Peloponēsiešu karš : [divās daļās]

by Tukidīds

Other authorsFricis Garais (Translator)
Paperback, 1930

Status

Available

Call number

938.05

Collection

Publication

Rīga : F. Garais, 1930-1932.

Description

History. Nonfiction. HTML: Written by Thucydides around 400 AD, The History of the Peloponnesian War is a meticulous account by the Athenian general of the extended struggle that raged between Athens and Sparta for the better part of twenty years. Thucydides eschews the romance of heroics and dramatics and his precise and thorough account of the ill-fated conflict is one of the first surviving scholarly works of history..

User reviews

LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
First things first: the whole Herodotus/Thucydides grudge match binary thing is such bunk. There's no comparison. Thucydides is the father of history. Herodotus is the father of telling cute lil stories. (Although I am well aware that said stories have had a salutary influence on the profession,
Show More
influenced the Annales school and the move away from Thucydidean political history to social history and the politics that come along with it, and in short, that Herodotus is probably our favourite dude).


And yet, even at that, this is history, but not as we moderns know it. Thucydides's vaunted objectivity consists mostly in talking to people on both sides (not consulting records, because by 'n' large there werent any), and keeping Athenian prejudice out of it--so it's a start. And he does a good job on the prejudice thing--although some apparently disagree, and certainly he feels no such compunctions when dealing not with Greeks v. Greeks, but Greeks v. Barbarians--his treatment of the Illyrian horde in, oh, one of those battles fairly drips with scorn. On the other hand, the Illyrians seem like they deserved it. "Don't hurt women or children", as a rule of warfare, makes the Greeks not only more civilized than the barbs, but than, well, us. One of the fascinations of this book, incidentally, is seeing that ritualistic, circumscribed approach to warfare break down. When the atrocities start, at Plataea, at Melos, you're like damn it. Maybe the logic of realpolitik does irresistibly lead to total war.


And while I can't love this and clutch it to my heart completely without reservation--the actual troop movement and war-tech stuff is dry, pedantic, most likely geared to the industry insiders that Thucy and 99% of his readership would have been, with a few exceptions like the final stand of the Athenians in Sicily, and even there you're like "Lamachus died in a ditch! Did a Syracusan arrow pierce his eye? Did a Spartan hoplite claim his shield as a trophy? Inquiring minds!"; also, the maps are pretty bad, Penguin Classics--the Melian Dialogue before the Athenians kill everybody's ass for no real reason, besides being the book's centrepiece,is the prime example of the prime awesome afoot in The Peloponnesian War: the speeches. Maybe I should say "speeches", since the introduction gives me to understand that many of them are reconstructed, but hey, Thucydides can get a little Herodotean on me anytime. It's an amazing way of doing business--talk, talk, talk the issues of the day right into the ground and then some before you make your move. Talk civilized, and then when you do make that move it can be brutal and people will still talk about the Greek Golden Age. It leads to a world of demagogues instead of accountants; public engagement instead of apathy; the extreme concern for points of rhetoric that gave us alliteration and anaphora and anadiplosis and anacothulon (and anastrophe to zeugma!). It explains how we can agree with Nicias, and Thucy can praise him, and yet somehow Alcibiades foxes him and us and Athens and Sparta and the Persian satrap again and again and again.(And how cool that it's the same Alcibiades who ran with Socrates!)

There are some phenomenal speeches--the initial petitions from Corinth and Corcyra to Athens, before the world catches fire; Pericles's Funeral Oration. Most of all, though, you come back to that Melian Debate, where the Melians throw everything they can at the Athenians, dead men walking and tonguing desperate word magic. I would love to have a rhetoric-annotated edition, or speak Ancient Greek. And . . . nothing. The Athenians don't even blink. "It is true that it is more in keeping with the dignity of a great nation to show mercy, but we're still gonna kill everybody's ass. And yes, it is true that to extend the hand of peace to a defeated rival makes a foe an ally and adds to one's own strength, but sorry, you're still fucked. Can't you die with dignity?"


