Thucydides sounds surprisingly modern for a writer who lived 2,400 years ago. He provides a record of over 21 years in strict chronological order and describes the interests of the two sides with more objective fairness than can be expected today from modern journalists (especially the TV kind). He mentions in the middle of the book that he spent 20 years away from Athens in exile, so that may explain why he can describe the non-Athenian view with such poignancy.

"I lived through the whole of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and giving my attention to them in order to know the exact truth about them. It was also my fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis, and being present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs more closely."

This book deserves honor and respect due to its antiquity, and the fact it has survived all those years. It was written about 400 BCE and the oldest surviving manuscript dates from 900 CE. That is 1300 years over which the equivalent of a 700 paged book needed to be hand copied at approximately 100 year intervals in order for it to still be available today.

In addition to his strict adherence to chronology, Thucydides also includes dozens of speeches assigned to the principal figures engaged in the war. These include addresses given to troops by their generals before battles and numerous political speeches, both by Athenian and Spartan leaders, as well as debates between various parties. Of the speeches, the most famous is the funeral oration of Pericles. Thucydides undoubtedly heard some of these speeches himself while for others he relied on eyewitness accounts. Some of the speeches are probably fabricated according to his expectations of, as he puts it, "what was called for in each situation." While the inclusion of long first-person speeches is somewhat alien to modern ears it makes sense within the context of ancient Greek oral culture.

The gods play no active role in Thucydides' work--very different from Herodotus. Instead, Thucydides regards history as being caused by the choices and actions of human beings. When referencing myth he clearly so indicates:

”The earliest inhabitants spoken of in any part of the country are the Cyclopes and Laestrygones; but I cannot tell of what race they were, or from where they came or to where they went, and must leave my readers to what the poets have said of them and to what may be generally known concerning them.”

Thucydides correlates, in his description of the 426 BC Maliakos Gulf tsunami, for the first time in the history of natural science, quakes and waves in terms of cause and effect:

“The cause, in my opinion, of this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake. At the point where its shock has been the most violent the sea is driven back, and suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation. Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen.”

Another interesting reference to natural phenomena is his description of the volcanic action of Mt. Etna:

”In the first days of this spring, the stream of fire issued from Etna, as on former occasions, and destroyed some land of the Catanians, who live upon Mount Etna, which is the largest mountain in Sicily. Fifty years, it is said, had elapsed since the last eruption, there having been three in all since the Hellenes have inhabited Sicily.”

Another interesting quotation I found contains a hint of Thucydides' skepticism of divination and soothsayers:

"... they gave orders as secretly as possible for all to be prepared to sail out from the camp at a given signal. All was at last ready, and they were on the point of sailing away when an eclipse of the moon, which was then at the full, took place. Most of the Athenians, deeply impressed by this occurrence, now urged the generals to wait; and Nicias, who was somewhat over-addicted to divination and practices of that kind, refused from that moment even to take the question of departure into consideration, until they had waited the thrice nine days prescribed by the soothsayers."

As it turns out, the 27 day delay caused by the lunar eclipse probably resulted in the Athenians losing the battle, and consequently the war as well.

Despite being an Athenian and a participant in the conflict, Thucydides is often regarded as having written a generally unbiased account of the conflict and all the sides involved in it. In the introduction to the piece he states, "My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever." Some historians have challenged this assertion, but it appeared true to me.

The book has an unsatisfactory ending. It suddenly ends in the 21st year of the 27 year long war. Historians are not certain as to why it ends there. One possibility is that he died. But there are some sources that suggest that he lived beyond the end of the war. He mentions in his own text that the war lasted 27 years. So answer me this! If he died before the end of the war, how did he know the length of time for the duration of the war? Maybe his pet dog ate the last 6 years. Or maybe he did things as I do, just never got around to finishing the job.

