Thucydides, the Origins Of The Greeks And Greece - MUST READ

The Peloponnesian War between the Athenian and Peloponnesian League, under the leadership of Sparta lasted, with some truces, since 431 BC to 404 BC and ended with the total defeat of the Athenians, ending the cultural "golden age." As you may know from our school years, the Greek historian Thucydides lived between 460-398 BC. and became world known for writing the classic History of the Peloponnesian War. In life's work recounts events that occurred during the civil war between Athens and Sparta; the Peloponnesian War lasted from 431 to 404 BC, a seven-year break "suspicious truce."

The preamble to the project read:

1. Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. The syngrafin that was initiated at the outset of an explosion because proeiden that he will run counter large and more memorable than any previous war, and esymperaine so by the fact that both states katirchonto at him while they were at the edge of all kinds of military force of, and that he saw the other Greek prescribed either directly or intellectuals at least make the case to one or the other party. [1] Preamble (1-23).

This movement etaraxe toonti deeply to Greece, and part under barbaric and almost the whole world. The earlier events and the further past can not be identified clearly, due to the long passage of time. But presumptions, which, pusher my research so far distant past, judging reliably agomai to believe that there were not large, nor under polemikin or under another epopsin.

As to its origin, he says were Thracian, as father was Oloron, a name which also belonged to many kings of Thrace. The Oloron was the owner of gold mines in the coastal area opposite Thasos and therefore wealthy. Thucydides was born in Alimos had family ties with the Athenian political and general Miltiades and one of his sons, Cimon. During a campaign in the Crimean peninsula, Miltiades married Hegesipyle, daughter of Oloron, king of Thrace. The great historian received classical education and epireasike the great philosophical tradition of the Sophists, although it was rather aristocratic origin policy. The affinity and interaction with the circles of the aristocracy brought him into contact with people who shaped the history of the period for which he wrote. His character was said to be chilly, melancholic and pessimistic.

Alcibiades, politician with many skills and too ambitious, using as a pretext the war two Sicilian cities, Egesta and Selinus, convinced the ecclesia, despite the objections of Nicias, to organize a major expedition to Sicily under the guise of aid mission to Egestaious, friends of Athens. The Church appointed as leader of the expedition, three generals giving them full powers (generals emperors): Alcibiades, who was the initiator of the campaign, Nicias and Lamachos.

Thucydides was about 25-30 years old when he began the Peloponnesian War (431 BC). He fell ill during the plague that struck Athens between 430 and 427 BC and killed a quarter of its population between them and himself Pericles. In 424 BC elected general and assumed command of seven ships anchored in Thasos, probably because he had past dealings in the region. During the winter of 424/3 BC The Spartan general Brasidas hit Amphipolis, a coastal city of Macedonia to the west of Thassos, which was strategically important for the Delian League because of shipbuilding timber offered by the area and being close to the goldmines Pangee. The Athenian commander of the Macedonian city sought help from general Thucydides.

Brasidas, knowing that the forces of the Athenians was in Thassos because he feared would get reinforcements from the sea, rushed to offer favorable terms of delivery to the residents of Amphipolis and the latter accepted them. So when Thucydides arrived, the city was already under Spartan control. As was expected, the news of the loss of Amphipolis caused great political upheaval in Athens.

For his failure to save the city, Thucydides states:

     "It was also written to be exiled from my country for twenty years after the events of Amphipolis, and being present with both sides of the conflict and especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had time to watch the situations somewhat impartially."

With the status of the exile, with deep knowledge of local conditions, as evidenced in his work, the perceptive historian travels almost freely in theaters of war and have the opportunity to see the conflict from different sides. Probably traveled in Sicily during the Sicilian Expedition. According to Pausanias, someone Oinovios managed to pass a law allowing Thucydides to return from exile, probably shortly after the surrender of Athens and the war ended in 404 BC Pausanias also mentions that she was murdered on his return to Athens. Many dispute this version, considering that there are indications that he lived until 397 BC Whatever happened, certain is that although he lived after the war and the final defeat of Athens, did not live to complete his story. The narrative is interrupted somewhat abruptly in the middle of the year 411 BC, suggesting perhaps that died during the writing of the project. According to a tradition, the text was to end with an unfinished sentence. His remains were returned to the city of Pallas and buried in the family tomb of Cimon.

