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25095 results in Classical literature

Page 77 of 1255

  • 13 - Thucydides on Democracy and Other Regimes

  • from Part II - Themes and Content
  • Edited by Polly Low, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Thucydides
    Published online:
    02 March 2023
    Print publication:
    09 March 2023, pp 198-214

  • Summary

    This chapter argues that Thucydides’ History provides for its readers an opportunity to assess the limits and opportunities of diverse political regimes, particularly democracy, oligarchy and monarchy. In doing so, he offers insights not only into the specific characteristics of the cities that employ those regimes (Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes), but also into what is distinctive about those regime types, understood in categorical terms. The chapter focuses on Thucydides’ presentation of democracy in Athens and in Syracuse, arguing that Thucydides, although alert to the weaknesses of democracy, was also an admirer of the attainments and ambitions of this form of governance.

  • 20 - Translating Thucydides

  • from Part III - After Thucydides
  • Edited by Polly Low, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Thucydides
    Published online:
    02 March 2023
    Print publication:
    09 March 2023, pp 317-330

  • Summary

    This chapter reflects on the challenges of translating Thucydides into English. The discussion, which is informed by the author’s own experience of producing a translation of the History, offers some general observations on the translation process, but it focuses on the specific problems raised by Thucydides’ text. Issues considered include genre (including the question of the work’s title), structure and, above all, the stylistic complexity of the work: the compression of Thucydides’ language and the range of different voices in the text. The problem of cultural distance, and how (and to what extent) this can or should be reflected in translation, is also addressed.

  • 19 - ‘What Really Happened’

  • from Part III - After Thucydides
  • Edited by Polly Low, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Thucydides
    Published online:
    02 March 2023
    Print publication:
    09 March 2023, pp 301-316

  • Summary

    Thucydides’ continuing influence in contemporary political debates rests in large part on the perception that he offers a ‘realistic’ portrayal of human nature and of the impact of human nature on the behaviour of both individuals and states. This chapter analyses and contextualizes the two principal varieties of realism that have been attributed to Thucydides. First, the conventional realist reception, which reads Thucydides as a structural analyst of classic power politics. Second, a new political realism, which sees Thucydides as a witness to the complexity of politics and to the tragic consequences of that complexity. Finally, the chapter introduces a third possible mode of responding to the text, which brings back into the frame the question of what should be counted as ‘realistic’ in the first place and insists on ‘the usefulness of anachronism’ rather than the usefulness of lessons on reality.

The Cambridge Companion to Thucydides
  • Edited by Polly Low
  • Published online:
    02 March 2023
    Print publication:
    09 March 2023
  • Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is one of the earliest and most influential works in the western historiographical tradition. It provides an unfinished account of the war between Athens and her allies and Sparta and her allies which lasted from 431 to 404 BC, and is a masterpiece of narrative art and of political analysis. The twenty chapters in this Companion offer a wide range of perspectives on different aspects of the text, its interpretation and its significance. The nature of the text is explored in detail, and problems of Thucydides' historical and literary methodology are examined. Other chapters analyse the ways in which Thucydides' work illuminates, or complicates, our understanding of key historical questions for this period, above all those relating to the nature and conduct of war, politics, and empire. Finally, the book also explores the continuing legacy of Thucydides, from antiquity to the present day.

Genetic Criticism and the Creative Process

Page 77 of 1255