Contained in:
Book Chapter

Nature and natural phenomena in Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War: physis and kinesis as factors of political disturbance

  • Martinho Soares

Thucydides’ attention to natural phenomena, such as the plague, volcanoes, earthquakes, eclipses and floods, is well known. These are uncontrollable events that typically cause enormous environmental, political and military disturbance, further heightening the unpredictability and destructiveness of a war that, from the outset, is characterised as a great movement (kinesis megiste). But it is not only catastrophic natural phenomena that pique the Athenian historian’s interest. As we aim to demonstrate in this study, nature and natural phenomena impose themselves as active forces that are superior to man, interfering in the Peloponnesian War with significant political consequences. On the other hand, the bellicose actions of man impose themselves upon nature with grave environmental costs.

  • Keywords:
  • Thucydides,
  • environment,
  • war,
  • nature,
  • ecocriticism,
+ Show More

Martinho Soares

University of Coimbra, Portugal - ORCID: 0000-0001-8153-2014

  1. Arendt, Hannah. 1961. Between the Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought. New York: The Viking Press.
  2. Bakker, Mathieu de. 2017. “Authorial Comments in Thucydides”. in The Oxford handbook of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster. 239-256. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  3. Clements, Jacquelyn H. 2016. “The Terrain of Autochtony: Shapping the Athenian landscape in the late fifth century BCE”, In The Routledge Handbook of Identity and Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds, edited by Rebecca F. Kennedy, and Molly Jo
  4. Cochrane, Charles N. 1929. Thucydides and the science of history. London: Oxford University Press.
  5. Craik, Elizabeth M. 2001. “Thucydides on the Plague: Physiology of Flux and Fixation.” CQ 51, 1:115-126.
  6. Cusumano, Nicola. 2018. “«I molteplici casi della sorte»: disastri della guerra e della natura in Tucidide.” Hormos 10: 251-335.
  7. Demandt, Alexander. 1970. Verformungstendenzen in der Überlieferung antiker Sonnen- und Mondfinster-nisse. Mainz: Abh. der Geistes- und Sozialwissensch.
  8. Dobski, Bernard J. 2017. “A Naturally Disastrous War: Nature, Politics, and Historiography in Thucydides’ History.” In Classical Rationalism and the Politics of Europe, edited by Ann Ward. 33-52. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  9. Dueck, Daniela. 2012. Geography in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  10. Edmunds, Lowel. 1975. Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides. Cambridge/Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
  11. Esposito, John. 2011. Weather, Tyche, Narrative, and Intelligence in Thucydides.
  12. Fernandes, Raul R. 2010. “Introdução”. In Tucídides. História da Guerra do Peloponeso. Trad., introd. e notas R. R. Fernandes e M. G. Granwehr. 5-64. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
  13. Fialho, Maria do Céu. 2018. “Corpo ameaçado e stasis na epidemia em Atenas: Tucídides entre o histórico e o metafórico (2.47-54) [Threatened body and stasis in Athens’ epidemy: Thucydides between the historical and the metaphorical (2.47-54)]”. In A Poies
  14. Foster, Edith. (2009). “The rhetoric of materials: Thucydides and Lucretius”. The American Journal of Philology, vol. 130, nº 3: 367-399.
  15. Funke, Peter and Haake, Matthias. 2006. “Theatres of war: Thucydidean Topography”. In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, ed. A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis. 369-384. Leiden: Brill.
  16. Furley, William D. 2006. “Thucydides and Religion”, In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, ed. A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis. 415-438. Leiden: Brill.
  17. Grant, J. R. 1974. “Toward knowing Thucydides”. Phoenix, vol. XXVIII, nº 1: 81-94.
  18. Greenwood, Emily. 2017. “Thucydides on the Sicilian Expedition”. In The Oxford handbook of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke and E. Foster. 161-177. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  19. Hammond, Martin. 2009. Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Oxford: Oxford University press.
  20. Hanson, Victor D. 1998. Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  21. Hanson, Victor D. 2005. A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. New York: Random House.
  22. Hornblower, Simon. 1991. A Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 1, Books I-IV. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  23. Hornblower, Simon. 1996. A Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 2, Books IV-V.24. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  24. Hughes, Donald J. 2006. What is Environmental History? Cambridge: Polity.
  25. Hughes, Donald J. 2014. Environmental Problems of the Greeks and Romans. Ecology in the Ancient Mediterranean. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (second edition).
  26. Hunter, Virginia. 1982. Past and process in Herodotus and Thucydides. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
  27. James, Elaine T. 2017. Landscapes of the Song of Songs: poetry and place. New York: Oxford University Press.
  28. Janko, Richard. 2020. “Eclipse and Plague: Themistocles, Pericles, Anaxagoras and the Athenian’s War on Science”. Journal of Hellenic Studies 140: 213-237.
  29. Jordan, Borimir. 1986. “Religion in Thucydides”. Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-2014), vol. 116: 119-147.
  30. Kagan, Donald. 2003. The Peloponnesian War. New York: Viking.
