Sara Forsdyke
Biographic Data
| ID | 1374906 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sara Forsdyke |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sara |
| FAMILY NAME | Forsdyke |
| SIGNATURE | FORSDYKE S |
| AFFILIATIONS | American School of Classical Studies at Athens |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 34 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Greece
Slavery in ancient Greece was commonplace. In this book Sara Forsdyke uncovers the wide range of experiences of slaves and focuses on their own perspectives, rather than those of their owners, giving a voice to a group that is often rendered silent by the historical record. By reading ancient sources 'against the grain,' and through careful deployment of comparative evidence from more recent slave-owning societies, she demonstrates that slaves en…
Slave Agency and Citizenship in Classical Athens
Ancient and Modern Conceptions of the Rule of Law
This chapter provides a definition of the contested concept of the rule of law and suggests that it consists of three components: legal supremacy, legal equality and legal certainty. The chapter further argues that the classical Athenian legal system valued all three components of this definition of the rule of law, but also sought to balance the good of legal certainty against a more context specific assessment of equity in particular cases. In …
Kinēsis, Navies, and the Power Trap in Thucydides
In the Archaeology of his History, Thucydides traces those factors that led to the rise of the cities that face one another in the war that he records. Foremost among them is the navy. I contend that this focus on the navy as the basis of political power captures for Thucydides the connection between movement and power: possession of power is not a static condition but always entails the unending search for more power, allowing the cities who pos…
Thucydides and Myth
This essay shows how in Thucydides, and especially in the Archaeology, the mythological periods of Greek history become the subject of argumentation, rather than narrative exposition. It also points out the absence of references to myth and mythological figures from the speeches of the History. By contrast, Thucydides recorded the past and present formation of myths—for instance, the myth of the tyrant slayers Harmodius and Aristogiton—and the so…
Scale Matters
By examining variations in scale and techniques of expansion and contraction in Thucydides’ narrative, the essay identifies a mimetic principle in his writing—that the presentation of an episode in the work should normally be proportionate to its significance. Significance, however, is not measured by purely military factors. In fact, expansion is often an indicator of intense suffering, pathos. Among the techniques of expansion and compression d…
Xenophon as a Socratic Reader of Thucydides
Xenophon’s “continuation” of Thucydides’ history opens up a perspective on realism as it is found in the speeches and deeds of Thucydides’ Athenians. The Hellenica and, to a lesser extent, the Anabasis enter into a dialogue with Thucydides about realism and the problematic way in which its theory has an impact on practice. Xenophon’s morality contains surprisingly realistic elements, and his peculiar combination of ethics and politics highlights …
The Regime (Politeia) in Thucydides
This chapter discusses the importance of domestic politics generally and the regime in particular in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. It examines Thucydides’ presentation of the rule of the one (kingship or tyranny), the few (oligarchy), and the many (democracy), and concludes by suggesting that there are three principles of political rule that Thucydides himself endorses: the rule of the wise, the rule of law, and a mixed regime, wi…
The Tree, the Funnel, and the Diptych
This chapter introduces three common types of long sentence in Thucydides: the “tree,” in which the main action is presented as an initial fact to be explicated and complicated, the “funnel,” in which the main action is final culmination of a complex of motives or observations, and the “diptych,” in which the main action is a hinge that opens to the reader two tableaux, a “before” and “after,” and displays how they contrast with or mirror each ot…
Writing with Posterity in Mind
Thucydides and Tacitus are both uncomfortable authors whose unsparing commitment to revealing the truth results in grim depictions of the amoral deployment of political power—power for the sake of power—in idiosyncratic and difficult idioms. However, Tacitus never announces a program of Thucydides-imitation, whether pertaining to methodology or theme. Nor do ancient commentators link Tacitus to his Greek predecessor. Nevertheless, the two are muc…
Polybius and Sallust
This chapter examines Thucydides’ influence on Polybius and Sallust. It demonstrates the various ways in which these two authors drew on and adapted the concepts, methods and ideas, style, and narrative technique of their famous predecessor as part of the creation of their own original interpretations of the past. In respect to Polybius, the chapter argues that the Thucydidean paradigm had a marked effect both on Polybius’ conceptions of historic…
