#thucydides

On this day in 411 BCE, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, a political crisis shook the foundations of Athenian democracy. The Athenian Coup, which resulted in the overthrow of Athens' democratic government and led to the establishment of a brief oligarchy known as the Four Hundred. This regime ultimately failed due to widespread discontent among the populace, and by the end of 410 BC, democracy was restored in Athens.

To commemorate this pivotal event in classical history, we are featuring our Limited Editions Club copy of The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. This 1974 edition includes Richard Crawley’s (1840-1893) English translation, revised by R.C. Feetham, with an introduction by Peter Pouncey. It is richly illustrated with eight double-spread, two-color woodcuts and twenty-five black-and-white woodcuts by the Greek artist A. Tassos, including chapter headings, facing page pairs, and a frontispiece. Six maps, specially drawn for this edition by John Morris, provide historical context, while Eugene Ettenberg designed the format. The woodcut inserts were printed in Athens under the artist’s supervision at the Aspioti Elka printing plant, and the text was composed by John Stone in Concord, NH, then printed by Case, Lockwood & Brainard in Bloomfield, CT. This rare volume is a stunning tribute to both the artistry and the enduring legacy of Thucydides' historical account.

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--Melissa, Distinctive Collections Library Assistant

the moment he is brought back from the persians and reunites with Athenias on Samos he gives a speech where he complains and talks about the "sufferings of his exile" while crying. And then immediately exaggerates his influence with the persians and lies about his relationship with tissaphernes to make it seem like tissaphernes would bend over backwards to help but only for alcibiades himself. Like I'm 1000% convinced that the crying was on purpose. And it worked because he was immediately elected general again by the athenians. and then literally immediately goes to tissaphernes to flaunt the fact that he's a general again.

“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”

Margaret Koch

If you are having a conversation, and you want to mention the assumptive Thucydides error, as Xi did to Trump (I can only imagine the blank stare Xi got back, if Trump was awake), and you want to sound like you know what you are talking about, it is pronounced:

Thoo-SI-duh deez.

Geez. Now is that Thoo-SEE, or Thoo-SEH? It's hard to emphasize "seh". Too much like "meh." Maybe it's thoo-SIGH.

The assumptive error is that two powerful nations, even if they are working together on similar goals, will eventually be at war with each other.

Just my opinion, but I think that Trump is still hung up on dividing the world between himself, Russia and China. (Trump gets the Americas, Canada, Mexico -- that third. Putin gets Europe and Xi gets Asia.) Somehow, in Trump's alternate reality world of the narcissistic child, he does not realize that Putin is hung up and losing ground during the long Ukraine war winter, and Trump himself has no solution to how Iran's evil leadership has strangely become more powerful since it began responding to Trump's war, and Xi is watching all of this, knowing that both Trump (who is old enough to die at any point) and Putin (who is destroying his economy, and so hated that he is hiding out most of the time in fear of assassination ) would not really be happy bedfellows with which to split a beer, much less a planet.