Download Hazards of Empire

Hazards of Empire:
Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.)
History 111: Lecture 22: November 9, 2009
From Delian League to Athenian Empire
Rumblings of resistance: The beginning of the war
Athens challenges Corinth over Potidea (northern Aegean)
Seeing the war through the eyes of Thucydides
Method and purpose of his History
Greece divided: Athenians, Spartans, and their allies
Spartan hoplites repeatedly ravage the farmlands of Attica
Athenian triremes rule the seas
The Athenians honor their war dead: Pericles’ funeral oration
Siege warfare and disease: The plague in Athens, 430 BC
Athenian power politics: Cleon and the revolt of Mytilene (428 B.C.)
Melos, the Melian dialogue, and Euripides’ Trojan Women
The destruction of Melos in 416 B.C.
Alcibiades and the Sicilian expedition, 415-413 B.C.
Syracuse and the wealth of Magna Graecia
Segesta, in central Sicily, builds a temple and appeals to Athens
Syracuse victorious and the fate of the captured Athenians
After the war: Athens humbled
Purges during short reign of the “Thirty Tyrants”
The legacy of Thucydides in Western historiography
A powerful and often imitated model for how to write history