Thucydides

People, places, terms:

Pericles

Cleon

Nicias

Gylippus

Demosthenes (the general, not the orator)

Funeral oration

Episodes (know the stories and be able to recall and spell names of the principal characters, starting from these titles)

Pericles’ Funeral Oration (be able to describe the essential elements and themes, e.g. the overarching theme of Athenian exceptionalism)

Plague in Athens (event and significance for Thucydides’ construction of the history)

Mitylenian Debate (details and significance)

Disaster in Syracuse (the overall story)

Naval strategies at Syracuse

Melian Dialogue

You may also be presented with quotations from these episodes in Thucydides, and asked to identify the episode and speak to the significance of the quotation (such as, for example, a centrally important passage in the Funeral oration; or one of the passages on the character of Nicias)

Trojan Women

Be prepared to discuss the ways in which Euripides’ Trojan Women is reflective of the year’s events for the year in which it was written and staged, both with particulars on the historical events of the year and the specifics and themes of the play.

Narratives and the Construction of History

Be prepared to describe the ways in which one might argue the following narratives as accounts of the period leading up to the Peloponnesian War and the course of the war itself: (1) Rise of Democracy and the determinative value of state formation; (2) Growth in Athenian power and consequent fear by the Peloponnesians; (3) Golden Age of Pericles followed by the disaster of his death and the loss of his wisdom and strategy; (4) Rise of Greek identity and the competition for Greek leadership among the Greek city-states.