Thucydides, Pericles, and Periclean imperialism

Author(s)

    • Foster, Edith (Edith Marie)

Bibliographic Information

Thucydides, Pericles, and Periclean imperialism

Edith Foster

Cambridge University Press, 2010

  • : hbk

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-230) and indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Edith Foster compares Thucydides' narrative explanations and descriptions of the Peloponnesian War in Books One and Two of the History with the arguments about warfare and war materials offered by the Athenian statesman Pericles in those same books. In Thucydides' narrative presentations, she argues, the aggressive deployment of armed force is frequently unproductive or counterproductive, and even the threat to use armed force against others causes consequences that can be impossible for the aggressor to predict or contain. By contrast, Pericles' speeches demonstrate that he shared with many other figures in the History a mistaken confidence in the power, glory, and reliability of warfare and the instruments of force. Foster argues that Pericles does not speak for Thucydides, and that Thucydides should not be associated with Pericles' intransigent imperialism.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • 1. War materials and their glory in archaeology
  • 2. Arms and passion: Corinth and Corcyra at war
  • 3. The Athenian acme in book one of Thucydides: the Spartan War
  • 4. Pericles in history
  • 5. Pericles and Athens: Pericles' speech in indirect discourse in narrative context
  • 6. Thucydides and Pericles' final speeches
  • Conclusion.

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