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6. Giovanni Parmeggiani, The Causes of the Peloponnesian War: Ephorus, Thucydides and Their Critics

6. The Causes of the Peloponnesian War: Ephorus, Thucydides and Their Critics Giovanni Parmeggiani The causes of the Peloponnesian War constitute such a persistent theme in discussions of fifth-century Greek history, in part because of the complexity of the aetiological view of our earliest source, Thucydides. ἤρξαντο δὲ αὐτοῦ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ Πελοποννήσιοι λύσαντες τὰς τριακοντούτεις σπονδὰς αἳ αὐτοῖς ἐγένοντο μετὰ Εὐβοίας ἅλωσιν. διότι δ’ ἔλυσαν,… Read more

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7. Nino Luraghi, Ephorus in Context: The Return of the Heraclidae and Fourth-century Peloponnesian Politics

7. Ephorus in Context: The Return of the Heraclidae and Fourth-century Peloponnesian Politics [1] Nino Luraghi In a famous passage at the beginning of Book 4, Diodorus discusses the difficulties facing the historian who wants to include in his work what Diodorus himself calls “the ancient mythologiai,” i.e. the deeds of demigods, heroes, and great men of the most distant past. Read more

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8. John Tully, Ephorus, Polybius, and τὰ καθόλου γράφειν: Why and How to Read Ephorus and his Role in Greek Historiography without Reference to ‘Universal History’

8. Ephorus, Polybius, and τὰ καθόλου γράφειν: Why and How to Read Ephorus and his Role in Greek Historiography without Reference to ‘Universal History’ [1] John Tully I would be making the understatement of the century if I were to say that universal history has never been a clear notion. Momigliano 1982:533 Ephorus, an… Read more

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9. Dominique Lenfant, Greek Monographs on the Persian World: The Fourth Century BCE and its innovations

9. Greek Monographs on the Persian World: The Fourth Century BCE and its innovations Dominique Lenfant While it is the best-known Greek monograph on the Persian world, Ctesias’ Persica is often cited today as an illustration of the supposed decadence of the historical genre in the fourth century BCE. One symptom of this ‘decay’ is Ctesias’ choice of subject matter: rather than a politico-military history focused on… Read more

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10. Christopher Tuplin, The Sick Man of Asia?

10. The Sick Man of Asia? Christopher Tuplin If you will take, I don’t say unlimited time or many generations, but only these last fifty years immediately preceding our generation, you will be able to understand the cruelty of Fortune. For can you suppose, if some god had warned the Persians or their king, or the Macedonians or their king, that in fifty years… Read more

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11. Rosalind Thomas, Local History, Polis History, and the Politics of Place

11. Local History, Polis History, and the Politics of Place Rosalind Thomas The Greek polis was, as we all know, the central and abiding socio-political institution of the Greek world, continuing in the Hellenistic period and even into Roman times, but with vastly reduced political power. Yet it was inherently changeable in ways which make the identification of what constituted ‘the polis’ extraordinarily elusive; even identifying… Read more

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5. Digressing toward a Possible Regime

5. Digressing toward a Possible Regime Although the basic trajectory of the Republic could certainly be understood in other ways, one can see the conversation rising from the Piraeus (in the wake of a spectacular event), moving through ideal political regimes and ascending to a high point of theoretical discussion in the middle, and then returning back down through degenerate regimes toward a vision of the afterlife. Read more

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6. Imagining Images in Chains

6. Imagining Images in Chains In this chapter, I approach Plato’s scenario of the Cave, starting with some narratological observations and then considering the sequence that moves from the Good through Sun and Divided Line to the Cave. It will take some preparation to reach the Cave itself, but an important part of my argument goes against the typical and long-standing view of the Cave as a… Read more

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Afterword

Afterword It is generally assumed that Plato, while cultivating and perpetuating Socrates’ legacy of ostensible ignorance in the most important matters, writes as a knower with a persuasive, didactic agenda. Some see Plato promoting specific theoretical doctrines; others figure that Plato is guiding us to adopt practices that will in turn lead us to find truths he has already found. Especially insofar as the dialogues portray goal-oriented… Read more

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Glossary of Key Greek Words

Glossary of Key Greek Words Greek words are transliterated and given in the forms they have as headwords in LSJ (e.g. heuriskō ‘to find’, literally ‘I find’). Other forms of the same word found in the text are noted under the headword unless they differ significantly. These words are meant as signposts for those who do not read Greek, and the definitions simply identify some relevant semantic… Read more