This is Warsaw Ghetto shit. And that's probably the biggest adjustment to be made as a result of the book to one's (my) classic picture of Ancient Greece: Athens is fucking awful. It's like, okay, their democracy is vigorous or whatever, and the Spartans are a racial slave theocracy--but then you see the way Athenians treat their colonies, their ostensible allies, the places whose power and wealth they usurped and even those, like Melos, they didn't--and of course they were all slave states, and Athens just exports the contradictions of their class structure with the superficial democracy they market. Classic imperialist neocons.


And okay, Sparta uses not entirely dissimilar rhetoric, but . . . they really seem to mean it. We keep getting told how artless they are, and if Thucydides does have a bias, it's certainly not in their direction, so I see no reason to believe that Brasidas, say, is not exactly what he seems--and what he seems is like Optimus Prime or some shit, liberating all the townz, and if there is a little bit of "we're gonna liberate you whether you like it or not!", well, look at the way Sparta's allies--your Corinth, your Thebes, your Syracuse--get treated versus what happens to the Athenian subaltern.
After Brasidas, consider "The state of feeling among the people of Camarina was as follows. They were well disposed to the Athenians, except insofar as they thought they might enslave Sicily . . . ." Athens as charismatic asshole/Sparta as misunderstood weirdo?

But then, what did I just say? Racial slave state. So Sparta rules unless you're a helot or a weakling child, and Athens rules unless you're from the colonies, and who's to say whether power games trumps eugenics in the worst historical powers stakes, and none of them had refrigeration, and Thucydides rules. This deserves five stars for being the first and one of the best of its kind, dry patches and all.
Show Less
LibraryThing member keylawk
Thucydides clearly states that he wants to record what happened because he is sure that in the future, people are likely to "repeat it". Athens destroyed itself by invading Syracuse, a people who appeared weak, but could not be conquered. A sapped Athens then fell to the Pelopenese/Spartan assaults.
LibraryThing member jhudsui
One thing I definitely noticed is that contrary to all the talk about how dispassionate and objective the thing is supposed to be, Thucydides makes all kinds of really explicit value judgments about people and decisions that they make. It's mostly impartial in the sense of not taking the side of
Show More
Athens against Sparta, but he heaps praise on his favorite politicians from both sides and scorn on the people on both sides that he thinks made foolish choices.

Probably the most entertaining parts were the intrigues of Alciabades and Tissapharnes near the end where they're both trying to play both sides against each other and against each other too. Oh Alciabades, you scamp.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Neutiquam_Erro
Thucydides is known as the great-grandaddy of history, sharing that title with Herodotus but generally accepted as being the more objective of the two. And while Herodotus keeps us entertained with beguiling if largely unbelievable tales of lands he probably never saw, Thucydides renders a cold,
Show More
calculated, intensely detailed snapshot of events in which he was a minor player. Thus 'The History of the Peloponnesian Wars' is at once, very believable and very dry. If you are interested in a good story about the fall of the Athenian empire you've come to the wrong place (albeit perhaps the only good source). If you are an archaeologist or historian trying to determine the number of Carmarinaean hoplites at the siege of Syracuse, Thucydides is a treasure trove.

Thucydides, covers the approximately thirty years of the Pelopponesian wars. The wars, which effectively pitted the Athenian empire, formed of Athens and its mostly Ionian 'involuntary' allies, against the Spartan's and their more voluntary, if less democratically governed allies. The war grinds on for years without major event until the Athenians try to conquer Syracuse and Sicily. They ultimately fail, and, when the Persian empire intervenes on the side of Sparta, are stripped of their empire and ultimately defeated. The resulting book is full of details - not of character or daily life but of places and people. It's not an easy read.

That's not to say there aren't a few moving tales amongst the vast welter of place names, personal names, ship lists and roll calls. The story of the Mytilenian debate, in which the conquered Mytilene population is nearly massacred by a decree rescinded at the last second is definitely worth a read. The sad fate of the Athenian army after the long siege of Syracuse is also gripping, as is the escape from the siege of Plataea of two hundred men.