I find it interesting to note what is not in the book. There is no mention of the two individuals who subsequently became the most famous Ancient Greek names of the era, Socrates and Plato. (There is one reference to "Socrates son of Antigenes," but that it is not the Socrates we know about from Plato.) Socrates and Plato were contemporaries of Thucydides, but they were mere civilians of little consequence--although Socrates did fight in the early parts of the war as a young man. The importance of Socrates and Plato only became evident with the later popularity of Plato's writing. It's interesting to note that writers of contemporary history don't always know what will be considered important to later readers--e.g. Josephus' making no mention of Jesus and writing one sentence about his followers.

The only reason I listened to this book was because it was selected for discussion by the Great Books KC group. I listened to the LibriVox audio recording of the translation by Richard Crawley. Otherwise I would have never had the patience for it.

A much more pleasant way to learn about the Peloponnesian War is the historical novel, Tides of War by Steven Pressfield. Link to my Review.

Extremely dry compared to Herodotus.

The narrator could have been better but the book is interesting

Well, that was a behemoth.

It took 2 months of 5 a.m. study sessions to put this one to bed, but, I have no regrets. In a lot of ways it reminded me of Churchill's memoirs of WW2 with the detailed inventories of soldiers and arms. I have no doubt that Churchill was familiar with this work. I'm not the most devoted follower of military history but I did find myself getting caught up in the stories. The Athenian attempt on Sicily was particularly fraught.

I don't want to give anything away but, well, everyone in the book eventually dies.

In regards to this particular edition of the book, I have nothing but the highest praise. The footnotes and maps and brief summaries of each paragraph (yes!) and actually useful appendices were tremendously helpful. Kudos to the publishers. I've purchased two more Landmark books and will always buy a Landmark edition when presented with that option.

I don't know if I can recommend the book itself. I mean, it isn't the sort of thing you just pick up on a whim. If you're interested in a history of the Peloponnesian War then by all means start here. If you're interested in historiology this is going to be a must read. If you're just looking for something to kill a few hours on a Saturday, this won't be your best bet.

Finally, WTH Athens? Are you kidding me?

Tremendously important book, from a historical point of view. But to be honest: Thucydides brings a boring story: he just gives a sequence of facts; no dramatic depth, no psychological dimension in the speeches, emphasis on the military events.
I also was a bit disappointed by his so-called objectivity: Book 1 is slightly anti-Athenian (imperialism), book 2 light pro-Athenian (Pericles). In comparison with Herodotus for me Thucydides is a little step back, because at least Herodotus gave different opinions, Thucydides leaves no room for uncertainty, he decides on the cause-effect relationship.

One of the few ancient works which measures up to the highest standards of the best modern writers. Whilst it might not be the most readable or entertaining history ever written, it nonetheless deserves immense respect as a pivotal work in the emergence of history as an academic discipline. It is therefore as much a landmark in historiography as it is a work of history.

If you are going to read Thucydides, the Landmark version is the best place to start. I read this after I became a fan of Strassler's The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories. For me, there is not much better than Thucydides' speeches. "The Funeral Oration of Pericles", "Diodotus to the Athenian Ecclesia", "Demosthenes to his troops at Pylos" & "Nicias before the last sea fight" are all some of the most interesting, moving and inspiring speeches and harangues EVER written.

Thucydides' HOPW (Landmark edition) is filled with enough maps, appendices, marginal notes and summaries that Strassler well-girds the modern student of the Peloponnesian war for the challenge that is Thucydides. Strassler (and his team) has updated and improved the Crawley translation (which is a gem). This book is a must for students of the classics, politics, history and war. Hell, even if you are just interested in a good story, Thucydides tells a good one. This is an amazing and beautiful piece of history.

BABT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05s2pbm

Description: 'My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever,' Thucydides

Ancient Greek historian Thucydides' spellbinding first-hand account chronicles the devastating 27-year-long war between Athens and Sparta during the 5th century BC. It was a life-and-death struggle that reshaped the face of ancient Greece and pitted Athenian democracy against brutal Spartan militarism.

