Thucydides Essay

Action from necessity is a constantly recurring theme in Thucydides’ The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. A sentiment used to explain the growth of the Athenian Empire which some Athenians espoused to an assembly at Sparta best quantifies necessity, “. . . we were necessarily compelled at first to advance the hegemony to where it is—especially by fear, and then by honor, and later by benefit.” (Selected Passages 1.75.3). This claim, referred to as the Athenian

attempting to diagnose ancient diseases, based on ancient texts and descriptions alone. Thucydides describes in great detail, the plague that killed nearly one third of the Athenian population in 430 B.C. . While he describes the symptoms of infected individuals, we must take into account, the terminology, medical knowledge and

Thucydides was strict and only wrote about occurrences he found evidence for when examining other records found during his time. From this, we can draw the conclusion that Thucydides wanted to remain withdrew and detached from the history he was sharing, in order to be more chronological in events. From the beginning cover of Thucydides’ work, we can see that he labeled his chapters with a short sentence on the sections content. Herodotus’s chronology jumped around from place to place, making it

certain schools of history adhere to the belief that history is an unending and unchanging cycle, sometimes at the gods’ hands. This concept of providence, or lack of free will, is the most significant parallel between the works of Herodotus and Thucydides. For Herodotus, history was made, or rather given, in the traditional definition of providence: divine guidance of events. Over the course of his works there are numerous examples

The Peloponnesian War was an exceptionally predominant war that had consequential outcomes for both Athens and the opposing side of the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. The Peloponnesian War was an ancient Greek war that began in 431 to 404 BC. Thucydides was an Athenian historian who wrote the account of “History of the Peloponnesian War”, which became the most immeasurably valuable primary source. The events of the Peloponnesian War, the outcomes, the consequences of the Spartan victory and of

Paper about Thucydides versus Plato on the nature of the Good Life 1: Thucydides versus Plato on the nature of the Good Life. Some have claimed that Thucydides is making empirical claims, whereas Plato is making normative claims. Is that true? Support your answer in your paper. Plato and Thucydides together had strikingly dissimilar views on their tactic on the good life. Many have demanded that Plato is making normative rights, whereas Thucydides has made empirical claims. Let's first take

Thesis: Thucydides, who defined virtue by dedication to a cause, and Seneca, who defined virtue by a person’s boldness, both had concepts of virtue that differed due to differences in their civilizations’ worldviews. Virtue can be described as purity, strength, honesty, knowledge, or even courage. However, civilizations in the past didn’t necessarily think that virtue included all of those attributes or agreed on the defining concept. A good example of this would be the difference in the definitions

IX. I). Herodotus contrast with Thucydides in the fact that Herodotus resigns from characterizing people as barbaric but instead calls them poor and cannot live on their own or claims they are a danger to themselves. While in Thucydides they call Ionians barbaric and Greeks used this as reasoning to enslave them. The people who own slaves try to cover their wrongness with right by

losing strength in their empire, violence was necessary. “…decisions about justice are made in human discussions only when both sides are under equal compulsion, but when one side is stronger, it gets as much as it can, and the weak must accept that (Thucydides 103).” Although Athens resorted to force, they truly believed they were both saving Melos from evil Spartan rule while maintaining what was best for their empire. The use of violence in place of sympathy is justified to maintain peace for an unstable

Thucydides’ Archidamus, the intellectual predeccesor to Plato and Aristotle “As for being slow and cautious- which is the usual criticism made against us- there is nothing to be ashamed of in that. If you take something on before you are ready for it, hurry at the beginning will mean delay at the end. Besides, the city in which we live has always been free and always famous. “Slow” and “cautious” can equally well be “wise” and “sensible”. Certainly it is because we possess these qualities that