Thucydides
Thucydides (/θjuːˈsɪdɨdiːz/; Ancient Greek: Θουκυδίδης, Thoukudídēs; c. 460 – c. 395 BC) was a Greek historian and Athenian general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "TOSHIBA Satellite U305-S2804 Laptop Keyboard
scientific history" because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.[1] DELL FM8 Laptop Keyboard
He has also been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the relations between nations as based on might rather than right.[2] His text is still studied at advanced military colleges worldwide, and the Melian dialogue remains a seminal work of international relations theory. SAMSUNG N150 Laptop Keyboard
More generally, Thucydides showed an interest in developing an understanding of human nature to explain behaviour in such crises as plague, massacres, as in that of the Melians, and civil war.
Because of his influence in the Thracian region, Thucydides wrote, he was sent as a strategos (general) to Thasos in 424 BC. HP Mini 1001TU Laptop Keyboard
During the winter of 424-423 BC, the Spartan general Brasidas attacked Amphipolis, a half-day's sail west from Thasos on the Thracian coast, instigating the Battle of Amphipolis. Eucles, the Athenian commander at Amphipolis, DELL Inspiron 1750 Laptop Keyboard
sent to Thucydides for help.[7] Brasidas, aware of Thucydides' presence on Thasos and his influence with the people of Amphipolis, and afraid of help arriving by sea, acted quickly to offer moderate terms to the Amphipolitans for their surrender, which they accepted. Thus, when Thucydides arrived, Amphipolis was already under Spartan control.[8] HP 640436-001 Laptop Keyboard
Amphipolis was of considerable strategic importance, and news of its fall caused great consternation in Athens.[9] It was blamed on Thucydides, although he claimed that it was not his fault and that he had simply been unable to reach it in time. Because of his failure to save Amphipolis, he was sent into exile:[10] DELL Vostro 3550 Laptop Keyboard
Using his status as an exile from Athens to travel freely among the Peloponnesian allies, he was able to view the war from the perspective of both sides. During this time, he conducted important research for his history, DELL Inspiron 1750 Laptop Keyboard
having claimed that he pursued the project as he thought it would be one of the greatest wars waged among the Greeks in terms of scale. This is all that Thucydides wrote about his own life, but a few other facts are available from reliable contemporary sources. Herodotus wrote that Thucydides' father's name, Όloros, HP 640436-001 Laptop Keyboard
was connected with Thrace and Thracian royalty.[11] Thucydides was probably connected through family to the Athenian statesman and general Miltiades, and his son Cimon, leaders of the old aristocracy supplanted by the Radical Democrats. DELL Vostro 3550 Laptop Keyboard
Cimon's maternal grandfather's name was also Olorus, making the connection exceedingly likely. Another Thucydides lived before the historian and was also linked with Thrace, making a family connection between them very likely as well. Finally, Herodotus confirms the connection of Thucydides' family with the mines at Scapté Hýlē.[12] TOSHIBA Satellite L755-SP5102CL Laptop Keyboard
Combining all the fragmentary evidence available, it seems that his family had owned a large estate in Thrace, one that even contained gold mines, and which allowed the family considerable and lasting affluence. The security and continued prosperity of the wealthy estate must have necessitated formal ties with local kings or chieftains, TOSHIBA Satellite A110 Series Laptop Keyboard
which explains the adoption of the distinctly Thracian royal name "Όloros" into the family. Once exiled, Thucydides took permanent residence in the estate and, given his ample income from the gold mines, he was able to dedicate himself to full-time history writing and research, including many fact-finding trips. In essence, HP Probook 4710S Laptop Keyboard
he was a well-connected gentleman of considerable resources who, by then retired from the political and military spheres, decided to fund his own historical project.
The remaining evidence for Thucydides' life comes from rather less reliable later ancient sources. According to Pausanias, someone named Oenobius was able to get a law passed allowing Thucydides to return to Athens, TOSHIBA Satellite L755-SP5102CL Laptop Keyboard
presumably sometime shortly after the city's surrender and the end of the war in 404 BC.[13] Pausanias goes on to say that Thucydides was murdered on his way back to Athens. Many doubt this account, seeing evidence to suggest he lived as late as 397 BC. Plutarchclaims that his remains were returned to Athens and placed in Cimon's family vault.[14] HP G42-164LA Laptop Keyboard
The abrupt end to Thucydides' narrative, which breaks off in the middle of the year 411 BC, has traditionally been interpreted as indicating that he died while writing the book, although other explanations have been put forward. ACER TravelMate 3270 Laptop Keyboard
Inferences about Thucydides' character can only be drawn (with due caution) from his book. His sardonic sense of humour is evident throughout, as when, during his description of the Athenian plague, he remarks that old Athenians seemed to remember a rhyme which said that with the Dorian War would come a "great death". TOSHIBA Satellite A305-S6829 Laptop Keyboard
Some claimed that the rhyme was actually about a [death by] "famine" or "starvation" (limos - Greek λιμός[15]), and was only remembered as [death by] "pestilence" (loimos - Greek λοιμός[16]) due to the current plague. Thucydides then remarks that should another Dorian War come, this time attended with a great dearth, the rhyme will be remembered as "dearth," and any mention of "death" forgotten.[17] IBM ThinkPad T41 2373 Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides admired Pericles, approving of his power over the people and showing a marked distaste for the demagogues who followed him. He did not approve of the democratic mob nor the radical democracy that Pericles ushered in but considered democracy acceptable when guided by a good leader.[18] SONY VAIO VGN-AR570U Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides' presentation of events is generally even-handed; for example, he does not minimize the negative effect of his own failure at Amphipolis. Occasionally, however, strong passions break through, as in his scathing appraisals of the demagogues Cleon;[19][20] and Hyperbolus.[21] Cleon has sometimes been connected with Thucydides' exile.[22] TOSHIBA Mini NB 505-SP0160 Laptop Keyboard
That Thucydides was clearly moved by the suffering inherent in war and concerned about the excesses to which human nature is prone in such circumstances is evident in his analysis of the atrocities committed during civil conflict on Corcyra,[23] which includes the phrase "War is a violent teacher" (Greek πόλεμος βίαιος διδάσκαλος). HP Pavilion G6-1223TX Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides believed that the Peloponnesian War represented an event of unmatched magnitude.[24] His intention was to write an account of the events of the late fifth century which would serve as "a possession for all time".[25] SAMSUNG N150 Laptop Keyboard
The history breaks off near the end of the 21st year of the war and does not elaborate on the final conflicts of the war. This facet of the work suggests that Thucydides died whilst writing his history and more so, that his death was unexpected. DELL Latitude D830 Laptop Keyboard
After his death, Thucydides' history was subdivided into eight books: its modern title is the History of the Peloponnesian War. His great contribution to history and historiography is contained in this one dense history of the 27-year war betweenAthens and Sparta, SONY VAIO VGN-FW11S Laptop Keyboard
each with their respective allies. This subdividing was most likely done by librarians and archivists, themselves being historians and scholars, most likely working in the Library of Alexandria. GATEWAY 90.4V607.U01 Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides is generally regarded as one of the first true historians. Like his predecessor Herodotus, known as "the father of history", Thucydides places a high value on eyewitness testimony and writes about events in which he himself probably took part. HP G42-459TX Laptop Keyboard
He also assiduously consulted written documents and interviewed participants about the events that he recorded. Unlike Herodotus, whose stories often teach that a foolish arrogance invites the wrath of the gods, Thucydides does not acknowledge divine intervention in human affairs. DELL INSPIRON 1464 Laptop Keyboard
A noteworthy difference between Thucydides' method of writing history and that of modern historians is Thucydides' inclusion of lengthy formal speeches that, as he himself states, were literary reconstructions rather than actual quotations of what was said — or, HP Mini 110-1032NR Laptop Keyboard
perhaps, what he believed ought to have been said. Arguably, had he not done this, the gist of what was said would not otherwise be known at all — whereas today there is a plethora of documentation — written records, archives and recording technology for historians to consult. Therefore Thucydides' DELL Latitude D830 Laptop Keyboard
method served to rescue his mostly oral sources from oblivion. We do not know how these historical figures actually spoke. Thucydides' recreation uses a heroic stylistic register. A celebrated example is Pericles' funeral oration, which heaps honour on the dead and includes a defence of democracy: HP 636376-001 Laptop Keyboard
Scholars traditionally view Thucydides as recognizing and teaching the lesson that democracies need leadership, but that leadership can be dangerous to democracy. Leo Strauss (in The City and Man) locates the problem in the nature of Athenian democracy itself, about which, he argued, Thucydides had a deeply ambivalent view: on one hand, HP G62-a80ES Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides' own "wisdom was made possible" by the Periclean democracy, which had the effect of liberating individual daring, enterprise and questioning spirit, but this same liberation, by permitting the growth of limitless political ambition, led to imperialism and, eventually, civic strife.[26] TOSHIBA NSK-TK001 Laptop Keyboard
For Canadian historian Charles Norris Cochrane (1889–1945), Thucydides' fastidious devotion to observable phenomena, focus on cause and effect, and strict exclusion of other factors anticipates twentieth century scientific positivism. Lenovo Thinkpad T520 Laptop Keyboard
Cochrane, the son of a physician, speculated that Thucydides generally (and especially in describing the plague in Athens) was influenced by the methods and thinking of early medical writers such as Hippocrates of Kos.[27] HP AEAT1U00010 Laptop Keyboard
After World War II, Classical scholar Jacqueline de Romilly pointed out that the problem of Athenian imperialism was one of Thucydides' central preoccupations and situated his history in the context of Greek thinking about international politics. TOSHIBA NSK-TK001 laptop keyboard
Since the appearance of her study, other scholars further examined Thucydides' treatment of realpolitik.
More recently, scholars have questioned the perception of Thucydides as simply "the father of realpolitik". HP Pavilion dv6-2118sf laptop keyboard
Instead they have brought to the fore the literary qualities of the History, which they see as belonging to narrative tradition of Homer and Hesiod and as concerned with the concepts of justice and suffering found in Plato and Aristotle and problematized in Aeschylus and Sophocles.[28] Richard Ned Lebowterms Thucydides "the last of the tragedians",ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
stating that "Thucydides drew heavily on epic poetry and tragedy to construct his history, which not surprisingly is also constructed as a narrative."[29] In this view, the blind and immoderate behaviour of the Athenians (and indeed of all the other actors), though perhaps intrinsic to human nature, ultimately leads to their downfall. HP Pavilion dv6-3050ep laptop keyboard
Thus his History could serve as a warning to future leaders to be more prudent, by putting them on notice that someone would be scrutinizing their actions with a historian's objectivity rather than a chronicler's flattery.[30] ACER Aspire 1621 laptop keyboard
Finally, the question has recently been raised as to whether Thucydides was not greatly, if not fundamentally, concerned with the matter of religion. Contrary to Herodotus, who portrays the gods as active agents in human affairs, SONY VAIO VGN-CS11S/Q laptop keyboard
Thucydides attributes the existence of the divine entirely to the needs of political life. The gods are seen as existing only in the minds of men. Religion as such reveals itself in the History to be not simply one type of social behaviour among others, but what permeates the whole of social existence, permitting the emergence of justice.[31] HP Pavilion dv6-3110sl laptop keyboard
Herodotus records in his Histories not only the events of the Persian Wars but also geographical and ethnographical information, as well as the fables related to him during his extensive travels. Typically, he passes no definitive judgment on what he has heard. In the case of conflicting or unlikely accounts, HP Pavilion dv2-1070eg laptop keyboard
he presents both sides, says what he believes and then invites readers to decide for themselves.[34] The work of Herodotus is reported to have been recited at festivals, where prizes were awarded, as for example, during the games at Olympia.[35] GATEWAY M-6846 laptop keyboard
Herodotus views history as a source of moral lessons, with conflicts and wars as misfortunes flowing from initial acts of injustice perpetuated through cycles of revenge.[36] In contrast, Thucydides claims to confine himself to factual reports of contemporary political and military events, based on unambiguous, first-hand, HP Pavilion DV7-3188cl laptop keyboard
eye-witness accounts,[37] although, unlike Herodotus, he does not reveal his sources. Thucydides views life exclusively as political life, and history in terms ofpolitical history. Conventional moral considerations play no role in his analysis of political events while geographic and ethnographic aspects are omitted or, at best, of secondary importance. TOSHIBA Satellite L755-S5245 laptop keyboard
Subsequent Greek historians — such as Ctesias, Diodorus, Strabo, Polybius and Plutarch — held up Thucydides' writings as a model of truthful history. Lucian[38] refers to Thucydides as having given Greek historians their law, requiring them to say what had been done (ὡς ἐπράχθη). Greek historians of the fourth century BC accepted that history was political and that contemporary history was the proper domain of a historian.[39] TOSHIBA Satellite A305-S6829 laptop keyboard
Cicerocalls Herodotus the "father of history;"[40] yet the Greek writer Plutarch, in his Moralia (Ethics) denigrated Herodotus, as the "father of lies".[41] Unlike Thucydides, however, these historians all continued to view history as a source of moral lessons. DELL Inspiron N4050 laptop keyboard
Due to the loss of the ability to read Greek, Thucydides and Herodotus were largely forgotten during the Middle Ages in Western Europe, although their influence continued in the Byzantine world. In Europe, Herodotus become known and highly respected only in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century as an ethnographer, SAMSUNG N128 laptop keyboard
in part due to the discovery ofAmerica, where customs and animals were encountered even more surprising than what he had related. During the Reformation, moreover, information about Middle Eastern countries in the Histories provided a basis for establishing Biblical chronology as advocated by Isaac Newton. SONY VAIO VGN-CR11GH laptop keyboard
The first European translation of Thucydides (into Latin) was made by the humanist Lorenzo Valla between 1448 and 1452, and the first Greek edition was published by Aldo Manunzio in 1502. During the Renaissance, however, Thucydides attracted less interest among Western European historians as a political philosopher than his successor, Polybius,[42] SAMSUNG N148 laptop keyboard
although Poggio Bracciolini claimed to have been influenced by him. There is not much trace of Thucydides' influence in Niccolò Machiavelli'sThe Prince (1513), which held that the chief aim of a new prince must be to "maintain his state" [i.e., his power] and that in so doing he is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion. Later historians, such as J. B. Bury, however, have noted parallels between them: SAMSUNG NP-Q320-AS02UK Laptop Keyboard
If, instead of a history, Thucydides had written an analytical treatise on politics, with particular reference to the Athenian empire, it is probable that . . . he could have forestalled Machiavelli. . . .[since] the whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of history agrees with the fundamental postulate of Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state. DELL 0PVDG3 Laptop Keyboard
To maintain a state said the Florentine thinker, "a statesman is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion." . . . But . . . the true Machiavelli, not the Machiavelli of fable. . . entertained an ideal: Italy for the Italians, SONY VAIO VGN-CS17G/R Laptop Keyboard