If you are an academic, this book is full of a lot of useful material on the Athenian empire, Sicily, Persia and Greece in the 4th century B.C. I imagine you could spend a lifetime cross-correlating names and places with other early documents and inscriptions. This edition is not particularly well stocked with scholarly resources, coming as it does with a brief introduction, four short appendices, few footnotes, and only a brief bibliography and index. You might be better off with the four volumes of the Loeb Classical Library's Thucydides. If you are taking a course in classical Greek history this might suffice.

Since I am not an academic but read history for interest's sake only, I found the book slow, pedantic and over-absorbed with details. If you are very interested in this time period but not willing to slog through a lot of factual detail I would suggest you read a modern book on Greek history. If, like me, you feel the need to read the source material, I would suggest you get a really good atlas of classical history, familiarize yourself with the history of the time period fully and only then attempt Thucydides.
Show Less
LibraryThing member trishrobertsmiller
I've read (and taught) this book multiple times, but it had been a while since I read all of it straight through. The intricacies of the war are pretty tedious, but the observations about war and deliberation are fascinating.
LibraryThing member la2bkk
There are some excellent prior reviews, so I will not repeat much of what has already been stated by other readers.

Suffice to say that it is often difficult to appreciate ancient works. Nonetheless, the significance of Thucydides' history is beyond question, making this book a classic by any
Show More
standard.

Although well written and remarkably readable given its age, the subject matter is complex, and sometimes difficult to keep in context. (Liberal usage of maps would be very helpful.) That said, the effort and time required to complete this book is well spent.
Show Less
LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
I was shocked at how much I loved this from first read. I know that often the view people have towards classics is of something boring, stiff, and stodgy--an absolute slog to get through. Right now, I'm making my way through Tacitus Annals of Imperial Rome. There are some eye-popping gossipy parts,
Show More
and it certainly gives you a sense of Roman civilization and Roman barbarism, but much of it is a dry slog. Thucydides and his history has some dry, pedantic patches, yes, but overall its shockingly readable and wears its age well. Maybe it helps he was a participant in events. Thucydides himself, an Athenian, was one of the city-state's generals in this war in the 4th century BC that lasted over a quarter of a century with devastating effect on all of Greece. It's as if Colin Powell told the story of the two American-Iraqi Wars or Eisenhower wrote an account of both World Wars and the Cold War. Except Thucydides tells the story, if not in a detached way, than one that comes across as even-handed. It's not as if you don't get his opinion on various figures and events--you definitely do. The character of Alcibiades comes through as fascinating and complex, Pericles as admirable. But there's no evident animus towards Sparta, Athens' adversary in the conflict. Sure Thucydides has his faults by modern standards of scholarship. It's hard to know what he left out or slanted since it's not as if many other versions of the events survived--certainly not in this detail. But Thucydides seemingly makes up speeches and conversations and otherwise acts in ways even our Capote-inspired creative narrative historians such as McCullough and Chernow wouldn't dare. But Thucydides invented history--the study of events, the people and forces that shape them, without attributing them to the acts of Gods. Nor did he write merely history, but literature--the kind of work you can read and reread and come away with new insights each time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Lukerik
A superb translation with equally good critical apparatus. This is the edition I would recommend if you want to read this history.
LibraryThing member mattries37315
Two political-economic systems compete for influence and dominance after the greatest war that has ever happened, but peace could not last. The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides covers the first twenty years of the war between Athens and Sparta before it’s abrupt ending, but
Show More
throughout his text the motives of the participants and the analysis of unintended consequences shows give the war it’s full context.

The first book—created by later editors not Thucydides—of the work focuses on early Greek history, political commentary, and seeks to explain how the war was caused and why it happened when it did. Over the course of Books 2 through 8, Thucydides covered not only the military action of the war but also the numerous political machinations that both sides encouraged in each other’s allied cities or in neutrals to bring them to their side. The war is presented in a chronological manner for nearly the entire work with only two or three diversions in either historical context or to record what happened elsewhere during the Sicilian Expedition that took up Books 6 & 7. The sudden ending of the text reveals that Thucydides was working hard on the work right up until he died, years after the conflict had ended.

