Description: In Books 6 and 7 Thucydides' narrative is, as Plutarch puts it, 'at its most emotional, vivid, and varied' as he describes the Sicilian Expedition that ended so catastrophically for Athens (415-413 BCE). Book 6 features tense debates both at Athens, with cautious Nicias no match for risk-taking Alcibiades, and at Syracuse, with the statesmanlike Hermocrates confronting the populist Athenagoras. The spectacle of the armada is memorably described; so is the panic at Athens when people fear that acts of sacrilege may be alienating the gods, with Alcibiades himself so implicated that he is soon recalled. The Book ends with Athens seeming poised for victory; that will soon change, and a sister commentary on Book 7 is being published simultaneously. The Introduction discusses the narrative skill and the part these books play in the architecture of the history. Considerable help with the Greek is offered throughout the Commentary.
Brief description: Christopher Pelling is Emeritus Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford. His books include, most recently, Herodotus and the Question Why (2019) and, earlier, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian (2000); Plutarch and History (2002); and Twelve Voices from Ancient Greece and Rome (with Maria Wyke, 2014). He has also written commentaries on Plutarch's Caesar (2011) and, in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series, Plutarch's Life of Antony (1988) and, with Simon Hornblower, Herodotus Book 6 (2017). His edited or co-edited volumes include Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (1990), Ethics and Rhetoric (1995), Greek Tragedy and the Historian (1997), Ancient Historiography and its Contexts (2011), and Rediscovering E. R. Dodds (2019). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
Review Quotes: 'Book 6 is beautifully written, packed with self-contained information about the text and citations of the secondary scholarship.' Gregory Crane, Tufts University, Bryn Mawr Classical Review