Italy freed from the stranger: and in the service of this ideal he desired to see his speculative science of politics applied. Thucydides has no political aim in view: he was purely a historian. But it was part of the method of both alike to eliminate conventional sentiment and morality.[43] TOSHIBA Satellite Pro L100 Laptop Keyboard
In the seventeenth century, the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, whose Leviathan advocated absolute monarchy, admired Thucydides and in 1628 was the first to translate his writings into English directly from Greek. Lenovo 45N2106 Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides, Hobbes and Machiavelli are together considered the founding fathers of political realism, according to which state policy must primarily or solely focus on the need to maintain military and economic power rather than on ideals or ethics. Lenovo 3000 Y500 laptop keyboard
Nineteenth-century positivist historians stressed what they saw as Thucydides' seriousness, his scientific objectivity and his advanced handling of evidence. A virtual cult following developed among such German philosophers as Friedrich Schelling, Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed that, " DELL Inspiron N4050 laptop keyboard
[in Thucydides], the portrayer of man, that culture of the most impartial knowledge of the world finds its last glorious flower." For Eduard Meyer, Macaulay andLeopold von Ranke, who initiated modern source-based history writing,[44] Thucydides was again the model historian.[45][46]
Generals and statesmen loved him: the world he drew was theirs, HP Pavilion dv5t-1200se CTO laptop keyboard
an exclusive power-brokers' club. It is no accident that even today Thucydides turns up as a guiding spirit in military academies, neocon think tanks and the writings of men like Henry Kissinger; HP G72-a10ED laptop keyboard
whereas Herodotus has been the choice of imaginative novelists (Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient and the film based on it boosted the sale of the Histories to a wholly unforeseen degree) and — as food for a starved soul — of an equally imaginative foreign correspondent from Iron Curtain Poland, Ryszard Kapuscinski.[47] Compaq Presario CQ56-109SL laptop keyboard
These historians also admired Herodotus, however, as social and ethnographic history increasingly came to be recognized as complementary to political history.[48] In the twentieth century, this trend gave rise to the works of Johan Huizinga, Marc Bloch and Braudel, ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
who pioneered the study of long-term cultural and economic developments and the patterns of everyday life. The Annales School, which exemplifies this direction, has been viewed as extending the tradition of Herodotus.[49] ACER Aspire 5320 laptop keyboard
At the same time, Thucydides' influence was increasingly important in the area of international relations during the Cold War, through the work of Hans Morgenthau, Leo Strauss[50] and Edward Carr.[51] HP Pavilion dv6-3173er laptop keyboard
The tension between the Thucydidean and Herodotean traditions extends beyond historical research. According to Irving Kristol, self-described founder of American Neoconservatism, Thucydides wrote "the favorite neoconservative text on foreign affairs";[52] and Thucydides is a required text at the Naval War College, an American institution located in Rhode Island. SONY VAIO VGN-CS17G/Q laptop keyboard
On the other hand, Daniel Mendelsohn, in a review of a recent edition of Herodotus, suggests that, at least in his graduate school days during the Cold War, professing admiration of Thucydides served as a form of self-presentation: HP Mini 1101TU laptop keyboard
To be an admirer of Thucydides' History, with its deep cynicism about political, rhetorical and ideological hypocrisy, with its all too recognizable protagonists — a liberal yet imperialistic democracy and an authoritarian oligarchy, engaged in a war of attrition fought by proxy at the remote fringes of empire — was to advertise yourself as a hardheaded connoisseur of global Realpolitik.[53] FUJITSU Lifebook S7210 laptop keyboard
Another author, Thomas Geoghegan, whose speciality is labour rights, comes down on the side of Herodotus when it comes to drawing lessons relevant to Americans, who, he notes, tend to be rather isolationist in their habits (if not in their political theorizing): ACER Aspire 5542G laptop keyboard
"We should also spend more funds to get our young people out of the library where they're reading Thucydides and get them to start living like Herodotus — going out and seeing the world."[54] TOSHIBA Satellite L750-ST4NX1 laptop keyboard
In summary, realists think that humankind is not inherently benevolent but rather self-centered and competitive. This perspective, which is shared by theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, views human nature as egocentric (not necessarily selfish) and conflictual unless there exist conditions under which humans may coexist. ASUS K030662M2 laptop keyboard
It is also disposed of the notion that an individual's intuitive nature is made up of anarchy. In regards to self-interest, these individuals are self-reliant and are motivated in seeking more power. They are also believed to be fearful. This view contrasts with the approach of liberalism to international relations. GATEWAY MX3416 laptop keyboard
The state emphasizes an interest in accumulating power to ensure security in an anarchic world. Power is a concept primarily thought of in terms of material resources necessary to induce harm or coerce other states (to fight and win wars). SONY VAIO VGN-CR363 Laptop Keyboard
The use of power places an emphasis on coercive tactics being acceptable to either accomplish something in the national interest or avoid something inimical to the national interest. HP 519265-001 Laptop Keyboard
The state is the most important actor under realism. It is unitary and autonomous because it speaks and acts with one voice. The power of the state is understood in terms of its military capabilities. DELL NSK-D8001 Laptop Keyboard
A key concept under realism is the international distribution of power referred to as system polarity. Polarity refers to the number of blocs of states that exert power in an international system. A multipolar system is composed of three or more blocs, a bipolar system is composed of two blocs, and a unipolar system is dominated by a single power or hegemon. HP Mini 210-1109TU Laptop Keyboard
Under unipolarity realism predicts that states will band together to oppose the hegemon and restore a balance of power. Although all states seek hegemony under realism as the only way to ensure their own security, other states in the system are incentivised to prevent the emergence of a hegemon through balancing. DELL V119525BS1 Laptop Keyboard
States employ the rational model of decision making by obtaining and acting upon complete and accurate information. The state is sovereign and guided by a national interest defined in terms of power. Since the only constraint of the international system is anarchy, there is no international authority and states are left to their own devises to ensure their own security. ACER NSK-H3V1D Laptop Keyboard
Realists believe that Sovereign states are the principal actors in the international system, and special attention is afforded to large powers as they have the most influence on the international stage. International institutions, ACER Aspire 7735Z Laptop Keyboard
non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, individuals and other sub-state or trans-state actors are viewed as having little independent influence. States are inherently aggressive (offensive realism) and/or obsessed with security (defensive realism), and that territorial expansion is only constrained by opposing power(s). ACER Aspire 5742 Laptop Keyboard
This aggressive build-up, however, leads to a security dilemma whereby increasing one's security may bring along even greater instability as an opposing power builds up its own arms in response (an arms race). Thus, security becomes a zero-sum game where only relative gains can be made. SAMSUNG R470 Laptop Keyboard
Realists believe that there are no universal principles with which all states may guide their actions. Instead, a state must always be aware of the actions of the states around it and must use a pragmatic approach to resolve problems as they arise. SONY VAIO VGN-FS742/W Laptop Keyboard
The primary motivation underlying the development of neoclassical realism was the fact that neorealism was only useful to explain political outcomes (classified as being 'theories of international politics'), but had nothing to offer about particular states' HP Pavilion dv5-1104tu Laptop Keyboard
behavior (or 'theories of foreign policy'). The basic approach, then, was for these authors to "refine, not refute, Kenneth Waltz", by adding domestic intervening variables between systemic incentives and a state's foreign policy decision. Thus, the basic theoretical architecture of Neoclassical Realism is: DELL Vostro 3450 Laptop Keyboard
While neoclassical realism has only been used for theories of foreign policy so far, Randall Schweller notes that it could be useful to explain certain types of political outcomes as well.[7] SAMSUNG N150 Laptop Keyboard
Neoclassical realism is particularly appealing from a research standpoint because it still retains a lot of the theoretical rigor that Waltz has brought to realism, but at the same time can easily incorporate a content-rich analysis, since its main method for testing theories is the process-tracing of case studies. HP Probook 4520S Laptop Keyboard
Claire Duncanson, lecturer in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, and Catherine Eschle, senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, argue that realism's focus on external threats and reliance on destructive military technology distract from more pertinent issues, such as poverty and environmental destruction.[11] COMPAQ Presario CQ40-117TU Laptop Keyboard
Furthermore, Duncanson and Eschle purport that security, an essential part of realism, can not be possessed and upheld by any force. Security is an ongoing process that involves subjects, not states, in the provision of their own security. Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 Laptop Keyboard
Realism equates the state with being the "protector", while its people with being the "protected". Such terminology is historically gendered, with men traditionally seen as the protectors, and women as the protected. This is problematic as it casts the state as a masculine figure, and the populace as a feminine one, perpetuating stereotypes of the weak woman. HP Pavilion dv6-3178ee Laptop Keyboard
Susannah Radstone, professor at the University of East London, argues that realist conceptions of security involve notions of invulnerability, invincibility, and impregnability.[12] Not only is invulnerability argued as unachievable, the terms have strong gendered meaning. A male's body is meant to be impermeable, TOSHIBA Satellite A300-1BZ laptop keyboard
and thus, impenetrable, while a female's body is meant to penetrated and impregnated. The use of these terms again speak to the notion of the state as a strong masculine figure, despite the prevalence of more women in both politics and military. TOSHIBA Satellite Pro L100-107 laptop keyboard
The Melian dialogue is a dramatic set-piece debate inserted by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, his account of the ruinous 27-year long struggle (431–404 BC) between the powerful Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. It is one of the two most famous instances of fictionalized speeches in the book (the other being the defense of Athenian democracy in the funeral oration of Pericles in the beginning of the work). HP Mini 110-3504tu laptop keyboard
These speeches did not necessarily happen word-for-word as written, but were inserted for dramatic effect, according to what Thucydides felt was "called for in the situation".[1] The Melian dialogue takes place fifteen years into the Peloponnesian war, during the confrontation in 416–415 BC between the Athenians and the people of Melos, SAMSUNG NP-N150-JP0N laptop keyboard
a small island located in the southern Aegean Sea just east of Sparta. The Athenians demanded that the Melians surrender their city and pay them tribute or face the destruction of their city. The Melians claimed their right to remain neutral, appealing to the Athenians' sense of decency and mercy toward a small, peaceful, HP Pavilion dv6-2170ee laptop keyboard
and defenseless city. The Athenians sternly replied that questions of justice did not arise between unequal powers and proceeded to lay siege to Melos as they had threatened to do, and to starve the resisting inhabitants into surrender, TOSHIBA Satellite 1800-911 Laptop Keyboard
slaughter the men of military age, and enslave the women and children. This act has become "famous as the worst atrocity committed by a usually decent society, but even more as one of the most famous assertions in history of the rights of unbridled power, " SONY VGN-FE31M Laptop Keyboard
according to historian Alan Ryan, who writes that, "The Athenian insistence that 'justice is what is decided when equal forces are opposed, while possibilities are what superiors impose and the weak acquiesce to' has been discussed by practical people and by philosophers ever since. Not everyone has rejected the Athenian case."[2] SONY 148084122 Laptop Keyboard
Ryan also notes that although Thucydides portrays the Melians as having always been strictly neutral and wishing to remain so, in fact, this was not true. Melos was a Spartan colony and had aided Sparta at the beginning of the war.[3] FUJITSU Amilo Mini Ui 3520 Laptop Keyboard
In general, however, "the Dialogue is formally not about the morality of the eventual execution, but about the Melian response to the Athenians' first demand, that Melos should submit."[4] HP pavilion DV7-1000 Laptop Keyboard
The historical background of this portion of the History of the Peloponnesian War is the invasion of the island of Melos by Athens in 416 BC during a brief lull in the Peloponnesian War. Just after the Battle of Mantinea in 417 BC, HP 441426-001 Laptop Keyboard
the Athenians moved on the Melians and demanded that they join the Delian League, thus effectively becoming part of their empire. The Melians had always resisted the influence of the Delian League, and resisted this invasion as well. Thucydides created the Dialogue in order to represent the actual events of the Athenians speaking to the Melians. HP Mini 210-1014TU Laptop Keyboard
His use of speeches in The History of the Peloponnesian War allowed readers to understand the way in which Athens created their empire. The Athenians sent the League's fleet to Melos to await the time to attack if Melos did not come to a peaceful agreement to surrender to the Athenian representatives.[5] HP G56-129WM Laptop Keyboard
The Athenians, in a frank and matter-of-fact manner, offer the Melians an ultimatum: surrender and pay tribute to Athens, or be destroyed. GATEWAY M-6848 Laptop Keyboard
The Melians argue that they are a neutral city and not an enemy, so Athens has no need to crush them. The Athenians counter that, if they accept the Melians' neutrality and independence, they would look weak: people would think they spared Melos because they were not strong enough to conquer it. SAMSUNG Q320 Laptop Keyboard
The Melians argue that an invasion will alarm the other neutral Greek states, who will become hostile to Athens for fear of being invaded themselves. The Athenians counter that the Greek states on the mainland are unlikely to act this way. It is the more volatile island states and the subjects they have already conquered that are more likely to take up arms against Athens. TOSHIBA Satellite U305-S2804 Laptop Keyboard
The Melians argue that it would be shameful and cowardly of them to submit without a fight. In Thucydides' account, "If such hazards are taken by you to keep your empire and by your subjects to escape it, we who are still free would show ourselves great cowards and weaklings if we failed to face everything that comes rather than submit to slavery."[6] The Athenians counter that the debate is not about honour but about self-preservation. DELL Inspiron 1750 Laptop Keyboard
The Melians argue that though the Athenians are far stronger, there is still a chance they could win. The Athenians counter that only the strong have a right to indulge in hope; the weak Melians are hopelessly outnumbered. HP Mini 210-1110EZ laptop keyboard
The Melians state that they also refuse because they believe they have the assistance of the gods. Thucydides recounts, "We trust that the gods will give us fortune as good as yours, because we are standing for what is right against what is wrong."[7] Compaq Presario CQ62-219WM laptop keyboard
The Athenians counter that gods and men alike respect strength over moral arguments, summarising this in the famous dictum that, "The strong do as they can and the weak suffer what they must". HP Pavilion DV6-1205ee laptop keyboard
The Melians insist that their Spartan kin will come to their defence. The Athenians argue that the Spartans have nothing to gain and a lot to lose by coming to the Melians' aid – mere kinship will not motivate them. ASUS V020662BS1 laptop keyboard
The Athenians then conclude the argument by saying there is no shame in submitting to a stronger enemy. The Melians do not change their minds and politely dismiss the envoys.
