Due: Wednesday, March 31, 2020.
Thucydides Peloponnesian War Books 4 and 5: Athenians capture Spartans alive on Pylos. Book 4 Sections 1-48, Book 5: Deaths of Brasidas and Kleon; Peace Treaty (5.1-26). Athens Crushes Melos (5.84-116).
Video of Trireme Ship Sheds (Zea Harbour Project)
OUTLINE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
CLICK HERE FOR DR. LEVINE’S NOTES ON THUCYDIDES BOOKS 4 AND 5
Spartan Soldiers Captured Alive at Sphacteria. 425 BCE.
Images: Battle of Sphacteria (Pylos)
0. Where is Pylos? Find Pylos on the second map at the back of our book. How did the Athenians happen to take Pylos/Koryphasion? 4.1-4
1. What advantages did possessing the site of Pylos have for the Athenians? 4.1-4
2. How did the Athenians come to fortify Pylos/Koryphasion? 4.1-4 [See the map of Pylos and Sphakteria in the back of our text.]
3. What was the immediate reaction of the Spartiates to the Athenian capture of Pylos (4.5), and what were their expectations when they finally came to attack the place? 4.5
4. How did Demosthenes prepare his Athenian troops on Pylos for the Lacedaemonian attack on Pylos? 4.9
5. What arguments did Demosthenes use to encourage his men to resist the Spartan attack, and how effective were his words? 4.10-11
6. How did the Spartiate commander Brasidas lead the attack? How effective was his generalship? 4.11-12
7. What does Thucydides say was so remarkable about the first battle between Athenians and Spartans at Pylos? 4.12
8. How did the Athenians turn the tables on the attacking Spartans and manage to trap them on the island of Sphacteria? 4.8, 4.14 [See the map of Pylos and Sphakteria in the back of our text.]
9. When the Spartans get a truce and send ambassadors to Athens to ask for their men’s release, what arguments do they use? 4.17-20 [inscription on captured Spartan Shield: “The Athenians from the Lacedaimonians at Pylos”
10. When the Spartans get a truce and send ambassadors to Athens to ask for their men’s release, what do they offer to the Athenians to try to make them agree? 4.17-20
11. Why did the Athenians not accept the Spartan offer of a truce? Who was Kleon? What is the Greek word for “a popular leader”? 4.21
12. How did Kleon get the Lacedaemonians to leave Athens without accomplishing their goal? 4.22
13. What kinds of difficult conditions did the Athenians face while besieging the Spartans and being besieged themselves? 4.26
14. What kinds of sneaky ways did the Lacedaemonians try to get supplies to their trapped men on the island of Sphacteria? 4.26 [See the map of Pylos and Sphakteria in the back of our text.]
15. What kind of trouble was Kleon in as the siege of Sphacteria dragged on? How did he attempt to get out of trouble? 4.27
16. How did Kleon’s bluster get him the generalship to attempt to capture the Spartans at Sphacteria? 4.28
17. Why were the Athenians happy when Kleon promised to bring the Lacedaemonians alive to Athens or kill them — within twenty days? 4.28
18. How did a careless campfire accident change Kleon’s strategy against the Lacedaemonians trapped on the island of Sphacteria? 4.30
19. Why did the Athenian general Demosthenes plan to use long-range weapons against the Lacedaemonians? What kinds of weapons did he plan to use? What was his strategy? 4.32-33
20. What was visibility like on Sphacteria during the battle? What effect did that fact have? 4.34
21. Why does Thucydides mention the battle of Thermopylae when describing the battle of Sphacteria? What is the point? 4.36
22. What kinds of consultations had to take place before the Lacedaemonians on the island would surrender to the Athenians? 4.38
23. What did the Hellenes find to be “the most unexpected thing in the war,” and why? 4.39
24. What did the Athenians plan to do with the captured Spartan soldiers, and what was the Lacedaemonian reaction? 4.41
End of Stasis in Corcyra. 425 BCE.
25. How did the Corcyrean democrats treat their oligarchic prisoners who had been turned over to the Athenians’ protection? 4.46-48
Deaths of Kleon and Brasidas at Amphipolis. Terms of Peace Treaty. 422 BCE.
Thucydides 5:11: “After this, all the allies, in attendance under arms, gave Brasidas public burial in the city [Amphipolis] in front of what is now the agora (and since then, the Amphipolitans, who have built an enclosure around the tomb, sacrifice to him as a hero and have given him the honor of games and annual offerings, and they attributed the colony to him as founder... believing along with their timely cultivation of the Lacedaemonian alliance in their fear of the Athenians that Brasidas had been their savior…)”
From the grave of Brasidas (now in Amphipolis Musuem):
26. How and when did Kleon die? (5.10)
27. What was the consequence of Kleon’s death? (5.15-16)
28. How would you characterize Kleon as Thucydides portrays him in Book 4?
29. Were the Athenians wise or unwise to refuse the Spartan offer of peace after the capture of the Spartans on the island? Why?
Athens Attacks Melos 416 BCE.
30. Find Melos on the map of Greece in the back of our text. What is it near? What are the Melians’ origins, and what are their political sympathies? 5.84
31. The Athenians in the Melian dialogue say that they will not use noble phrases to justify themselves. What do they do instead? 5.89
32. What do the Athenians say about Justice? 5.89
33. What two choices do the Athenians offer the Melians? 5.92-95
34. 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
35. How do the Melians claim that gods and Spartans might help them? 5.104
36. What ‘innate compulsion’ holds sway over gods and men, and to which the Athenians claim to be subject as well? 5.105
37. Why do the Melians believe that the Lacedaemonians will come to their aid? Why do the Athenians deny that they will? 5.107-110
38. What is the Melians’ final decision about alliance with Athens? 5.112
39. How was the siege of Melos resolved? 5.114-116
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