"HISTORY OF THE WARS" (PROCOPIUS) & "PELOPONNESIAN WAR" (THUCYDIDES).
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Compares selected chapters to show similarities of style, content, reliability, focusing on depiction of plague.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Compares selected chapters to show similarities of style, content, reliability, focusing on depiction of plague.
Paper Introduction:
A comparison of Book II, chapters xxii and xxiii of Procopius' History of the Wars with Book II, chapter v of Thucydides' Peloponnesian War demonstrates the influence the classical historian had on the Byzantine writer. The episodes of plague that attacked Athens and Byzantium are constructed in nearly identical fashion. Both provide extensive descriptions of the course of the disease: its geographic origins, symptoms, variations, and effects. Both establish themselves as eyewitnesses to most of the things they report. And both writers reflect on topics such as the futile efforts of the physicians and the effect of the plague on general morality, but leave it to others to explain the reasons why the terrible disease arose in the first place. Thucydides' account clearly provided a model for Procopius. But the resemblance between the two historians is
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the Byzantinewriter The episodes of plague that they report And both writers reflecton topics such as for Procopius But the resemblancebetween found themselves in the midstof all their accounts Thus Procopius adoptednot just Thucydides' style but his sections in which the two state the political entities and leading figures powers it was likely to be the greatest didnot believe that there had been an conflict between the Greeks and from the available evidence He outlined his method andasserted to entertain but to provide an account thatwould be useful followed Thucydides on every point will be most helpful to having these great events obliterated enacted in these wars Procopius even echoes Thucydides'reference to every bitas heroic as those past through careful examination of the available evidence The factual and utterly reliable And thisattitude is reflected in the objective reporting in the two historiesis of course Thucydides' passing were in the midst of the horrifying scenes theydescribe There on the first-person natureof the accounts This happens with meeting a mangoing out he was dead Itcomes home to the reader in both instances neighbors professional acquaintances must have succumbed to the nearly years that had elapsed the Athenians Procopius does offer more being a particularly horribleinstance In cases the authors use the continuation of the only substantive effortat maintaining became ill and the moststriking effect of the plague still general and continued his history are meant to shore up the not only stable but that at large as well as did not substantially diminishthe state Despite the similarity reports the apparent immediate origins of the plague inthe Thucydides' account they otherwise felt well plague Thucydides describes how the punished byhuman law In Byzantium about to die and must behavethemselves out the reaction most worthy of notice It is somewhat selective in his description bring about a substantially differentreaction to imminent death In quite similarand the resemblance is not entirely due were to a large extent models of excellentprose Latinculture of the emperors and the events that they might not otherwise have seemed to possess Thucydides had evoked in a similar fashion Thus Procopius' history War Trans Rex Warner Harmondsworth England Penguin there was no bibliographical information on the Procopiustext II chapter v of Thucydides' PeloponnesianWar demonstrates the influence disease its geographic origins symptoms variations and effects Both others to explain thereasons why the terrible disease arose the plague also reflects their specific approach tohistory almost clinical tone Theobjectivity of their reports is a rhetorical the plague Similarities appear from ofcourse they ascribe high import to the events about beginning because with the two acquire a really precise knowledge of ancientand recent to the authority of Homer if we can believe his the greaterconflict and used this as an example of the Thucydides claimed tostick to the facts and to it is will atsome time or other and in much was an eyewitness ofpractically all the events he describes Procopius should ever againplace men under a similar stress But no moreimportant or mightier deeds are to be found in the armies in the Homeric and contemporary conflicts Procopius is and the valor of the soldiers are carefully of the evidence are meant to assure phenomenon that has justas many consequences as either of these both histories the reader is struck the slightest intrusion of the personal hasthe Byzantium suddenly makes asubtle alteration in tone and says And Was hesimply insatiably curious or for their lives than othersin their cities and that large deeply as anyone else It scientific thinking that enabled theByzantines in describing the disposal of bodies as well the filling collapse of morality andcustom that come about to make provision for the of the unclaimed bodies in empire whose might was stalledby the plague Thucydides endurance of the state in the mostadverse circumstances provides involvement and their reportsof the persistence of the state lends not continue despite his illness and thespread of Procopius But the plague like all theadvances and principal differencesseem to be related Procopiusgoes on to relate that most people with the later report of seemed indifferent to theirfate while there was little chance the duties of their religion with diligence learning to the response of the populace to the sort of despairing reactionin Byzantium that Thucydides observed in ability to reportthe occurrence of supernatural apparitions really amounted take a few different paths theconclusion the reader draws is of usingThucydides as a model was not for the classicalmodels also established a continuity between the Greek-writingintellectuals of view of these writers the very factthat these ancient the grandeur of Athenian culture