Thucydides himself was an Athenian aristocrat and general who went on to record what he saw as the greatest war of all time, applying a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth admired by historians today. Looking at why nations go to war, what makes a great leader, and whether might can be better than right, he became the father of modern Realpolitik. His influence fed into the works of Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbs and the politics of the Cold War and beyond.

Thucydides' masterful account of the end of Greece's Golden Age, depicts an age of revolution, sea battles, military alliances, plague and massacre, but also great bravery and some of the greatest political orations of all time.
Today: With Spartan distrust of the rising power of Athens, is war inevitable?

Abridger: Tom Holland is an award-winning novelist and historian, specialising in the classical and medieval periods. He is the author of 'Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic', which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, as well as 'Persian Fire', 'Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom', 'In the Shadow of the Sword', as well as several novels. His latest non-fiction book, 'Dynasty', chronicling the Roman Emperors, will be published in 2015.
He has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for the BBC. His translation of Herodotus was published in 2013. In 2007, he was the winner of the Classical Association prize, awarded to 'the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilisation of Ancient Greece and Rome'."
Reader: David Horovitch
Producer: Justine Willett.


Machiavellian long before that book, and even earlier, by ~200 years, than 孫子兵法: The Art of War.

1. War Begins
2. From Funerals to Plague
3. Spartan Surrender at Pylos
4. An Athenian Atrocity
5. The Beginning of the End

This marvelous edition is a paramount! It was so wonderful experience to taste it. Its design and structure are remarkable well done as a whole. On the other hand, the excellent appendices are so helpful as a background of this classic of Thucydides's work. All in all, I've found balance and perspective as well as a lot of critical information that help us to grasp the grandeur of Thucydides achievement that lasts till our own days. How beneficial it seems to me this edition is to the regular student of history, and to any reader. Mt accolades to the editors for the overall result. In a way, I did enjoy a lot reading it and pondering its results, thus I do give my two thumps up for it!

En horabuena!

War, revolution, genocide and appalling traitorous poshboys, all recounted with icy detail and controlled anger; not generally one for 'human history just repeats on a different scale' but Thucydides sortof convinces me otherwise.

Towards the end of this book I had a flashback of watching an episode of Mastermind in the 80s, the contestant had chosen the Spartan military as their specialist subject was asked being asked by Magnus Magnusson, the Icelandic Viking who swooped down from the north to Britain as a child to become a TV quiz host, why the Spartans had stopped their campaign on one particular occasion and gone home. The correct answer was that this was in response to an earthquake. Judging by Thucydides' history that could have been a lucky guess. The best way to maintain a reputation as fierce-some warriors is not to fight, but to be frightening, and the Spartans seem to have displayed a rare skill in finding reasons in the shape of a sacrificed animal's liver or a passing earthquake or a religious festival for either staying home or returning there.

I found Thucydides difficult to start the translation might have been an issue but increasingly intriguing. His history is a book that can be reread, studied, attention paid to each word as much because of what he doesn't say and how he says what he does.

It is an ambitious book in several ways. Thucydides was writing after Herodotus and his epic on the Persian war but opens by telling us that this war was "more worthy of of relation than any that had preceded it...the greatest movement yet known in history" (p1). Secondly Thucydides makes great claims for his precision and accuracy implicitly a dig here at Herodotus and his giant gold gathering ants or the baby Cyrus lowered in a basket into a river to be brought up by step parents (but you've heard that story before). Both claims are dubious, the first has become a common place, people invariably want to claim that the story they want to tell is about the biggest, most impressive, amazing, far-reaching, and influential story ever in the history of history and they can't all be right,the other requires the reader's trust in Thucydides. He has decided what to trust as reliable information and what to include in his history. While he mentions a couple of times comparing accounts he never gives any clue as to whose accounts he is comparing or indeed when. The composition of the book is unclear, some parts seem more complete than others. Parts of the book were presumably being written or revised decades after the events and since he doesn't reveal his sources there are untold layers of interpretation between the pages. While with Herodotus I had more of a feeling that I knew where I was in terms of what source materials were going into the finished work  apparently everything and anything (and the giant gold gathering ants are fun)

Thucydides does have some clear biases. He is fan of Pericles, he can live with Athenian democracy but doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about it, he doesn't like Cleon and while he lived among the Peloponnesians after his exile seems to find the Athenians a superior bunch in terms of their élan.

