty.” (1.55) In a speech, the Corcyraeans employ Athens that helping them will put them on the right side of history and would also be in their own self interests. In a speech, they claim “there are but three considerable naval powers in Hellas, Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth, and that if you allow two of these three to become one, and Corinth to secure us for herself, you will have to hold the sea against the united fleets of Corcyra and Peloponnese.” (1.36) Thucydides suggests that with this consideration, Athens went forward with assisting Corcyra.

However, as this paper first asserted: the Athenian Empire is a “tyranny” and to “recede is no longer possible.” Accordingly, and upon greater reflection, if the Athenian Empire’s true nature is to exist in either an expansionist or retentionist state, then Athens will default to its to expansionist state and take advantage of its current position vis-à-vis Sparta. Until forced to return to a state of retention, defined as a defensive reflex that last only as long as necessary. Athens experiences at Pylos transform her into a predator. Sparta is forced to evolve or die.

However, there needs to be a consideration when evaluating this source that Thucydides was a native and patriotic Athenian. This should be examined as a possible bias in the how the Delian and Peloponnesian leagues are portrayed in both the long term reason and short term grievances. It could be argued that because of this bias, Athens was therefore presented in a more favourable light in being targets of Spartan scheming, forcing their hand in their actions of the four grievances, and therefore the ‘real’ reason could in fact be the short term causes presented. However I do not think that this negates the truth of Thucydides real long term reason of Spartan fear. Spartan had long held the authority of being the major Greek military power

Thucydides believes that the Athenian Empire was just and showed no prejudice towards either side. The Athenians make a good point in 76, when talking to Sparta, that they have done nothing wrong but in fact have done what everyone would have done according to the basic principles of human nature. These elements would include prestige, fear, and self-interest. Thucydides does make Athens seem as though what they have done is beyond any horrible act but in fact agreeing with the statement above that no one should be blamed for looking out for themselves or their citizens when stakes are high and action must be taken (1, 76). As soon as “The Thirty Year Treaty” was broken by the acts at Plataea both Athens and Sparta had begun making plans for

Dating back to 449 B.C., Sparta and Athens always had an alliance, but as time grew that balance slowly began to fall as one felt threatened by another. Before any sight of unsteadiness the Spartans and Athenians had a bound partnership. Beginning after their domination of the Persian war, the two states slowly became aware of one another’s growing power. More time went by, and the Spartans began to grow conscious of the other states, feeling wary and paranoid around them (Fox, 170). No state was particularly to blame for the strain on their peace treaty, nor for the war, it came as the two states developed. Eventually the two states had clashed enough and declared war. Although the Spartans gave the Athenians a chance to back down and

The book written by Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, contains two controversial debates between distinguished speakers of Athens. The two corresponding sides produce convincing arguments which can be taken as if produced as an honest opinion or out of self-interest. The two debates must be analyzed separately in order to conclude which one and which side was speaking out of honest opinion or self-interest, as well as which speakers are similar to each other in their approach to the situation.

Thucydides conveniently opens up his book by explaining his methodology. The Athenian tells the readers that his motivation for writing the book was ignited by a sense that the war fought between Athens and Sparta would be important (Thuc. 1.1). The reader should be aware of the biases that Thucydides includes in his writing, due to the fact that he is an Athenian writing about an Athenian war. Thucydides portrays Greece as the most important

The Melian Dialogue is a debate between Melian and Athenian representatives concerning the sovereignty of Melos. The debate did not really occur-the arguments given by each side were of Thucydides own creation. Thus it is reasonable to assume that we can tease out Thucydides' own beliefs. In this paper, I will first extract Thucydides views from the Melian Dialogue and then analyze whether or not these views are well founded.

“But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians” (Thucydides 270). The Melians should have acted sensibly instead of being naïve and submit to the imperial power seeing that the odds were against them. The Athenians give them a choice, but they decided to act irrational and respond emotively. “They underestimated Athens’ military power, judging the issue by the clouded eye of volition rather than calculations based on security and followed the human tendency to back their desires with uncritical hope and use of sovereign reason only to reject what they find unpalatable” (Bosworth 36).