We will probably cover most of this material on Tuesday, November 19. I'd recommend reading books III and IV in their entirety (great stuff!), but reading the following excerpts will prepare you sufficiently for the Thucydides essay on the study guide and the related ID's.III: 36-50 The Mytilene debate
III: 69-85 The revolution in Corcyra
IV: 42-48 Athenian successes/End of the revolution in Corcyra
V: 13-24 Peace of Nicias
V: 84-116 Melian Dialogue
VI: 89-93 Alcibiades justifies himself
VII: 76-87 Defeat of Nicias
Any particularly tragic elements here? Any elements of real tragedy? Are the themes/conflicts here comparable to the themes/conflicts in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides? Anything that particularly warrants Thucydides' claim that he is writing a work for all time?
I believe there are many tragic elements within the readings. Mostly dealing with character and thought. The conflicts are rising from within cities and resulting in civil war among the Greek people. The theme of tyranny and unjust ruling is prevalent in the Mytilenian debate, figuring out the "just" way to punish revolting behaviors. Cleon was trying to sway the people of Athens to harsh punish the ones that do us wrong. Pg 217 "for if they were justified in revolting, you must be wrong in holding power" He is debating that we (athenians) are in the right to exercise capital punishment since if the roles were reserved they would practice the same fate onto us. "remember how they would have been likely to have treated you, if they had won, especially as they were the aggressors. Pretty much stating..they started it, not us.Pg 241 "There was death in every shape and form, Fathers who killed their sons, men dragged from temples or butchered on alters". We see the chaos and mass blood shed in many of the great tragedies we have read as well. Revenge was more important than self-preservation. Same with the love of power, operating through greed and personal ambition, were the cause of all these evils.
ReplyDeleteThis reading is full of tragic elements. One of the biggest in my opinion was the deliberations between the Mileans and the Athenians. The Athenians all but pleaded with Melos to join the Athenians noting that it would be better to serve under the Athenian empire than to become slaves to someone else, or worse yet, be killed entirely. The Melians simply said that they would rather have “hope” and trust that Sparta would come to their aid. Feeling justified after Melos denied Athenian requests, Athens attacked and eventually he men of Melos were killed, while the women and children were sold into slavery. Athens would argue pride and Melos would argue hope. Either way, the Melian’s hope ran out. Ironically, this event would seal the Athenian fate as well. Their agreement with Sparta would be negated with their attack on Melos, and would eventually lead to Sparta joining forces with Syracuse to end the Athenian rule. There's a bit a of a catharsis here for the Melians--not so much for Athens.
ReplyDeleteI think in comparison to the playwright Sophocles, there is an element of pride, similar to Philoctetes, though he eventually was told by Heracles to go to Troy to help the Greeks gain victory. The Melians in contrast were not helped by the gods or a special bow and arrow. Maybe even a pride similar to Prometheus, who suffered, but unlike the Melians, eventually found resolution with Zeus. Hope is an interestingly, powerful, element of thinking and feeling. It can give us a picture of the future worth fighting for. Though hope didn’t pan out for the Melians, they fought with it in mind. I’m not sure that Thucydides’ report of history is the best work of all time, but there are certainly many elements, such as timeline, cause and effect, as well as, using great detail to paint a picture that is impressive. I think his ability to handle the enormity of information and put together a consistent structure for the reader puts him high up on the list.
-Jonathon Fargher
I think the great tragedy that has developed so far is simply the decline of Athens as a super power, the end of its golden age. You can see they are straining to maintain an unprecedented (for Athens) expansion in the Mediterranean. It's happened to every empire in history, but having such a detailed and well-written contemporary book about it makes it feel more devastating and intimate. I think that the tragedy is a battle between pride and patience. The Spartans were/are well known to be patient and even slow to act, and it almost seems as if it would be their downfall in the first 3 books - Athens and its allies have the superior numbers, sea superiority, and all that entails - but they seem considerably less thoughtful about their actions than do the Spartans. When you first read Pericles' speeches for war he is brave and patriotic and empowering, but when you already know the outcome of the war it seems he was leading out of pride and not out of patience or deliberation. This is true in almost any dialog, from the pleas for the Spartans to go to war by Corinth and others in Peloponnese, as well as in the deliberations about Mytilene - the Athenians are too proud to accept how they're being spread to thin, they would rather maintain the illusion of superiority than accept they are overwhelmed and need to stop positioning themselves as the sole superpower on the peninsula. It also makes us look at pride from different perspectives - the same pride that is heroic in one circumstance seems foolish in other circumstances. It all adds to what we learn of Themistocles' fall from glory and his former successes, and of Pausanias' exotic and prideful lifestyle and downfall in Book 2. So far, even as tragic as war normally goes, we see a lot of tragedy in individuals' choices, perhaps one we can only see in retrospect.
