Thucydides work focused on the war and on foreign relations with society and the helot class not being central to his work. Any evidence produced by Thucydides must be read in light of the fact that he greatly admired the Spartan system of controlling and suppressing the…
Can you imagine four-thousand spartans charging down a hill while three-thousand Athenians ready their bows and release them all simultaneously while the string whips in the hard rain? The Peloponnesian War was one of the most fierce wars in Greece because many people fell in battle. From the South were the Spartans. Their forces had never been stronger with a reformed, military-based government. From the North was the Athenians who had just been through a war that had been won, and were still armed and battle ready, holding fortresses across Greece. The interactions that these two city states made against, with, and without them were so intense that even the fierce kings, Leonidas of Sparta and King Pericles Cleon Nicias of Athens, fell to each other's armies.…
Allies from their existence, Athens and Sparta had fought side by side for centuries. These two Greek city-states fought together in the Greco-Persian war, but when the Persians retreated, tension rose. Athens gained more power than they needed, plunging the two cities into nearly three decades of war. The outcome was devastating. Although Sparta won, they were extremely demoralized. Athens was bankrupt and exhausted, and neither city regained the military strength they once had. This infamous conflict came to be known as the Peloponnesian War.…
The Peloponnesian War is often times called the war to begin all wars, as there were many new technologies that occurred from it which can often times have historians and scientists view similarities and differences between other wars. The War consisted of two Greek military states that were seeking for dominance in the Greek Empire. These two states consisted of that of the Spartan and Athenian empire. Both civilizations consisted of two dominant militaries, one by land and one by sea. As the two fought, each side had to go through many cultural and psychological changes. This then caused the war to be viewed as the first Great War between two separate militaries. This then focuses us on the inclusion of the Vietnam War. Many similarities and differences can be seen through the two and all have great variants between both wars. In this report I will dwell on the similarities and differences that occurred through the Peloponnesian War and Vietnam War.…
“Men who are capable of real action first make their plans and then go forward without hesitation while their enemies have still not made up their minds.” ― Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War. If there was ever a more accurate quote to describe Alcibiades, this out shone it. Through his manipulation, impressive persuasion, and eagerness to be on the winning side, Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, was able to become a prominent figure in the Peloponnesian war.…
This piece is crucial in Thucydides work as it showcases many themes and messages and how they connect to the big-picture of life and civilization. The theme of this document is the democratic nature of the city-state because it displays what Athens has to offer as well as how civilians are willing to represent the state in return.…
Among the most renowned literary works are those of the ancient Greeks. Literary works by the ancient Greeks include historical documentation, along with tragedies based on conflicts. According to the historian Thucydides, the greatest conflict was the Peloponnesian war between the Athenians and Spartans, along with each of their allies. In the opinion of Thucydides, the Peloponnesian war was due to the growth of Athens and the fear, the growth caused in the Spartans and their allies (Thucydides, Book I, chapter I). Accounts of events by Thucydides, for Francis Cornford, are not merely historic, but rather works of art. The History of the Peloponnesian War according to Thucydides is artistic through carefully crafted speeches and captivating…
Herodotus was a Greek historian whose work encompassed Western civilization involving conflicts between Greece and the Persian Empire. There were many differences between the Greeks and the Persians. For instance, the Greeks struggled to find freedom during 480 B.C – 400 B.C. They were determined to train their soldiers, especially Spartan warriors, to be brave, courageous, and strong for defensive purposes from Persian invasion. On the other hand, the Persians differed from the Greeks because they believed their Empire needed more power. The Persians exercised gaining absolute power under their leader, Xerxes, by invading civilization west of Asia to strengthen their Empire. Xerxes’ intentions for invasion were also based on vengeance from previous battles for expansion of their Empire. Xerxes motives for invading Greece were tyrannical, and the events that lead the Persian Empire western invasion were based on reckless intentions from a ruthless leader.…
The Peloponnesian Wars were a series of conflicts between Athens and Sparta. These wars also involved most of the Greek world, because both Athens and Sparta had leagues, or alliances, which brought their allies into the wars as well. The Athenian Thucydides is the primary source of the wars, as he fought on the side of Athens. Thucydides was ostracized after the Spartans decisive victory at the Battle of Amphipolis in 422 BC, where Thucydides was one of the Athenian commanders. Thucydides wrote a book called The History of the Peloponnesian War. From 431 to 404 BC the conflict escalated into what is known as the "Great War." To the Greeks, the "Great War" was a world war, not only involving much of the Greek world, but also the Macedonians, Persians, and Sicilians.…
An account of the Athenian Mitylenian Debate from Thuycidides’s History of the Peloponessian War illustrates how the democratic process impedes decision-making in…
In 480 and the years prior the Athenians and Spartans, banned together to defeat the Persian Army. The Spartans stand at Thermopylae, allowed the Athenians time to prepare, and ultimately allowed the victory. With both of these great city-states located so close together in Hellas, there differences would ultimately lead to dissension. Throughout the course of this paper, I hope to explain the reasoning behind the dissension between Sparta and Athens, made war between these former allies inevitable.…
In today’s society many things can be considered as heroic. In the epic poem, The Iliad and the Odyssey by legendary Greek author, Homer. The main character is a war hero named Odysseus is very intelligent and really strong but is also portrayed as arrogant and at times a horrible leader at times but he is still a war hero nonetheless. But the times have changed, the men who fight in war are no longer worshipped how they were in the ancient times. So with that being said, Odysseus would not be considered a hero today.…
In today's world and society, war is often the last source of solution for perseverance and safekeeping of a democracy’s interests, while on the other…
By the middle of the 5th century B.C. Athens and Sparta, the two most powerful Greek city-states, found themselves on the brink of a full-scale war. According to Thucydides, at the beginning of the war both Athens and Sparta were at the pick of their might and flourishing and could trade and cooperate to each other’s benefit; instead, they got involved into an armed confrontation, in which the rest of the Greek cities participated, on one side or on the other.…
The significance and implications of assumptions about ‘historical causation’ in Herodotus’s The Histories and Thucydides’sThe Peloponnesian war…