Thucydides' Civil War at Corcyra Quiz

Answer: Corfu

Situated in the Ionian Islands, Corfu, now a popular tourist attraction, is an island located two miles (at the north end) to fourteen miles(at the south end) off the western coast of present day Albania and Greece. The ancient city of Corcyra was located along the southeast side of the island.

Answer: Corinth

Corinth started the colony of Corcyra on or about 734 BC and relations between founder and colony went down hill soon after that point. The proud Corinthians felt that the Corcyreans never really gave them the respect that Greek colonizers were due and, in fact, the latter went out of their way to insult the former. Corinth and Corcyra actually fought the first recorded naval battle around 664 BC.

It was the sour relationship between Corcyra and Corinth and the dispute over the Corcyrean colony of Epidamnus in 435 BC that started, in large part, the downward spiral of events which led to the outbreak of Peloponnesian War in 431.

Answer: Corinth providing military aid to a besieged party in Epidamnus

In 435 a group of "democrats" in Epidamnus, who were under siege from a group of "oligarchs" exiled from the city and allied to hill tribesmen, appealed to their mother city Corcyra but were turned away. After visiting Delphi, the democrats then went to Corinth to gain military assistance. Corinth, which had long been tired of Corcyra's perceived disrepect, jumped at the prospect of aiding a Corcyrean colony.

This aid angered Corcyra and soon both sides were mobilizing their navies.

Answer: The hostages were to act as fifth columnists (agents) for Corinth

The prisoners, some of whom came from wealthy and important Cocyrean families, were to work as Corinthian agents to influence and lure Corcyra away from its Athenian alliance over to the side of Corinth and the Spartan League in the ongoing Peloponnesian War.

Answer: The Oligarchs sued Peithias for trying to enslave Corcyra to Athens

The legal effort by the Oligarchs failed and Peithias countersued the five richest and prevailed, getting hefty judgments against them for blasphemy.

Answer: The Oligarchs attacked and killed Peithias and many Democrats

When the Democrats refused to back off the heavy legal judgment against the five richest, the latter with their followers struck back, killing Peithias and about sixty others with daggers in the Corcyrean assembly.

Answer: An Athenian fleet arrived and the Democrats massacred the Oligarchs

Thucydides indicates that the fortunes of each side appeared to wax and wane with outside support from the more powerful players in the larger war. When the Spartan fleet under Alcidas left port, and the Democrats learned that the Athenian Eurymedon's fleet was in the area, they went on the attack, killing many on the Oligarch side.

When Eurymedon actually arrived, Thucydides says the Democrats "continued the massacre of those they considered their enemies for another seven days."

Answer: False

Thucydides said that the "revolution" at Corcyra was one of the first in Greece and that "later practically the whole of the Hellenic world was convulsed, "with democratic leaders in city-states trying to bring in Athenians and oligarchic leaders trying to bring in the Spartans.

He also said that these revolutions were the cause of many calamities in the various cities and, "human nature being what it is these things will always happen".

Answer: Stasis

A polis is a Greek city. It was very important to Greek identity, according to the historian Donald Kagan. You were nothing if you were not Athenian, Spartan, Theban, etc.
A strategos was an elected general or leader, usually for a one year term, in democracies like Athens.
The demos is the word for the common people and is obviously the root of the word democracy.

Answer: All of these

Thucydides said:
"Love of power, operating through greed and personal ambition, was the cause of all These evils. To this must be added the violent fanaticism which came into play once the struggle had broken out...In [ the party leaders'] struggles for ascendancy nothing was barred; terrible indeed were the actions to which they committed themselves, and in taking revenge they went farther still."
Moreover, events degenerated into score settling with people attacking others for their property or because money was owed to the victims. Notions of justice and pity disappeared, while savagery, suspicion and back-stabbing were common. Party loyalty overrode family ties and religious belief. Thucydides describes a world in which civil order had been lost.
The twenty-seven year long Peloponnesian War, and the resulting stasis throughout the Greek world, as demonstrated first in Corcyra, would end the Classical era in Ancient Greece and usher in years of political, economic and social decline.