ReplyDeleteTragedy is basically the main theme among these readings. The most apparent example is The Mytilenian Debate. The tragedy is the initial decision to kill all the men and sell the woman and children as slaves. They were unsure if the act has been carried out yet or not when they sent out the second message. What tragedy it would have been had they not voted in favor of sparing the Mytilenians or if the new message had not made it in time. There is one obvious example of tragedy, but what really makes me think of the great playwrights is the catharsis that takes place at the end of this historical tale. The catharsis of the second message making it in time to spare the men before they were killed and before any irreparable damage was done. Besides this example, there are plenty of other tragic elements scattered throughout the readings.
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely tragic elements in these readings, mainly with their connections to various themes explored in tragedies, such as right v. right. One example with these is in Alcibiades’s speech to Sparta. In asking Sparta to go to war with Athens, Alcibiades is having a small conflict of right v. right with himself. He knows that the Athens is currently in the wrong from his view and that it would be the right thing to try to stop them, but he also has the connection of being from Athens and knowing that it would be right to support them, or at the least not support their enemies. There are also elements of real tragedy in the stories here. In his speech, Alcibiades mentions that the Athens he’s hoping that Sparta will fight against is not the Athens that he knew. It really highlights Athens fall from being the good guy in Greece, and how their initial purpose has been undermined by their leaders. This documentation of the feelings of people from both sides of the war I think help to show Thucydides’ claim that he’s writing a work for all time, because he’s open to having both sides of the war in this book without really censoring or altering them in too much of a way.
ReplyDelete-Sam Tucker
Tragedy is the main theme regarding the readings. I believe that the Mytilenian Debate because it revolves around the act of killing all the men and give into the demands of selling all the children and women into slavery. The unjust rule of the Mytilenian debate was a big part of the tragic elements shown in this reading. Listening to Cleon defending the previous acts and saying the guilty party got what they deserved. Diodotus then speaking in that the death penalty was an act of anger and haste eventually wins out. This shows the catharsis of the reading because it shows they made right decision of not slaughtering all the men and selling the women and children into slavery.
ReplyDeletei have to agree that there are a lot of tragic elements within the readings. from the failed peace of Nicias to the unjust rule of the Mytilenian debate, though the ruling was hasty and probably rigged by Cleon. Diodotus however, tries to rectify the mistake and explain that meaningless slaughter and suffering caused by athenians would only provoke other, more powerful enemies, to take a literal stab at Athens for their injustices to other city-states. Diodotus reverses the decision just in a nick of time and catharsis truly wins out. at least until this gruesome decision falls on other city-states later on in the war.
ReplyDeleteThucydides stories I would say are tragedies. He makes the stories easy to read and tells them with decent detail.
ReplyDeleteMitch Buller
I would say that The Mytilene Debate definitely has characteristics of a tragedy. Creon, most persuasive politician in Athens, urges the Spartans to punish the rebels by death for and women and children to be enslaved. This would be tragic if this were to be followed through but Diodotus preaches that doing this would be an act of angry feelings and uses other great points during the debate to sway the court the other way. Diodotus wins by decision, which is a means of catharsis, by only by a sliver that provides relief.
ReplyDeleteOne of the best cases of tragedy comes from Alcibiades's plea to Sparta to go to war with Athens. On the shallowest of notes, you have a former resident of the city seemingly turning traitor and asking for a war to happen in place of peace. Dig a little deeper and you find someone who thinks he's doing the right thing by asking for a foreign power to help dismantle a terrible regime. However, and this is where Thucydides really shines, there's an even deeper layer where the underlying tragedy comes into play.
ReplyDeleteYou have Alcibiades, a man who has seen the moral standard of his once great city crumble under terrible leadership, and now he tasks himself with instigating its doom in a sort of mercy kill by going to what he once considered former enemies to help him destroy what was once no doubt a pride and joy of his.