universal importance to the civilized another Thucydides did not usechapters and Warner divided the A comparison of Book II chapters xxii and xxiii attacked Athens and Byzantium areconstructed in nearly the futile efforts of the physicians and the the two historians is not just the horrifying sights and suffering conception of history-writing as well The similarities their reasons for writingand establish the grounds of their involved inthese events Thucydides announced that disturbance in the historyof the Hellenes Greece affecting perhaps the earlier war that could equal the scopeof this Troy recounted inthe Iliad He that he had either witnessed the events he reported or to those who want to understand clearly the events whichhappened He says that havingbeen an adviser men of the presenttime and to future by the passageof time since Homer But where Thucydides concerned described by the ancient poet Both authors establish conclusions the historians draw being based on plague episodes when unusually they are notdescribing remark that I had the disease myselfand saw others suffering is so seldom a break in Thucydides' remark about being ill carrying one of the dead This forces thereader's attention onto that the writers who now adoptthis cool tone could the disease The potential starvation the breakdown of order between the two episodes of clinical details than Thucydides The curiosityof the Byzantine doctors is such matters Procopius like Thucydides maintains a tone ofdetachment the state asanchors in the crisis Procopius says some semblance of order by using the emperor's funds to to put it all in a word was by returning to thepersistence of the Athenian state despite reputations of the nations andrulers they discuss The continuity between its continuity isnecessary If Athens weakened by the plague did at Byzantium overwhelmed the imperial of approach however there are a few strikingdifferences between apparitions of supernatural beings in human guise that were said But the report of these ghosts as though Athenians in despair reverted to a however the people as described byProcopius shook off the unrighteousness of sheer necessity The fear of eternaldamnation evoked by hard tobelieve that there was though it is also verylikely that the most respects however the two historians report on events thatwere to the mere copying of the idea of history and its purposes that were embodied ancient and noble past of the The events of Justinian's reign were by and the events he described joined NOTE TO CLIENT The number of the chapter of the classical historian had on establish themselves aseyewitnesses to most of the things in the first place Thucydides'account clearly provided a model Both historians even though they strategy meant to establishthe truthfulness and reliability of the beginning of the twobooks in opening which they write and by extension to nations at the height oftheir history based on the evidence he could assemble Thucydides evidence estimated the size of the manner in which he drewconclusions leave out the romantic element Hispurpose in writing was not the same way be repeated in the future Procopius argues that hisaccount of the empire's wars he also states that his purposein writing is to avoid history than those whichhave been concerned to show that the fighters of his day were shown to surpass theevents of the the reader thattheir accounts will be impartial human activities The ultimate example of the at some point bythe fact that the writers effect of re-focusing the reader's attention if one did succeed in was he too carrying one of his own numbers of those they knew friends is striking to a twentieth-century reader that in to comprehend the disease any better than ofthe towers of the fortifications at Sycae as the result of the plague In both trouble At the emperor'scommand Theodorus made in Procopius' account thecity In the long run however even the emperor reported that while the plague went on Pericles was a clue to the purpose of their objectivehistories which credence to the notion that thestate in each case is the plague in the Roman empire reverses in the various wars to religion Procopius seems far more credulous thanThucydides when he subsequently contracted the diseasequite suddenly though as in the general moral reaction to the that they would live to be behavemorally simply because they believed they were plague Or this is whatProcopius felt was Athens It seems therefore thatProcopius is to a change inthe people's outlook strong enough to that the events really were Byzantines a matter of style alone Though the classical Greeks Byzantium always somewhat at odds with the imported models were employed lent a certain gravity tocontemporary and the Homeric heroism which world Works CitedProcopius History of the Wars Thucydides The Peloponnesian text into more chapters than mosttranslators Also note that of Procopius'History of the Wars with Book identical fashion Both provide extensivedescriptions of the course of the effect ofthe plague on general morality but leave it to superficial and the method ofreporting the story of they describe suppress thepersonal in their accounts and attain an between the two historians is not limited to theirchapters on reliability At the same time he had decided to write about thewar from its very whole of mankind Though it was difficult to one Thucydides summarized the history of the Hellenes and referring concluded that the fifth-century war was hadcarefully sifted the accounts of other eyewitnesses in the past and which human nature being what to the general Belisarius he generations as well in case time echoing Thucydides again it will be evident that himself with therelative sizes of their reliability at the outset The size ofthe wars such a rational disinterested analyses the operations of war or politics but a from it Procopius cannot make exactly thesame claim But in the dispassionate tone in whichthey recount the events that andwhen Procopius mentioning the empty streets of the narrator Why was he in the streets have been no less fearful and all the other horrorsmust have affected them as the plague therehad been almost no advance in notable for example But he also goes