The Peloponnesian War (Oxford World's Classics)

I will comment first about the book itself, and later about this edition.

Having somehow avoided reading this book until now (in my forties), it is an unbelievable, eye-opening book. What you realize is that there is very little that is new under the sun: the contemporary world with the US, its view of itself, its ideals, its hypocrisies; concepts like freedom and democracy; the Cold War, Balance of Power, superpowers, realpolitik; the importance of naval power in world affairs, finance in war, buffer states, and practically everything except nuclear weapons - all of these things can be seen in a war between Sparta and Athens that took place 2,500 years ago. You realize that the ancients were just as sophisticated as us moderns, and the same political and economic factors that give rise to imperialism and world wars existed even then.

Though Thucydides was an Athenian, he seems remarkably candid about the moral position of Athens. Sparta and Athens, having led the Greek cities in the life or death struggle against the Persian empire, became as a result confident, focused, and well organized states. Athens decided that the best way to defend against future invasions by the Persians would be to go on the offensive and reclaim the Greek colonies in the Aegean Sea and in Asia Minor. Athens became the leader of a confederacy of numerous city-states for this purpose, but in time bullied the others until everyone, including the Athenians themselves, had to acknowledge that they in fact acquired an empire. Sparta could not tolerate the growing Athenian power and therefore declared war on Athens. This war lasted 30 years.

During this war the Athenians dared not face the superior Spartan army in a pitched land-based battle, while the Spartans dared not confront the Athenians on the open sea, where Athens had clear superiority in naval power. Instead, like the Cold War between the USSR and the US, the Athenians and the Spartans engaged in proxy wars - struggles fought in the other city-states which were the allies of one superpower or the other. The superpowers would try to keep their allies from defecting while trying to make the allies of the enemy defect. What is very interesting about the Athenians is how similar they are to the Americans: their belief in their exceptionalism; how they invoke "freedom" and "democracy" while they terrorized or intimidated the lesser states in their empire. The Athenians would meddle in the affairs of other states - toppling regimes and setting up client regimes in the name of freedom and equality, or any other reasons if those were not available. As aforementioned, with the exception of nuclear weapons, everything is so familiar. For me at least this is the key lesson, that the behavior of the nation states today - both the superpowers and the weaker states - are no different, and that ruling classes of these states are driven by the same political logic, and finally that any claim of improvement in humanity is illusory or, at best, merely temporary as we enjoy unprecedented wealth that allows us to entertain nobler ideals - a situation that may not last.

Finally a word on the translation: the reason I gave this review only 4 stars is that I found Hammond's prose very stilted. This may be a function of the original Greek text (that must be the case) but I found its voluminous endnotes to be as wooden and, unfortunately, not very illuminating. It would have been a better edition if he substantially reduced the endnotes to limit commentary to the really important details and placed them as footnotes at the bottom of the main text so that you don't have to keep flipping back and forth. However, this is the only edition of the book that I have ever read, so can't say whether other editions are better or worse.

I purchased this particular version as i had good experience with the explanatory notes in other books in the Oxford's world classic series,( specifically [[ASIN:0199595186 Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford Worlds Classics)]] ) which is the only real reason you should purchase a book of this kind, as the text itself available for free online in english and the original language, exempting personal preference.

I did not have such good luck with this book. the introduction was entirely too long (something like 40 pages) and is a summation of the entire book, instead of, you know, an introduction to the subject. it is unnecessarily verbose, as if written by a college graduate attempting to meet a minimum word count, instead of conveying information succinctly. if i wished to read a summary of the book i would not be buying the book!

as for the actual explanatory notes themselves, where to begin! first of all, the notation system is not sufficiently explained: At the beginning of the index it states, and i quote "References are to book and chapter (eg 2.68 refers to book 2, chapter 68)" note that this is the only indication of what these numbers mean that i have found in the entire book. then, the very first times these numbers are referenced in the explanatory notes, it is written as 1-23.3. given that the only information i have been given is that a number followed by a decimal point and 1-2 more numbers references book and chapter, you would then most likely infer that this note is written about book 1 through book 23, chapter 3? clearly it isnt, as there are only 8 books, but how would i know otherwise? there is no referenced name of this notation system, and i have no idea what to look for to find any additional rules for such a system as it has not been named inside of these pages, so all that there is to do is figure it out on your own. i dont know about you, but i do not buy a book so that i may attempt to decipher its notation system. i would much prefer to actually read what the book has to say and not spend my time just trying to figure it how to read it.

to make it even worse, the notes are even more unnecessarily verbose than the introduction, to the point of being redundant. for example, lets use the note for 1.144 as an example "the advice to not be over ambitious by trying to extend the empire during the war is praised by Thucydides in 2.65-and is advice which is not followed after Pericles' death." Does that sound like it imparts any information that you would not otherwise get from reading the rest of the book to you? why would i want notes that reference other parts of the book i am currently reading? i will get to those parts of the book eventually, i dont need to be told something that i would read in the book normally twice over.

while some notes are genuinely informative about telling what Thucydides got right and wrong, and how we know what he didnt know, many of the explanatory notes are very similar to the one i have just described, and makes reading them as a companion to the book painfully tedious.

there is also several maps in the back, but wernt very helpful for reading book 1, being either too large or too small, i would recommend buying a wall map or atlas of ancient greece if you want to try to follow the action as it happens in the book. i do not hold this against the book though.

TL;DR the explanatory notes are unnecessarily long and mostly uninformative to the point that i am unwilling to read them. i would not recommenced buying this version if you are doing it solely for the explanatory notes.

A must reading for anyone who wants to understand real politics long from the ancients that apply for ever and a view assume later by thinkers like Nietzsche.

A lot to follow but great detail and understanding of the war.

It all began with Kitto and this is indeed, a must companion piece to Herodotus

Without removing any of the necessary information included by Thucydides, this translation is readable. The story, of course, is filled with information that Thucydides considered "objective" history. It is often forgotten that this man actually fought in the Peloponnesian War. An interesting mix of intellect, perception, and militaristic ability.

if you love ancient history and classics this is the book for you or anyone you know who enjoys both ancient history and classics

Bought it as a Xmas gift for my boyfriend and he told me he absolutely loves the book and falls asleep almost every night reading it, because he can't stop. The introduction is an invaluable asset.

I LOVE this book and Thucydides writings, but the notes and maps provided left me googling A LOT.

The amount of times the notes illuminated something throughout the entire book was maybe a handful of times out of the dozens of times I didn't know what a something was (like specific tactics, strategies, unlabeled city names). Instead Rhodes (writer of the notes) uses the notes to basically second-guess or reiterate Thucydides rather than illuminate what might be muddy for a reader. I'm really not sure whom the notes are for, if it's your first time being exposed to this information many times the notes would just serve to conflict with and confuse Thucydides' writings.

The maps in the back are surprisingly bad. They contain a few dozen out of the hundreds of locations discussed, some far overemphasized, (like an entire page for Mantinea, Amphilochia and Argos respectively, but not a page for the siege of Plataea, Arcadia (not even labeled), Phocis (not even labeled), Naupactus. There are many locations mentioned that don't even exist on the maps provided as a result of being cropped out.

If you choose this edition be prepared to spend a third of the time reading trying to parse google for ancient terms which not even google has an easy time with.

This is the classic telling of the war between Athens and Sparta. Not the sort of thing the average reader is probably going to look at. But if you want something from a contemporary of the period, this would be a start.