Thucydides

Thucydides wrote the story of the first democracy in history, and of the fortunes and fall of its empire, but his pages contain the modern world-scene in miniature. The tale is told by a great political thinker, whose penetrating insight and dramatic power caused Macaulay to call him the 'greatest historian that ever lived.' His work, slightly abridged, is here presented in translation with an introduction and notes.

Book VI of Thucydides deals, through its speeches in particular, with Athenian motivation towards sending the great expedition to Sicily, with the attitudes of various factions involved, and with the seeds of the expedition's ultimate disastrous conclusion. It contains memorable sections on Alcibiades, on the Athenians' excitement at the sailing, on the mutilation of the Herms and a digression on the fall of Athenian tyranny a century earlier. This edition, with introduction and notes, is designed to help senior school and university students read, understand and enjoy Thycydides. Its notes aim to assist translation, draw attention to features of language and style characteristic of the author, make explicit what the author took for granted in his original Greek audience, comment on the historical background, and offer grounds on which to reach decisions as to whether the author's historical statements are true or false.

Thucydides' military and diplomatic acumen, his understanding of human psychology, and his narrative skill have shaped the writing of history for over two thousand years. "Backgrounds and Contexts" provides supplementary selections from Xenophon, Herodotus, Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and twentieth-century journalist, Walter Karp. "Interpretations" includes richly varied assessments of Thucydides by Theodor Gomperz, Francis M. Cornford, Charles N. Chochrane, R. G. Collingwood, Albert Cook, Cynthia Farrar, Adam Parry, Glen Bowersock, Robert Gilpin, Michael Doyle, and Gregory Crane. The edition also includes fourteen maps, a chronology, a glossary, a selected bibliography, and an index.

The first unabridged translation into American English, and the first to take into account the wealth of Thucydidean scholarship of the last half of the twentieth century, Steven Lattimores translation sets a new standard for accuracy and reliability. Notes provide information necessary for a fuller understanding of problematic passages, explore their implications as well as the problems they may pose, and shed light on Thucydides as a distinctive literary artist as well as a source for historians and political theorists.

This useful companion, keyed by bold lemmata to the Penguin translation, identifies the basic issues and raises key questions. The reader is aided by frequent cross-references and succinct comments on Thucydides' choices regarding selection and placement of material. The book is especially useful for Greekless readers of ancient history, political science or international relations coming to the work of Thucydides for the first time.

This is part four of a four-unit prose reading course designed for beginners in Greek and other learners wishing to consolidate their reading skills. Particular attention is paid to idiomatic usage (both in Greek and English), word order and the use of particles and particle-combinations, while practical guidance is given on mastering the verbal systems and other features of the language which beginners generally find problematic. The four units may be studied in succession as part of a progressive course, but each unit is sufficiently self-contained to permit the persuit of particular interests.

Designed for students with little or no background in ancient Greek language and culture, this collection of extracts from The History of the Peloponnesian War includes those passages that shed most light on Thucydides' political theory--famous as well as important but lesser-known pieces frequently overlooked by nonspecialists. Newly translated into spare, vigorous English, and situated within a connective narrative framework, Woodruff's selections will be of special interest to instructors in political theory and Greek civilization. Includes maps, notes, glossary.

This book, like its companions on Thucydides books I and IV, is published primarily for students approaching a book of Thucydides for the first time or studying the Peloponnesian War in a more general way. The Greek text and notes are those of E.C. Marchant, originally published in 1891, and the introduction is by Thomas Wiedemann, who takes into account the needs of the modern student and up-to-date research on Thucydides.

This school/university student edition of "Thucydides: Book I" by E.C. Marchant, consisting of Greek text, extensive philological notes and indexes, is supplemented by a useful later introduction and bibliography by Thomas Weidemann, covering the context and aims of the work and giving essential background to the events described.

The second book of Thucydides’ history is of particular literary interest, containing as it does such important sections as the funeral oration, the account of the plague at Athens and the obituary of Pericles. Professor Rusten’s commentary aims to assist the students to learn to read Thucydides. It scrutinises not only the standard historical context but also the literary and philosophical one, and devotes special attention to the exceptionally complex structures and techniques of language which make Thucydides the most difficult as well as most profound of ancient historians. The introduction surveys biographical interpretations of the text, suggests a new approach to fictive elements in the speeches, and sketches the chief features of Thucydidean style. This edition is intended primarily as a textbook for undergraduates and students in the upper forms of schools (both introduction and commentary are meant to be accessible even to less advanced students of Greek), but any Greek scholar will find it rewarding.

Supplement to Dover.Bryn Mawr Commentaries provide clear, concise, accurate, and consistent support for students making the transition from introductory and intermediate texts to the direct experience of ancient Greek and Latin literature. They assume that the student will know the basics of grammar and vocabulary and then provide the specific grammatical and lexical notes that a student requires to begin the task of interpretation.Hackett Publishing Company is the exclusive distributor of the Bryn Mawr Commentaries in North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