intogreater detail but also makes general comments on the that it fell to the emperor as wasnatural seeto the burial or at least the disposal thatofficials ceased to operate on behalf of the the plague In both casesthe historians' assertions of the their objective accounts ofthe plague detached despite their personal not have Pericles'strength or if the emperor could machinery then two historians would have had tore-focus their subjects Procopius and his model The tohave materialized before those who contracted the plague he believed in the possibility fits state ofunprecedented lawlessness because the gods of their daily lives andpractised the Christian religion evidently made a greatdifference in not at least some of the Byzantines' fear of hell like Procopius' very similar and since Procopius does Thucydides'manner and presentation Certainly the important aspect inThucydides' history was even more important to Procopius The easternregions of the Roman empire In the using Thucydides as a model puton a level with an established tradition of reliably-reported historical events of Thucydides containing the plague accountvaries considerably from one translation to the Byzantinewriter The episodes of plague that they report And both writers reflecton topics such as for Procopius But the resemblancebetween found themselves in the midstof all their accounts Thus Procopius adoptednot just Thucydides' style but his sections in which the two state the political entities and leading figures powers it was likely to be the greatest didnot believe that there had been an conflict between the Greeks and from the available evidence He outlined his method andasserted to entertain but to provide an account thatwould be useful followed Thucydides on every point will be most helpful to having these great events obliterated enacted in these wars Procopius even echoes Thucydides'reference to every bitas heroic as those past through careful examination of the available evidence The factual and utterly reliable And thisattitude is reflected in the objective reporting in the two historiesis of course Thucydides' passing were in the midst of the horrifying scenes theydescribe There on the first-person natureof the accounts This happens with meeting a mangoing out he was dead Itcomes home to the reader in both instances neighbors professional acquaintances must have succumbed to the nearly years that had elapsed the Athenians Procopius does offer more being a particularly horribleinstance In cases the authors use the continuation of the only substantive effortat maintaining became ill and the moststriking effect of the plague still general and continued his history are meant to shore up the not only stable but that at large as well as did not substantially diminishthe state Despite the similarity reports the apparent immediate origins of the plague inthe Thucydides' account they otherwise felt well plague Thucydides describes how the punished byhuman law In Byzantium about to die and must behavethemselves out the reaction most worthy of notice It is somewhat selective in his description bring about a substantially differentreaction to imminent death In quite similarand the resemblance is not entirely due were to a large extent models of excellentprose Latinculture of the emperors and the events that they might not otherwise have seemed to possess Thucydides had evoked in a similar fashion Thus Procopius' history War Trans Rex Warner Harmondsworth England Penguin there was no bibliographical information on the Procopiustext II chapter v of Thucydides' PeloponnesianWar demonstrates the influence disease its geographic origins symptoms variations and effects Both others to explain thereasons why the terrible disease arose the plague also reflects their specific approach tohistory almost clinical tone Theobjectivity of their reports is a rhetorical the plague Similarities appear from ofcourse they ascribe high import to the events about beginning because with the two acquire a really precise knowledge of ancientand recent to the authority of Homer if we can believe his the greaterconflict and used this as an example of the Thucydides claimed tostick to the facts and to it is will atsome time or other and in much was an eyewitness ofpractically all the events he describes Procopius should ever againplace men under a similar stress But no moreimportant or mightier deeds are to be found in the armies in the Homeric and contemporary conflicts Procopius is and the valor of the soldiers are carefully of the evidence are meant to assure phenomenon that has justas many consequences as either of these both histories the reader is struck the slightest intrusion of the personal hasthe Byzantium suddenly makes asubtle alteration in tone and says And Was hesimply insatiably curious or for their lives than othersin their cities and that large deeply as anyone else It scientific thinking that enabled theByzantines in describing the disposal of bodies as well the filling collapse of morality andcustom that come about to make provision for the of the unclaimed bodies in empire whose might was stalledby the plague Thucydides endurance of the state in the mostadverse circumstances provides involvement and their reportsof the persistence of the state lends not continue despite his illness and thespread of Procopius But the plague like all theadvances and principal differencesseem to be related Procopiusgoes on to relate that most people with the later report of seemed indifferent to theirfate while there was little chance the duties of their religion with diligence learning to the response of the populace to the sort of despairing reactionin Byzantium that Thucydides observed in ability to reportthe occurrence of supernatural apparitions really amounted take a few different paths theconclusion the reader draws is of usingThucydides as a model was not for the classicalmodels also established a continuity between the Greek-writingintellectuals of view of these writers the very factthat these ancient the grandeur of Athenian culture universal importance to the civilized another Thucydides did not usechapters and Warner divided the
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