Thucydides

In the book, Justice Power and Human Nature, Thucydides describes different events that take place during the Peloponnesian War. Keeping the chronology in mind, he gives us each and every detail of the war that he also lived through. Thucydides uses elaborative speeches throughout the text, Pericles’ eulogy being the best of them. While these elaborative speeches and debate are persuading and motivating, they also reflect the oral culture among the Greeks. Thucydides interpretation of the causes and events of the Peloponnesian War is really commendable; his description of the plague gives us an insight that only an eye witness can give. While writing the history of the war, whether Thucydides was biased or not is questionable, after all he was an Athenian.…

American people, particularly at this stage in the election cycle. Those of us living in the postmodern age, however, tend to fall into the highly fallacious mindset wherein democracy is thought of as being an invention of the recent age, and an idea about which we can learn very little by appealing to the ancient world which is so rife with stories of empires and conquests. It is Thucydides, however, who really begins to explore and relate back to us the relationship of democracy and empire.…

He was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifthcentury 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 deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work. He also has been called the father of the…

1. Who are they? Thucydides is considered one of the best Greek historians. His direct and scientific style of documentation and his unbiased approach has greatly influenced modern methods of documenting history. 2. Thucydides lived in Athens but he was exiled for failing to take a city during the Peloponnesian war between Sparta and Athens. After that he stayed near the two in order to document the war. 3. The most famous work of Thucydides is “The History of the Peloponnesian War”. He was…

of history, or as an authority on or specialist in history (863). Thucydides is regularly referred to as the, “Real Father of History.” The exact date of the birth of Thucydides is unknown, it was sometime before the Peloponnesian war had begun. Thucydides was in an elite group of Athenian Men, including Pericles, the athenian Leader of at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War ( Pounce, 9). Once the war had began with Sparta Thucydides was elected military magistrate, and had became the…

the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides is a detailed eight series book on the ancient Greek war between the Spartans and Athenians from 431 to 404 BCE. Thucydides was an Athenian historian who precisely recorded the Peloponnesian war from his first-person perspective. Given that this is an important historical source since not many published works have recorded information for an extended amount of time. This is a valuable historical source because Thucydides’ Greek background ties and enforces his…

Thucydides, an Athenian historian and philosopher, is known for his contributions to the topic of political realism. One of his most notable works on this subject tells the history of the Peloponnesian War. Halfway through this war, Athens decided that they wanted to take over the last island that was not theirs. The conflict that arose between the Athenians and the people of the island Melos gave life to the quote “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” I agree with…

Ilan Avineri HIST-315 October 1st, 2017 The Thucydides Trap: An Applied History In the 21st century, political pundits chronically flood the media with supposedly prescient analyses of an inevitable conflict. Whether it be the expanding industrial Chinese that present a challenge to the established western hegemons, or the supposed droves of Islamists flowing from the “muslim world” - the emphasis is on an inescapable collision. Among these analysts, is former national security advisor and…

by laying out different types of reactions people have to threats in the international environment and pointing out the three main types of motives in making “foreign policy decisions”, which they say are fear, profit, and social recognition (Chittick 70). Using this base, they set out to discuss and analyze the reasons for the second Peloponnesian War. They make it a point to lay out the methods Thucydides employed to record his history of the war; the narratives and “dramatic speeches”. The…

In his seminal work, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides chronicles the nearly thirty-year long conflict between the Ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. He famously argues that what made war between the two states “inevitable” was “the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta” (Thucydides 1.34). In making this conjecture, Thucydides laid down the foundation for the international relations theory of realism, a theory that emphasizes the…