Thucydides This page intentionally left blank Thucydides AN INTRODUCTION FOR THE COMMON READER Perez Zagorin p r i n c e t o n u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s p r i n c e t o n a n d o x f o r d Copyright © 2005 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY All Rights Reserved ISBN: 0-691-12351-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zagorin, Perez. Thucydides : an introduction for the common reader / Perez Zagorin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-12351-9 (cl. : alk. paper) 1. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. 2. Greece—History—Peloponnesian War, 431–404 b.c.—Historiography. I. Title. DF229.T6Z34 2005 938'.05'072—dc22 2004058635 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Sabon Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ pup.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is dedicated to my son Adam Zagorin, an acute observer of the connection between money, politics, and power in contemporary America This page intentionally left blank War is the father of all and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others as men; some he makes slaves and others free. —Heraclitus, The Cosmic Fragments, 53 This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Thucydides’ History and Its Background 7 Chapter 2 The Subject, Method, and Structure of Thucydides’ History 23 Chapter 3 Thucydides on the Causes of the War 40 Chapter 4 Thucydides and Pericles 57 Chapter 5 Scenes from the Archidamian War 75 Mytilene, Plataea, Corcyra, Pylos Chapter 6 Dialogue at Melos, the Sicilian Expedition 100 Chapter 7 Endings 125 Chapter 8 Thucydides as a Philosophic Historian 139 Notes 163 Further Reading 185 Index 187