  31. Kaplan, Philip. 2016. “Location and Dislocation in Early Greek Geography and Ethnography”, In The Routledge Handbook of Identity and Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds, edited by Rebecca F. Kennedy, and Molly Jones-Lewis: 299-314. London and
  32. Kellogg, Danielle L. 2016. “Migrations and Landscapes of Value in Attica”. In Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity: Natural Environment and Cultural Imagination, edited by J. McInerney, and I. Sluiter: 325-348. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
  33. Keyser, Paul T. 2006. “(Un)natural Accounts in Herodotos and Thucydides.” Mouseion III, vol. 6: 323-351.
  34. Kennedy, Rebecca F. 2016. “Airs, waters, metals, earth: people and land in Archaic and Classical thought”. In The Routledge Handbook of Identity and Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds, edited by Rebecca F. Kennedy and Molly Jones-Lewis: 9-28
  35. Leão, Delfim. 2012. “The Myth Of Autochthony, Athenian Citizenship And The Right of Enktesis: A Legal Approach to Euripides’ Ion.” In Akten der Gesellschaft für Griechische und Hellenistische Rechtsgeschichte, edited by E. Cantarella et al.: 1
  36. Meigs, Peveril. 1961. “Some Geographical Factors in the Peloponnesian War.” In Geographical Review vol. 51, nº 3: 370-380.
  37. Meiggs, Russel. 1982. Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  38. Morton, Jamie. 2001. The Role of the Physical Environment in Ancient Greek Seafaring. Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill.
  39. Munson, Rosaria V. 2015. “Natural Upheavals in Thucydides (and Herodotus).” In Kinesis: Essays for Donald Lateiner on the Ancient Depiction of Gesture, Motion, and Emotion, edited by C. Clark, E. Foster, and J. Hallett. 41– 59. Ann Arbor: University of Mi
  40. Nogueira, Adriana. 2012. “Justiça, lei e poder na História da Guerra do Peloponeso”. Cultura: Revista de História e Teoria das Ideias, vol. 30, 2ª série: 89-99.
  41. Orwin, Clifford. 2017. “Thucydides on nature and human conduct”. In The Oxford handbook of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster. 355-372. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  42. Page, Denys. 1953. “Thucydides’ Description of the Great Plague at Athens.” CQ 47: 97-119.
  43. Parry, Adam. 1969. “The language of Thucydides’ description of the Plague.” BICS 16: 106-118.
  44. Pelling, Christopher. 2009. “Bringing Autochthony Up-To-Date: Herodotus and Thucydides.” Classical World 102 (4): 471–83.
  45. Pires, Francisco M. 2006. “Thucydidean Modernities: History between Science and Art.” In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis. 811-837. Leiden: Brill.
  46. Pothou, Vassiliki. 2009. La place et le rôle de la digression dans l’œuvre de Thucydide. Stuttgart: F. Steiner.
  47. Pritchett, K. W. and Van Der Waerden, B. L. 1961. “Thucididean time-reckoning and Euctemon's seasonal calendar”. Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 85: pp. 17-52.
  48. Proietti, Gerald. 1992. “The Natural World and the Political World in Thucydides’ History.” In Law and Philosophy: The Practice of Theory, Essays in Honor of George Anastaplo, edited by J. Murley, R. Stone, and W. Braithwaite. 184-194. Athens: Ohio Univer
  49. Romilly, Jacqueline de. (2009). Thucydide. La Guerre du Péloponnèse. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
  50. Sallares, Robert. 1991. The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  51. Schliephake, Christopher. 2020. The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World: Questions and Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  52. Sears, Matthew A. 2011. “The Topography of the Pylos Campaign.” Hesperia. Vol. 80: 157-168.
  53. Sebastiani, Breno B. 2018. Fracasso e Verdade na receção de Políbio e Tucídides. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra.
  54. Strauss, Leo. 1963. The City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  55. Thomas, Rosalind. 2006. “Thucydides’ Intellectual Milieu and the Plague.” In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis. 87-108. Leiden: Brill.
  56. Thommen, Lukas. 2012. An Environmental History of Ancient Greece and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  57. White, Hayden. 1978. Tropics of Discourse. Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Pages: 43-71
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2022 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2022 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Nature and natural phenomena in Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War: physis and kinesis as factors of political disturbance

Authors

Martinho Soares

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-612-4.05

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Crises (Staseis) and Changes (Metabolai)

Book Subtitle

Athenian Democracy in the Making

Editors

Breno Battistin Sebastiani, Delfim Ferreira Leão

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

140

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-612-4

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-611-7

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-612-4

eISBN (epub)

978-88-5518-613-1

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-614-8

Series Title

Studi e saggi

Series ISSN

2704-6478

Series E-ISSN

2704-5919

426

Fulltext
downloads

187

Views

Export Citation

1,347

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,262

Book Chapters

3,790,127

Fulltext
downloads

4,421

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

65

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,248

Referees

from 380 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations