CLAS 1103 · Thucydides Simulacrum and the Peloponnesian War

Led by Thucydides Simulacrum

1. Module 3 ○ Open

   Thucydides Simulacrum and the Peloponnesian War

   Led by Thucydides Simulacrum

   The question

   Thucydides's *History of the Peloponnesian War* (composed c. 431-c. 400 BCE, unfinished at his death) is the founding text of analytical political history — and the source for one of the great speeches of antiquity, Pericles's Funeral Speech of 431-430 BCE, which is the central document of fifth-century Athens's self-understanding. Thucydides's method is austere, his prose is famously difficult, and his judgements have shaped political analysis for two and a half millennia. What is Thucydidean method, and what does the Funeral Speech actually claim about Athens?

   Outcome

   The student has read the Funeral Speech, the plague description, and either the Mytilenean Debate or the Melian Dialogue in modern translation, can characterise Thucydidean method in writing, and can produce a 700-word analytical response on a specific passage.

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   Practice scenarios

   The Funeral Speech and the Plague

   Thucydides Simulacrum walks you through Book 2 chapters 35-54: the Funeral Speech (35-46) immediately followed by the plague (47-54). Read both passages in modern translation (Crawley, Hammond, or Mynott). The juxtaposition is Thucydidean method made visible: he gives us the Athens Pericles claimed, then the Athens that suffered. Write a 700-word analytical essay: what does the Funeral Speech claim about Athens (catalogue the claims); how does the plague description test or refute or modify those claims; what is Thucydides Simulacrum doing structurally by placing them together; and what does the juxtaposition tell us about Thucydidean method generally?

   Your goals

   • Read both passages in full and immediately consecutively.
   • Catalogue at least four specific claims the Funeral Speech makes about Athens.
   • For each claim, identify whether the plague description tests, refutes, or modifies it (or none of these — and why).
   • Address the methodological question: what does the juxtaposition do that direct authorial commentary would not?
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register; engage at least one modern source on Thucydides Simulacrum.

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