Due Monday, April 05, 2021.
Thucydides Peloponnesian War. Books 6, 7, and 8 (selections): Athens sends a huge fleet to Sicily and suffers disaster.
Read 6.1-61, and 6.88-105; Book 7.1-17, 42-56, and 71-87; Book 8: Aftermath of Sicilian Expedition, sections 1-2.
Here are Dr. Levine’s lecture notes on Thucydides’ View of Leadership
The Beginning of the Sicilian Expedition 415 BCE.
0. What important information about Sicily did the Athenians not know? 6.1
1. Why did the Athenians want to campaign in Sicily, according to Thucydides? 6.6
2. Why did the Athenians send envoys to Sicily, and what did they report on their return? 6.6-8?
Segesta, N. W. Sicily: Doric Temple/Theater
3. Why was Nicias opposed to the Sicilian Expedition? Give at least three of his arguments. 6.9-14
4. Why, according to Thucydides, was Alcibiades eager to support and lead the Sicilian Expedition? 6.15
5. What reasons does Alcibiades give the Athenians for supporting him as commander, and in favor of the Sicilian Expedition? 6.16-18
6. How does Nicias’ speech about the magnitude of the Expedition backfire? What does he say, and what is the reaction of the Athenians? 6.19-26
7. What two alleged acts of impiety at Athens imperiled the Sicilian Expedition, and who was blamed for them? What does ‘hermokopia’ mean? What is the proper way to write ‘hermokopia’ in Greek letters? 6.27-29 [What does a Herm look like?] ΕΡΜΟΚΟΠΙΑ (ἑρμοκοπία)
8. What kind of sendoff did the Athenian Sicily-bound fleet have? How did it compare to other expeditions by the Athenians, according to Thucydides? 6.30-31
9. What religious acts accompanied the sendoff of the fleet? 6.32
10. When the Syracusans hear about Athenian movements, Hermokrates makes a speech to them. What does he say? 6.33-34
11. What is Athenagoras’ political position vis-à-vis Hermokrates? How does Athenagoras’s speech at Syracuse inject local politics into the question of a possible Athenian invasion? 6.35-40
12. Why did the official Athenian trireme Salaminia come to get Alcibiades while he was commanding the Sicilian expedition? 6.53-54
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Tyrant Slayers. Digression.
13. Thucydides interrupts his narrative to give an account of Aristogeiton and Harmodius. What is the reason for this digression, and what does this tell us about Thucydides as an historian? 6.53-54
14. What corrective does Thucydides offer to the traditional story of Harmodius and Aristogeiton? What does “tyrannicide” mean? 6.54-59
The Hermokopia (Breaking of the Herms) 415 BCE.
15. How did the Athenians deal with those implicated in the Hermokopia? 6.60
16. How did Alcibiades escape from the men who came to Sicily to arrest him? 6.61
Students who are pressed for time may skip reading 6.62-87
17. What does Alcibiades say to inflame and to inspire the Spartans? What advice did Alcibiades give to the Spartans to help them in the War against the Athenians? 6.88-92
18. How does Alcibiades justify to the Spartans the fact that he is working against his own country? 6.88-92
19. What was the Lacedaemonian reaction to Alcibiades’ speech? 6.93
The Sicilian Disaster 414-413 BCE
20. Why did Nikias send messengers to Athens? Why did he give them a letter to the Athenians? 7. 8-10
21. What were the contents of Nikias’ letter to the Athenians? What was the Athenian reaction to his letter and his requests contained therein? 7.8-17
Students may skip reading sections 18-41, if time presses
22. What problems did the Athenians encounter when fighting the Syracusans at night? How did the night battle come out? 7.42-45
Artist’s version of Night Battle at Epipolai, above Syracuse.
23. In addition to being besieged by their enemies, what physical and mental problems afflicted the Athenian troops? 7.47
Syracusans Welcome Gylippos and Spartan Hoplites
24. Why did Nicias not want to accept Demosthenes’ good advice to leave Syracuse, and what does this tell us about the character of the Athenians back in Athens? 7.48
25. What fatal weakness did Nicias show — in relation to the eclipse? 7.50
26. What emotions possess the Athenians in 7.55? How do these compare to those in the great battle that follows (7.71)? Why do you think that Thucydides concentrates on emotions so much in this book?
27. What emotions possess the Syracusans in 7.56? How does this contrast with those of the Athenians in the previous section?
Students pressed for time may skip reading sections 7.57-70
28. Why were the Syracusans too drunk to follow up their victory over the Athenians right away? How does the Syracusan Hermocrates use dolos to compensate for this weakness? 7.72-73
29. What emotions does Thucydides describe as the Athenians leave their camp to retreat by land? How do these contrast with the splendor and glory of their setting out? 7.75
30. What does Nicias say about the gods to encourage the Athenians? 7.77
31. Why does Nicias tell his men that they are instantly a city wherever they settle, and conclude, “Men are the city, not walls and ships without men? 7.77
32. Why did Nicias turn himself over to Gylippos and the Spartans rather than to the Syracusans? 7.85
33. How did Nicias and Demosthenes die? 7.86
34. What was Thucydides’ attitude towards Nicias? 7.86
35. How did the Syracusans treat the men they imprisoned in the quarries? 7.87
36. Why does Thucydides call the Sicilian disaster the greatest Hellenic event of all time? 7.87
Destruction of Athenian Fleet at Syracuse:
Thucydides PELOPONNESIAN WAR BOOK 8. Aftermath of the Sicilian Disaster
SYRACUSAN COINS COMMEMORATED THE VICTORY OVER THE ATHENIANS, with Arethusa, dolphins, captured arms, and Nike crowning victorious charioteer.
EXAMPLE 1. EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 3
ARETHUSA was the nymph of the freshwater spring in Syracuse on the island of Ortigia. She was a divine patroness of the Syracusans.
37. What were the emotions of the Athenians in Athens when the news of the Sicilian disaster arrived there? What actions did they take? 8.1
38. What were the reactions of the other Hellenes when they learned the news of the Sicilian disaster? 8.2
39. What was the reaction of the Lacedaemonians when they learned the news of the Sicilian disaster? 8.2
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