Thucydides on the Causes and Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides repeatedly explains that the Peloponnesian War arose not simply from the specific grievances of this or that state but from a longer process of growing Athenian power that inspired fear among the Spartans, making the war inevitable. Thucydides’ balanced and richly detailed account has not convinced everyone, however. Many scholars investigating the war’s causes have disagreed with Thucydides’ thesis, typically using the historian’s own…
Mantinea, Decelea, and the Interwar Years (421–413 bce)
The chapter examines Thucydides’ account of the interwar years. The work discusses its introductory sections (5.25–26), which set forth the thesis of the unity of the war, and sequentially considers the crisis of Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnesus from the Peace of Nicias to the Battle of Mantinea; the intervention of Athens in Peloponnesian issues and Alcibiades’ projects in the Peloponnesus; the events related to Melos; Alcibiades’ flight to …
Thucydides and His Continuators
This chapter discusses the ways in which later historians completed the unfinished history of Thucydides. Cratippus (the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia), Xenophon and Theopompus all wrote completions of Thucydides. They also attached continuations to their completions, going well beyond the endpoint Thucydides envisaged at 5.26. This chapter mentions the continuations only where relevant, however, choosing instead to focus on the completions…
Leaders and Leadership in Thucydides’ History
This essay explores what Thucydides teaches about leadership, by focusing on four prominent leaders in his History: Pericles, Brasidas, Alcibiades, and Nicias. Successful leaders operate within the confines of particular cities, regimes, and their ways of life, but find space for freedom by articulating goals and standards for action. Pericles instructs Athenians about their city’s purpose and its demands, while presenting himself as a model of f…
Thucydides, Procopius, and the Historians of the Later Roman Empire
This chapter discusses Thucydides’ influence on the historians of late antiquity, with a particular emphasis on Procopius. Topics include an overview of history writing in late antiquity; a look at some basic Thucydidean borrowings, from subject matter to types of episodes; a discussion of rhetoric and education in late antiquity and its role in fostering Thucydides’ impact; the particular place that Thucydides’ description of the siege of Platae…
Thucydides on the Four Hundred and the Fall of Athens
Book 8 shows why Thucydides was right to conclude that the Sicilian defeat was not enough to cause Athens to lose the Peloponnesian War. Fear and delay prevented the Athenians from responding effectively to the revolts breaking out throughout the empire and caused them to succumb to civil war. In contrast to the Athēaiōn Politeia, which suggests that the Four Hundred came to power because the Athenians doubted the merits of their democracy, Thucy…
Thucydides’ Historical Method
This chapter shows how Thucydides’ rigorous critical method and literary artistry combine to produce an intellectually penetrating and emotionally gripping account of the past. For Thucydides, the key to accuracy is his interpretation of the facts. But he also wanted his readers to experience events as he perceived them and thereby also experience the validity of his interpretations. In addition to analyzing Thucydides’ goals, the essay also disc…
Authorial Comments in Thucydides
This chapter argues that authorial comments are an important tool of Thucydides’ historiographical strategy. As the comments interrelate with the longer authorial essays, the surrounding narrative parts of the Histories, and the speeches of its actors, they guide the reader in interpreting rich, complex text. Authorial comments are typically found at the opening of episodes or at the introduction of characters, and thus often create a frame for e…
Thucydides’ Predecessors and Contemporaries in Historical Poetry and Prose
The aim of this chapter is to discover, and to adopt, the perspective through which Thucydides himself observed the landscape of historical memory in the fifth century bce. In the complex topography that comes into sight, different forms of oral memory alternate with early attempts to apply writing to the description of the past. Every element of the fifth-century memory landscape (Herodotus, oral history, local historians, historical poetry, epi…
Campaign and Battle Narratives in Thucydides
This chapter reviews the campaign and battle narratives of Thucydides’ History. It discusses the structural role of campaign narratives in the History, and then focusses on the prologues, actions, and speeches of the campaign narratives themselves. It also takes several battle narratives under examination, asking what questions these battle stories answer and how they function in the larger narrative. Finally, the chapter engages with the questio…
Thucydides and Attic Comedy