Remarkably given his stress on accuracy and reliability he tells us that he makes up the speeches that he has people say With reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered before the war began, others while it was going on; some I heard myself, others I got from various quarters; it was in all cases difficult to carry them word for word in one's memory, so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said (p.11) . About mid way through I wondered if the speeches were a key, it was unhelpful to think of this a history, better to frame it in my imagination as a drama. In which case this is a tale about hubris. The pride of Athens that came before its fall.

Thucydides tells a very familiar story of Machtpolitik. Athens through fighting off the Persians obtains an Empire. Sparta comes to fear Athenian power and is motivated by that to fight Athens. Pericles has a wise policy of avoiding battle but this is undone, first by his death but then by the ambition of reckless, feckless and self serving politicians  as I said two thousand plus years later virtually everything in Thucydides is deeply familiar in Thucydidies' world there was in Pericles one of a unique type: thoughtful, farseeing and good looking in a helmet . At the same time in speeches a reoccurring criticism of Athens is its arrogance. Given the opportunity, the subject parts of its empire will break away. Athens can compel the rebels to obedience, but only for as long as its politicians are able to respect the foundations of Athenian power. Some have read this as Thucydides believing that might is right and that a state should use power directly in pursuit of its own ends, simply taking what it wants. I'm not so sure, in the context of the history that isn't an approach that works out well for Athens  they lose the war . Nor is Thucydides direct, the political attitudes are expressed in speeches (made up to reflect what he felt was demanded of the speaker at the time) and are typically paired - one person arguing for a position, the other arguing against it. This is a cleaned up, parred down, staged account of a decision making process played out in the theatre of public assemblies that runs counter to what he describes happening in book eight where we have political clubs in Crawley's expression, which sound a bit too Jacobin to my ears, I can imagine that Thucydides was referring to something quite different , rumour and discussion between small groups of people going on in the aftermath of Athenian defeat in Sicily and the seizure of power by a Junta in Athens itself.

This is intriguing, there is a sense of purpose beyond a historical inquiry into the twenty-sevenish year war between Sparta, Athens, and their allies that is never quite spelled out but hangs elusive over the whole work. The influence is clear in Livy's The War with Hannibal there is the same assertion of the epic and unique scope of the conflict every war in recorded history now has to be bigger and even more important than the preceding on down to the Cod War which was the mightiest struggle of all time, waiting only for the emergence of its chronicler, the same use of paired speeches to stage a policy debate, the same use of a cart to block a gate to allow one side to gain entry to an enemy town - which made me wonder if Livy (or his sources) were reusing Thucydides or if Hannibal & co were themselves keen readers and took their tactical ideas from history or if some plans are just so basic that they are unwittingly repeated. Perhaps this is why the long siege of Syracuse gets so much attention in Livy - here victorious Rome clearly surpassed Athens.

This was a very intimate conflict, when Athens lost in the region of five thousand of its citizens killed or captured in Sicily, this was about one in eight of its entire citizen population which is to say adult men born to Athenian parents. It was fought at close quarters, the bitter rivalry between Thebes and Potidaea is between a town and a village a couple of miles apart but will eventually end in the execution of every man left to defend Potidaea after a lengthy siege  most of the population were evacuated taking refuge in Athens leaving a contingent of men to fight and a force of women to bake their bread. Eventually they surrender to the Spartans agreeing to be judged by them, the Spartans ask each man one question: "what service did you render Sparta during the siege" naturally given their answers each man is then put to death .

