Thucydides Commentary Assignment

Throughout this class, you have been making use of commentaries to help you understand the texts you are reading. For each text you have had a Bryn Mawr commentary that gave assistance with basic issues of vocabulary and grammar, but you have also had the more content-oriented commentaries by Dover. Even both commentaries together, however, never provide all the information and assistance that one might like to have in order to understand, not only the language but also the meaning and context of the text.

You should choose a passage (of roughly 20 lines) from Book VI of Thucydides that is not included in the syllabus. For this passage you should provide an in-depth commentary, giving the reader not only important vocabulary and grammatical assistance but also any historical or cultural context that might be necessary to understand the passage. Obviously, you should start with, but not limit yourself to, the material in the Bryn Mawr and Dover commentaries. How does the passage you have selected fit in with the rest of Thucydides' History? What ideas or themes appear in your passage that are significant for Thucydides' project as a whole? For such questions, you may find the resources in the Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Thucydides/) a useful starting point. You might also consult the notes in the Landmark Thucydides and in the Commentary on Thucydides by Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover, which are on reserve in Carpenter. The completed assignment, due on Friday December 6, should include your text along with the commentary.