Making History: Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War

History in the Making: Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War: Text

While reading and working through the Thucydides' text, History of the Peloponnesian War, students engaged with each other in a series of discussion regarding the meaning and historiography of Thucydides' work. In this example, the discussion was centered around placing the text within context of Thucydides' time and place. In it, I examined the context of the text and reflected on the tone of the what became known as "The Melian Dialogue", comparing it to other parts of Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War.

(click to view)

The examination of The History of the Peloponnesian War culminated with a paper exploring the causes of the Athenian loss at the hands of Sparta. Titled Ambition, Glory and Empire: The Peloponnesian War and the Collapse of Athens, this paper, as in the discussions that led to its construction, applied some of the same historical framework of examining the historical evidence in context of Thucydides' time, specifically it required the consideration of Thucydides' role in the war and in Athenian society in his interpretation of this turning point in Greek history.

(click to view)

These course activities led me to create a hybrid template of existing frameworks for primary source analysis for my AP United States History course. Titled COMET, this framework places additional emphasis on context as a key component of historical analysis. As the course places a significant emphasis on primary documents and placing them in context, my classes use this template to analyze a wide range of documents from Bartholome de las Casas' Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Charles Sumner's Crimes Against Kansas speech, American Progress by John Gast, Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition speech, and the SDS's Port Huron Statement.

(click to view)

History in the Making: Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War: Work

Reflection

The analysis papers that I wrote for HIST 501 The Classical World of Greece and Rome helped me refine my interpretive skills regarding the works of Thucydides and Suetonius. While the analysis of these works allowed me to better understand the historical context and machinations of Athens, Sparta, and the greater Greek world during the Peloponnesian War and the Julio-Claudian Emperors of ancient Rome, the most notable learning came again from source analysis and historiography centered around the authors themselves. It was hard to understand on my own that historians need to be aware of the lenses of these early historians and not simply consider each of these texts to be definitive histories of the events they narrated. The feedback that Dr. Corley provided helped me better understand the inherent limitations of the sources and to take care to consider the possible biases and motives of the authors themselves to better construct the context for each of these texts. In one instance I explained one potential explanation for the increasingly aggressive tactics of the Athenian leaders that led to the ill-fated Sicilian campaign as a result of the tradition of the “Heroic Ideal” and glory of Greek culture. It was suggested, in an alternate interpretation, that the influence of age in generational terms also might be a factor. Older Greeks like Nicias had experienced war before and may have been reluctant to engage in such a campaign whereas the younger Alcibiades, and the growing number of leaders of his generation, had no such experience and led to more aggressive strategies. This led me to consider that this might account for Thucydides’, who fought in the war and may have been sympathetic to Nicias’ perspective, critical portrayal of Alcibiades and the Sicilian Campaign. Thucydides himself was shaped by the war and Athenian plague… all of which may have shaped his framing of the war and his narrative. Similarly, Suetonius was influenced by his class and status as an equestrian and his proximity to the ruling elite of Rome that may help explain his critical focus on the Roman Emperors and their up and down relationships with the Senate. Again, this exercise helped me to not only analyze the sources themselves but analyze and interpret the lenses and frames of the authors of these sources. Perhaps due to my lack of deep knowledge and the nuances of Greek and Roman history I was unable, without guidance, to source these documents. In my United States History courses, I can play that role as a guide to my students who lack the deeper knowledge to draw such conclusions and the experience reinforces the idea that a deep understanding of a topic, place, era, or event are required to effectively peel away the layers of history to reveal a clearer picture of these sources and HOW they have been interpreted.

History in the Making: Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War: Text