Open Yale Courses

CLCV 205: Introduction to Ancient Greek History

Lecture 18 - The Peloponnesian War, Part I (cont.) << previous session | next session >>

Overview:

In this lecture, Professor Kagan describes the aftermath of the Thirty Years Peace. He argues that the Peace had the potential to keep peace between Athens and Sparta due to the arbitration clause. In addition, he argues that during this time, Athens sends various diplomatic messages to the wider Greek world stating their intentions for peace, such as the Panhellenic venture to establish Thurii. However, this peace is seriously challenged when Corinth and Corcyra come into conflict over Epidamnus. At this point, Athens could make an alliance with Corcyra and run the risk of angering Sparta or allow Corinth to potentially take over Corcyra's navy and change the naval balance of power. Athens decides on a defensive alliance.

Reading assignment:

Pomeroy, Burstein, Donlan and Roberts. Ancient Greece. Oxford University Press: New York, 1999, pp. 246-286.

Plutarch, The Rise and Fall of the Athens: Nicias.

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Books I-V.

Class lecture:

Transcript
html
Audio
mp3
Video
medium bandwidth
low bandwidth
high bandwidth

Resources:

Peloponnesian War I [PDF]

Yale University 2008.  Some rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated on this page or on the Open Yale Courses website, all content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0)