Preface to the forthcoming translation of Thucydides (Princeton Press, 1984) into modern Greek:
The writing of this book was mostly done on the slopes of Mt. Lykabettos, in the library of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Now, to my great delight this translation brings my book back to its home in Greece.
The impulse that drove me to write about Thucydides’ often puzzling work was, however, far less joyous. It was part of a struggle to understand a brutal, vicious modern war – modern yet in many respects echoing what Thucydides had analyzed. In our present situation, it seemed to me, we needed to read Thucydides closely, asking at every turn how his text worked. Only in that way, I concluded, could we understand the perspective and insight in his complex, but often deeply moving writing.
That was many years ago. For a while there came a time when wars abated, despotic regimes retreated, walls fell, apartheid waned, and civil society seemed to flourish in many parts of the globe, Hope seemed rational
But No!, inevitably perhaps, the old miseries returned – ranting demagogues, ill-considered invasions, carnage, defeat, civil strife, , catastrophic withdrawals, atrocities and disruptions of the order of nature,-“droughts from which came great famines and that exceedingly destructive plague-like disease” (1.23.6)
We were back in Thucydides’ world, or, more precisely, in a situation largely of our own making in which we need more than ever Thucydides’ relentless efforts to bring to light the forces within our nature as human beings that can, as he says, “enslave judgment.” In such a setting the close reading of Thucydides’ history seems more urgent than ever.
But that, surely, a new generation of readers and scholars must determine for itself. My hope now is simply that this reading of his text will provoke new and deeper understanding of Thucydides’ ever-challenging, ever-revealing work.
W. Robert Connor
December 2021
The writing of this book was mostly done on the slopes of Mt. Lykabettos, in the library of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Now, to my great delight this translation brings my book back to its home in Greece.
The impulse that drove me to write about Thucydides’ often puzzling work was, however, far less joyous. It was part of a struggle to understand a brutal, vicious modern war – modern yet in many respects echoing what Thucydides had analyzed. In our present situation, it seemed to me, we needed to read Thucydides closely, asking at every turn how his text worked. Only in that way, I concluded, could we understand the perspective and insight in his complex, but often deeply moving writing.
That was many years ago. For a while there came a time when wars abated, despotic regimes retreated, walls fell, apartheid waned, and civil society seemed to flourish in many parts of the globe, Hope seemed rational
But No!, inevitably perhaps, the old miseries returned – ranting demagogues, ill-considered invasions, carnage, defeat, civil strife, , catastrophic withdrawals, atrocities and disruptions of the order of nature,-“droughts from which came great famines and that exceedingly destructive plague-like disease” (1.23.6)
We were back in Thucydides’ world, or, more precisely, in a situation largely of our own making in which we need more than ever Thucydides’ relentless efforts to bring to light the forces within our nature as human beings that can, as he says, “enslave judgment.” In such a setting the close reading of Thucydides’ history seems more urgent than ever.
But that, surely, a new generation of readers and scholars must determine for itself. My hope now is simply that this reading of his text will provoke new and deeper understanding of Thucydides’ ever-challenging, ever-revealing work.
W. Robert Connor
December 2021