essay on thucydides peloponnesian war

The Value of Conventions: An Analysis of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War By evaluating the theoretical implications of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, this essay will accomplish three objectives. First, it will describe human nature and human convention in the polis and their binary relationships with power and justice, respectively. Second, it will show that without conventions such as justice; human nature and unchecked power drive civilization into anarchy. Finally, the essay will demonstrate that without concertedly applying the convention of justice in the international sphere, civilization will continue to lapse into chaos throughout human history. Thucydides states that his History is meant to last for all time given that “(human nature being what it is) [history] will, at some time or other in much the same way, be repeated in the future” (Thucydides, 1:22). He therefore believes that human nature is forever cruel and unjust. Explained similarly to the Hobbesian approach, without restraints, human nature will pursue whatever means necessary for self-interest and greed. Coinciding with human nature, power is based on self-interest and the need to control reality at any cost. Power, along with human nature, cannot be properly managed without the presence of a State and they both tend to undermine convention wherever possible. In the conflict with convention, human nature and power are together capable of great achievements when restrained. However, together they are also capable of depraved criminal action when the constructs of society decline into anarchy. In order to escape such destructive human nature, civilization is engineered with restraints to secure an ordered and thriving polis. This is the case in Athens and other Hellenic states detailed in Thucydides’ work. Within the domestic sphere (polis) of Athens, convention is.
The Peloponnesian War was a conflict in ancient Greece that redefined the structure of power in the Greek-speaking world. What we know of the war is derived from Thucydides' work The Histories , which is considered to be one of the first uses of scientific historical studying practices of which there are records. If you're looking to buy research papersonline, feel free to visit the Ultius homepage to check out our wide range of writing services.Causes of the Peloponnesian War According to ThucydidesThe Histories, a historical text, was written by Athenian Thucydides, who was considered one of the first historians to produce a book that was written using a scientific application and without reference to the gods. The Histories is written about the Peloponnesian War, and the events that led to its outbreak. Thucydides was an Athenian historian who served as a general in the Peloponnesian War. Despite his involvement in the war and his Athenian roots, Thucydides represented himself as an unbiased witness in his written work in The Histories.  He breaks down the root causes of what led up to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, identifying the Greek cities that were involved, and which cities played a major role leading to the outbreak. He identifies three major causes that contributed to the war: the dispute over Epidamnus; the dispute over Corcyra; and the dispute of the Potidaea.Epidamnus Several complex events occurred in Epidamnus that resulted in what Thucydides refers to as the dispute over Epidamnus. Epidamnus was a colony of Corcyra, yet founded by the son of a Corinthian. After experiencing a period of success, Epidamnus slowly lost power and reformed government from aristocratic to democratic; the democrats revoked any respect of previous aristocrats. The Epidamnus aristocrats evacuated the city and joined forces with their foreign enemies, supporting the.
The Peloponnesian War The fact that we call the war between the Delian League (Athenian Empire) and Sparta the Peloponnesian War shows that Thucydides saw the war through a veil of preconception do to his loyalty to Athens.  Thucydides, an Athenian statesman and general was convinced from the outset that the war would be the most important ever recorded in Greece and therefore made great efforts to establish the exact truth. Since he was exiled early in the war for failing to relieve a besieged Athenian territory, he had plenty of freedom to travel and to talk to both Spartans and Athenians.  Warfare in Hellenic Greece centered mainly around heavy infantrymen called hoplites. They were armed as spearmen, which are relatively easy to equip and maintain.  And mainly they represented the middle class, who could afford the cost of the armaments.  Almost all the famous men of ancient Greece, even the philosophers and playwrights, fought as a hoplite in some battle or another.  Hoplites generally armed themselves immediately before battle, since the equipment was so heavy. Each man provided his own gear so it was fairly non-uniform, and often friendly troops would fail to recognize one another. A hoplite typically had a breastplate, a bronze helmet with cheek plates, as well greaves and other armor, plus a bowl-shaped wooden shield around 1 meter across. The primary weapon was a spear, around 2.7 meters in length; as this frequently broke upon charging, hoplites also carried a smaller 60 cm thrusting sword.  According to Thucydides, the cause of the war was the “fear of the growth of the power of Athens” throughout the middle of the 5th century BC. After an alliance of Greek states stopped an attempted invasion of the Greek peninsula by the Persian empire, several of those states formed the Delian league in 478 BC in order to create and fund a standing navy which could be.
Plaster cast bust of Thucydides (in the Pushkin Museum). From a Roman copy (located at Holkham Hall) of an early 4th Century BC Greek original. For other uses, see Thucydides (disambiguation). Thucydides (/θjuːˈsɪdɨdiːz/; Greek: Θουκυδίδης, Thoukudídēs, Ancient Greek: [tʰuːkydídɛːs]; c. 460 – c. 400 BC) was an Athenian historian, political philosopher and 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 scientific history because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.[1][2] He has also been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcome of relations between states as ultimately mediated by and constructed upon the emotions of fear and self-interest.[3] His text is still studied at both universities and advanced military colleges worldwide.[4] The Melian dialogue remains a seminal work of international relations theory while Pericles' Funeral Oration is widely studied in political theory, history, and classical studies. 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. Contents 1 Life 1.1 Evidence from the Classical period 1.2 Later sources 1.3 The History of the Peloponnesian War 2 Philosophical outlook and influences 3 Critical interpretation 4 Thucydides versus Herodotus 5 Quotations 6 Quotations about Thucydides 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References and further reading 9.1 Primary sources 9.2 Secondary sources 10 External links Life[edit] In spite of his stature as a historian, modern historians know.
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