'It was in Corcyra that most of these audacious acts were first committed...'
www.flickr.com/photos/sibadd/829800907/
If I were attempting to design a seminar on the things I'm trying to understand I'd start by recommending all my (fellow) students get a copy of Thucydides' 'The Peloponnesian War' which between 431 and 404 BC ended the Golden Age.
A book of suppressed intensity, its only monsters are men. I've had this second hand copy since 1996 when I was visiting Pylos and wanted to read the start of Book 4 for background (while lying on the beach).
I'd say don't try to read the whole book - though it's not that long. For our purposes look over pages 109-119 (in my copy), chapters 69 to 87 in Book Three - Revolution at Corcyra, and read, especially, chapters 83 beginning 'Thus revolutions give birth to every form of wickedness in Hellas, and the simplicity which is so large an element in a noble nature was laughed to scorn and disappeared' and 84:
'It was in Corcyra that most of these audacious acts were first committed and all the crimes that would be perpetrated in retaliation ...' in fact I'll quote this paragraph now as a taster '... in retaliation by men who had been governed tyrannically rather than with good sense and had the chance of revenge, or that would be unjustly designed by others who were longing to be relieved of their habitual poverty, and who above all were animated by a passionate desire for their neighbours' property; crimes too that men commit, not from greed, but when they assail their equals and are so often swept away by untutored rage into attacks of pitiless cruelty'
Before you ask 'what cruelty isn't pitiless?' Thucydides' adjectives are for effect - the nearest he gets to expressing his feelings. Thucydides lived through much of this war and took part in one of its failures before being exiled to his estate in northern Greece.
democracystreet.blogspot.com/search?q=pitiless
I got sent another copy of The Peloponnesian War yesterday with a note from an old bonesmen buddy in the flyleaf 'Ho Sibad. Wish I'd read ole' Ducididipops b4. Haven't got to the end yet so won't spoil it for yer.'
'It was in Corcyra that most of these audacious acts were first committed...'
www.flickr.com/photos/sibadd/829800907/
If I were attempting to design a seminar on the things I'm trying to understand I'd start by recommending all my (fellow) students get a copy of Thucydides' 'The Peloponnesian War' which between 431 and 404 BC ended the Golden Age.
A book of suppressed intensity, its only monsters are men. I've had this second hand copy since 1996 when I was visiting Pylos and wanted to read the start of Book 4 for background (while lying on the beach).
I'd say don't try to read the whole book - though it's not that long. For our purposes look over pages 109-119 (in my copy), chapters 69 to 87 in Book Three - Revolution at Corcyra, and read, especially, chapters 83 beginning 'Thus revolutions give birth to every form of wickedness in Hellas, and the simplicity which is so large an element in a noble nature was laughed to scorn and disappeared' and 84:
'It was in Corcyra that most of these audacious acts were first committed and all the crimes that would be perpetrated in retaliation ...' in fact I'll quote this paragraph now as a taster '... in retaliation by men who had been governed tyrannically rather than with good sense and had the chance of revenge, or that would be unjustly designed by others who were longing to be relieved of their habitual poverty, and who above all were animated by a passionate desire for their neighbours' property; crimes too that men commit, not from greed, but when they assail their equals and are so often swept away by untutored rage into attacks of pitiless cruelty'
Before you ask 'what cruelty isn't pitiless?' Thucydides' adjectives are for effect - the nearest he gets to expressing his feelings. Thucydides lived through much of this war and took part in one of its failures before being exiled to his estate in northern Greece.
democracystreet.blogspot.com/search?q=pitiless
I got sent another copy of The Peloponnesian War yesterday with a note from an old bonesmen buddy in the flyleaf 'Ho Sibad. Wish I'd read ole' Ducididipops b4. Haven't got to the end yet so won't spoil it for yer.'