In our next set of readings, we are moving from tragic plays to the history writing. Specifically, we are reading excerpts of Thucydides "History of the Peloponnesian War." Thucydides was an Athenian, and he served as a general during that war. In his major engagement, he unsuccessfully attempted to keep the city of Amphipolis from being conquered by the Spartans. For this, he was exiled, and he spent the rest of the war writing his history. Thucydides' history is the first we know of that attempted to do what we might call "rational" or scientific history. He does not make any reference to supernatural or fantastical events (such as the gods). Rather, he gathers evidence and attempts to reason from cause to effect.
So before reading these texts, you should know a few issues. First, after the Athenians defeated the Persians at the battle of Salamis (480 BCE), Athens became the head of a collection of alliances known as the Delian League. Over time, this set of alliances effectively became an Athenian empire, with Athens forcing alliance members to pay tribute to Athens for protection. The result was that Athens and her allies/subjects started to come into a rivalry with the other major power int he region, Sparta. Eventually, in 431 BCE, Sparta and Athens went to war. This is known as the Peloponnesian War, and it lasted until 404 BCE, when Athens was finally defeated.
The readings we are looking at are Thucydides' account of a few early events in the war. In the first,
"The Funeral Oration," Thucydides recounts a speech that the Athenian leader, Pericles, gave after the first year of the war. When reading the speech, focus on two things: Pericles' account of Athenian virtues, and how his discussion of mourning might compare to the conflicts about mourning that occur in "Antigone." Finally, since Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" used Pericles' "Funeral Oration" as its model, I'm also going to recommend you read Lincoln too. You can find the "Gettysburg Address"
here.
The second reading,
"The Plague of Athens," is Thucydides' depiction of a key event from the second year of the war. In 429 BCE, with people from the countryside taking refuge in the city of Athens, a plague breaks out and kills an enormous number of people, including Pericles. Pay attention, then, to how Thucydides juxtaposes Pericles' statement about Athenian virtues to how the Athenians react to the plague.
And finally, there is the
"Melian Dialogue," which we will discuss on Wednesday of next week. This dialogue is set in 416 BCE. Melos was an island city-state, and since Athens was a naval power, they believed that Melos should join the Athenian empire. However, the Melians were related to Sparta (it had started originally as a Spartan colony), and so they wanted to remain neutral. The dialogue, then, represents the discussion of why Athens did not think that Melos could retain its neutrality.
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