Greek text with introduction and commentary

Ecrire un tresor pour l'eternite telle etait l'ambition de Thucydide. Elle fut amplement satisfaite: La Guerre du Peloponnese n'a jamais cesse d'etre lue et reste de nos jours un des chefs-d'oeuvre de la litterature antique. Sur son auteur cependant, nous n'avons que peu de renseignements. Thucydide est ne entre 460 et 455 dans une famille aisee du deme d'Halimonte. Grand admirateur de Pericles, il participe a la vie politique d'Athenes et fut stratege. Cette charge ne lui attire guere d'honneur car il fut contraint de quitter Athenes pendant 20 ans. C'est pendant l'exil qu'il redige La Guerre du Peloponnese, dont seuls 8 livres nous sont parvenus. L'edition de Jacqueline de Romilly est, quant a elle, un tresor pour helleniste. L'introduction du tome I presente l'essentiel de la biographie de Thucydide et fournit une histoire detaillee de la tradition manuscrite, riche et complexe. Les VIII livres de La Guerre du Peloponnese sont regroupes en quatre tomes et chaque livre est precede d'une notice donnant tous les renseignements, tant historiques que litteraires, necessaires a une bonne comprehension du texte. Des notes accompagnent la lecture et sont encore approfondies par des notes complementaires de chaque volume. Les cartes des tomes II, III et IV permettent en outre de situer precisement l'action. Le dernier volume est encore enrichi d'un precieux appendice topographique. Tome I (livre 1): texte etabli et traduit par Jacqueline de Romilly. Tome II(livre 2): Texte etabli et traduit par Jacqueline de Romilly. Tome III (livres 3 et 4): Texte etabli et traduit par Jacqueline de Romilly. Tome IV ( livres 6 et 7): Texte etabli et traduit par Jacqueline de Romilly et Louis Bodin. Tome V ( livre 8): Texte etabli et traduit par R. Weil avec la collaboration de Jacqueline de Romilly.

Ecrire un tresor pour l'eternite telle etait l'ambition de Thucydide. Elle fut amplement satisfaite: La Guerre du Peloponnese n'a jamais cesse d'etre lue et reste de nos jours un des chefs-d'oeuvre de la litterature antique. Sur son auteur cependant, nous n'avons que peu de renseignements. Thucydide est ne entre 460 et 455 dans une famille aisee du deme d'Halimonte. Grand admirateur de Pericles, il participe a la vie politique d'Athenes et fut stratege. Cette charge ne lui attire guere d'honneur car il fut contraint de quitter Athenes pendant 20 ans. C'est pendant l'exil qu'il redige La Guerre du Peloponnese, dont seuls 8 livres nous sont parvenus. L'edition de Jacqueline de Romilly est, quant a elle, un tresor pour helleniste. L'introduction du tome I presente l'essentiel de la biographie de Thucydide et fournit une histoire detaillee de la tradition manuscrite, riche et complexe. Les VIII livres de La Guerre du Peloponnese sont regroupes en quatre tomes et chaque livre est precede d'une notice donnant tous les renseignements, tant historiques que litteraires, necessaires a une bonne comprehension du texte. Des notes accompagnent la lecture et sont encore approfondies par des notes complementaires de chaque volume. Les cartes des tomes II, III et IV permettent en outre de situer precisement l'action. Le dernier volume est encore enrichi d'un precieux appendice topographique. Tome I (livre 1): texte etabli et traduit par Jacqueline de Romilly. Tome II (livre 2): Texte etabli et traduit par Jacqueline de Romilly. Tome III (livres 3 et 4): Texte etabli et traduit par Jacqueline de Romilly. Tome IV ( livres 6 et 7): Texte etabli et traduit par Jacqueline de Romilly et Louis Bodin. Tome V ( livre 8): Texte etabli et traduit par R. Weil avec la collaboration de Jacqueline de Romilly.

Classic political realism.Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells us about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. He then lived probably on his property in Thrace, but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, and returned to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge, along with the accounts of others. The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete; Thucydides was still at work on this when the war spread to Sicily and into a conflict (415–413) likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not fitted into the whole. His story of the final conflict of 413–404 breaks off (in the middle of a sentence) when dealing with the year 411. So his work was left unfinished and as a whole unrevised. Yet in brilliance of description and depth of insight this history has no superior. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Thucydides is in four volumes.

Classic political realism.Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells us about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. He then lived probably on his property in Thrace, but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, and returned to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge, along with the accounts of others. The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete; Thucydides was still at work on this when the war spread to Sicily and into a conflict (415–413) likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not fitted into the whole. His story of the final conflict of 413–404 breaks off (in the middle of a sentence) when dealing with the year 411. So his work was left unfinished and as a whole unrevised. Yet in brilliance of description and depth of insight this history has no superior. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Thucydides is in four volumes.

Classic political realism.Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells us about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. He then lived probably on his property in Thrace, but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, and returned to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge, along with the accounts of others. The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete; Thucydides was still at work on this when the war spread to Sicily and into a conflict (415–413) likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not fitted into the whole. His story of the final conflict of 413–404 breaks off (in the middle of a sentence) when dealing with the year 411. So his work was left unfinished and as a whole unrevised. Yet in brilliance of description and depth of insight this history has no superior. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Thucydides is in four volumes.

Classic political realism.Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells us about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. He then lived probably on his property in Thrace, but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, and returned to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge, along with the accounts of others. The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete; Thucydides was still at work on this when the war spread to Sicily and into a conflict (415–413) likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not fitted into the whole. His story of the final conflict of 413–404 breaks off (in the middle of a sentence) when dealing with the year 411. So his work was left unfinished and as a whole unrevised. Yet in brilliance of description and depth of insight this history has no superior. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Thucydides is in four volumes.