(no subject)

[vaznetti]

First: Happy Birthday, lenadances.

Second: My brain is moving like molasses this morning. I need to be perky and on the ball in precisely 55 minutes [eta: I wrote that at 11:05], because it's parents weekend here. I have tried caffeine and sugar, and they aren't helping.

The problem is Thucydides. My love for Thucydides is pure, don't get me wrong. But we've got fifty minutes to discuss the Melian Dialogue, the Mytilenian debate and the civil war in Corcyra. I can see already that the poor Plataeans are going to be forgotten once more.

All I want to do is sit there and read Thucydides aloud, because he defies analysis:

1.22: "In this history I have made use of set speeches some of which were delivered just before and others during the war. I have found it difficult to remember the precise words used in the speeches which I listened to myself and my various informants have experienced the same difficulty; so my method has been, while keeping as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used to make the speakers say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation."

But later we learn that in wartime, "To fit with the change of events, words too had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying that one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence... Then, with the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself..."

And see, I was going to work this into some kind of argument, but instead I'll leave it here. "Go read Thucydides" is my thought for the day.

Comments

[ms-pie.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

History of the Peloponnesian War is one of my favorite books from university. I shall have to re-read :)

Good luck with Parents Weekend!

[vaznetti]

Yay! Another Thucydides fan! (The class was kind of blah, as I feared.)

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

"...human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself..."

Guh.

My gift wishlist is going to surprise my family this year.

[vaznetti]

And wait until I give you the "Cicero" reading list. How I love Cicero! (a statement that gets me into all kinds of trouble...)

Thucydides is the greatest, though. It gets better. (Use the Penguin translation, because the one in the "Landmark Thucydides" is apparently unreadible, despite coming with lots of pretty maps. Or you could go for the ultimate translation experience, and read the Thomas Hobbes version, but don't blame me if your head explodes.)

[jcalanthe]

How I love Cicero!

I for one am very interested to see the Cicero reading list, as I remember him being not only hard to translate, but dry and boring. I preferred Catullus, but of course this was in high school, when it would be difficult for anything to compete with poetry about sex and affairs and intrigue... You've already made Thucydides more interesting than he was in school, so I have hope for your ability to redeem Cicero for me too.

[vaznetti]

You've already made Thucydides more interesting than he was in school, so I have hope for your ability to redeem Cicero for me too.

::scratches head:: All I did was quote a couple passages. Thucydides is all about making you work for it, though, which is probably why people don't like him in school. But it's all good--the speeches of the Athenians and Corinthians in Book 1 are priceless. And then the Spartan ambassadir says, "I don't understand all these long speeches," and about three more sentences, and the Spartans do what he tells them.

I have been told in the past that I can make Cicero interesting... I guess I'll have to work up a post on the guy for LJ.

[lenadances.livejournal.com]

I am honored to have my name remotely associated with the amount of smarts and knowledge you've put into this post, particularly because I don't have the faintest idea what any of it is about. But I quite like it anyways.

[vaznetti]

You might not really like Thucydides, as he's closely associated with the "realist" school of international relations (although they have a tendency to misuse and decontextualize him). He puts forward ideas like "...the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept" (5.89), and then leaves the reader to figure out whether this is true or not.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying that one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally
unfitted for action.

Bush! I'm thinking Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld! Are you?

You've made me want to read Thucydides again. But you've also reminded me of how incredibly painful it was to try to read Thucydides in Greek. That class (with Robert Stroud) was the toughest of my undergrad career. I still have nightmares about those crazy optatives

[vaznetti]

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are big followers of the realist school, I think. But the IR people are not always so good with the irony. (ha, ha... get it?)

I remember liking Thucydides when we did him in the Greek survey, but that may have been because we did him after Plato and I find Plato impossible and loathsome.