The Melian Dialogue opened up many arguments over what moral considerations, if any, should limit the exercise of imperial power of coercion. COMPAQ Presario CQ50-210US laptop keyboard
One historian. A.B. Bosworth, has argued that to the extent the Athenians warned the Melians of their imminent destruction and offered them a way out (namely by joining their Delian league) there was a humanitarian aspect to their handling of the arguments in the Dialogue. Thus, although the destruction of Melos was indeed brutal, DELL Inspiron N4050 laptop keyboard
the Athenian attempt to procure its surrender was at the least less inhumane than an immediate debellation would have been.[8] Bosworth further contends that the Athenians could only confront the Melians with the reality of their position by stating it in the bluntest terms. HP Pavilion dv5-1104tu laptop keyboard
"Harsh their language undoubtedly is, but it has a humanitarian end, to convince the Melian oligarchs of the need to capitulate and save themselves and the commons the horrors of a siege."[8] FUJITSU Amilo Mini Ui 3520 laptop keyboard
As for Thucydides' point of view, it is possible that he may have been biased in favor of the Melians because of bitterness over his own exile from Athens. W. Liebeschuetz argues that he depicts the Athenians as "wrong and deluded" because of their lack of morality in Melos' Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 laptop keyboard
destruction but concedes that "the Athenians were also perfectly right that the Melians' own interest required that they should yield to the Athenians since they had not the strength to resist successfully."[9] D. M. Lewis, however, declares that, ACER WK629K laptop keyboard
"Thucydides, with his strong feeling for the power and glory of Athens, may have seen this differently and regarded the Melians' heroics as foolish and unrealistic; and the fact that they had been offered a relatively painless alternative might affect his view of themassacre."[10] Lewis also questions whether Thucydides' depiction of Athenian ruthlessness was really intended to elicit such strong reactions, observing that, SONY VAIO VGN-CS17G/Q laptop keyboard
"The fact that Melos stands out so prominently in judgments about the Athenian Empire is certainly in large part due to the attention that Thucydides' Dialogue has focused on it, but the feeling he displays elsewhere about that empire makes it questionable if he intended to produce the revulsion which most readers of the Dialogue feel."[11] HP Pavilion DV7-3069wm laptop keyboard
Though they were faced with overwhelming odds, the Melians believed that the Spartans, who were their kin, would come to their aid against Athens. Moreover, they did not want to be regarded as cowards for surrendering so easily and submitting themselves to dominance by Athens. SONY VAIO VGN-FS640/W laptop keyboard
The dialogue does not show the Melians making any appeal to the potential counter-argument that Athens, by allowing the Melians to remain neutral, while simply continuing its empire-building around them, would show strength rather than weakness by demonstrating that Athens was so powerful that it had nothing to fear even if the Melians refused to cooperate. TOSHIBA Satellite U305-S5077 laptop keyboard
The Dialogue concludes with the Melians' refusal to surrender to the Athenians, "Our decision, Athenians, is just the same as it was at first. We are not prepared to give up in a short moment the liberty which our city has enjoyed from its foundation for 700 years."[12] They also propose to conclude a new treaty of neutrality with Athens: "‘HP G72-a10EM laptop keyboard
We invite you to allow us to be friends of yours and enemies to neither side, to make a treaty which shall be agreeable to both you and us, and so to leave our country.'"[12] Thucydides writes that the Athenians ignored this offer and immediately commenced to besiege Melos, as threatened. Although the Melians held out for a time, SONY VAIO VGN-FS415M laptop keyboard
the Athenians eventually won after some form of unspecified treachery within the city. They then proceeded to execute all the men they took captive and to enslave the women and children, and further, they repopulated it as an Athenian colony. FUJITSU Lifebook S7210 laptop keyboard
Liebeschuetz notes the ironies in Thucydides' depiction of the Dialogue in the context of his History. In the Dialogue: "The Athenians look at the present and can see nothing will save Melos. They are right. The Melians look to the future. SONY VAIO VGN NR220E laptop keyboard
They are right too. Melos is destroyed. But [in] the very next sentence in the history [Thucydides] begins the story of the decline of Athens and the justification of the Melians."[9] Thus, both sides, the Melians and Athenians, predict outcomes that come to pass at a later time. Athens correctly predicts that Sparta won't or can't stop the Athenian army from destroying Melos. SAMSUNG Q320 laptop keyboard
Yet the Melians are also correct in trusting their kindred, the Spartans, to ultimately come to their aid. After the fall of their city, the Spartans resettled the surviving Melians on the mainland. Within a few years the Peloponnesian War resumed between Sparta and Athens, and the Melian community in exile raised funds to contribute to the Spartan war effort, which successfully destroyed the Athenian empire. SONY VAIO VGN-NW70JB laptop keyboard
The Spartan general Lysander then retook Melos and restored the Melians to their homeland. Overall, Melos was one of the few islands in the Cyclades that stood up for itself despite the negative repercussions. Packard Bell PEW91 laptop keyboard
Seaman finds it "indeed ironic to consider that it was in fact her longstanding neutrality which left Melos as prey for Athens during the Peace of Nicias."[13]Alan Ryan, on the other hand, questions whether the Melians, despite their protestations as reported in the Dialogue, had in in fact ever really been neutral.[14] TOSHIBA NSK-T4D01 laptop keyboard
Thucydides was born in the deme of Alopecê (Αλωπεκή) of Athens. The exact year of his birth is unknown, but his family was noble and he was a relative ofCimon, the charismatic general and leader of the conservative party. After Cimon's death, he succeeded him in the leadership of the conservatives and decided to exert a vehement opposition against Pericles, who was leading Athens at the time. HP Pavilion dv6-3091tx laptop keyboard
Thucydides represented the thorough-going conservative party at Athens; their views are most clearly represented by "the Old Oligarch" in his Constitution of the Athenians, which has come down to us among the works of Xenophon.[1] ASUS F3F laptop keyboard
Donald Kagan suggests that Thucydides' ultimate goal, which he could not state openly as doing so would alienate the pro-democratic majority, was to roll back the constitutional changes made by Ephialtes, reinstating the more aristocratic and conservative government that had prevailed in Cimon's day.[2] SONY VAIO VGN-CS110D/W laptop keyboard
Thucydides' political strength reached its peak in the wake of the First Peloponnesian War and the reorganization of the Athenian empire in the early 440s BC. Thucydides developed a new and effective political tactic by having his supporters sit together in the assembly, increasing their apparent strength and giving them a united voice.[3] SONY VAIO VGN-CR363 laptop keyboard
Kagan asserts that this tactic helped Thucydides mount a concerted opposition to Pericles which brought to light ideological differences among Pericles' supporters.[1]
In 444 BC, the conservative and the democratic parties confronted each other in a fierce battle. Though some modern scholars doubt[4] the details of Plutarch's account, SONY VAIO VGN-CS220J/T laptop keyboard
according to Plutarch, Thucydides, the new leader of the conservatives, accused Pericles, the leader of the democrats, of profligacy, criticizing the way Pericles spent the money for his ambitious building plan. HP Mini 210 laptop keyboard
Pericles proposed to pay for all the construction from his own purse, under the term that all these monuments would belong to him and not to Athens. The public applauded his stance and Thucydides suffered an unexpected defeat from the charismatic orator.[5] As a result of his failure in confronting Pericles, Thucydides was ostracized for ten years, HP G42-364LA Laptop Keyboard
in 442 BC, and Pericles once again stood unchallenged in the Athenian political arena. Plutarch relates[5] that, when Thucydides was asked by Sparta's king, Archidamus II, if he or Pericles was a better fighter, Thucydides answered without any hesitation that Pericles was a better fighter, because, even when he is defeated, he achieves to convince the audience that he won.[6] LENOVO IdeaPad S9e 4187 Laptop Keyboard
After being ostracized, Thucydides is said to have traveled to Sybaris, a city of Magna Graecia on the Gulf of Taranto in Italy, or Aegina, but this is unconfirmed.[7]
While in Athens, Thucydides is also said to have accused Pericles' personal friend, Anaxagoras, of atheism and sympathy for the Persians.[8] HP Pavilion DV7-3065dx Laptop Keyboard
Herodotus (/hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) was an ancient Greek historian who was born inHalicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (c. 484–425 BC). He has been called "The Father of History" (firstly conferred by Cicero), and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, SONY 148084122 laptop keyboard
test their accuracy to a certain extent, and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.[1]The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (orἱστορία historía, a word that passed into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), HP Pavilion dv6-2143ca laptop keyboard
being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history. HP Mini 110-3504tu laptop keyboard
His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. His place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. SONY VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W laptop keyboard
His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact. However, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a literary critic of Augustan Rome, listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple, unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, TOSHIBA Satellite 1410-S173 laptop keyboard
Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naive, often charming—all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself.[4] Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain but, according to the ancient account, these predecessors included for example Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 laptop keyboard
Hellanicus of Lesbos, Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus. HP Probook 4750 laptop keyboard
This points forward to the 'folksy' yet 'international' outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one modern scholar, reading between the lines, has described the work of Hecataeus as "a curious false start to history"[7] because, despite its critical spirit, it failed to liberate history from myth. Herodotus actually mentions Hecataeus in hisHistories, FUJITSU Amilo Mini Ui 3520 laptop keyboard
on one occasion mocking him for his naive genealogy and, on another occasion, quoting Athenian complaints against his handling of their national history.[8] It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a quote recorded by Eusebius.[9] In particular, it is possible that he copied descriptions of the crocodile, hippopotamus and phoenix from Hecataeus's DELL NSK-D8001 laptop keyboard
'Circumnavigation of the Known World' (Periegesis/Periodos ges), even mis-representing the source as 'Heliopolitans' (Histories 2.73).[10] But unlike Herodotus, Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, nor did he include the oral traditions of Greek history within the larger framework of oriental history.[11] HP Pavilion DV7-3165dx laptop keyboard
There is no proof that Herodotus derived the ambitious scope of his own work, with its grand theme of civilizations in conflict, from any predecessor, despite much scholarly speculation about this in modern times.[7][12] Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 laptop keyboard
Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors, relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, he argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the older theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe and Asia/Africa equal in size (Hist. 4.36 and 4.42). Yet, he retains idealising tendencies, as in his symmetrical notions of the Danube and Nile.[13] HP G72-b60SF laptop keyboard
His debt to previous authors of prose 'histories' might be questionable but there is no doubt that he owed much to the example and inspiration of poets and story-tellers. For example, Athenian tragic poets provided him with a world-view of a balance between conflicting forces, upset by the hubris of kings, and they provided his narrative with a model of episodic structure. SONY VGN-FE790G laptop keyboard
His familiarity with Athenian tragedy is demonstrated, for example, in a number of passages echoingAeschylus's Persae, including the epigrammatic observation that the defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis caused the defeat of the land army (Hist. HP Pavilion dv6-3120sl Laptop Keyboard
8.68 ~Persae 728). The debt may have been repaid by Sophocles because there appear to be echoes of The Histories in his plays, especially a passage in Antigone that resembles Herodotus's account of the death of Intaphernes (Histories 3.119 ~ Antigone 904-20)[14]—this however is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship.[15] SONY VAIO VGN-NR38M/S Laptop Keyboard
Yet it was in Athens where his most formidable contemporary critics could be found. In 425 BC, which is about the time that Herodotus is thought by many scholars to have died, the Athenian comic dramatist, Aristophanes, created The Acharnians, in which he blames The Peloponnesian War on the abduction of some prostitutes—a mocking reference to Herodotus, who reported the Persians' account of their wars with Greece, beginning with the rapes of the mythical heroinesIo, Europa, Medea and Helen.[22][23] DELL PVDG3 Laptop Keyboard
Similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a 'logos-writer' or story-teller.[24] Thucydides, who had been trained in rhetoric, became the model for subsequent prose-writers as an author who seeks to appear firmly in control of his material, whereas Herodotus with his frequent digressions appeared to minimize (or possibly disguise) his auctorial control.[25] HP 576835-001 Laptop Keyboard
Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek lifestyle—the polis or city-state—whereas the interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Asiatic Greeks (such as Herodotus himself), for whom life under foreign rule was a recent memory.[24]
Typically modern accounts of his life[29][30] DELL Latitude E5500 Laptop Keyboard
go something like this: Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus around 484 BC. There is no reason to disbelieve the Suda's information about his family, that it was influential and that he was the son of Lyxes and Dryo, and the brother of Theodorus, DELL PVDG3 Laptop Keyboard
and that he was also related to Panyassis, an epic poet of the time. The town was within the Persian empire at that time and maybe the young Herodotus heard local eye-witness accounts of events within the empire and of Persian preparations for the invasion of Greece, including the movements of the local fleet under the command of Artemisia. Lenovo 3000 Y500 Laptop Keyboard
Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus indicate that her grandson Lygdamis negotiated with a local assembly to settle disputes over seized property, which is consistent with a tyrant under pressure, and his name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, indicating that there might well have been a successful uprising against him sometime before 454 BC. Herodotus reveals affection for the island of Samos (III,39–60) HP G42-364LA Laptop Keyboard
and this is an indication that he might have lived there in his youth. So it is possible that his family was involved in an uprising against Lygdamis, leading to a period of exile on Samos and followed by some personal hand in the tyrant's eventual fall. SONY VAIO VGN-N31S/W Laptop Keyboard
As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, though a Dorian city, had ended its close relations with its Dorian neighbours after an unseemly quarrel (I,144), and it had helped pioneer Greek trade with Egypt (II,178). It was therefore an outward-looking, international-minded port within the Persian Empire and the historian's family GATEWAY MT6920 Laptop Keyboard
could well have had contacts in countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches. His eye-witness accounts indicate that he travelled in Egypt probably sometime after 454 BC or possibly earlier in association with Athenians, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460–454 BC. HP Pavilion G6-1223TX Laptop Keyboard
He probably travelled to Tyre next and then down the Euphratesto Babylon. For some reason, probably associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus and, sometime around 447 BC, he migrated to Periclean Athens, a city for whose people and democratic institutions he declares his open admiration (V,78) and where he came to know not just leading citizens such as theAlcmaeonids, a clan whose history features frequently in his writing, but also the local topography (VI,137; VIII,52–5). TOSHIBA Satellite L775D-S7305 Laptop Keyboard
According to Eusebius[31] and Plutarch,[32] Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work and there may be some truth in this. It is possible that he applied for Athenian citizenship—a rare honour after 451 BC, requiring two separate votes by a well-attended assembly—but was unsuccessful. HP Pavilion dv6-2112sa Laptop Keyboard
In 443 BC, or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurium as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony. Aristotle refers to a version of The Histories written by 'Herodotus of Thurium' and indeed some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about southern Italy from personal experience there (IV,15,99; VI,127). HP Mini 110-3130nr Laptop Keyboard
Intimate knowledge of some events in the first years of thePeloponnesian War (VI,91; VII,133,233; IX,73) indicate that he might have returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague. Possibly he died in Macedonia instead after obtaining the patronage of the court there or else he died back in Thurium. HP Pavilion DV6-1002tx Laptop Keyboard
There is nothing in the Histories that can be dated with any certainty to later than 430, and it is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year.
Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect yet he was born in Halicarnassus, originally a Dorian settlement. According to the Suda (an 11th-century encyclopaediaSONY VAIO VGN-N130G/B laptop keyboard
of Byzantium which likely took its information from traditional accounts), Herodotus learned the Ionian dialect as a boy living on the island of Samos, whither he had fled with his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson ofArtemisia I of Caria. HP G42-265LA laptop keyboard
The Suda also informs us that Herodotus later returned home to lead the revolt that eventually overthrew the tyrant. However, thanks to recent discoveries of some inscriptions on Halicarnassus, dated to about that time, we now know that the Ionic dialect was used there even in official documents, so there was no need to assume like the Suda that he must have learned the dialect elsewhere.[33] TOSHIBA Satellite L775D-S7340 laptop keyboard
Moreover, the fact that the Suda is the only source we have for the heroic role played by Herodotus, as liberator of his birthplace, is itself a good reason to doubt such a romantic account.[34] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1860 laptop keyboard
It was conventional in Herodotus's day for authors to 'publish' their works by reciting them at popular festivals. According to Lucian, Herodotus took his finished work straight from Asia Minor to the Olympic Games and read the entire Histories to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it.[35] HP G61-102TU laptop keyboard
According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian,[36] Herodotus refused to begin reading his work at the festival of Olympia until some clouds offered him a bit of shade, by which time however the assembly had dispersed—thus the proverbial expression "Herodotus and his shade" to describe someone who misses an opportunity through delay. SONY VAIO VGN-NW91FS laptop keyboard
Herodotus's recitation at Olympia was a favourite theme among ancient writers and there is another interesting variation on the story to be found in the Suda, Photius[37] and Tzetzes,[38] in which a young Thucydides happened to be in the assembly with his father and burst into tears during the recital, whereupon Herodotus observed prophetically to the boy's father: "Thy son's soul yearns for knowledge." GATEWAY M520 laptop keyboard
Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides' tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides.[39] According to the Suda, he was buried in Macedonian Pella and in the agora in Thurium.[40] HP Pavilion DV7-3165dx laptop keyboard
As a historian, Herodotus was sarcastically referred as the father of lies for "quoting eyewitnesses about things they could have never seen, inventing and manipulating factual material." Ancient historians who followed Herodotus preferred an element of show to accuracy and fairness, aiming to give pleasure with “exciting events, great dramas, bizarre exotica.” [41] HP Pavilion dv6-2174tx laptop keyboard
Although the factual accuracy of the works of Herodotus is defended by some,[42] others regard his works as being unreliable as a historical source. Fehling writes of "a problem recognized by everybody", namely that much of what Herodotus tells us cannot be taken at face value.[43] HP Pavilion DV6-1205ee laptop keyboard
The accuracy of the works of Herodotus have been criticized since his own era. Sparks writes that "In antiquity, Herodotus had acquired the reputation of being unreliable, biased, parsimonious in his praise of heroes, and mendacious". His ancient critics included Cicero, Aristotle, Josephus and Plutarch.[44][45] Cicero (On the Laws I.5) said the works of Herodotus were full of legends[46] or “fables”, and Harpocration wrote a book on "the lies of Herodotus".[47] HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx laptop keyboard
Duris of Samos called Herodotus a myth-monger.[48] Voltaire described Herodotus as both "the father of history" and the "father of lies",[49] and Hartog more recently also called him "The father of all liars".[50] COMPAQ Presario CQ41-219AX laptop keyboard
The reliability of Herodotus is particularly criticized when writing about Egypt. Alan B. Lloyd states that as a historical document, the writings of Herodotus are seriously defective, and that he was working from "inadequate sources".[51] ACER Aspire 5810TZ-4657 laptop keyboard
Nielsen writes that: "Though we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of Herodotus having been in Egypt, it must be said that his narrative bears little witness to it."[52] Fehling states that Herodotus never traveled up the Nile River, and that almost everything he says about Egypt and Ethiopia is doubtful.[53][54] IBM 42T3297 Laptop Keyboard
About the claim of Herodotus that the Pharaoh Sesostris campaigned in Europe, and that he left a colony in Colchia, Fehling states that "there is not the slightest bit of history behind the whole story".[55][56] Fehling concludes that the works of Herodotus are intended as fiction.[57] HP 441316-001 Laptop Keyboard
Depew and Obbink concur that much of the content of the works of Herodotus are literary devices.[58]
In contrast, many scholars (Aubin, Heeren, Davidson, Diop, Poe, Welsby, Celenko, Volney, Montet, Bernal, Jackson, HP 599572-031 Laptop Keyboard
DuBois, Strabo), ancient and modern, routinely cite Herodotus in their works on the Nile Valley. Some of these scholars (Welsby, Heeren, Aubin, Diop, etc.) explicitly mention the reliability of Herodotus' work on the Nile Valley and demonstrate corroboration of Herodotus' writings by modern scholars. Welsby said that " Lenovo 45N2071 laptop keyboard
archaeology graphically confirms some of Herodotus' observations." [59] A.H.L. Heeren (1838) quoted Herodotus throughout his work and provided corroboration by scholars of his day regarding several passages (source of the Nile, location of Meroe, etc.).[60] To further his work on the Egyptians and Assyrians, Aubin uses Herodotus' ASUS A6J laptop keyboard
accounts in various passages and defends Herodotus' position against modern scholars. Aubin said Herodotus was "the author of the first important narrative history of the world" and that Herodotus "visited Egypt."[61] ASUS V020462CS1 laptop keyboard
Diop provides several examples (the inundations of the Nile) that he claims support his view that Herodotus was "quite scrupulous, SONY Vaio PCG-K23 laptop keyboard
objective, scientific for his time." Diop claims that Herodotus "always distinguishes carefully between what he has seen and what he has been told." Diop also claims that Strabo corroborated Herodotus' ideas about the Black Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Colchians.[62][63] HP Compaq NC8420 laptop keyboard
Herodotus claimed to have visited Babylon, but made no mention of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. This has attracted further attacks on his credibility. In response Dalley has proposed that the Hanging Gardens may have actually been in Ninevah rather than in Babylon.[64][65] HP Pavilion dv6-2030ev laptop keyboard
Herodotus provides much information about the nature of the world and the status of science during his lifetime, often engaging in private speculation. For example, he reports that the annual flooding of the Nile was said to be the result of melting snows far to the south, and he comments that he cannot understand how there can be snow in Africa, the hottest part of the known world, ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
offering an elaborate explanation based on the way that desert winds affect the passage of the Sun over this part of the world (2:18ff). He also passes on dismissive reports from Phoenician sailors that, while circumnavigating Africa, they "saw the sun on the right side while sailing westwards". SONY VAIO VGN-CR23G laptop keyboard
Owing to this brief mention, which is included almost as an afterthought, it has been argued that Africa was indeed circumnavigated by ancient seafarers, for this is precisely where the sun ought to have been. His accounts of India are among the oldest records of Indian civilization by an outsider.[66] HP Pavilion dv6-3008so laptop keyboard
Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century have both added to and detracted from his credibility. His description of Gelonus, located in Scythia, as a city thousands of times larger than Troy was widely disbelieved until it was rediscovered in 1975. LENOVO IdeaPad S10 20015 laptop keyboard
The archaeological study of the now-submerged ancient Egyptian city of Heracleion and the recovery of the so-called "Naucratis stela" give credibility to Herodotus's previously unsupported claim that Heracleion was founded during the Egyptian New Kingdom. ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
On his recent journeys to India and Pakistan, French ethnologist Michel Peisselclaims to have discovered an animal species that may finally illuminate one of the most bizarre passages in Herodotus's Histories. In Book 3, passages 102 to 105, TOSHIBA Satellite L755-S5350 laptop keyboard
Herodotus reports that a species of fox-sized, furry "ants" lives in one of the far eastern, Indian provinces of the Persian Empire. This region, he reports, is a sandy desert, and the sand there contains a wealth of fine golddust. These giant ants, according to Herodotus, would often unearth the gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels, and the people living in this province would then collect the precious dust. SONY VAIO VGN-FS980 laptop keyboard
Peissel reports that in an isolated region of northern Pakistan, on the Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province, there exists a species of marmot, (the Himalayan marmot), (a type of burrowing squirrel) that may have been what Herodotus called giant "ants".Packard Bell Easynote TM98 laptop keyboard
Much like the province that Herodotus describes, the ground of the Deosai Plateau is rich in gold dust. According to Peissel, he interviewed theMinaro tribal people who live in the Deosai Plateau, and they have confirmed that they have, for generations, been collecting the gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when they are digging their underground burrows. HP Pavilion dv6-3120sl laptop keyboard
The story seems to have been widespread in the ancient world, because later authors like Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his gold mining section of the Naturalis Historia.
In his book, The Ants' Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas, Peissel offers the theory that Herodotus may have become confused because the old Persian word for "marmot" was quite similar to that for "mountain ant". HP 576835-001 laptop keyboard
Because research suggests that Herodotus probably did not know any Persian (or any other language except his native Greek), he was forced to rely on a multitude of local translators when travelling in the vast multilingual Persian Empire. DELL UW739 Laptop Keyboard
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Therefore, he may have been the unwitting victim of a simple misunderstanding in translation. As Herodotus never claims to have himself seen these "ant/marmot" creatures, it is likely that he was simply reporting what other travellers were telling him, no matter how bizarre or unlikely he personally may have found it to be. TOSHIBA Satellite L755-SP5102CL Laptop Keyboard
In the age when most of the world was still mysterious and unknown and before the modern science of biology, the existence of a giant ant may not have seemed so far-fetched. The suggestion that he completely made up the tale may continue to be thrown into doubt as more research is conducted.[67][68] However Herodotus did follow up in passage 105 of Book 3, ACER TravelMate 4600 Laptop Keyboard
with the claim that the "ants/marmots" are said to chase and devour full-grown camels. The details of the "ants" seem somewhat similar to the description of the camel spider (Solifugae), which are said to chase camels, have lots of hair bristles, Compaq 6720s Laptop Keyboard
and could quite easily be mistaken for ants. On account of the fear of encountering one, there have been "many myths and exaggerations about their size".[69] Images of camel spiders[70][71] TOSHIBA Satellite L775D-S7332 Laptop Keyboard
could give the impression that this could be mistaken for a giant ant, but certainly not the size of a fox.
Some "calumnious fictions" were written about Herodotus in a work titled On the Malice of Herodotus, by Plutarch, a Chaeroneanby birth, (or it might have been a Pseudo-Plutarch, in this case "a great collector of slanders"), HP G72T-200 CTO Laptop Keyboard
including the allegation that the historian was prejudiced against Thebes because the authorities there had denied him permission to set up a school.[72]Similarly, in a Corinthian Oration, Dio Chrysostom (or yet another pseudonymous author) accused the historian of prejudice against Corinth, sourcing it in personal bitterness over financial disappointments[73] ASUS X85S Laptop Keyboard
—an account also given by Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides.[74] In fact Herodotus was in the habit of seeking out information from empowered sources within communities, such as aristocrats and priests, and this also occurred at an international level, Compaq Presario CQ57 Series Laptop Keyboard
withPericlean Athens becoming his principal source of information about events in Greece. As a result, his reports about Greek events are often coloured by Athenian bias against rival states—Thebes and Corinth in particular.[75] ACER Aspire 5742 Laptop Keyboard
Although The Histories were often criticized in antiquity for bias, inaccuracy and plagiarism—Lucian of Samosata attacked Herodotus as a liar in Verae Historiae and went as far as to deny him a place among the famous on the Island of the Blessed—modern historians and philosophers take a more positive view of Herodotus's methodology, especially those searching for a paradigm of objective historical writing. HP Probook 4325s laptop keyboard
A few modern scholars have argued that Herodotus exaggerated the extent of his travels and invented his sources[76] yet his reputation continues largely intact: "The Father of History is also the father of comparative anthropology",[18] "the father of ethnography",[77] and he is "more modern than any other ancient historian in his approach to the ideal of total history".[78]
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Thucydides (/θjuːˈsɪdɨdiːz/; Ancient Greek: Θουκυδίδης, Thoukudídēs; c. 460 – c. 395 BC) was a Greek historian and Athenian general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "TOSHIBA Satellite U305-S2804 Laptop Keyboard
scientific history" because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.[1] DELL FM8 Laptop Keyboard
He has also been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the relations between nations as based on might rather than right.[2] His text is still studied at advanced military colleges worldwide, and the Melian dialogue remains a seminal work of international relations theory. SAMSUNG N150 Laptop Keyboard
More generally, Thucydides showed an interest in developing an understanding of human nature to explain behaviour in such crises as plague, massacres, as in that of the Melians, and civil war.
