Thucydidean themes

Thucydidean Themes is a collection of seventeen essays by Simon Hornblower on the great fifth-century BC Greek historian Thucydides; but other ancient Greek historians, notably Herodotus, also feature. The chapters are arranged thematically, in three main parts (general; discussions of particular sections of the History; Thucydides' reception). Although most have previously appeared in print, many have been extensively rewritten for this volume. All are provided with prefatory material which reviews recent work on the topic. Thucydidean Themes is intended both as a companion volume to the author's recently completed three-volume Commentary on Thucydides, and as a freestanding contribution to the study of Thucydides. Like the Commentary, the present volume exploits every available approach - historical, literary, rhetorical, onomastic, epigraphic, religious, philosophical, textual, and archaeological - while the specially written Introduction seeks to identify what is distinctively admirable about Thucydides' History.

Introduction -- The religious dimension to the Peloponnesian War, or, what Thucydides does not tell us -- Thucydides and the Delphic Amphiktiony -- Narratology and narrative techniques in Thucydides -- Personal names and the study of the ancient Greek historians -- Thucydides on Boiotia and Boiotians -- Thucydides and the Argives -- Thucydides and Plataian perjury -- Thucydides, the Panionian Festival, and Ephesia, 3.104 -- Thucydides and 'Chalkidic' Torone, 4.110.1 -- Thucydides, Xenophon, and Lichas : were the Spartans excluded from the Olympic Games from 420 to 400 BC? -- Lichas kalos Samios -- 'This was decided' (edoxe tauta) : the army as polis in Xenophon's Anabasis, and elsewhere -- Sticks, stones and Spartans : the sociology of Spartan violence -- Thucydides' awareness of Herodotus, or Herodotus' awareness of Thucydides? -- The fourth-century and Hellenistic reception of Thucydides -- The Old oligarch (Pseudo-Xenophon's Athenaion politeia) and Thucydides : a fourth-century date for the Old oligarch? -- Thucydides and Clarendon's History of the rebellion.