I would like you to read all of Thucydides' history (and all the dialogues of Plato, all thirty two extant Greek tragedies, all the plays of Aristophanes, and all of Plutarch). For next Thursday, however, I will be satisfied if you skim all of Book I and read the following selections from Book II: Pericles' Funeral Oration (II:34-46), The Plague in Athens (II: 46-57), and Pericles' Justification of His Policies (II:57-65).Comment here on what you think of Thucydides as a historian. Note one specific strength or weakness, and give an example or two of what you liked/didn't like about Thucydides.
-Wow- Thucydides is impressive to me! Seriously. That is amazing how he remembers all the information he obtains, like Pericles's speech or the Funeral Orator's speech...amazing! One definite strength of Thucydides is his infinite amount of knowledge and details about.....everything. Details details details. Of course, to the average joe reader such as my self, this specific strength of remembrance of such elongated information tends to discontinue my attention and consciousness. But other than that, he has my respect. In the paragraph starting at the top of pg.48, Thucydides gives good justification of his factual reporting; haha, he even mentions the weakness that I just mentioned, about his writing dragging on: "...it may well be that my history will seem less easy to read because of the absence in it of a romantic element."
ReplyDelete"My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever." There you have it.
Aside from observable neutrality in Thucydides writing though, I will say that I will not put my trust and belief in him; he could be wrong about the things he writes about; he may have made a mistake. He is a man, and nothing more. You can't take the chance to put your trust in someone if they don't demonstrate in some way God's Spirit living in them.
Laura McCowan
ReplyDeleteThucydides is by far a very good historian. In my opinion he is on par with Herodotus. Though I do veiw Herodotus as better. Thuchydides makes his sound much more like a more modern history text, but at the same time he adds many elements of a story.
I loved the Corinthian speech to the Spartans. On page 73. The fact that he remembers the whole of the speech is amazing. The fact that he has so much info in general is amazing. Mordern History books have trouble gaining this much info, and they have the internet.
Archidamus' speech on page 82, just took my breath away that was be far my favorite speech. His ideas still hold true today.
The detail he goes into about descrbiing the plague is great. That part was very interesting.
History is still kinda onesided. I don't believe Thucydides is any better. He does do a good job, but he may be fudging some small facts. I dunno, a great work of history, but not something to put all ones faith in.
Kirsten Saunders
ReplyDeleteIt is evident that Thucydides' ability to detail facts, processes, people, events, speeches etc. is phenomenal. I appreciate his "bland" approach to the subject, because details are not lost in stories I may consider frivilous. Additionally, I would be interested in Thcydides' approach to writing this extensive history. Thucydides clearly outlines the themes understating the Peloponnesian War, (p.49) "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta..." There is a clear purpose to this work, clear understanding of root causes, and support of his sources. History is subjective, but Thucydides accounts for bias within his writing, an important component to historical recollection. I loved Pericles' Funeral oration. The detail leading to the oration is simple and uncorrupted by frivolous information, but the oration itself is not only comforting, but deafening with purpose. One of my favorite lines follows, "But the man who can be truly accounted as brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible, and then goes out undettered to meet what is to come." (p.147)Thucydides mastered what I consider a good history because it is lasting.
Annie Merkel
ReplyDeleteI think Thucydides is a good historian because of his attention to detail. For example, when talking about Pericles' Funeral Oration, Thucydides went into great detail about what exactly happens and why. Overall, Thucydides is a good historian because he includes alot of information about certain parts of the war.
I also liked that Thucydides is very easy to follow and understand. His story is organized into different sections, which makes it easy to follow. In general, Thucydides is easy to read, which makes me want to read more.
"For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule."
ReplyDeleteFor me this was a great statement from the funeral eulogy, and I thought Thucydides did a great job capturing this moment. This reminded me of a presidential speech, and during such a large war this is important for moral, and I believe this is so important to capture this as a historian. Today we have most if not all great speeches from our leaders on video, or at least on tape, and we will be able to preserve our history. Thusydides is a great historian because he understands the importance of Pericles' words, and to get them down within context and to perserve them to history. He is extremely easy to follow and that helps me a lot.
Zach Anderson
By the way, first one on the list is Peter Ryman..
ReplyDeleteBrian Johnson
ReplyDeleteI think Thucydides does a very good job of providing detail, as has been mentioned several times.
But I also think he has excellent sources. For example he quotes a letter from King Xerxes to Pausanias. How did he know the contents of the letter?
I think on the downside, he doesn't do a great job of making it relevant or important. At least not as good of a job as Herodotus did. Perhaps that will change as we read further though.
Sam Merkel
ReplyDeleteI thought that Thucydides did a great job. He does a good job proving himself as a historian. I liked how he was able to remember in great detail the plague. Granted that his writing does sort of drag on, he does make up for it though by going into great detail. For me thats what makes a good historian, knowing the details and being able to clarify the right from wrong. One of the other things that is needed to be considered a good historian is being able to make the information important or compare it to something else. I think that is the only problem with Thucydides's writing. He does not do a great job with that. But nobody is perfect, and I am just as guilty when I try to type my papers, so who am I to judge.
-I agree with everyone on his inclusion of speeches from both sides of the conflict. You hear the first one and you think that they will definlty choose this side over the other. But then the other side speaks and you can see why everything back then was so complicated
ReplyDelete-Think thucydides did a great job showing both sides of all stories and all the past conflicts that make up the complicated history of greece.
-love his attention to detail, he doesn't leave anything out which is very impressive
-compared to herodotus he is not as interesting, he just seems kind of smug to me for some reason but he is still a pretty good reason. Didn't mark the page but I believe he did say that one historian had all his facts wrong and didn't get his sources right...
