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History of the Peloponnesian War: Books 7-8

thucydides c.f. smith

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Thucydides of Athens, one of the greatest of historians, was born about 471 BCE. 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 which he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells 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 of his own and 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.

459 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,1923

This edition

Format
459 pages, Hardcover
Published
January 1, 1965 by Harvard University Press
ISBN
9780674991873
ASIN
0674991877
Language
English

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thucydides

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Thucydides (c. 460 B.C. – c. 400 B.C.) (Greek Θουκυδίδης) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.
He also has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, fear and self-interest. His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide. The Melian dialogue is regarded as a seminal text of international relations theory, while his version of Pericles' Funeral Oration is widely studied by political theorists, historians, and students of the classics.
More generally, Thucydides developed an understanding of human nature to explain behavior in such crises as plagues, massacres, and wars.

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Iamnoobhere
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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Figured I'd finish it- I read all the other books of it last year. Athens wins at Syracuse, Corinth plans to invade Attica, Syracuse is on Corinth's side, Athens starts to lose troops, need more troops, Corinth draws Athens away from an all- out attack, stretches them thin, kills them all. Word gets back to Athens, they panic, and so they get on the verge of civil war between the democracy and the oligrachy. Meanwhile, the Chians side with the Lacedaemonians and invade Lesbos and wins. Athens invades Chios and wins. Athenians vote for democracy instead of oligarchy. War goes on for another year, but Thucydides abruptly trails off.
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YalkYalk
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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that's that
alcibiades is so full of shit and bravado it's impressive
(j'ai juste lu le huitième livre les besties, en français)
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