The Attic comic poets, despite their focus on celebrities and popular culture, their portrayal of Pericles as tyrannical, and their one-sidedly elite and rightist partisanship, nevertheless share with Thucydides an essentially coherent narrative of Athenian acme and decline after Pericles, exemplified politically by Cleon. Moreover, Thucydides often silently takes comic material into account when formulating his own narrative. This chapter examin…
Thucydides on Early Greek History
This chapter studies Thucydides’ account of early Greek history in the “Archaeology” (1.1.2–1.21.2). It shows that Thucydides’ criteria of development and his reconstruction of history are heavily influenced by power relations in Greece during the early stages of the Peloponnesian War. Comparison with other sources for both the legendary and the historical past reveals the extent to which Thucydides, by means of omission, selective emphasis, and …
Thucydides and Crowds
This essay considers Thucydides’ treatments of the crowd or mob in the context of his analysis of democratic politics in ancient Athens. Scholars have often located in Thucydides a critique of the crowd familiar from ancient philosophical accounts of democracy and a corresponding call for leadership that amounts to crowd control. Close attention to Thucydides’ portrayal of Athenian democratic politics complicates matters. While he indeed worries …
Sparta and the Crisis of the Peloponnesian League in Thucydides’ History
Thucydides’ History is one of the most important sources on the Peloponnesian League, the alliance that facilitated Sparta’s development into a leading power in the Greek world. As he traces the course of the Archidamian War to the aftermath of the Peace of Nicias through the first five books of his History, Thucydides illuminates the roots of Sparta’s dominance over its allies and the deleterious effect of the Peloponnesian War on Sparta’s hegem…
Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy: The Politics of Expulsion in Ancient Greece
This book explores the cultural and political significance of ostracism in democratic Athens. In contrast to previous interpretations, Sara Forsdyke argues that ostracism was primarily a symbolic institution whose meaning for the Athenians was determined both by past experiences of exile and by its role as a context for the ongoing negotiation of democratic values. The first part of the book demonstrates the strong connection between exile and po…
The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides
The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides contains essays on Thucydides as an historian, literary artist, and political philosopher. It also features papers on Thucydides' intellectual context and ancient reception. The creative juxtaposition of historical, literary, philosophical, and reception studies allows for a better grasp of Thucydides’ complex project and its impact on later periods. The Handbook is organized into four sections of papers: Thucydi…
From Aristocratic to Democratic Ideology and Back Again: The Thrasybulus Anecdote in Herodotus' Histories and Aristotle's Politics
Street Theatre and Popular Justice in Ancient Greece: Shaming, Stoning and Starving Offenders inside and outside the Courts
Born from the Earth”: The Political Uses of an Athenian Myth
This paper analyzes the evolution of Athenian myths of their origins from the eighth century to the fourth century BCE. The analysis shows that Athenian myths of origins changed in emphasis and significance according to political needs. In the earliest period (c.800–480 BCE), the Athenians emphasized their descent from earthborn kings who were nurtured by Athena. In this way, the Athenians laid claim to the territory of Attica and to a place in t…
Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Thucydides
Thucydides was very popular among Roman rhetoricians and historians of the first century bce. The Greek critic Dionysius of Halicarnassus, however, criticizes Thucydides for his unnatural style and his inappropriate treatment of subject matter. This chapter explains Dionysius’ criticisms by taking into account the later writer’s rhetorical perspective on the writing of history, as well as the character of his Roman audience, which included the ad…
Thucydides on Nature and Human Conduct
Thucydides follows the “Pre-Socratics” and anticipates the Socratics in considering politics in the context of the question of nature. His view of nature, which he expresses above all through the antithesis (or dyad) of motion and rest, seems typically “Pre-Socratic”: of other extant views it most recalls that of Empedocles. Yet by expounding politics itself in terms of rest and motion, he does not so much distinguish it from the natural realm as…
Thucydides and the Politics of Necessity
Thucydides’ text is a locus classicus for political-theoretical discussions of necessity. Such figures as the Athenian envoys in Sparta and Melos frequently draw upon the concept to explain and justify their actions, while Thucydides himself employs it to great explanatory effect in accounting for the actions and origins of the Peloponnesian War. But necessity does not work in only one mode for Thucydides, nor do his characters draw on one consis…
Thucydides on the Four Hundred and the Fall of Athens