I really liked Thucydides history. He made it seem very lucid, though it was a bit dry. The only part that I had trouble with was the fact that he indulges his ego quite a bit in the first two books. He does of a lot of telling you what you want to hear about his books, and that he has checked his sources and wrote a *history* book and he is not a "prose chronicler, who is less interested in telling the truth than in catching the attention of their public," (24) which I see as basically a smack in the face for Herodotus.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, it is a very detailed history and holds your attention, even without the extremely amazing stories like Herodotus.
I like Thucydides very much as a historian because of one primary reason, and that is the fact that all of what he writes is first hand. That is something you don't find very common; almost all other historians are sourcing other people, who might be sourcing other people, etc. However, Thucydides was there for these events so all of his analasys comes directly from his own observations; his ideas are his own.
ReplyDeleteAlso, since it was happening around him, he was able to go into very specific details about the subject; that I liked a lot as well.
One thing that frustrated me at first was the fact that he doesn't really use dates; instead he goes in sequense of this happened, then this happened, then this happened, etc. I liked this method more and more as he used it because, as a reader you don't get as distracted with that date compared to what was happening in other cultures; this can happen a lot with some historian. I began to like how he kept you in Greece in that time, and didn't really take you far from it.
Doran Stucky
As I skimmed along book I, I found that I was enjoying myself probably more than usual while reading an ancient text. It actually took me a while to notice this because I wasn't thinking about when my reading would be over, but about what I was actually reading. Overall what I read was good but nothing had really stood out to me. It could be my terrible reading comprehension or it could be Thucydides. I hadn't read enough to decide, until I happened upon The Spartan Ultimatum and Pericles' Reply.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I saw that header I thought. "OK Kelsey this should be good." As I read the excitement built up for Pericles' big reply (yay)and once I got there I knew it was me, not Thucydides.
What I loved about this was not how through he was and how much he could remember, but the advantage he had of living during this time. Because of this, He was able to capture the voice of Pericles. I wasn't just learning second hand, but from Pericles himself.
I looked back at what I had absent mindedly read earlier and found that this was not just for Pericles' reply but for all. Thucydides does not speak for a people. He speaks as the people. Maybe I appreciate this being a theatre major, but it really bring a sense of life to the history.
Kelsey Leddy
Ruth Wilson
ReplyDeleteyup, good details. Who knows somebody today that can remember whole speaches? And from both sides- zounds, Batman! I like that one can get a sense of the people that wrote those speaches because of the attention to language Thucydides had. I don't think he was that boring, but I like to read history books for fun.
I do like herodutus better as a historian thucydides because he made things a little more interesting. He also went to great lengths to try and find out what happened and to get the both sides of the story. Thucydides just kind of took notes in a journal and didn't go around asking questions. Like when he was talking about the plague he admits that he has no knowledge on medicine and that his view about anything on the plague could be wrong but still goes on taking about it anyways instead of asking a doctor. Not that would have been much help anyways but it would have shown he tried.
ReplyDeleteJon Evenson
everyone has pritty much said this already but he is amazing with detail. is desription ofthe plage makes it very easy to imagine and understandwhat is going on.
ReplyDeleteas for weakness, maybe too detailed. i find it somewhat unbeliveble that he rememberd compleat speaches so part of me woudners if he may have gotten things wrong or embleshed them himself. i also find his writing inconsistant. some times its realy interesting and other times its not and im not sure why its included. but he is a realy good historian no doubt about that.he has alot to tell.
-allison rademacher
I have to agree with pretty much everyone else and note that the details that he gives are phenomenal. Not many historians give you as much detail as him. Also, he must have a great memory because he remembers everything about anything he hears or sees, citing whole speaches at time. But, like John noted, sometimes he just writes about things he does not have much knowledge on, the plague for example. Herodutus's works might be more enjoyable to read, but the details in Thucydides are awesome.
ReplyDeleteI like that he is very comprehensive and detail oriented. To put a full speech down, word for word, shows the expert craftsmanship Thuycidides can accomplish. I also like that he included things that are meant to teach you more than just history. They teach you how to live life with compassion.
ReplyDeleteKevin Nakajima
I have really enjoyed Thucydides so far. This has been one of the smoothest reads so far in this class.
ReplyDeleteThucydides is an excellent historian for a few reasons. First, he does a very good job at describing all the different causes that influenced the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Many people would just think that the war started because Sparta felt threatened by Athens. While this is true it is not the only part to the story, and Thucydides makes this very clear in Book 1. Another reason Thucydides is an excellent story is his ability to use many details in order to paint a picture for the reader. A couple of sections where he does this very well is when he describes the funeral procession for Pericles (pg. 143-150) and when he describes the plague and hoow it affects the people in comes into contact with (pg. 151-153). When I was reading these two sections I could really imagine an Athenian funeral procession or someone being attacked by the Plague, and being able to visualize the words in a story is the most important thing to me.
I think Thucydides is a very good historian. He described why the war would be inevitable in detail. Why Athens and Sparta had to start war which used to alliance once. . . He analyses the cause of the war by describing the balance of power and theory of alliance. The Greek historian, Thucydides, wrote in detail and objective way. We can find his way of explain. “With regard to Pausanias’s collaboration with Persia, The Spartans sent an embassy to Athens and, on the basis of evidence which they discovered at the inquiry, accused Themistocles also of the same crime.” Likewise, he wrote ‘the Peloponnesian war’ with the precise evidence which can be reliable.
ReplyDeleteBecause his book, many people could know what happened and why this war happened.. so I think Thuydides is a good historian.