Because of his influence in the Thracian region, Thucydides wrote, he was sent as a strategos (general) to Thasos in 424 BC. HP Mini 1001TU Laptop Keyboard
During the winter of 424-423 BC, the Spartan general Brasidas attacked Amphipolis, a half-day's sail west from Thasos on the Thracian coast, instigating the Battle of Amphipolis. Eucles, the Athenian commander at Amphipolis, DELL Inspiron 1750 Laptop Keyboard
sent to Thucydides for help.[7] Brasidas, aware of Thucydides' presence on Thasos and his influence with the people of Amphipolis, and afraid of help arriving by sea, acted quickly to offer moderate terms to the Amphipolitans for their surrender, which they accepted. Thus, when Thucydides arrived, Amphipolis was already under Spartan control.[8] HP 640436-001 Laptop Keyboard
Amphipolis was of considerable strategic importance, and news of its fall caused great consternation in Athens.[9] It was blamed on Thucydides, although he claimed that it was not his fault and that he had simply been unable to reach it in time. Because of his failure to save Amphipolis, he was sent into exile:[10] DELL Vostro 3550 Laptop Keyboard
Using his status as an exile from Athens to travel freely among the Peloponnesian allies, he was able to view the war from the perspective of both sides. During this time, he conducted important research for his history, DELL Inspiron 1750 Laptop Keyboard
having claimed that he pursued the project as he thought it would be one of the greatest wars waged among the Greeks in terms of scale. This is all that Thucydides wrote about his own life, but a few other facts are available from reliable contemporary sources. Herodotus wrote that Thucydides' father's name, Όloros, HP 640436-001 Laptop Keyboard
was connected with Thrace and Thracian royalty.[11] Thucydides was probably connected through family to the Athenian statesman and general Miltiades, and his son Cimon, leaders of the old aristocracy supplanted by the Radical Democrats. DELL Vostro 3550 Laptop Keyboard
Cimon's maternal grandfather's name was also Olorus, making the connection exceedingly likely. Another Thucydides lived before the historian and was also linked with Thrace, making a family connection between them very likely as well. Finally, Herodotus confirms the connection of Thucydides' family with the mines at Scapté Hýlē.[12] TOSHIBA Satellite L755-SP5102CL Laptop Keyboard
Combining all the fragmentary evidence available, it seems that his family had owned a large estate in Thrace, one that even contained gold mines, and which allowed the family considerable and lasting affluence. The security and continued prosperity of the wealthy estate must have necessitated formal ties with local kings or chieftains, TOSHIBA Satellite A110 Series Laptop Keyboard
which explains the adoption of the distinctly Thracian royal name "Όloros" into the family. Once exiled, Thucydides took permanent residence in the estate and, given his ample income from the gold mines, he was able to dedicate himself to full-time history writing and research, including many fact-finding trips. In essence, HP Probook 4710S Laptop Keyboard
he was a well-connected gentleman of considerable resources who, by then retired from the political and military spheres, decided to fund his own historical project.
The remaining evidence for Thucydides' life comes from rather less reliable later ancient sources. According to Pausanias, someone named Oenobius was able to get a law passed allowing Thucydides to return to Athens, TOSHIBA Satellite L755-SP5102CL Laptop Keyboard
presumably sometime shortly after the city's surrender and the end of the war in 404 BC.[13] Pausanias goes on to say that Thucydides was murdered on his way back to Athens. Many doubt this account, seeing evidence to suggest he lived as late as 397 BC. Plutarchclaims that his remains were returned to Athens and placed in Cimon's family vault.[14] HP G42-164LA Laptop Keyboard
The abrupt end to Thucydides' narrative, which breaks off in the middle of the year 411 BC, has traditionally been interpreted as indicating that he died while writing the book, although other explanations have been put forward. ACER TravelMate 3270 Laptop Keyboard
Inferences about Thucydides' character can only be drawn (with due caution) from his book. His sardonic sense of humour is evident throughout, as when, during his description of the Athenian plague, he remarks that old Athenians seemed to remember a rhyme which said that with the Dorian War would come a "great death". TOSHIBA Satellite A305-S6829 Laptop Keyboard
Some claimed that the rhyme was actually about a [death by] "famine" or "starvation" (limos - Greek λιμός[15]), and was only remembered as [death by] "pestilence" (loimos - Greek λοιμός[16]) due to the current plague. Thucydides then remarks that should another Dorian War come, this time attended with a great dearth, the rhyme will be remembered as "dearth," and any mention of "death" forgotten.[17] IBM ThinkPad T41 2373 Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides admired Pericles, approving of his power over the people and showing a marked distaste for the demagogues who followed him. He did not approve of the democratic mob nor the radical democracy that Pericles ushered in but considered democracy acceptable when guided by a good leader.[18] SONY VAIO VGN-AR570U Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides' presentation of events is generally even-handed; for example, he does not minimize the negative effect of his own failure at Amphipolis. Occasionally, however, strong passions break through, as in his scathing appraisals of the demagogues Cleon;[19][20] and Hyperbolus.[21] Cleon has sometimes been connected with Thucydides' exile.[22] TOSHIBA Mini NB 505-SP0160 Laptop Keyboard
That Thucydides was clearly moved by the suffering inherent in war and concerned about the excesses to which human nature is prone in such circumstances is evident in his analysis of the atrocities committed during civil conflict on Corcyra,[23] which includes the phrase "War is a violent teacher" (Greek πόλεμος βίαιος διδάσκαλος). HP Pavilion G6-1223TX Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides believed that the Peloponnesian War represented an event of unmatched magnitude.[24] His intention was to write an account of the events of the late fifth century which would serve as "a possession for all time".[25] SAMSUNG N150 Laptop Keyboard
The history breaks off near the end of the 21st year of the war and does not elaborate on the final conflicts of the war. This facet of the work suggests that Thucydides died whilst writing his history and more so, that his death was unexpected. DELL Latitude D830 Laptop Keyboard
After his death, Thucydides' history was subdivided into eight books: its modern title is the History of the Peloponnesian War. His great contribution to history and historiography is contained in this one dense history of the 27-year war betweenAthens and Sparta, SONY VAIO VGN-FW11S Laptop Keyboard
each with their respective allies. This subdividing was most likely done by librarians and archivists, themselves being historians and scholars, most likely working in the Library of Alexandria. GATEWAY 90.4V607.U01 Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides is generally regarded as one of the first true historians. Like his predecessor Herodotus, known as "the father of history", Thucydides places a high value on eyewitness testimony and writes about events in which he himself probably took part. HP G42-459TX Laptop Keyboard
He also assiduously consulted written documents and interviewed participants about the events that he recorded. Unlike Herodotus, whose stories often teach that a foolish arrogance invites the wrath of the gods, Thucydides does not acknowledge divine intervention in human affairs. DELL INSPIRON 1464 Laptop Keyboard
A noteworthy difference between Thucydides' method of writing history and that of modern historians is Thucydides' inclusion of lengthy formal speeches that, as he himself states, were literary reconstructions rather than actual quotations of what was said — or, HP Mini 110-1032NR Laptop Keyboard
perhaps, what he believed ought to have been said. Arguably, had he not done this, the gist of what was said would not otherwise be known at all — whereas today there is a plethora of documentation — written records, archives and recording technology for historians to consult. Therefore Thucydides' DELL Latitude D830 Laptop Keyboard
method served to rescue his mostly oral sources from oblivion. We do not know how these historical figures actually spoke. Thucydides' recreation uses a heroic stylistic register. A celebrated example is Pericles' funeral oration, which heaps honour on the dead and includes a defence of democracy: HP 636376-001 Laptop Keyboard
Scholars traditionally view Thucydides as recognizing and teaching the lesson that democracies need leadership, but that leadership can be dangerous to democracy. Leo Strauss (in The City and Man) locates the problem in the nature of Athenian democracy itself, about which, he argued, Thucydides had a deeply ambivalent view: on one hand, HP G62-a80ES Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides' own "wisdom was made possible" by the Periclean democracy, which had the effect of liberating individual daring, enterprise and questioning spirit, but this same liberation, by permitting the growth of limitless political ambition, led to imperialism and, eventually, civic strife.[26] TOSHIBA NSK-TK001 Laptop Keyboard
For Canadian historian Charles Norris Cochrane (1889–1945), Thucydides' fastidious devotion to observable phenomena, focus on cause and effect, and strict exclusion of other factors anticipates twentieth century scientific positivism. Lenovo Thinkpad T520 Laptop Keyboard
Cochrane, the son of a physician, speculated that Thucydides generally (and especially in describing the plague in Athens) was influenced by the methods and thinking of early medical writers such as Hippocrates of Kos.[27] HP AEAT1U00010 Laptop Keyboard
After World War II, Classical scholar Jacqueline de Romilly pointed out that the problem of Athenian imperialism was one of Thucydides' central preoccupations and situated his history in the context of Greek thinking about international politics. TOSHIBA NSK-TK001 laptop keyboard
Since the appearance of her study, other scholars further examined Thucydides' treatment of realpolitik.
More recently, scholars have questioned the perception of Thucydides as simply "the father of realpolitik". HP Pavilion dv6-2118sf laptop keyboard
Instead they have brought to the fore the literary qualities of the History, which they see as belonging to narrative tradition of Homer and Hesiod and as concerned with the concepts of justice and suffering found in Plato and Aristotle and problematized in Aeschylus and Sophocles.[28] Richard Ned Lebowterms Thucydides "the last of the tragedians",ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
stating that "Thucydides drew heavily on epic poetry and tragedy to construct his history, which not surprisingly is also constructed as a narrative."[29] In this view, the blind and immoderate behaviour of the Athenians (and indeed of all the other actors), though perhaps intrinsic to human nature, ultimately leads to their downfall. HP Pavilion dv6-3050ep laptop keyboard
Thus his History could serve as a warning to future leaders to be more prudent, by putting them on notice that someone would be scrutinizing their actions with a historian's objectivity rather than a chronicler's flattery.[30] ACER Aspire 1621 laptop keyboard
Finally, the question has recently been raised as to whether Thucydides was not greatly, if not fundamentally, concerned with the matter of religion. Contrary to Herodotus, who portrays the gods as active agents in human affairs, SONY VAIO VGN-CS11S/Q laptop keyboard
Thucydides attributes the existence of the divine entirely to the needs of political life. The gods are seen as existing only in the minds of men. Religion as such reveals itself in the History to be not simply one type of social behaviour among others, but what permeates the whole of social existence, permitting the emergence of justice.[31] HP Pavilion dv6-3110sl laptop keyboard
Herodotus records in his Histories not only the events of the Persian Wars but also geographical and ethnographical information, as well as the fables related to him during his extensive travels. Typically, he passes no definitive judgment on what he has heard. In the case of conflicting or unlikely accounts, HP Pavilion dv2-1070eg laptop keyboard
he presents both sides, says what he believes and then invites readers to decide for themselves.[34] The work of Herodotus is reported to have been recited at festivals, where prizes were awarded, as for example, during the games at Olympia.[35] GATEWAY M-6846 laptop keyboard
Herodotus views history as a source of moral lessons, with conflicts and wars as misfortunes flowing from initial acts of injustice perpetuated through cycles of revenge.[36] In contrast, Thucydides claims to confine himself to factual reports of contemporary political and military events, based on unambiguous, first-hand, HP Pavilion DV7-3188cl laptop keyboard
eye-witness accounts,[37] although, unlike Herodotus, he does not reveal his sources. Thucydides views life exclusively as political life, and history in terms ofpolitical history. Conventional moral considerations play no role in his analysis of political events while geographic and ethnographic aspects are omitted or, at best, of secondary importance. TOSHIBA Satellite L755-S5245 laptop keyboard
Subsequent Greek historians — such as Ctesias, Diodorus, Strabo, Polybius and Plutarch — held up Thucydides' writings as a model of truthful history. Lucian[38] refers to Thucydides as having given Greek historians their law, requiring them to say what had been done (ὡς ἐπράχθη). Greek historians of the fourth century BC accepted that history was political and that contemporary history was the proper domain of a historian.[39] TOSHIBA Satellite A305-S6829 laptop keyboard
Cicerocalls Herodotus the "father of history;"[40] yet the Greek writer Plutarch, in his Moralia (Ethics) denigrated Herodotus, as the "father of lies".[41] Unlike Thucydides, however, these historians all continued to view history as a source of moral lessons. DELL Inspiron N4050 laptop keyboard
Due to the loss of the ability to read Greek, Thucydides and Herodotus were largely forgotten during the Middle Ages in Western Europe, although their influence continued in the Byzantine world. In Europe, Herodotus become known and highly respected only in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century as an ethnographer, SAMSUNG N128 laptop keyboard
in part due to the discovery ofAmerica, where customs and animals were encountered even more surprising than what he had related. During the Reformation, moreover, information about Middle Eastern countries in the Histories provided a basis for establishing Biblical chronology as advocated by Isaac Newton. SONY VAIO VGN-CR11GH laptop keyboard
The first European translation of Thucydides (into Latin) was made by the humanist Lorenzo Valla between 1448 and 1452, and the first Greek edition was published by Aldo Manunzio in 1502. During the Renaissance, however, Thucydides attracted less interest among Western European historians as a political philosopher than his successor, Polybius,[42] SAMSUNG N148 laptop keyboard
although Poggio Bracciolini claimed to have been influenced by him. There is not much trace of Thucydides' influence in Niccolò Machiavelli'sThe Prince (1513), which held that the chief aim of a new prince must be to "maintain his state" [i.e., his power] and that in so doing he is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion. Later historians, such as J. B. Bury, however, have noted parallels between them: SAMSUNG NP-Q320-AS02UK Laptop Keyboard
If, instead of a history, Thucydides had written an analytical treatise on politics, with particular reference to the Athenian empire, it is probable that . . . he could have forestalled Machiavelli. . . .[since] the whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of history agrees with the fundamental postulate of Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state. DELL 0PVDG3 Laptop Keyboard
To maintain a state said the Florentine thinker, "a statesman is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion." . . . But . . . the true Machiavelli, not the Machiavelli of fable. . . entertained an ideal: Italy for the Italians, SONY VAIO VGN-CS17G/R Laptop Keyboard
Italy freed from the stranger: and in the service of this ideal he desired to see his speculative science of politics applied. Thucydides has no political aim in view: he was purely a historian. But it was part of the method of both alike to eliminate conventional sentiment and morality.[43] TOSHIBA Satellite Pro L100 Laptop Keyboard
In the seventeenth century, the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, whose Leviathan advocated absolute monarchy, admired Thucydides and in 1628 was the first to translate his writings into English directly from Greek. Lenovo 45N2106 Laptop Keyboard