I was then a little taken aback by Thucydides treatment of the Corcyrean Revolution. For him this outbreak of inter-communal violence seemed particularly horrific yet from an outsiders perspective it just seemed to be the application of a similar degree of violence within a community as they were prepared to visit upon a neighbouring community: kill the men and sell the women and children into slavery - this was the time when Euripides' Trojan Women was first performed, the resonance must have been inescapable  he also writes that "Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them" (p170), while a general 'the world is going to hell in a hand basket' meditation it is also an observation that remains contemporary, as does much of his description of how the great powers move among smaller states and decision making is open to manipulation but also to the logic of events   during the war Aristophanes' play in which the women of Athens go on strike, refusing to have sex with their husbands until they do the sensible thing and make peace with the Spartans, was performed. Aristophanes proposes an act of solidarity to achieve political ends but often what we see in Thucydides is political atomisation, most intensely in book eight. People are isolated, alone with their feelings, fearful, but unable to find reassurance except through violence - or maybe I'm reading this too much in the spirit of Hobbes

Fear plays its part in the revolution in Corcyra too. Those who have power fear those who are excluded from it not only class struggle but apparently also generational struggle as here fathers fought sons, mothers and daughters at least were left out of it at first , masters fear their slaves, Sparta fears Athens. Yet this isn't entirely convincing. It doesn't make a lot of sense that Sparta's conduct of the war until the first truce is so limited and so doesn't seem particularly fear driven - invading Attica each summer (providing the omens were favourable and there were no earthquakes or festivals). This is another level at which Thucydides is intriguing, fear can be the general psychology background of a society yet the practical application of policy is capable of a range of nuance. One of the Spartan kings (they had two at any one time) Agis seems to be the key figure here. Through the speeches we get an illusion of being close to the mind of a character, yet the information that Thucydides does share with us holds us at arms length too, and much is obscure. Is there enough in Thucydides' description to imagine a power struggle between the king and the ephor - the senior magistrate who speaks in favour of immediate war with Athens, that is realised in Agis' conduct of the war? Is the debate expressed to show how politicians manoeuvre with human emotion to win personal advantage?

Then again Thucydides is writing from hindsight. In his remarks on Pericles and poor decisions made after his death he refers to the eventual ending of the war (pp107-109), while at the time his fellow citizens did not enjoy quite the same advantage of perspective. My feeling was that Thucydides came close to blaming the citizens for being capable of being manipulated by others, but perhaps I was reading too much into him.

If you are tempted to dip your toes in and test the waters of Thucydides I'd suggest starting with the Sicilian expedition. It comes relatively late in the war but is a good narrative block with swings of fortune and the sad picture of Nicias, the commander of the Athenians on the verge of battle with the Syracusians, appalled by the position of affairs, realising the greatness and the nearness of the danger...and thinking, as men are apt to think in great crises, that when all has been done they have still something to do, and when all has been said that they have not yet said enough, again called on the captains one by one, addressing each by his father's name and by his own... (p399)




Also of interest two new books on Thucydides' history:
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/a...
I was also struck by how Alcibiades but also before him Themistocles after exile from Athens gave advice to the enemies of Athens in total contrast to the kind of patriotism expressed in the Roman story of Coriolanus who turned against Rome until his mother told him off, but then I suppose the desire to avoid the behaviour of an Alcibiades might well be precisely why the Romans had the story of Coriolanus
perhaps my memory serves me wrong but this seems to be a history in which women are silent appearing only to bake bread or be sold into slavery. The interesting thing about this is how this means that the family relationships between political figures (not to mention the brazen heterosexuality of Pericles) completely fall by the wayside. This includes Thucydides' own family background, which if as speculated did include a relationship with Thracian royalty would explain his own role in events better than his silence. It is another point of contrast with Herodotus in which the Queen of the Massagetae gets to have the last word with Cyrus the great  although admittedly she does have to have him decapitated first.


