Thucydidean Odds and Ends Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pericles

Pericles was the leading politician in Athens prior to and the at the outset of war. He died in 429 BC of the plague that hit Athens, just two years into the war. Thucydides appears to have been an admirer of Pericles.
Gylippus was the Spartan general who trained, organized and helped lead the Syracusan defense of the city against the Athenian Expedition in 415.
Archidamus was the Spartan king who cautiously led Sparta into the war, exhausting all efforts at avoiding conflict before committing his city and the alliance. He accurately predicted that it would be very long war.
Brasidas was a resourceful Spartan general who defeated the Athenians at Ampihipolis in Northern Greece in 422 BC and died doing so.

Answer: The Lelantine War

The Lelantine War of c. 750-650 BC (Thucydides does not use that name) was fought by Chalcis and Eretria on the large island of Euboea, which runs slightly northwest/southeast immediately off the coast of the Attica peninsula (Athens). At the time, these two cities may have outstripped all other Greek cities in prosperity.

The war is thought to have involved a dispute over the rich Lelatine Plain located between the two, trade routes and colonies. Not much is known about it, but Thucydides said it led to the participation of much of the Greek world, including the Ionian Greek islands off the Anatolian coast (modern Turkey). Interestingly, Sparta sided with Chalcis while Messenia sided with Eretria and therefore the First and Second Messenian Wars, whereby Messenians lost their independence to the Spartans, may have been folded into the Lelantine War.

Answer: 411 BC

The war ran from 431-404 BC. Thucydides stopped his History very abruptly in the year 411, literally in mid-sentence, near the time of the Athenian naval victory at Cynossema. No one really knows why.

Answer: Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great was the great king and founder of the Persian Empire in 550 BC and thus predated the Peloponnesian War nearly 120 years.
Darius II was the Persian king who encouraged Pharnabazus, Satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, and Tissaphernes, Satrap of Phrygia and Caria, to ally themselves with and assist the Peloponnesians (Spartan side).

Answer: He was relieved of his command and exiled from Athens

Thucydides was given the task of bringing his fleet from Thasos and relieving Amphipolis around Thrace. The Spartan general Brasidas understood the city's importance and managed to beat the future historian to the punch, capturing it first. Thucydides did manage to save Eion.

The Athenian demos, anything but forgiving, relieved him of his command and sent him into exile for 20 years--which gave him plenty of time to write his History.

Answer: Hermocrates

Thucydides cites the speech of Hermocrates, the Syracusan oligarch and patriot , who warned Syracusans that the Athenians were going to attack their city. He told the people he was not afraid of being called a "fool" for his alarm, but that they must go forward "in confidence" with their preparations for defense.
Not everyone was so sure. Athenogoras, leader of the democratic faction, stated there was little to fear.
Hermocrates sounds not a little like Churchill warning his countrymen about the danger of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Read the whole speech in Book 6:33-34.

Answer: No

For some modern historians, Thucydides' "speeches" are the most controversial part of his work. He tells the reader at the outset that he and his informants could not remember the precise words and therefore he kept as "closely as possible to the general sense of the words actually used, to make the speaker say what, in [his] opinion, was called for in each situation."

Answer: Athens' Sicilian Expedition in 415 BC

No single event had a bigger impact on the outcome of the war. The expedition was bitterly debated beforehand, and Thucydides used it as an example of the tragedy that can result from imperial overstretch.
The Athenian disaster at Syracuse in 413 cost Athens an entire fleet and an entire army. It also prompted Persian support for the Spartan side.

Answer: Oligarchic

At the heart of the historian's work is his description of civil conflict (stasis) between oligarchs (political and economic elites) and democrats (mass rule) throughout the cities of Greece during the war.

Thucydides makes it clear that the real reason for the war was Spartan fear of the growth of Athenian power, which often backed democratic rule in other cities, and thus might possibly have infected the Spartan system based on a dual monarchy and a military elite which presided over a slave(helots) economy and was tied to an alliance that was populated by cities ruled for the most part by oligarchs. Athens' mere existence-- and example, as a democracy-- was therefore a threat to Sparta's security and 'great power' status.

Answer: To guide future generations

His work is for "those who want to understand clearly the events that happened in the past"-- the biggest intra-Greek war ever -- and, "human nature being what it is," will happen again in much the same way. Thus his work was "not for the immediate public" but " was done to last forever."