Description
Book SynopsisThucydides is widely seen as the most dispassionate and reliable contemporary source for the history of classical Sparta. But, compared with partisan authors such as Xenophon and Plutarch, his information on the subject is more scattered and implicit. Scholars in recent decades have made progress in teasing out the sense of Thucydides' often lapidary remarks on Sparta. This book takes the process further. Its eight new studies by international specialists aim to reveal coherent structures both in Thucydidean thought and in Spartan reality. This volume is the second of a series in which the Classical Press of Wales applies to Spartan history the approach it is already using for the history of Rome's revolutionary era: focusing in turn on each of the main sources on which historians depend, and analysing with a combination of historical and literary methods.
Table of ContentsIn Memoriam Thomas J. Figueira and Ellen Millender Introduction and Acknowledgements
Paula Debnar 1 Thucydides’ general attitude to Sparta
Emily Greenwood 2 Spartan slowness in Thucydides’ History
Paula Debnar 3 The Presence of Sparta in the Funeral Oration of Perikles
Jean Ducat 4 Thucydides’ alienation of Spartan kingship
Ellen Millender 5 Thucydides, ethnic solidarity, and Messenian ethnogenesis
Thomas J. Figueira 6 Xenia and proxenia in Thucydides’ Sparta
Polly Low 7 The mytho-politial map of Spartan colonisation in Thucydides: the ‘Spartan colonial triangle’ vs. the ‘Spartan Mediterranean’
Maria Fragoulaki 8 Information from Sparta: a trap for Thucydides?
Anton Powell Index
