Thukydides v. Herodotos FITE

I always got good marks for being pro-H: you could say he was more modern in that there's more hem-hem social and cultural history in his books. I think I like him best.

Best thing about Thucydides - his approach to speeches. He doesn't bother with what was actually said, just what should have been.

What makes his book GRATE is how many great bits there are in it:

- the plague in Athens
- the Sicilian Expedition
- everything involving Alkibiades
- the Melian Dialogue
- all the stuff about "stasis" (civil war within cities)
- Phormio's naval victories.
- Perikles' funeral oration

and so on.

The Classics are top. Their neglect is clearly the reason why Britain is in decline.

sometimes i think nicias desecrated the hermai

it would be so perfect because first (thuc says) he tries to scare people off the expedition with shermanesque troop estimates, but that only makes them more enthusiastic; then later, when (thuc says) opportunists accuse alcibiades of the desecration, it also has the opposite effect you'd think it might, since they're so eager for him to get out of town as quickly as possible so they can get to work building charges against him that they fervently support the invasion, ill-omened or no. (then when he finally does get recalled, all it does is force nicias to run the campaign himself. plutarch says he "made no end of loitering, of cruising and considering"--from sherman to mcclellan.) what if nicias makes the same mistake twice. what if the logic of empire is so strong it turns every blow against it into a blow for it.

he's prob way too respectable an athenian to have done something like that. (but: desperation!) anyway, i am obsessed w the sicilian expedition because of the iraq war.

The strength of Herodotos is also his weakness, all those long digressions about far off, exotic lands and peoples. Once he gets moving to the main narrative of the Persian invasion and the defense of Greece it's about as riveting as any story ever told. He was a master of history as drama.

The strength of Thukydides is also his weakness, all that methodical gathering of strands together, without attempting to highlight the drama of the events, but rather to bore into them and analyze his core samples for all the layers of motive, chance and foresight. His chronological scheme is useful for distributing his facts into neat synchronous packages, but that can play hobb with the narrative flow.

I guess it boils down to what you most appreciate from history: distance and analysis or drama and immediacy.

Once he gets moving to the main narrative of the Persian invasion and the defense of Greece it's about as riveting as any story ever told.

this is otm btw, it was the first Story From History i was ever interested in / thrilled by (in cartoon history of the universe form). the twin invasions and xerxes' megalomaniacal father issues (nb as rendered by the greeks) and the spartan dereliction at marathon redeemed at thermopylae and the sack of athens and crafty themistocles and xerxes watching his navy shattered from his hilltop throne. the orientalist globetrotter stuff can be silly but he was at least trying for a "global" perspective; thucydides is not as ambitious in that sense, tho in other senses, better respected by the modern historian, he is obv way more ambitious. plus because he is grumpier you trust him more.

hard thread to find, v high-level spellings

heh