The Edition and the Translation
I bought while I was still at school. Then I'd stop off on the way home and root about boar like in a second hand book shop and exchanged an entire one and a half UK pounds for this small, old, Everyman pocket sized edition. True to my on going austerity reading project  as inspired by the book Howards End Is on the Landing A Year of Reading from Home which true to my project I haven't read  I decided to finally read it all the way through.

The edition uses the 1876 Richard Crawley translation  I assume that since then new manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts may well have been found in Egypt so more recent translations may be based on better editions of the text, perhaps stylish in its day but some of the word choice introduces its own distance between the original and the contemporary reader for instance his use of the term capital (ie in terms of finance rather than centre of government), heavy infantry for hoplite (which I was ok with until I remembered my paternal Grandfather served in a light infantry regiment), with 'first rate' and 'cruiser' used to describe the ships. The more you are familiar with the mid Victorian British military the clearer you'll find Crawley's account of the Peloponnesian war. The problem for me was that this introduces doubt as to what else is obscured through his word choice and AC's recommendation in a comment on one of my status updates is to go for the Rex Warner translation available in Penguin if, gentle reader, you are tempted to give Thucydides a go in English.

3.5 stars

Finally I could finish reading this book after many intervals of being content with what I knew, I didn’t claim I enjoyed all of eight-book Thucydides’s account. Compared to the other history classic of similar stature, Herodotus’s “The Histories” translated by Aubrey de Selincourt, I think, is more enjoyable and impressive regarding the world as viewed by the Greek historian in the fifth century B.C. Contrastively in a smaller scale, Thucydides has ambitiously depicted the twenty-seven year conflicts between Athens and Sparta with innumerable sieges, commanders, strategies and so on till we simply can’t help getting confused, praying when each book would ever end.

The reason why I decided to read it is that many years ago I read some excerpts of Pericles’ funeral oration somewhere and longed to read it in full. Definitely one of the greatest orators in history, he has since impressed posterity to the extent that few can surpass him as we read from his 7.5-page oration (nos. 35-46). It’s a bit lengthy, I think, for those who would read him for the first time; therefore, the following three extracts should suffice in the meantime.

First, his opening statement:
Many of those who have spoken here in the past have praised the institution of this speech at the close of our ceremony. It seemed to them a mark of honour to our soldiers who have fallen in war that a speech should be made over them. I do not agree. These men have shown themselves valiant in action, and it would be enough, I think, for their glories to be proclaimed in action, as you have just seen it done at this funeral organized by the state. Our belief in the courage and manliness of so many should not be hazarded on the goodness or badness of one man’s speech. … (p. 144)

Then, in praise of those fallen soldiers:
This, then, is the kind of city for which these men, who could not bear the thought of losing her, nobly fought and nobly died. It is only natural that every one of us who survive them should be willing to undergo hardships in her service. And it was for this reason that I have spoken at such length about our city, because I wanted to make it clear that for us there is more at stake than there is for others who lack our advantages; also I wanted my words of praise for the dead to be set in the bright light of evidence. And now the most important of these words has been spoken. I have sung the praise of our city; but it was the courage and gallantry of these men, and of people like them, which made her splendid. … (p. 148)

Finally, in conclusion:
… I have now, as the law demanded, said what I had to say. For the time being our offerings to the dead have been made, and for the future their children will be supported at the public expense by the city, until they come of age. This is the crown and prize which she offers, both to the dead and to their children, for the ordeals which they have faced. Where the rewards of valour are the greatest, there you will find also the best and bravest spirits among the people. And now, when you have mourned for your dear ones, you must depart. (p. 151)

In brief, I think reading this book should inform and inspire its readers on the futility in terms of atrocities of war, being those ancient, medieval, premodern or modern ones till we wonder if there is really peace to all humankind and when.