Thucydides, Hobbes and Machiavelli are together considered the founding fathers of political realism, according to which state policy must primarily or solely focus on the need to maintain military and economic power rather than on ideals or ethics. Lenovo 3000 Y500 laptop keyboard
Nineteenth-century positivist historians stressed what they saw as Thucydides' seriousness, his scientific objectivity and his advanced handling of evidence. A virtual cult following developed among such German philosophers as Friedrich Schelling, Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed that, " DELL Inspiron N4050 laptop keyboard
[in Thucydides], the portrayer of man, that culture of the most impartial knowledge of the world finds its last glorious flower." For Eduard Meyer, Macaulay andLeopold von Ranke, who initiated modern source-based history writing,[44] Thucydides was again the model historian.[45][46]
Generals and statesmen loved him: the world he drew was theirs, HP Pavilion dv5t-1200se CTO laptop keyboard
an exclusive power-brokers' club. It is no accident that even today Thucydides turns up as a guiding spirit in military academies, neocon think tanks and the writings of men like Henry Kissinger; HP G72-a10ED laptop keyboard
whereas Herodotus has been the choice of imaginative novelists (Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient and the film based on it boosted the sale of the Histories to a wholly unforeseen degree) and — as food for a starved soul — of an equally imaginative foreign correspondent from Iron Curtain Poland, Ryszard Kapuscinski.[47] Compaq Presario CQ56-109SL laptop keyboard
These historians also admired Herodotus, however, as social and ethnographic history increasingly came to be recognized as complementary to political history.[48] In the twentieth century, this trend gave rise to the works of Johan Huizinga, Marc Bloch and Braudel, ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
who pioneered the study of long-term cultural and economic developments and the patterns of everyday life. The Annales School, which exemplifies this direction, has been viewed as extending the tradition of Herodotus.[49] ACER Aspire 5320 laptop keyboard
At the same time, Thucydides' influence was increasingly important in the area of international relations during the Cold War, through the work of Hans Morgenthau, Leo Strauss[50] and Edward Carr.[51] HP Pavilion dv6-3173er laptop keyboard
The tension between the Thucydidean and Herodotean traditions extends beyond historical research. According to Irving Kristol, self-described founder of American Neoconservatism, Thucydides wrote "the favorite neoconservative text on foreign affairs";[52] and Thucydides is a required text at the Naval War College, an American institution located in Rhode Island. SONY VAIO VGN-CS17G/Q laptop keyboard
On the other hand, Daniel Mendelsohn, in a review of a recent edition of Herodotus, suggests that, at least in his graduate school days during the Cold War, professing admiration of Thucydides served as a form of self-presentation: HP Mini 1101TU laptop keyboard
To be an admirer of Thucydides' History, with its deep cynicism about political, rhetorical and ideological hypocrisy, with its all too recognizable protagonists — a liberal yet imperialistic democracy and an authoritarian oligarchy, engaged in a war of attrition fought by proxy at the remote fringes of empire — was to advertise yourself as a hardheaded connoisseur of global Realpolitik.[53] FUJITSU Lifebook S7210 laptop keyboard
Another author, Thomas Geoghegan, whose speciality is labour rights, comes down on the side of Herodotus when it comes to drawing lessons relevant to Americans, who, he notes, tend to be rather isolationist in their habits (if not in their political theorizing): ACER Aspire 5542G laptop keyboard
"We should also spend more funds to get our young people out of the library where they're reading Thucydides and get them to start living like Herodotus — going out and seeing the world."[54] TOSHIBA Satellite L750-ST4NX1 laptop keyboard
In summary, realists think that humankind is not inherently benevolent but rather self-centered and competitive. This perspective, which is shared by theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, views human nature as egocentric (not necessarily selfish) and conflictual unless there exist conditions under which humans may coexist. ASUS K030662M2 laptop keyboard
It is also disposed of the notion that an individual's intuitive nature is made up of anarchy. In regards to self-interest, these individuals are self-reliant and are motivated in seeking more power. They are also believed to be fearful. This view contrasts with the approach of liberalism to international relations. GATEWAY MX3416 laptop keyboard
The state emphasizes an interest in accumulating power to ensure security in an anarchic world. Power is a concept primarily thought of in terms of material resources necessary to induce harm or coerce other states (to fight and win wars). SONY VAIO VGN-CR363 Laptop Keyboard
The use of power places an emphasis on coercive tactics being acceptable to either accomplish something in the national interest or avoid something inimical to the national interest. HP 519265-001 Laptop Keyboard
The state is the most important actor under realism. It is unitary and autonomous because it speaks and acts with one voice. The power of the state is understood in terms of its military capabilities. DELL NSK-D8001 Laptop Keyboard
A key concept under realism is the international distribution of power referred to as system polarity. Polarity refers to the number of blocs of states that exert power in an international system. A multipolar system is composed of three or more blocs, a bipolar system is composed of two blocs, and a unipolar system is dominated by a single power or hegemon. HP Mini 210-1109TU Laptop Keyboard
Under unipolarity realism predicts that states will band together to oppose the hegemon and restore a balance of power. Although all states seek hegemony under realism as the only way to ensure their own security, other states in the system are incentivised to prevent the emergence of a hegemon through balancing. DELL V119525BS1 Laptop Keyboard
States employ the rational model of decision making by obtaining and acting upon complete and accurate information. The state is sovereign and guided by a national interest defined in terms of power. Since the only constraint of the international system is anarchy, there is no international authority and states are left to their own devises to ensure their own security. ACER NSK-H3V1D Laptop Keyboard
Realists believe that Sovereign states are the principal actors in the international system, and special attention is afforded to large powers as they have the most influence on the international stage. International institutions, ACER Aspire 7735Z Laptop Keyboard
non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, individuals and other sub-state or trans-state actors are viewed as having little independent influence. States are inherently aggressive (offensive realism) and/or obsessed with security (defensive realism), and that territorial expansion is only constrained by opposing power(s). ACER Aspire 5742 Laptop Keyboard
This aggressive build-up, however, leads to a security dilemma whereby increasing one's security may bring along even greater instability as an opposing power builds up its own arms in response (an arms race). Thus, security becomes a zero-sum game where only relative gains can be made. SAMSUNG R470 Laptop Keyboard
Realists believe that there are no universal principles with which all states may guide their actions. Instead, a state must always be aware of the actions of the states around it and must use a pragmatic approach to resolve problems as they arise. SONY VAIO VGN-FS742/W Laptop Keyboard
The primary motivation underlying the development of neoclassical realism was the fact that neorealism was only useful to explain political outcomes (classified as being 'theories of international politics'), but had nothing to offer about particular states' HP Pavilion dv5-1104tu Laptop Keyboard
behavior (or 'theories of foreign policy'). The basic approach, then, was for these authors to "refine, not refute, Kenneth Waltz", by adding domestic intervening variables between systemic incentives and a state's foreign policy decision. Thus, the basic theoretical architecture of Neoclassical Realism is: DELL Vostro 3450 Laptop Keyboard
While neoclassical realism has only been used for theories of foreign policy so far, Randall Schweller notes that it could be useful to explain certain types of political outcomes as well.[7] SAMSUNG N150 Laptop Keyboard
Neoclassical realism is particularly appealing from a research standpoint because it still retains a lot of the theoretical rigor that Waltz has brought to realism, but at the same time can easily incorporate a content-rich analysis, since its main method for testing theories is the process-tracing of case studies. HP Probook 4520S Laptop Keyboard
Claire Duncanson, lecturer in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, and Catherine Eschle, senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, argue that realism's focus on external threats and reliance on destructive military technology distract from more pertinent issues, such as poverty and environmental destruction.[11] COMPAQ Presario CQ40-117TU Laptop Keyboard
Furthermore, Duncanson and Eschle purport that security, an essential part of realism, can not be possessed and upheld by any force. Security is an ongoing process that involves subjects, not states, in the provision of their own security. Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 Laptop Keyboard
Realism equates the state with being the "protector", while its people with being the "protected". Such terminology is historically gendered, with men traditionally seen as the protectors, and women as the protected. This is problematic as it casts the state as a masculine figure, and the populace as a feminine one, perpetuating stereotypes of the weak woman. HP Pavilion dv6-3178ee Laptop Keyboard
Susannah Radstone, professor at the University of East London, argues that realist conceptions of security involve notions of invulnerability, invincibility, and impregnability.[12] Not only is invulnerability argued as unachievable, the terms have strong gendered meaning. A male's body is meant to be impermeable, TOSHIBA Satellite A300-1BZ laptop keyboard
and thus, impenetrable, while a female's body is meant to penetrated and impregnated. The use of these terms again speak to the notion of the state as a strong masculine figure, despite the prevalence of more women in both politics and military. TOSHIBA Satellite Pro L100-107 laptop keyboard
The Melian dialogue is a dramatic set-piece debate inserted by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, his account of the ruinous 27-year long struggle (431–404 BC) between the powerful Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. It is one of the two most famous instances of fictionalized speeches in the book (the other being the defense of Athenian democracy in the funeral oration of Pericles in the beginning of the work). HP Mini 110-3504tu laptop keyboard
These speeches did not necessarily happen word-for-word as written, but were inserted for dramatic effect, according to what Thucydides felt was "called for in the situation".[1] The Melian dialogue takes place fifteen years into the Peloponnesian war, during the confrontation in 416–415 BC between the Athenians and the people of Melos, SAMSUNG NP-N150-JP0N laptop keyboard
a small island located in the southern Aegean Sea just east of Sparta. The Athenians demanded that the Melians surrender their city and pay them tribute or face the destruction of their city. The Melians claimed their right to remain neutral, appealing to the Athenians' sense of decency and mercy toward a small, peaceful, HP Pavilion dv6-2170ee laptop keyboard
and defenseless city. The Athenians sternly replied that questions of justice did not arise between unequal powers and proceeded to lay siege to Melos as they had threatened to do, and to starve the resisting inhabitants into surrender, TOSHIBA Satellite 1800-911 Laptop Keyboard
slaughter the men of military age, and enslave the women and children. This act has become "famous as the worst atrocity committed by a usually decent society, but even more as one of the most famous assertions in history of the rights of unbridled power, " SONY VGN-FE31M Laptop Keyboard
according to historian Alan Ryan, who writes that, "The Athenian insistence that 'justice is what is decided when equal forces are opposed, while possibilities are what superiors impose and the weak acquiesce to' has been discussed by practical people and by philosophers ever since. Not everyone has rejected the Athenian case."[2] SONY 148084122 Laptop Keyboard
Ryan also notes that although Thucydides portrays the Melians as having always been strictly neutral and wishing to remain so, in fact, this was not true. Melos was a Spartan colony and had aided Sparta at the beginning of the war.[3] FUJITSU Amilo Mini Ui 3520 Laptop Keyboard
In general, however, "the Dialogue is formally not about the morality of the eventual execution, but about the Melian response to the Athenians' first demand, that Melos should submit."[4] HP pavilion DV7-1000 Laptop Keyboard
The historical background of this portion of the History of the Peloponnesian War is the invasion of the island of Melos by Athens in 416 BC during a brief lull in the Peloponnesian War. Just after the Battle of Mantinea in 417 BC, HP 441426-001 Laptop Keyboard
the Athenians moved on the Melians and demanded that they join the Delian League, thus effectively becoming part of their empire. The Melians had always resisted the influence of the Delian League, and resisted this invasion as well. Thucydides created the Dialogue in order to represent the actual events of the Athenians speaking to the Melians. HP Mini 210-1014TU Laptop Keyboard
His use of speeches in The History of the Peloponnesian War allowed readers to understand the way in which Athens created their empire. The Athenians sent the League's fleet to Melos to await the time to attack if Melos did not come to a peaceful agreement to surrender to the Athenian representatives.[5] HP G56-129WM Laptop Keyboard
The Athenians, in a frank and matter-of-fact manner, offer the Melians an ultimatum: surrender and pay tribute to Athens, or be destroyed. GATEWAY M-6848 Laptop Keyboard
The Melians argue that they are a neutral city and not an enemy, so Athens has no need to crush them. The Athenians counter that, if they accept the Melians' neutrality and independence, they would look weak: people would think they spared Melos because they were not strong enough to conquer it. SAMSUNG Q320 Laptop Keyboard
The Melians argue that an invasion will alarm the other neutral Greek states, who will become hostile to Athens for fear of being invaded themselves. The Athenians counter that the Greek states on the mainland are unlikely to act this way. It is the more volatile island states and the subjects they have already conquered that are more likely to take up arms against Athens. TOSHIBA Satellite U305-S2804 Laptop Keyboard
The Melians argue that it would be shameful and cowardly of them to submit without a fight. In Thucydides' account, "If such hazards are taken by you to keep your empire and by your subjects to escape it, we who are still free would show ourselves great cowards and weaklings if we failed to face everything that comes rather than submit to slavery."[6] The Athenians counter that the debate is not about honour but about self-preservation. DELL Inspiron 1750 Laptop Keyboard
The Melians argue that though the Athenians are far stronger, there is still a chance they could win. The Athenians counter that only the strong have a right to indulge in hope; the weak Melians are hopelessly outnumbered. HP Mini 210-1110EZ laptop keyboard
The Melians state that they also refuse because they believe they have the assistance of the gods. Thucydides recounts, "We trust that the gods will give us fortune as good as yours, because we are standing for what is right against what is wrong."[7] Compaq Presario CQ62-219WM laptop keyboard
The Athenians counter that gods and men alike respect strength over moral arguments, summarising this in the famous dictum that, "The strong do as they can and the weak suffer what they must". HP Pavilion DV6-1205ee laptop keyboard
The Melians insist that their Spartan kin will come to their defence. The Athenians argue that the Spartans have nothing to gain and a lot to lose by coming to the Melians' aid – mere kinship will not motivate them. ASUS V020662BS1 laptop keyboard
The Athenians then conclude the argument by saying there is no shame in submitting to a stronger enemy. The Melians do not change their minds and politely dismiss the envoys.