The military narrative is top notch throughout the book which is not a surprise given Thucydides’ time as an Athenian general before his exile. Even though he was an Athenian, Thucydides was positively and negatively critical of both Athens and Sparta especially when it came to demagogues in Athenian democracy and severe conservatism that permeated Spartan society in all its facets. Though Thucydides’ created the prebattle and political speeches he relates, is straightforwardness about why he did it does not take away from the work. If there is one negative for the work is that Thucydides is somewhat dry which can make you not feel the urge to pick up the book if you’ve been forced to set it down even though you’ve been enjoying the flow of history it describes.

The History of the Peloponnesian War though unfinished due to Thucydides death was both a continuation of the historic genre that Herodotus began but also a pioneering work as it recorded history as it happened while also using sources that Thucydides was able to interview. If you enjoy reading history and haven’t read this classic in military history, then you need to.
Show Less
LibraryThing member madepercy
This work is a proper classic, therefore it is difficult to "review" it. This is my first cover-to-cover reading and I must say that putting the "speeches of democracy" into context is helpful. I have read Pericles "Funeral Oration" so many times, but it takes on such an insignificant role in the
Show More
long history of Thucydides' incomplete work. We are lucky to have such a document survive, yet I was surprised by the lack of studies in English of the text and its context. For such an important document, I assumed that the scholarly work would have been done to death. At times, the History reads like an adventure novel, and often I found myself turning pages eagerly to discover what happened next. Nowadays, I try to read classics cover-to-cover because I, like many, have never devoted proper time to do so, but the effort is most rewarding.
Show Less
LibraryThing member antiquary
Important but boring. Much less lively than Herodotus, but not necessarily more reliable despite his claims.
LibraryThing member allwebdeals
I learned many interesting facts about early Greek, Sicilian, and Italian history and place names which I had not previously discovered in my earlier readings on any of these subjects.
LibraryThing member gmicksmith
Why does Thucydides spend so little effort on the gods or the divine? Thucydides is the second major historian of the Greeks but you have to admire his independent and, for his day, scientific bent. He is much more modern than Herodotus and he is untypically Greek since he does not attribute human
Show More
events to divine intervention. You have to admire his attempt to write a reliable history despite his personal involvement in the war. The Peloponnesian War has so many implications for later conflicts that it remains a treasure trove of reflection and insight, all thanks to Thucydides.
Show Less
LibraryThing member axelp
"The Corcyraeans...went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The mass of the suppliants who had refused to do so, on seeing what was taking place, slew each other there on the consecrated ground; some hanged themselves upon the
Show More
trees, and others destroyed themselves as they were severally able. During seven days...the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those of their fellow-citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and although the crime imputed was that of attempting to put down the democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their debtors because of the moneys owed to them. Death thus raged in every shape; and as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or killed upon it, while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there."
Show Less
LibraryThing member serogers02
Thank goodness Thucydides died when he did. Though it would have been interesting to see some possible cynicism about the war, I don't think I could have handled another three hundred pages. I found many of the speeches and the use of rhetoric interesting, but overall the book was so dense that it
Show More
wasn't worth it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member datrappert
Thucydides is essential reading, but I recommend THE LANDMARK THUCYDIDES unless you are already well-versed in Greek history. It provides all the context you need to truly understand what's going on.
LibraryThing member Arthur_Kennedy
This book was a difficult read and a long read.

If this was a 10-star rating system I'd rate it 5 out of 10 stars.

You could read it but it's ancient history.
LibraryThing member soradsauce
Thucydides certainly made this a slog to get through, but I still give it four stars because the detail and description that makes it so hard to get through also makes it one of the clearest pictures of Ancient Greek war and life. If you're under house arrest/stuck in a blizzard/hiding from nuclear
Show More
holocaust for weeks, I'd recommend this book to you. Also, if you really are committed to Ancient Greek History.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DanielSTJ
A thorough account of the intrigues during a large portion of the Peloponnesian war. The descriptions are basic and the prose is simple, but this only aids the reader as they work along the bulk of this document.

Note: The manuscript is incomplete.