Book 8 shows why Thucydides was right to conclude that the Sicilian defeat was not enough to cause Athens to lose the Peloponnesian War. Fear and delay prevented the Athenians from responding effectively to the revolts breaking out throughout the empire and caused them to succumb to civil war. In contrast to the Athēaiōn Politeia, which suggests that the Four Hundred came to power because the Athenians doubted the merits of their democracy, Thucy…
Thucydides on Early Greek History
This chapter studies Thucydides’ account of early Greek history in the “Archaeology” (1.1.2–1.21.2). It shows that Thucydides’ criteria of development and his reconstruction of history are heavily influenced by power relations in Greece during the early stages of the Peloponnesian War. Comparison with other sources for both the legendary and the historical past reveals the extent to which Thucydides, by means of omission, selective emphasis, and …
Thucydides on the Sicilian Expedition
This chapter analyzes Thucydides’ account of the Athenian invasion in Sicily in Books 6 and 7 of his History, focusing on the interpretative consequences of Thucydides’ Athenian focalization and the fact that the success of his account has obscured alternative perspectives on this invasion. Particular attention is paid to the narrative patterning of the Sicilian invasion as a “double war” that runs parallel to the main, overarching war between th…
Writing History Implicitly through Refined Structuring
Thucydides self-consciously composed his history for an elite audience of reader-listeners who would pay close attention to his work, not simply hear parts of it recited once. On the surface, he organized it tightly according to rigidly heeded principles: strict focus on war and political decision-making; rigorous ordering of time and space by consecutive summers and winters, and by theaters of action. Behind these overt structures Thucydides imp…
Thucydides and His Intellectual Milieu
The chapter examines Thucydides’ intellectual milieu, concentrating on medical theories of the time, rhetoric, and especially the rhetorical use of theories of justice and self-interest. It examines the account of the Plague and the impossibility of isolating a cause, akribeia as a wider aim of medical writers, and Thucydides’ familiarity with intellectual theories, which he then supersedes. Finally, it examines aspects of the presentation of rhe…
Thucydides on the Athenian Empire and Interstate Relations (431–404)
This chapter explores the nature of the Athenian Empire (or Delian League) during the Peloponnesian War, discussing its administration, its finances (particularly the tribute and the tax on trade that replaced it), and the changes in its scale and ideology during this period. The final part of the chapter outlines other aspects of interstate conduct, especially attitudes to treaties and diplomacy. The non-Thucydidean evidence, both literary and (…
Speeches
The great number of set speeches in Thucydides’ work reflects the importance of the art of persuasion in his world, but also exhibits an awareness of the limitations of that art. Far from suggesting straightforward explanations, in their multifarious, dynamic relation to their narrative contexts, immediate or remote, Thucydides’ speeches create a dialectical historiography. Their diversity regarding a series of criteria (speakers, audiences, them…
The Pentecontaetia
The term “Pentecontaetia” refers both to the narrative in Thucydides’ History for the fifty-year period between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, 478–431 bce (1.89–118) and to the historical period during that time. This chapter aims above all to further appreciation of how Thucydides understood this crucial period in Greek history that saw the emergence of the Athenian empire. Themes and emphases include the origins of the Delian League and th…
From Aristocratic to Democratic Ideology and Back Again: The Thrasybulus Anecdote in Herodotus' Histories and Aristotle's Politics
Greek History c. 525–480 BC
Scholars have approached Herodotus more productively by focusing on what Herodotus does say and what this indicates about the nature of his sources and his methods of composition. It is only by gaining greater insight into these features of Herodotean historiography that modern historians may better understand what his accounts can tell us about archaic and classical Greek history. The first episode of Greek history of our period which Herodotus …
Herodotus, political history and political thought
The Ethiopians have customs which are different from all other men, especially concerning their rulers. For they choose as king the person among the citizens who is biggest and strongest. (3.20.2) Observations about the political practices of Greeks and non-Greeks such as the one in the epigraph above were once taken as indicative of Herodotus' interest in the odd or unusual features of societies, rather than the systematic analysis of politics. …
The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus
Herodotus' Histories is the first major surviving prose work from antiquity. Its range of interests is immense, covering the whole of the known world and much beyond, and it culminates in a detailed account of the Persian Wars of the early fifth century BC. Moreover, research has shown that Herodotus is a sophisticated and at times even ironic narrator, and a pioneer and serious practitioner of historical research at a time when the Greeks' tradi…
Street Theatre and Popular Justice in Ancient Greece: Shaming, Stoning and Starving Offenders inside and outside the Courts
Civic Institutions
This article looks at the parallel evolution of civic institutions, all of which culminated in the polis , the ‘city-state’, as the backdrop to the rich cultural legacy of the fifth and fourth centuries. Historians have demonstrated that the formal institutions of the Greek city-state are best understood as emerging from, but still very much embedded within, a much broader range of collective practices and discourses. Nevertheless, it is the dyna…
Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy: The Politics of Expulsion in Ancient Greece
This book explores the cultural and political significance of ostracism in democratic Athens. In contrast to previous interpretations, Sara Forsdyke argues that ostracism was primarily a symbolic institution whose meaning for the Athenians was determined both by past experiences of exile and by its role as a context for the ongoing negotiation of democratic values. The first part of the book demonstrates the strong connection between exile and po…
The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle's Polis by D. Brendan Nagle
180 PHOENIX of thealarmingsuggestion of the"merely," theessayexpounds lucidly both thedifficulties that itmeans to solve, and its solution: the parts of the soul are different parts of a single thing because each has a different way of performing the one cognitive activity of "distinguishing" (icpi'veiv). Antony Hatzistavrou's "Happiness and the Nature of the Philosopher-Kings" takes some old chestnuts and gives some novel and interlocking soluti…
Slaves Tell Tales: And Other Episodes in the Politics of Popular Culture in Ancient Greece
Most studies of ancient Greek politics focus on formal institutions such as the political assembly and the law courts, and overlook the role that informal social practices played in the regulation of the political order. Sara Forsdyke argues, by contrast, that various forms of popular culture in ancient Greece--including festival revelry, oral storytelling, and popular forms of justice--were a vital medium for political expression and played an i…
Julia L. Shear. Polis and Revolution: Responding to Oligarchy in Classical Athens
Journal Article Julia L. Shear. Polis and Revolution: Responding to Oligarchy in Classical Athens. Get access Julia L. Shear. Polis and Revolution: Responding to Oligarchy in Classical Athens.New York: Cambridge University Press. 2011. Pp. xv, 368. $99.00. Sara Forsdyke Sara Forsdyke University of Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 117, Issue 4, October 2012, Pa…
Born from the Earth”: The Political Uses of an Athenian Myth
This paper analyzes the evolution of Athenian myths of their origins from the eighth century to the fourth century BCE. The analysis shows that Athenian myths of origins changed in emphasis and significance according to political needs. In the earliest period (c.800–480 BCE), the Athenians emphasized their descent from earthborn kings who were nurtured by Athena. In this way, the Athenians laid claim to the territory of Attica and to a place in t…
Introduction: Greco-Latin Findings
In this introduction to part 2 of the Common Knowledge symposium "Peace by Other Means," the journal's editor reflects on the difference between the contributions to parts 1 and 2. Whereas the first installment concentrated on ethnography, the second focuses on the peacemaking repertoire of the Greco-Latin tradition, whose basis is psychological. That tradition is characterized by its refusal of wishful thinking about human nature and, in particu…
Slaves, Stories, and Cults
This article examines a dramatic story about a slave rebellion on the island of Chios and argues that such stories were the medium through which masters and slaves negotiated compromise between the slaves' desire to be free and the masters' desire to control their slaves. This interpretation arises from a recognition of the complexity of a story that on the one hand celebrates the triumphs of a heroic slave over his masters, but on the other hand…
Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World by Claire Taylor Kostas Vlassopoulos
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 199 antique y trouvera de la manière la plus commode les articles fondamentaux du maı̂tre de l’étude documentaire des finances publiques de la Grèce ancienne. University of Chicago Alain Bresson Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World. By Claire Taylor and Kostas Vlassopoulos. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2015. Pp. 320, 7 illustrations, and 15 tables. The animating idea of this volume is to encourage sc…
Delphi: A History of the Center of the Ancient World
