Please note: I was trying out different themes for the site and a few recent comments got deleted. My apologies for this mistake.
Casa Malaparte on the Isle of Capri (For more on Villa Malaparte)Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte (born Kurt Erich Suckert), translation by Cesare Foligno Kaputt reads as a World War II memoir by Curzio Malaparte, correspondent for the Italian publication Corriere della Sera. Connected to statesmen in many countries and assigned to cover the Eastern front […]
For anyone wanting to hang onto the football season for another day, here’s an old piece by Geoffrey Colvin on the cultural implications of Super Bowl III. While overstating the impact/symbolism of the game, he may not be that far off. I remember watching part of the game while playing at a friend’s house. I […]
Exiled Thucydides knewAll that a speech can sayAbout Democracy,And what dictators do,The elderly rubbish they talkTo an apathetic grave;Analysed all in his book,The enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again. (W. H. Auden, from “September 1, 1939”) I did it. And I didn’t take an entire season to do it, […]
Map of ancient Greece But the Lacedæmonians, not only in this but in many other things, were most commodious enemies to the Athenians to war withal. For being of most different humours; the one swift, the other slow; the one adventurous, the other timorous; the Lacedæmonians gave them great advantage, especially when their greatness was […]
Welcome to those visiting from The Classics Circuit Ancient Greek Classics Tour. For the past month I’ve been reading and posting about Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian war. I’ll try to keep this post short but would like to take a cursory look at why anyone would want to read a 2,400 year old history […]
Map of ancient GreeceThis post looks at Chapters 63 through 88 of Book Eight, covering the war during part of the summer of 411 BC. This section covers the fall of the democracy in Athens to the Four Hundred and Alcibiades’ recall to Athens. All quotes (and spellings) come from the Thomas Hobbes translation. One […]
Map of ancient GreeceThis post looks at Chapters 30 through 63 of Book Eight, covering the war from the winter of 412/1 into the summer of 411 BC. The focus remains on the Aegean Sea and Ionia with the Atheniana attempting to quell revolts in the area at the beginning of this section. The narrative […]
Map of ancient GreeceThis post looks at Chapters 1 through 29 of Book Eight, covering the activities immediately after the defeat of Athens in Sicily at the end of summer 413 BC into the winter of 412/1 BC. The focus of the war and Thucydides’ history turns to the Aegean Sea and Ionia as many […]
The Athenians hasted to get the river Asinarus; not only because they were urged on every side by the assault of the many horsemen and other multitude, and thought to be more at ease when they were over the river, but out of weariness also and desire to drink. When they were come unto the […]
Athenian siege of Syracuse Picture source The Thracians, therefore, that came too late to go with Demosthenes, they presently sent back, as being unwilling to lay out money in such a scarcity: and gave the charge of carrying them back to Diitrephes, with command as he went along those coasts, (for his way was through […]
Athenian siege of Syracuse Picture source And the Syracusian horsemen, which were ever abroad for scouts, spurring up to the camp of the Athenians, amongst other scorns asked them, whether they came not rather to dwell in the land of another than to restore the Leontines to their own. (Book Six, Chapter 63) This post […]
I had mentioned the Walker Percy documentary, directed by Win Riley, a while back. It is now available on DVD. Ordering information, as well as access to the entire site (with a preview), can be found here. From the website: In a rare television interview in 1980, Walker Percy said his concerns as writer were […]
The same winter the Athenians, with greater forces than they had before sent out with Laches and Eurymedon, resolved to go again into Sicily; and if they could, wholly to subdue it: being for the most part ignorant both of the greatness of the island, and of the multitude of people, as well Greeks as […]
YouTube link A modern re-enactment of the negotiations between the Athenians and the Melians as reconstructed by Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War (taken from The War that Never Ends, 1991, directed by Jack Gold)This post looks at Chapters 84 through 116 of Book Five, covering what is commonly called the Melian […]
Apparently my re-reading of Herodotus last year represented good timing. I just stumbled across the Marathon2500 Project: “Commemorating the 2,500-year anniversary of The Battle of Marathon. Free phone/web-based lectures, reading groups & more”. While I have missed the lectures by Paul Cartledge, Peter Krentz, Victor Davis Hanson, and Thomas Harrison, the podcasts are available at […]
This post looks at Chapters 1 through 83 of Book Five, covering the end of the one-year truce, the second battle of Amphipolis, and the beginning of the “false peace”. All quotes come from the Thomas Hobbes translation. As usual with Thucydides, he has packed a lot of information into a short passage. I will […]
I’m going to take a break today from reading and posting. Well, except for this post, which will ramble about my first (remembered) introduction to Thucydides. I was an impressionable third-grader when my parents decided to go see “Patton”. For some reason, they decided to take me. The theater was so crowded we had to […]
This post looks at Chapters 89 – 135 of Book Four, covering the winter of 424/3 BC through the spring of 422 BC. Included in this section is the battle of Delium, one of the major ground battles during the entire Peloponnesian War. All quotes come from the Thomas Hobbes translation. Map of Ancient AtticaDelium […]
Thanks to Kerry at Hungry Like the Woolf for pointing to this post at Caustic Cover Critic on the Visual Editions’ The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Additional pictures of the edition can be found at Visual Editions’ Flickr page (above photo from that page) More pictures of the book from A Practice […]
Map of ancient Greece Five hundred chapters to go. Not that I’m counting. This post looks at Chapters 52 – 88 of Book Four, covering the summer of 424 BC. As you might have guessed from the subjects in the post heading it was a busy few months. All quotes come from the Thomas Hobbes […]