Recommended for history buffs.
LibraryThing member longhorndaniel
very detailed account of sparta and athens and their struggles both against and with each other and if you are not a history buff you may be bored to tears for the most part
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
Obviously one of the ornaments of Classical History, this Penguin edition, translated by Rex Warner has been on my shelf, and occasionally been referred to for the last sixty years. Though not as lively as the Plutarch biographies dealing with some of the popular figures of this war, or as simple
Show More
in approach as Herodotus, this is a basic book in historical education. While Thucydides was a participant in some of the events he describes, the author, probably a minor commander on the Athenian side of the struggle,does make efforts to seem even handed in his account of a brutal and exhausting struggle. Rex Warner's translation seems readable. The Mapping is sparse and not really adequate. For those desiring to discover how the war eventually ended, there is a book by Xenophon describing the final years of the war. The Penguin edition of that work is called "A History of My Times." While this 551 page edition does have an index, it is a fairly sketchy effort. I note the ISBN cited here is of an E-book edition.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JBGUSA
The Peloponnesian War

This book is fantastic, among my few “five stars.” That honor goes also to Democracy in America and the Old Testament; classics that have more than stood the test of time. When I was in college in 1978 my professor, Alvin Bernstein, said that Thucydides would always be a
Show More
“friend.” Too bad I didn’t read the entire book back then, or even all of the assigned portions of the book. Professor Bernstein was so right. My older son commented that it would take me as long to read it as the wars lasted. Almost exactly true, from 1978 till now. In reality in the last few years I have been interspersing reading it with other books. I still have a few pages of Appendix 4 to go but basically I’m done.

The book is not typical of anti-war tracts, railing against the establishment. It makes its significant anti-war points far more subtlety. There are eloquent passages about the indescribable suffering of the soldiers. The book is laced with wisdom for the ages, including a good section on how no good deed goes unpunished. Or the differences in dynamic societies (often water-oriented) such as Athens and Syracuse, on Sicily, contrasted with Sparta, bigger on “hoplites” or heavily armed land troops. The book indirectly hints at how Greece’s golden-age strength was much diminished by the fratricidal Peloponnesian wars and the struggles with Syracuse.

The book is quite a slog, but I recommend it highly to any history buff. It is great “primary source” literature, albeit edited and translated.
Show Less
LibraryThing member qaphsiel
As this book has been review a zillion times I'm not going to repeat the effort (plus I'm super busy at the moment), but I'll explain why I gave it a three at least.

It's a classic of course, and the translation seems pretty good to my relatively untrained eyes/ears, but the narration was definitely
Show More
sub-par. I've no idea if there are more recent audiobooks, but I'd definitely recommend looking for one before going for this one by Pat Bottino--or just read a non-audio version of course.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ctpress
The version I read was an abridged edition - 96 pages - old Danish translation that were used for high school. Interesting to read about men doing sports naked, about very detailed description of some sort of plague or epidemic - really horrible - that they couldn't find a cure for. But mostly it
Show More
was long speeches of peace-negotiations or war declarations with moral arguments on why a city should be spared or everyone killed in it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member albertgoldfain
Reread the complete version of this for the first time since reading the excerpted "On Justice, Power, and Human Nature" as an undergrad. Really shines in the imagined monologues negotiating terms, truces, and pleas. The military logistics fade in interest because this unwinnable war amounted to
Show More
the Athenian Vietnam.
Show Less

Language

Original language

Greek (Ancient)

Original publication date

c. 396 BCE
ca. 400 BCE (Greek)
1629 (Translation)

Physical description

326, 206 p.; 22 cm

Pages

326; 206

Local notes

Saturs:
1. d. : Ievads : 1. Tūcidida dzīve. 2. Tūcidida priekšteči vēstures rakstniecībā. 3. Tūcidids kā vēsturnieks. 4. Tūcidida vēsturiskā darba forma. 5. Tagadejie uzskati par vēstures rakstniecību / Fr. Garais ; Pirmā grāmata - Ceturtā grāmata ; Piezīmes
2. d. Piektā grāmata - Astotā grāmata (nepinīga); Piezīmes ; Pielikums.
Page: 1.4634 seconds