Study Guide: Thucydides: On Justice, Power, and Human Nature
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Study Guide: Thucydides: On Justice, Power, and Human Nature |
Paul Woodruff's text, On Justice, Power, and Human Nature, offers selections from Thucydides' The History Of The Peloponnesian War.
Study Questions:
General Considerations | Origins of War & the Debate at Sparta | Pericles's War Speech | Pericles's Funeral Oration | The Plague | Pericles's Last Speech | Justice and Power: Plataea and Mytilene | Human Nature Laid Bare in Civil War | Justice and Power | The Sycilian Expedition | Defeat of Sycilian Expedition | Thucydides's Views of War
1. How does Thucydides write his History? What does he say about what he is doing?
2.What is the content of the History? What are the most important themes? Are there contradictions internal to the text?
3. What are Thucydides's reasons for writing his History? What do those reasons tell us about the nature of his History?
4.Why might Thucydides think that past events recur? What is he assuming? Is history patterned, cyclical, linear ...?
5.Does Thucydides practice what he preaches? Does he succeed in writing the sort of history he claims he is writing? Does he avoid the sorts of writing he claims he is avoiding? How can we modern readers test the reliability of Thucydides's History?
ORIGINS OF WAR & THE DEBATE AT SPARTA (pp. 15-37)
1.Compare and contrast the four speeches (Corinthians, Athenians, King Archidamus and Ephor Sthenelaidas) to the morally loaded situation under discussion. Of the four speeches, which makes the best argument?
2 Does Thucydides display special sympathy for any one particular speech?
3.What is the relationship between the speeches and subsequent events? 4.What is the cause of the war, according to Thucydides?
PERICLES'S WAR SPEECH (pp. 31-36)
1.How does Pericles characterize the Athenians and the Peloponnesians?
2.What assumptions does Pericles make (about history, values, ethics) in his justification of war?
3.Compare and contrast Pericles's justification for war with the way the United States justified incursions in Vietnam, Panama, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq. Are their conventional patterns for war speeches that must be invoked to win popular support for a war? Does it make a difference if one is attacked or is initiating the conflict?
PERICLES'S FUNERAL ORATION (pp. 39-58)
1.How would you characterize the relationship between the Funeral Oration for war casualties and the Periclean building program?
2.Compare/contrast Periclean idealism and patriotism towards democratic Athens with our idealism and patriotism towards America.
1.Why is there so much detail on the plague in a narrative on the human aspects of a human phenomenon, the war? Why did Thucydides not just write "The Plague happened and people died'?
2.Compare/contrast Pericles' glowing description of Athenian character with the actual behavior of Athenians in the midst of the plague. How is their behavior relevant to understanding the war?
PERICLES'S LAST SPEECH (pp. 52-56)
1.Compare/contrast the Funeral Oration with Pericles' last speech. How does Pericles differ in the values he affirms in each? How are these values related to understanding the war?
2.How do you respond to Pericles' assumption that ". . .Anyone who is active will want to be like us, and those who do not succeed will envy us" (p. 55)? How does Pericles respond to complaints against Athenian actions?
JUSTICE AND POWER: PLATAEA AND MYTILENE (p. 59).
1.Compare/contrast the speeches of Cleon and Diodotus. What conceptions of justice and justifications for war are offered in these two debates. What position is acted upon? What position ought to have triumphed according to Thucydides? According to you?
2.Thucydides juxtaposes the Athenians' and Spartans' handling of rebellious 'allies' Mytilene and Plataea respectively. How, if at all, does their respective handling of these rebellions serve to distinguish Athens and Sparta politically and culturally? How, if at all, does Thucydides's short narrative about the outcome of the speeches interpret or reflect elements contained in the speeches themselves?
HUMAN NATURE LAID BARE IN CIVIL WAR (pp. 89-95).
1.Thucydides expands his level of detail considerably in discussing Corycra, which one might otherwise have regarded as a local event without any immediate relation to the larger war. Why does he do so?
2.Thucydides observes that 'war is a violent teacher' (90). What does he mean?
3.Compare/contrast the symptoms of the plague at Athens with the human behavior and outcomes during the civil war.
4.Thucydides's discussion of human nature laid bare by the civil war is relatively dark and cynical. Is he right? Are events such as a civil war windows into our 'state of nature'?
JUSTICE AND POWER (pp. 97-109)
1.Thucydides appears to admire Brasidas. Why?
THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION (pp. 111-128)
1.Compare and contrast the speeches of the generals Nicias and Alcibiades. How do the two speeches employ emotional appeals to men of different ages and temperaments? What values are central to their arguments? Which speech did you find most persuasive? Why?
2.Strategically, how does Nicias counter Alcibiades' arguments? Did he make a wise choice?
DEFEAT OF SICILIAN EXPEDITION (pp. 128-154)
1.Why not give Nicias' speech during the battle of the Great Harbor?
2.Compare/contrast the Plague in Athens to the Athenian retreat (pp. 145-154).
3.Thucydides identifies Nicias (who after capture is killed by the Syracusans) as "of all the Greeks in my time . . . the one who least deserved such a misfortune, since he had regulated his whole life in the cultivation of virtue" (152). What is Thucydides's view of the relationship between virtue and war?
Having read the text, reflect on the work as a whole and answer the following questions:
1.Does Thucydides practice what he preaches? Does he succeed in writing the sort of history he claims he is writing? Does he avoid the sorts of writing he claims he is avoiding?
2.What does Thucydides's history say about war, making war, and winning war?
3. What does Thucydides say about the relationship between justice and war, religion and war, war and human nature, war and democracy?
4.Thucydides often presents the subjective context of the war through contrary speeches that make it appear that there is a measure of truth on both sides. What are Thucydides's reasons for doing so.
5. Does the History give perspective on recent United States wars? Why or why not?