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How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy by Thucydides Speeches from The History of the Peloponnesian War Selected, translated, and introduced by Johanna Hanink Princeton University Press, 2019 Hardcover, 336 pages Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers SeriesI had not read any of the releases in Princeton University Press’ Ancient Wisdom “How […]
S. N. Jaffe has an article at the War on the Rocks site titled “The Risks and Rewards of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War“ that should be helpful to anyone attempting to read or write about the war. Jaffe is the author of Thucydides on the Outbreak of War: Character and Contest, a study […]
Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Ancient Athens by David StuttardHarvard University Press: April 2018Hardcover, 400 pages From the inside book flap: Alcibiades was one of the most dazzling figures of the Golden Age of Athens. A ward of Pericles and a friend of Socrates, he was spectacularly rich, bewitchingly handsome and charismatic, a skilled […]
I received a nice note from a teacher in Zimbabwe (“somewhat isolated from the academic world,” as they put it) commenting that my posts on Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War has helped them and it has paid off for their students. That note, along with other nice comments from students reading the book and finding help […]
Starting Monday on BBC 4 Radio’s “Book at Bedtime” series, the book will be Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, read by David Horovitch and abridged by Tom Holland. And what an abridgment, since the total air time will be an hour and fifteen minutes. I have no idea what it will be like, but […]
Last week BBC Radio 4’s program “In Our Time” featured a great discussion of Thucydides, his writing, and his role as historian. I don’t know how long this link will remain active so I recommend listening to it soon (although many of their previous episodes are available in their archives). If you’re interested in reading […]
After Thermopylae: The Oath of Plataea and the End of the Graeco-Persian Wars by Paul Cartledge Emblems of Antiquity series Oxford University Press, 2013 ISBN: 9780199747320 Paul Cartledge’s name has been mentioned on this blog several times—he is the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture in the Faculty of Classics at the University of […]
“How shall we call such a thinking man as Thucydides? The word ‘historian’ is somehow not satisfactory.” Leo Strauss, Lecture 17 “Neither historians nor political scientists can deal with the complexity of true strategy and statecraft. Thucydides does so because his narrative is literature, and literature does not restrict itself. It can say anything that […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
Recently The Leo Strauss Center began providing audio recordings of many of his lectures. I saw a listing for Thucydides and decided to listen to them during my commute. This course was offered during the 1972-73 academic year at St. John’s College in Annapolis. Strauss died later in 1973 but it’s clear to hear his […]
On October 8th [2008], Victor Davis Hanson spoke at Biola University on Thucydides: Understanding the Pelopenessian War and the principles which translate from a study of this ancient Greek historian to the modern political-cultural sphere. I meant to listen to this before I read Thucydides. Failing that, I meant to listen to Hanson’s talk while […]
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 […]