Book Review| September 01 2016 Delphi: A History of the Center of the Ancient World Scott, Michael, Delphi: A History of the Center of the Ancient World. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 440 pp. Sara Forsdyke Sara Forsdyke Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2016) 22 (3): 512–513. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-3634214 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Per…
Kinēsis, Navies, and the Power Trap in Thucydides
In the Archaeology of his History, Thucydides traces those factors that led to the rise of the cities that face one another in the war that he records. Foremost among them is the navy. I contend that this focus on the navy as the basis of political power captures for Thucydides the connection between movement and power: possession of power is not a static condition but always entails the unending search for more power, allowing the cities who pos…
Thucydides and Myth
This essay shows how in Thucydides, and especially in the Archaeology, the mythological periods of Greek history become the subject of argumentation, rather than narrative exposition. It also points out the absence of references to myth and mythological figures from the speeches of the History. By contrast, Thucydides recorded the past and present formation of myths—for instance, the myth of the tyrant slayers Harmodius and Aristogiton—and the so…
Scale Matters
By examining variations in scale and techniques of expansion and contraction in Thucydides’ narrative, the essay identifies a mimetic principle in his writing—that the presentation of an episode in the work should normally be proportionate to its significance. Significance, however, is not measured by purely military factors. In fact, expansion is often an indicator of intense suffering, pathos. Among the techniques of expansion and compression d…
Xenophon as a Socratic Reader of Thucydides
Xenophon’s “continuation” of Thucydides’ history opens up a perspective on realism as it is found in the speeches and deeds of Thucydides’ Athenians. The Hellenica and, to a lesser extent, the Anabasis enter into a dialogue with Thucydides about realism and the problematic way in which its theory has an impact on practice. Xenophon’s morality contains surprisingly realistic elements, and his peculiar combination of ethics and politics highlights …
The Regime (Politeia) in Thucydides
This chapter discusses the importance of domestic politics generally and the regime in particular in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. It examines Thucydides’ presentation of the rule of the one (kingship or tyranny), the few (oligarchy), and the many (democracy), and concludes by suggesting that there are three principles of political rule that Thucydides himself endorses: the rule of the wise, the rule of law, and a mixed regime, wi…
The Tree, the Funnel, and the Diptych
This chapter introduces three common types of long sentence in Thucydides: the “tree,” in which the main action is presented as an initial fact to be explicated and complicated, the “funnel,” in which the main action is final culmination of a complex of motives or observations, and the “diptych,” in which the main action is a hinge that opens to the reader two tableaux, a “before” and “after,” and displays how they contrast with or mirror each ot…
Writing with Posterity in Mind
Thucydides and Tacitus are both uncomfortable authors whose unsparing commitment to revealing the truth results in grim depictions of the amoral deployment of political power—power for the sake of power—in idiosyncratic and difficult idioms. However, Tacitus never announces a program of Thucydides-imitation, whether pertaining to methodology or theme. Nor do ancient commentators link Tacitus to his Greek predecessor. Nevertheless, the two are muc…
Polybius and Sallust
This chapter examines Thucydides’ influence on Polybius and Sallust. It demonstrates the various ways in which these two authors drew on and adapted the concepts, methods and ideas, style, and narrative technique of their famous predecessor as part of the creation of their own original interpretations of the past. In respect to Polybius, the chapter argues that the Thucydidean paradigm had a marked effect both on Polybius’ conceptions of historic…
Thucydides on the Causes and Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides repeatedly explains that the Peloponnesian War arose not simply from the specific grievances of this or that state but from a longer process of growing Athenian power that inspired fear among the Spartans, making the war inevitable. Thucydides’ balanced and richly detailed account has not convinced everyone, however. Many scholars investigating the war’s causes have disagreed with Thucydides’ thesis, typically using the historian’s own…
Mantinea, Decelea, and the Interwar Years (421–413 bce)
The chapter examines Thucydides’ account of the interwar years. The work discusses its introductory sections (5.25–26), which set forth the thesis of the unity of the war, and sequentially considers the crisis of Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnesus from the Peace of Nicias to the Battle of Mantinea; the intervention of Athens in Peloponnesian issues and Alcibiades’ projects in the Peloponnesus; the events related to Melos; Alcibiades’ flight to …
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