Migrations

Thucydides did not title his work, nor divorced in books. The division into eight books and the title Thucydides Histories writer due to the ancient grammarians. In the first book - after the preamble - follows the so-called archeology, which is a comparison between the Peloponnesian War and previous major events of Greek history:

     "This movement etaraxe toonti deeply to Greece, and part under barbaric and almost the whole world. The earlier events and the further past can not be identified clearly, due to the long passage of time. But presumptions, which, pusher my research so far distant past, judging reliably agomai to believe that there were not large, nor under polemikin or under another epopsin. "

Map of ancient Attica

According to him, Attica - because the terrain is meager and poor - it existed always free stops and for this reason it has always maintained the same residents. In contrast, efforotera above all apartments subject to perpetual variations of residents. As such areas indicate Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, in addition to Arcadia and the rest of Greece the best parts:

     "Because it is obvious that the country is now called Hellas was not permanently inhabited outset, but were done in the past sychnai migrations and residents without much difficulty abandoning Tash dormitory, forcing thereunto by young noumerous individual settlers. Since neither the trade as taking place today, there was then, nor safe by land or sea transportation, and everyone exemetallefeto the ground, which was in the possession of, both only in irkei for his maintenance.
     Esorefan nor riches, nor the earth efytefan, both true since centuries facilities were not ochyromenai and therefore feared lest from moment to moment and other raiders made them remove everything they have. Because, moreover, believed that anywhere can ensure the necessary nourishment kathimerinin, emetanastefan not grudging and thereby were not strong, either by size of cities, nor at the polemikin general preparation. But efforotera above all apartments subject to perpetual variations of residents - as, for example, eparchies century, century opoiai now called Thessaly and Boeotia, and most of the Peloponnese, except Arcadia, and another from Greece's best places. "

The increase in wealth brought about conflicts and many fled to safer Athens, which over time became crowded and could not feed its population. Initially, the colonization of Ionia gave a solution to the problem:

     "Because the fertility of the land he brought increasing the power of certain persons which eprokalei civil strife, of which these apartments eftheironto both probably because they were more exposed to external aggression. Attica, in any event, because the terrain is meager and poor, it existed always free of stops and for this reason he kept always the same people. And here we have apodeixin of my claim that because of immigration, the other parts of Greece there were increased in a population such as Attica. Is stronger because of those, who, owing to external wars or internal attitudes exediokonto from another Greece, fled to Athens Tash as in locally safe, and politografoumenoi, made the polis, straight from very old times, even more crowded, so that because Attica proved inadequate for the population of the city, the Athenians sent a colony to Ionia.

The name of Greece

According to ancient Greek mythology, Hellen was the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha and had three sons, Aeolus Doros and Xanthus. Aeolus and Dorus together with his sons Xanthus, the Achaean and Jonah were the founders of the four major Greek tribes were the Achaeans, Dorians, Aeolians and Ionians. The name Greeks in Homeric times did not correspond only to a Greek tribe that inhabited the area around the river in today Spercheus Fthiotida (ancient Phthia), which was the leader of the mythical hero Achilles, head of the famous Mirmithones:

     "The 't they had been Fthiin hd' Greece kalligynaika. > / Kalefnto not Myrmidons and Hellenes and Achaeans "(Iliad II 683-4)

The Greeks in Homer's work also referred to as Achaeans Panachaiko, Danaans, Argives and Panhellenic:

     "Encheii d ekekasto / Ajax the ruler of Locris / Panhellenic and Achaia" (Iliad II 530).
According to Aristotle, Greece was initially named area near Dodona. The etymology of the word Gentile has caused various discussions. The most popular version is that the word comes from the Selli (Until the Trojan War, Greece did not attempt anything in common:
     "The inability, after all, the old times it seems to me that demonstrates the fact above all that, before the Trojan War is nothing epecheirisen jointly by Greece. I suggested that this name had not yet dothi crushes him the place, not even existed before the Greeks, son of Deucalion, but different genders, and to a greater stretching the Pelasgian, the latter placed his name in the goods which they inhabited apartments. But from that time like the Greeks and his sons proved powerful in Fthiotida, and was calling the help of the residents of other cities, the various tribes as a result of this communication, were called already for rather more Greeks, although much time went before the name of this imporesi prevail generally. Better apodeixin provides Homer. Because, although he lived much later and more from the Trojan War, nowhere they called with this name everyone, nor other than those they followed Achilles on Fthiotida, who were also the first Greeks, but calls them in his poems generally Danae and Argives and Achaeans. "

