
A Possession for All Time: How Should We Read Thucydides? - diodorus
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/possession-all-time
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chewz
Why Classics

1

In the book Fourth of the Peloponnese Wars

Thucydides tells the story of his unsuccessful expedition

Among the long talk of the chiefs,

Battles, sieges and plagues,

dense network of intrigues,

diplomatic procedures

This episode is like a pin

in the forest

Athenian colony Amfipolis

fell into the hands of Brazydas

Because Thucydides had been late for the rescue

He paid to his hometown

with a lifelong exile

Exiles of all times

Know what price it is

2

Generals of recent wars

if there is a similar affair

whine on the knees before posterity

Praise their heroism

and innocence

accuse subordinates

envious colleagues

Unfriendly winds

Thucydides says only

he had seven ships

it was winter

and he sailed swiftly

Czesław Miłosz [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz)

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
(From the wiki text:)

"[...] an exhibition celebrating Miłosz's life and work, entitled Exile as
Destiny."

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vajrabum
The lede isn't just buried here, its almost unmentioned. At the end of this
war the Athenian empire was no more and Athens was reduced to being a vassal
state and didn't recover its prominence until the Greek revolution in the 19th
century. Bad judgement, exceptionalism and overreaching driven by demagoguery
lead to the end of an empire--not for the last time.

~~~
post-
This isn’t an entirely accurate picture. In Hanink’s first book, she
demonstrates how the classical Athens that we think of today was largely an
invention of Athens in the fourth century BCE.

To oversimplify a bit, although Athens lost its military hegemony at the end
of the Peloponnesian War, Athens and Athenianness maintained a powerful
cultural influence for centuries.

I think the lede, then, is clear from the first paragraph: classical Athens
(synechdochically represented through Thucydides here) is a construct that can
be used for diverse ends, and we need to pay careful to attention to who uses
it and how.

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onychomys
The article totally misses that he's important to epidemiologists because it's
the earliest good description of a plague. He spends several pages on the
Plague of Athens in 430BCE:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Athens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Athens)

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pseudolus
The Melian dialogue (basically might makes right) is probably the earliest and
one of the most realistic descriptions of the rationale used by conquerors to
justify their actions [0]. People haven't changed much in the nearly 2500
years since Thucydides' death, it's just been a constant stream of new excuses
in the form of race, religion, and nationalism. That, in a period of history
that we believe to be significantly less advanced than our own, he laid bare
an essential truth is a credit to him. He deserves a place on the bookshelves
of all, right beside Machiavelli's "The Prince".

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos#The_Melian_Dial...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos#The_Melian_Dialogue)

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
The words there are perhaps the most chilling ever penned - "since you know as
well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between
equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what
they must."

Incidentally, the Venus of Milo statue was found in the island a couple of
centuries ago. It used to be a major Louvre museum attraction.

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billfruit
Haven't read Thucydides yet, but some of the reasons listed for reading him,
seems to fit as well to Plutarch also. I think there may be more variety in
Plutarch though, because he wrote about a more wider variety of people and
things.

~~~
scandox
There's a world of difference. Plutarch is - as an old friend of mine once
said - "an old club bore telling rambling anecdotes about famous men".
Thucydides work is incisive and focused.

Both are enjoyable though.

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mark_l_watson
I read his History of the Peloponnesian War in the tenth grade. Thank you Mr
Chrome!

I remember really enjoying it but it may have been my teacher.

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spinchange
Not like Steve Bannon