The Melian Dialogue opened up many arguments over what moral considerations, if any, should limit the exercise of imperial power of coercion. COMPAQ Presario CQ50-210US laptop keyboard
One historian. A.B. Bosworth, has argued that to the extent the Athenians warned the Melians of their imminent destruction and offered them a way out (namely by joining their Delian league) there was a humanitarian aspect to their handling of the arguments in the Dialogue. Thus, although the destruction of Melos was indeed brutal, DELL Inspiron N4050 laptop keyboard
the Athenian attempt to procure its surrender was at the least less inhumane than an immediate debellation would have been.[8] Bosworth further contends that the Athenians could only confront the Melians with the reality of their position by stating it in the bluntest terms. HP Pavilion dv5-1104tu laptop keyboard
"Harsh their language undoubtedly is, but it has a humanitarian end, to convince the Melian oligarchs of the need to capitulate and save themselves and the commons the horrors of a siege."[8] FUJITSU Amilo Mini Ui 3520 laptop keyboard
As for Thucydides' point of view, it is possible that he may have been biased in favor of the Melians because of bitterness over his own exile from Athens. W. Liebeschuetz argues that he depicts the Athenians as "wrong and deluded" because of their lack of morality in Melos' Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 laptop keyboard
destruction but concedes that "the Athenians were also perfectly right that the Melians' own interest required that they should yield to the Athenians since they had not the strength to resist successfully."[9] D. M. Lewis, however, declares that, ACER WK629K laptop keyboard
"Thucydides, with his strong feeling for the power and glory of Athens, may have seen this differently and regarded the Melians' heroics as foolish and unrealistic; and the fact that they had been offered a relatively painless alternative might affect his view of themassacre."[10] Lewis also questions whether Thucydides' depiction of Athenian ruthlessness was really intended to elicit such strong reactions, observing that, SONY VAIO VGN-CS17G/Q laptop keyboard
"The fact that Melos stands out so prominently in judgments about the Athenian Empire is certainly in large part due to the attention that Thucydides' Dialogue has focused on it, but the feeling he displays elsewhere about that empire makes it questionable if he intended to produce the revulsion which most readers of the Dialogue feel."[11] HP Pavilion DV7-3069wm laptop keyboard
Though they were faced with overwhelming odds, the Melians believed that the Spartans, who were their kin, would come to their aid against Athens. Moreover, they did not want to be regarded as cowards for surrendering so easily and submitting themselves to dominance by Athens. SONY VAIO VGN-FS640/W laptop keyboard
The dialogue does not show the Melians making any appeal to the potential counter-argument that Athens, by allowing the Melians to remain neutral, while simply continuing its empire-building around them, would show strength rather than weakness by demonstrating that Athens was so powerful that it had nothing to fear even if the Melians refused to cooperate. TOSHIBA Satellite U305-S5077 laptop keyboard
The Dialogue concludes with the Melians' refusal to surrender to the Athenians, "Our decision, Athenians, is just the same as it was at first. We are not prepared to give up in a short moment the liberty which our city has enjoyed from its foundation for 700 years."[12] They also propose to conclude a new treaty of neutrality with Athens: "‘HP G72-a10EM laptop keyboard
We invite you to allow us to be friends of yours and enemies to neither side, to make a treaty which shall be agreeable to both you and us, and so to leave our country.'"[12] Thucydides writes that the Athenians ignored this offer and immediately commenced to besiege Melos, as threatened. Although the Melians held out for a time, SONY VAIO VGN-FS415M laptop keyboard
the Athenians eventually won after some form of unspecified treachery within the city. They then proceeded to execute all the men they took captive and to enslave the women and children, and further, they repopulated it as an Athenian colony. FUJITSU Lifebook S7210 laptop keyboard
Liebeschuetz notes the ironies in Thucydides' depiction of the Dialogue in the context of his History. In the Dialogue: "The Athenians look at the present and can see nothing will save Melos. They are right. The Melians look to the future. SONY VAIO VGN NR220E laptop keyboard
They are right too. Melos is destroyed. But [in] the very next sentence in the history [Thucydides] begins the story of the decline of Athens and the justification of the Melians."[9] Thus, both sides, the Melians and Athenians, predict outcomes that come to pass at a later time. Athens correctly predicts that Sparta won't or can't stop the Athenian army from destroying Melos. SAMSUNG Q320 laptop keyboard
Yet the Melians are also correct in trusting their kindred, the Spartans, to ultimately come to their aid. After the fall of their city, the Spartans resettled the surviving Melians on the mainland. Within a few years the Peloponnesian War resumed between Sparta and Athens, and the Melian community in exile raised funds to contribute to the Spartan war effort, which successfully destroyed the Athenian empire. SONY VAIO VGN-NW70JB laptop keyboard
The Spartan general Lysander then retook Melos and restored the Melians to their homeland. Overall, Melos was one of the few islands in the Cyclades that stood up for itself despite the negative repercussions. Packard Bell PEW91 laptop keyboard
Seaman finds it "indeed ironic to consider that it was in fact her longstanding neutrality which left Melos as prey for Athens during the Peace of Nicias."[13]Alan Ryan, on the other hand, questions whether the Melians, despite their protestations as reported in the Dialogue, had in in fact ever really been neutral.[14] TOSHIBA NSK-T4D01 laptop keyboard
Thucydides was born in the deme of Alopecê (Αλωπεκή) of Athens. The exact year of his birth is unknown, but his family was noble and he was a relative ofCimon, the charismatic general and leader of the conservative party. After Cimon's death, he succeeded him in the leadership of the conservatives and decided to exert a vehement opposition against Pericles, who was leading Athens at the time. HP Pavilion dv6-3091tx laptop keyboard
Thucydides represented the thorough-going conservative party at Athens; their views are most clearly represented by "the Old Oligarch" in his Constitution of the Athenians, which has come down to us among the works of Xenophon.[1] ASUS F3F laptop keyboard
Donald Kagan suggests that Thucydides' ultimate goal, which he could not state openly as doing so would alienate the pro-democratic majority, was to roll back the constitutional changes made by Ephialtes, reinstating the more aristocratic and conservative government that had prevailed in Cimon's day.[2] SONY VAIO VGN-CS110D/W laptop keyboard
Thucydides' political strength reached its peak in the wake of the First Peloponnesian War and the reorganization of the Athenian empire in the early 440s BC. Thucydides developed a new and effective political tactic by having his supporters sit together in the assembly, increasing their apparent strength and giving them a united voice.[3] SONY VAIO VGN-CR363 laptop keyboard
Kagan asserts that this tactic helped Thucydides mount a concerted opposition to Pericles which brought to light ideological differences among Pericles' supporters.[1]
In 444 BC, the conservative and the democratic parties confronted each other in a fierce battle. Though some modern scholars doubt[4] the details of Plutarch's account, SONY VAIO VGN-CS220J/T laptop keyboard
according to Plutarch, Thucydides, the new leader of the conservatives, accused Pericles, the leader of the democrats, of profligacy, criticizing the way Pericles spent the money for his ambitious building plan. HP Mini 210 laptop keyboard
Pericles proposed to pay for all the construction from his own purse, under the term that all these monuments would belong to him and not to Athens. The public applauded his stance and Thucydides suffered an unexpected defeat from the charismatic orator.[5] As a result of his failure in confronting Pericles, Thucydides was ostracized for ten years, HP G42-364LA Laptop Keyboard
in 442 BC, and Pericles once again stood unchallenged in the Athenian political arena. Plutarch relates[5] that, when Thucydides was asked by Sparta's king, Archidamus II, if he or Pericles was a better fighter, Thucydides answered without any hesitation that Pericles was a better fighter, because, even when he is defeated, he achieves to convince the audience that he won.[6] LENOVO IdeaPad S9e 4187 Laptop Keyboard
After being ostracized, Thucydides is said to have traveled to Sybaris, a city of Magna Graecia on the Gulf of Taranto in Italy, or Aegina, but this is unconfirmed.[7]
While in Athens, Thucydides is also said to have accused Pericles' personal friend, Anaxagoras, of atheism and sympathy for the Persians.[8] HP Pavilion DV7-3065dx Laptop Keyboard
Herodotus (/hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) was an ancient Greek historian who was born inHalicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (c. 484–425 BC). He has been called "The Father of History" (firstly conferred by Cicero), and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, SONY 148084122 laptop keyboard
test their accuracy to a certain extent, and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.[1]The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (orἱστορία historía, a word that passed into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), HP Pavilion dv6-2143ca laptop keyboard
being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history. HP Mini 110-3504tu laptop keyboard
His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. His place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. SONY VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W laptop keyboard
His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact. However, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a literary critic of Augustan Rome, listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple, unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, TOSHIBA Satellite 1410-S173 laptop keyboard
Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naive, often charming—all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself.[4] Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain but, according to the ancient account, these predecessors included for example Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 laptop keyboard
Hellanicus of Lesbos, Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus. HP Probook 4750 laptop keyboard
This points forward to the 'folksy' yet 'international' outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one modern scholar, reading between the lines, has described the work of Hecataeus as "a curious false start to history"[7] because, despite its critical spirit, it failed to liberate history from myth. Herodotus actually mentions Hecataeus in hisHistories, FUJITSU Amilo Mini Ui 3520 laptop keyboard
on one occasion mocking him for his naive genealogy and, on another occasion, quoting Athenian complaints against his handling of their national history.[8] It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a quote recorded by Eusebius.[9] In particular, it is possible that he copied descriptions of the crocodile, hippopotamus and phoenix from Hecataeus's DELL NSK-D8001 laptop keyboard
'Circumnavigation of the Known World' (Periegesis/Periodos ges), even mis-representing the source as 'Heliopolitans' (Histories 2.73).[10] But unlike Herodotus, Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, nor did he include the oral traditions of Greek history within the larger framework of oriental history.[11] HP Pavilion DV7-3165dx laptop keyboard
There is no proof that Herodotus derived the ambitious scope of his own work, with its grand theme of civilizations in conflict, from any predecessor, despite much scholarly speculation about this in modern times.[7][12] Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 laptop keyboard
Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors, relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, he argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the older theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe and Asia/Africa equal in size (Hist. 4.36 and 4.42). Yet, he retains idealising tendencies, as in his symmetrical notions of the Danube and Nile.[13] HP G72-b60SF laptop keyboard
His debt to previous authors of prose 'histories' might be questionable but there is no doubt that he owed much to the example and inspiration of poets and story-tellers. For example, Athenian tragic poets provided him with a world-view of a balance between conflicting forces, upset by the hubris of kings, and they provided his narrative with a model of episodic structure. SONY VGN-FE790G laptop keyboard
His familiarity with Athenian tragedy is demonstrated, for example, in a number of passages echoingAeschylus's Persae, including the epigrammatic observation that the defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis caused the defeat of the land army (Hist. HP Pavilion dv6-3120sl Laptop Keyboard
8.68 ~Persae 728). The debt may have been repaid by Sophocles because there appear to be echoes of The Histories in his plays, especially a passage in Antigone that resembles Herodotus's account of the death of Intaphernes (Histories 3.119 ~ Antigone 904-20)[14]—this however is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship.[15] SONY VAIO VGN-NR38M/S Laptop Keyboard
Yet it was in Athens where his most formidable contemporary critics could be found. In 425 BC, which is about the time that Herodotus is thought by many scholars to have died, the Athenian comic dramatist, Aristophanes, created The Acharnians, in which he blames The Peloponnesian War on the abduction of some prostitutes—a mocking reference to Herodotus, who reported the Persians' account of their wars with Greece, beginning with the rapes of the mythical heroinesIo, Europa, Medea and Helen.[22][23] DELL PVDG3 Laptop Keyboard
Similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a 'logos-writer' or story-teller.[24] Thucydides, who had been trained in rhetoric, became the model for subsequent prose-writers as an author who seeks to appear firmly in control of his material, whereas Herodotus with his frequent digressions appeared to minimize (or possibly disguise) his auctorial control.[25] HP 576835-001 Laptop Keyboard
Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek lifestyle—the polis or city-state—whereas the interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Asiatic Greeks (such as Herodotus himself), for whom life under foreign rule was a recent memory.[24]
Typically modern accounts of his life[29][30] DELL Latitude E5500 Laptop Keyboard
go something like this: Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus around 484 BC. There is no reason to disbelieve the Suda's information about his family, that it was influential and that he was the son of Lyxes and Dryo, and the brother of Theodorus, DELL PVDG3 Laptop Keyboard
and that he was also related to Panyassis, an epic poet of the time. The town was within the Persian empire at that time and maybe the young Herodotus heard local eye-witness accounts of events within the empire and of Persian preparations for the invasion of Greece, including the movements of the local fleet under the command of Artemisia. Lenovo 3000 Y500 Laptop Keyboard
Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus indicate that her grandson Lygdamis negotiated with a local assembly to settle disputes over seized property, which is consistent with a tyrant under pressure, and his name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, indicating that there might well have been a successful uprising against him sometime before 454 BC. Herodotus reveals affection for the island of Samos (III,39–60) HP G42-364LA Laptop Keyboard
and this is an indication that he might have lived there in his youth. So it is possible that his family was involved in an uprising against Lygdamis, leading to a period of exile on Samos and followed by some personal hand in the tyrant's eventual fall. SONY VAIO VGN-N31S/W Laptop Keyboard
As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, though a Dorian city, had ended its close relations with its Dorian neighbours after an unseemly quarrel (I,144), and it had helped pioneer Greek trade with Egypt (II,178). It was therefore an outward-looking, international-minded port within the Persian Empire and the historian's family GATEWAY MT6920 Laptop Keyboard
could well have had contacts in countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches. His eye-witness accounts indicate that he travelled in Egypt probably sometime after 454 BC or possibly earlier in association with Athenians, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460–454 BC. HP Pavilion G6-1223TX Laptop Keyboard
He probably travelled to Tyre next and then down the Euphratesto Babylon. For some reason, probably associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus and, sometime around 447 BC, he migrated to Periclean Athens, a city for whose people and democratic institutions he declares his open admiration (V,78) and where he came to know not just leading citizens such as theAlcmaeonids, a clan whose history features frequently in his writing, but also the local topography (VI,137; VIII,52–5). TOSHIBA Satellite L775D-S7305 Laptop Keyboard
According to Eusebius[31] and Plutarch,[32] Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work and there may be some truth in this. It is possible that he applied for Athenian citizenship—a rare honour after 451 BC, requiring two separate votes by a well-attended assembly—but was unsuccessful. HP Pavilion dv6-2112sa Laptop Keyboard
In 443 BC, or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurium as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony. Aristotle refers to a version of The Histories written by 'Herodotus of Thurium' and indeed some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about southern Italy from personal experience there (IV,15,99; VI,127). HP Mini 110-3130nr Laptop Keyboard
Intimate knowledge of some events in the first years of thePeloponnesian War (VI,91; VII,133,233; IX,73) indicate that he might have returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague. Possibly he died in Macedonia instead after obtaining the patronage of the court there or else he died back in Thurium. HP Pavilion DV6-1002tx Laptop Keyboard
There is nothing in the Histories that can be dated with any certainty to later than 430, and it is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year.
Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect yet he was born in Halicarnassus, originally a Dorian settlement. According to the Suda (an 11th-century encyclopaediaSONY VAIO VGN-N130G/B laptop keyboard
of Byzantium which likely took its information from traditional accounts), Herodotus learned the Ionian dialect as a boy living on the island of Samos, whither he had fled with his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson ofArtemisia I of Caria. HP G42-265LA laptop keyboard
The Suda also informs us that Herodotus later returned home to lead the revolt that eventually overthrew the tyrant. However, thanks to recent discoveries of some inscriptions on Halicarnassus, dated to about that time, we now know that the Ionic dialect was used there even in official documents, so there was no need to assume like the Suda that he must have learned the dialect elsewhere.[33] TOSHIBA Satellite L775D-S7340 laptop keyboard
Moreover, the fact that the Suda is the only source we have for the heroic role played by Herodotus, as liberator of his birthplace, is itself a good reason to doubt such a romantic account.[34] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1860 laptop keyboard
It was conventional in Herodotus's day for authors to 'publish' their works by reciting them at popular festivals. According to Lucian, Herodotus took his finished work straight from Asia Minor to the Olympic Games and read the entire Histories to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it.[35] HP G61-102TU laptop keyboard
According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian,[36] Herodotus refused to begin reading his work at the festival of Olympia until some clouds offered him a bit of shade, by which time however the assembly had dispersed—thus the proverbial expression "Herodotus and his shade" to describe someone who misses an opportunity through delay. SONY VAIO VGN-NW91FS laptop keyboard
Herodotus's recitation at Olympia was a favourite theme among ancient writers and there is another interesting variation on the story to be found in the Suda, Photius[37] and Tzetzes,[38] in which a young Thucydides happened to be in the assembly with his father and burst into tears during the recital, whereupon Herodotus observed prophetically to the boy's father: "Thy son's soul yearns for knowledge." GATEWAY M520 laptop keyboard
Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides' tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides.[39] According to the Suda, he was buried in Macedonian Pella and in the agora in Thurium.[40] HP Pavilion DV7-3165dx laptop keyboard
As a historian, Herodotus was sarcastically referred as the father of lies for "quoting eyewitnesses about things they could have never seen, inventing and manipulating factual material." Ancient historians who followed Herodotus preferred an element of show to accuracy and fairness, aiming to give pleasure with “exciting events, great dramas, bizarre exotica.” [41] HP Pavilion dv6-2174tx laptop keyboard
Although the factual accuracy of the works of Herodotus is defended by some,[42] others regard his works as being unreliable as a historical source. Fehling writes of "a problem recognized by everybody", namely that much of what Herodotus tells us cannot be taken at face value.[43] HP Pavilion DV6-1205ee laptop keyboard
The accuracy of the works of Herodotus have been criticized since his own era. Sparks writes that "In antiquity, Herodotus had acquired the reputation of being unreliable, biased, parsimonious in his praise of heroes, and mendacious". His ancient critics included Cicero, Aristotle, Josephus and Plutarch.[44][45] Cicero (On the Laws I.5) said the works of Herodotus were full of legends[46] or “fables”, and Harpocration wrote a book on "the lies of Herodotus".[47] HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx laptop keyboard
Duris of Samos called Herodotus a myth-monger.[48] Voltaire described Herodotus as both "the father of history" and the "father of lies",[49] and Hartog more recently also called him "The father of all liars".[50] COMPAQ Presario CQ41-219AX laptop keyboard
The reliability of Herodotus is particularly criticized when writing about Egypt. Alan B. Lloyd states that as a historical document, the writings of Herodotus are seriously defective, and that he was working from "inadequate sources".[51] ACER Aspire 5810TZ-4657 laptop keyboard
Nielsen writes that: "Though we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of Herodotus having been in Egypt, it must be said that his narrative bears little witness to it."[52] Fehling states that Herodotus never traveled up the Nile River, and that almost everything he says about Egypt and Ethiopia is doubtful.[53][54] IBM 42T3297 Laptop Keyboard
About the claim of Herodotus that the Pharaoh Sesostris campaigned in Europe, and that he left a colony in Colchia, Fehling states that "there is not the slightest bit of history behind the whole story".[55][56] Fehling concludes that the works of Herodotus are intended as fiction.[57] HP 441316-001 Laptop Keyboard
Depew and Obbink concur that much of the content of the works of Herodotus are literary devices.[58]
In contrast, many scholars (Aubin, Heeren, Davidson, Diop, Poe, Welsby, Celenko, Volney, Montet, Bernal, Jackson, HP 599572-031 Laptop Keyboard
DuBois, Strabo), ancient and modern, routinely cite Herodotus in their works on the Nile Valley. Some of these scholars (Welsby, Heeren, Aubin, Diop, etc.) explicitly mention the reliability of Herodotus' work on the Nile Valley and demonstrate corroboration of Herodotus' writings by modern scholars. Welsby said that " Lenovo 45N2071 laptop keyboard
archaeology graphically confirms some of Herodotus' observations." [59] A.H.L. Heeren (1838) quoted Herodotus throughout his work and provided corroboration by scholars of his day regarding several passages (source of the Nile, location of Meroe, etc.).[60] To further his work on the Egyptians and Assyrians, Aubin uses Herodotus' ASUS A6J laptop keyboard
accounts in various passages and defends Herodotus' position against modern scholars. Aubin said Herodotus was "the author of the first important narrative history of the world" and that Herodotus "visited Egypt."[61] ASUS V020462CS1 laptop keyboard
Diop provides several examples (the inundations of the Nile) that he claims support his view that Herodotus was "quite scrupulous, SONY Vaio PCG-K23 laptop keyboard
objective, scientific for his time." Diop claims that Herodotus "always distinguishes carefully between what he has seen and what he has been told." Diop also claims that Strabo corroborated Herodotus' ideas about the Black Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Colchians.[62][63] HP Compaq NC8420 laptop keyboard
Herodotus claimed to have visited Babylon, but made no mention of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. This has attracted further attacks on his credibility. In response Dalley has proposed that the Hanging Gardens may have actually been in Ninevah rather than in Babylon.[64][65] HP Pavilion dv6-2030ev laptop keyboard
Herodotus provides much information about the nature of the world and the status of science during his lifetime, often engaging in private speculation. For example, he reports that the annual flooding of the Nile was said to be the result of melting snows far to the south, and he comments that he cannot understand how there can be snow in Africa, the hottest part of the known world, ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
offering an elaborate explanation based on the way that desert winds affect the passage of the Sun over this part of the world (2:18ff). He also passes on dismissive reports from Phoenician sailors that, while circumnavigating Africa, they "saw the sun on the right side while sailing westwards". SONY VAIO VGN-CR23G laptop keyboard
Owing to this brief mention, which is included almost as an afterthought, it has been argued that Africa was indeed circumnavigated by ancient seafarers, for this is precisely where the sun ought to have been. His accounts of India are among the oldest records of Indian civilization by an outsider.[66] HP Pavilion dv6-3008so laptop keyboard
Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century have both added to and detracted from his credibility. His description of Gelonus, located in Scythia, as a city thousands of times larger than Troy was widely disbelieved until it was rediscovered in 1975. LENOVO IdeaPad S10 20015 laptop keyboard
The archaeological study of the now-submerged ancient Egyptian city of Heracleion and the recovery of the so-called "Naucratis stela" give credibility to Herodotus's previously unsupported claim that Heracleion was founded during the Egyptian New Kingdom. ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
On his recent journeys to India and Pakistan, French ethnologist Michel Peisselclaims to have discovered an animal species that may finally illuminate one of the most bizarre passages in Herodotus's Histories. In Book 3, passages 102 to 105, TOSHIBA Satellite L755-S5350 laptop keyboard
Herodotus reports that a species of fox-sized, furry "ants" lives in one of the far eastern, Indian provinces of the Persian Empire. This region, he reports, is a sandy desert, and the sand there contains a wealth of fine golddust. These giant ants, according to Herodotus, would often unearth the gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels, and the people living in this province would then collect the precious dust. SONY VAIO VGN-FS980 laptop keyboard
Peissel reports that in an isolated region of northern Pakistan, on the Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province, there exists a species of marmot, (the Himalayan marmot), (a type of burrowing squirrel) that may have been what Herodotus called giant "ants".Packard Bell Easynote TM98 laptop keyboard
Much like the province that Herodotus describes, the ground of the Deosai Plateau is rich in gold dust. According to Peissel, he interviewed theMinaro tribal people who live in the Deosai Plateau, and they have confirmed that they have, for generations, been collecting the gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when they are digging their underground burrows. HP Pavilion dv6-3120sl laptop keyboard
The story seems to have been widespread in the ancient world, because later authors like Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his gold mining section of the Naturalis Historia.
In his book, The Ants' Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas, Peissel offers the theory that Herodotus may have become confused because the old Persian word for "marmot" was quite similar to that for "mountain ant". HP 576835-001 laptop keyboard
Because research suggests that Herodotus probably did not know any Persian (or any other language except his native Greek), he was forced to rely on a multitude of local translators when travelling in the vast multilingual Persian Empire. DELL UW739 Laptop Keyboard
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Therefore, he may have been the unwitting victim of a simple misunderstanding in translation. As Herodotus never claims to have himself seen these "ant/marmot" creatures, it is likely that he was simply reporting what other travellers were telling him, no matter how bizarre or unlikely he personally may have found it to be. TOSHIBA Satellite L755-SP5102CL Laptop Keyboard
In the age when most of the world was still mysterious and unknown and before the modern science of biology, the existence of a giant ant may not have seemed so far-fetched. The suggestion that he completely made up the tale may continue to be thrown into doubt as more research is conducted.[67][68] However Herodotus did follow up in passage 105 of Book 3, ACER TravelMate 4600 Laptop Keyboard
with the claim that the "ants/marmots" are said to chase and devour full-grown camels. The details of the "ants" seem somewhat similar to the description of the camel spider (Solifugae), which are said to chase camels, have lots of hair bristles, Compaq 6720s Laptop Keyboard
and could quite easily be mistaken for ants. On account of the fear of encountering one, there have been "many myths and exaggerations about their size".[69] Images of camel spiders[70][71] TOSHIBA Satellite L775D-S7332 Laptop Keyboard
could give the impression that this could be mistaken for a giant ant, but certainly not the size of a fox.
Some "calumnious fictions" were written about Herodotus in a work titled On the Malice of Herodotus, by Plutarch, a Chaeroneanby birth, (or it might have been a Pseudo-Plutarch, in this case "a great collector of slanders"), HP G72T-200 CTO Laptop Keyboard
including the allegation that the historian was prejudiced against Thebes because the authorities there had denied him permission to set up a school.[72]Similarly, in a Corinthian Oration, Dio Chrysostom (or yet another pseudonymous author) accused the historian of prejudice against Corinth, sourcing it in personal bitterness over financial disappointments[73] ASUS X85S Laptop Keyboard
—an account also given by Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides.[74] In fact Herodotus was in the habit of seeking out information from empowered sources within communities, such as aristocrats and priests, and this also occurred at an international level, Compaq Presario CQ57 Series Laptop Keyboard
withPericlean Athens becoming his principal source of information about events in Greece. As a result, his reports about Greek events are often coloured by Athenian bias against rival states—Thebes and Corinth in particular.[75] ACER Aspire 5742 Laptop Keyboard
Although The Histories were often criticized in antiquity for bias, inaccuracy and plagiarism—Lucian of Samosata attacked Herodotus as a liar in Verae Historiae and went as far as to deny him a place among the famous on the Island of the Blessed—modern historians and philosophers take a more positive view of Herodotus's methodology, especially those searching for a paradigm of objective historical writing. HP Probook 4325s laptop keyboard
A few modern scholars have argued that Herodotus exaggerated the extent of his travels and invented his sources[76] yet his reputation continues largely intact: "The Father of History is also the father of comparative anthropology",[18] "the father of ethnography",[77] and he is "more modern than any other ancient historian in his approach to the ideal of total history".[78]
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