Thucydides Study Questions, books 5,6,7,8 (selections)
Due: November 7.
If students are pressed for time, they may skip reading
the sections not covered by the questions.
Illustration: A 5th-Century head of a Herm from the Athenian
Agora. Note that the lower lip has been repaired. Scholars think that this
might be one of the statues which was damaged during the HERMOKOPIA of 415
BCE (see Thucydides 6.27).
For other images of Herms (some in color, some with some
interesting phalluses), see Dr.
Levine’s Herm Page.
Melian Dialogue 5.84-116
0. Find Melos on a handy map of Greece. What is
it near? Name two nearby lands or waters. What is their origin, and what
are their political sympathies? 5.84
1. The Athenians in the Melian dialogue say that they will not use ‘noble
phrases’ to justify themselves. What do they do instead? 5.89
2. What do the Athenians say about Justice? 5.89
3. What two choices do the Athenians offer the Melians? 5.92-95
4. Why won’t the Athenians allow the Melians to stay neutral in the war?
And what argument do the Melians use to try to get the Athenians to leave
them alone? 5.92-98
5. How do the Melians claim that they might be helped by gods and Spartans?
5.104
6. What ‘innate compulsion’ holds sway over gods and men, and to which
the Athenians claim to be subject as well? 5.105
7. Why do the Melians believe that the Lacedaemonians will come to their
aid? Why do the Athenians deny that they will? 5.107-110
8. What is the Melians’ final decision about alliance with Athens? 5.112
9. What happened during the siege of Melos, and how was it resolved?
5.114-116?
The Beginning of the Sicilian Expedition 6. 1-
10. What important information about Sicily did the Athenians not know?
6.1
11. Why did the Athenians want to campaign in Sicily, according to Thucydides?
6.6
12. Why did the Athenians send envoys to Sicily, and what did they report
on their return? 6.6-8?
13. Why was Nicias opposed to the Sicilian Expedition? Give at least
three of his arguments. 6.9-14
14. Why, according to Thucydides, was Alcibiades eager to support and
lead the Sicilian Expedition? 6.15
15. What reasons does Alcibiades give the Athenians for supporting him
as commander, and in favor of the Sicilian Expedition? 6.16-18
16. 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
17. 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 poper way to write ‘hermokopia’ in Greek letters? 6.27-29
18. 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
19. What religious acts accompanied the sendoff of the fleet? 6.32
20. When the Syracusans hear about Athenian movements, Hermokrates makes
a speech to them. What does he say? 6.33-34
21. What is Athenagoras’ political position vis-a-vis Hermokrates? How
does Athenagoras’s speech at Syracuse inject local politics into the question
of a possible Athenian invasion? 6.35-40
22. 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
23. What corrective does Thucydides offer to the traditional story of
Harmodius and Aristogeiton? What does “tyrannicide” mean? 6.54-59
24. How did the Athenians deal with those implicated in the Hermokopia?
6.60
25. 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
26. 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
27. How does Alcibiades justify to the Spartans the fact that he is working
against his own country? 6.88-92
28. What was the Lacedaemonian reaction to Alcibiades’ speech? 6.93
The Sicilian Disaster 7.
29. Why did Nikias send messengers to Athens? Why did he give them a
letter to the Athenians? 7. 8-10
30. 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
31. What problems did the Athenians encounter when fighting the Syracusans
at night? How did the night battle come out? 7.42-45
32. In addition to being besieged by their enemies, what physical and
mental problems afflicted the Athenian troops? 7.47
33. 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
34. What fatal weakness did Nicias show — in relation to the eclipse?
7.50
35. 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?
36. 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
37. 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
38. 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
39. Why does Nicias say about the gods to encourage the Athenians? 7.77
40. Why does Nicias tell his men that they are instantly a city wherever
they settle, and conclude that “Men are the city, not walls and ships
without men.” 7.77
41. Why did Nicias turn himself over to Gylippos and the Spartans rather
than to the Syracusans? 7.85
42. How did Nicias and Demosthenes die? 7.86
43. What was Thucydides’ attitude towards Nicias? 7.86
44. How did the Syracusans treat the men they imprisoned in the quarries?
7.87
45. Why does Thucydides call the Sicilian disaster the greatest Hellenic
event of all time? 7.87
Thucydides PELOPONNESIAN WAR BOOK 8. Aftermath of
the Sicilian Disaster
46. 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
47. What were the reactions of the other Hellenes and of the Lacedaemonians
when they learned the news of the Sicilian disaster? 8.2
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