Homer does not make a distinction between Greeks and barbarians:

     "Neither barbarians, moreover, mentions for the word, as I think, that neither the Greeks were still distinguished by common name otherwise."

Certainly the various Greek tribes, on whose name the Greeks, that community of language, exiploneto successively from one periphery to another, until it was extended subsequently in total, did not do kammian koinin enterprise before the Trojan War, due to weakness and lack mutual communication. Besides, the ekstrateian even against Troy then only tried together, when they had already acquired considerable empeirian the sea.

Thucydides (ca. 460 -398 BC) was an ancient Greek general and historian, world renowned for writing The History of the Peloponnesian War. This is a classic historical work, the first of its kind that tells the events of the war between Athens and Sparta

Greek and Greece

Dictionary of Mpampiniotis refers and type Ellopos, identified inhabitants of Dodona and northern Evia. Aristotle defines Dodona as original homeland of the Greeks. From a morphological point of view it is understood that Greeks and Greece are derivatives of noun Elloi - Elloi - Selli, as these types are found in Homer and Pindar. The Christian Hesychius interprets as follows: Elloi; Greeks in Dodona and priests. " All these language types are unknown etymou and importance when Mr. Mpampiniotis. [3]

As already mentioned, in Homer the word is restricted locally in the Thessalians Fthia, while the use of later authorities. adj. Ellanodikai increased its prestige due to the importance of the Olympic Games. Thucydides explains the geographical extension of the term from the Greek mythological Greek hero, who traveled often and acted in other cities. The ancient historian Herodotus believes that the term "Greeks used to emphasize the common origin of the various breeds of Greek space. [3]

The exclusion of the mythic from the history I might make it less terpnin as Akroama, I will be not sufficient, however, if my work is perceived as beneficial who want to have accurate perception on events, you have already taken place, and those which in the anthropinin nature may hereafter occur approximately similar. Thucydides [2]

The "Gender of the Greeks'

Unrest in Greece revives an ancient name of the Greeks, the Greeks name, used even before the Greeks established the word. An inscription of the 4th century. read: '"Greeks onomasthisan the previously called Greeks." Aristotle (Meteorology 1352 a) writes: "okounn [techniques, etc in Dodona in Epirus] the Selloi (the so Ellous] and then called true Greeks, now not Greeks. "Information of Aristotle and the general tradition of antiquity are that both the Greeks and Greek names and the area the initial installation of the Greeks placed in the region of Epirus around Dodona and the current Ioannina.

The south side of the Parthenon, Athens

In Alexandrian times, the name Greeks encountered but less parallel to the Greeks. In Byzantium alongside the Romans used to a limited extent, and the Greeks, hiring the particular significance "Greek Orthodox" as opposed to the Greek (= pagans, polytheists) and Latinos (= Western Christians / Catholics). In the 15th century (at the Council of Florence) refer 'meeting Latinos TE and Greeks. " The keen antiquarian Adamantios Korais before the revolution and other writers and fighters (King, Christopoulos and others) talk about the "Gender of the Greeks" and anaskolopistheis Athanasios Diakos - refusing to join the Ottoman army ... - Turks answered proudly: "I Grekos born, Graikos each to die. " With the establishment of the new Greek state, the name Greeks replaced by the Greeks. The Greeks, either as residents (later) the Graeae in Euboea and Evian Kimi colony in southern Italy either directly (older) from the region of Epirus, became known to the Italians, who were named Graeci, they are alien names of the Greeks as Greek (GATE), Grec (gall.), Grieche (germ.). However, foreigners use for the Hellas Hellas, as an official name of Greece to the European Union, alongside the names of Greece (GATE), Grece (gall.) and Griechenland German.

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