Thucydides and Homer: Cultures Essay -- Cultural Greece Thucydides Hom

Thucydides and homer Cultures Thucydides and Homer, though they lived a relatively short 300 years apart, wrote intimately very different Greek cultures. While the Greeks who Homer wrote about in The Iliad were, in some respects, dissimilar to the Greeks in Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, this stands in marked contrast to the profound similarities that exist between contemporary cultures and those that Thucydides wrote of. at that place are, however, similarities between new cultures and those in Homers writing, as sanitary as differences between modern ones and those in Thucydides writing. Thucydides history is, therefore, a relational bridge between the cultures of ancient Greece and modern ones. One of the most perceptible differences in the cultures written of by Thucydides and Homer is what people are value for. In the world of The Iliad, aret determines an individuals merit, and it is more often than not determined by physical tr iumphs over opponents. The importance of victory to these peoples enjoy is indicated in Hectors defeat of Patroclus. Hector seeing Patroclus exhausting to stagger free, came rushing into him right across the lines and rammed his spearshaft home, stabbing deep in the bowels Down he crashedhorror gripped the Achaean armies. (Homer, 439) Patroclus fall not precisely represented Hectors superior might, but the publicity of aret for both Achaean soldier became demoralized by the death of Patroclus. Whereas in the aforementioned(prenominal) culture a persons status was public and largely based on strength, Thucydides wrote about a culture that valued saucer through the intellect and art forms. When Corcyra and Corinth are poised to go to fight with each other... ... Peloponnesian War is neither romantic nor poetic rather, it is an (relatively) objective lens account of what he considered to be the most devastating war. Based on his observations, Thucydides used lo gic to infer things about human behavior and historical events. It could well have been this abandonment of romanticism that allowed Thucydides to so accurately exempt history in terms of human nature, which is based very oft on the human condition. If this is the case, then it is certainly not surprising that Thucydides describes many familiar ideas and is able to relate values and principles from cultures older than his own to modern ones. Works Cited 1. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Trans. Rex Warner. New York Penguin Books, 1954.2. Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York Penguin Books, 1990.