The Peloponnesian War

The first unabridged translation into American English, and the first to take into account the wealth of Thucydidean scholarship of the last half of the twentieth century, Steven Lattimore’s translation sets a new standard for accuracy and reliability. Notes provide information necessary for a fuller understanding of problematic passages, explore their implications as well as the problems they may pose, and shed light on Thucydides as a distinctive literary artist as well as a source for historians and political theorists.

“Lattimore's The Peloponnesian War challenges and may well supplant the currently popular translations of Rex Warner and Richard Crawley. The table of contents lists events and chapter numbers in detail, thoughtful and useful summaries introduce the eight books, and superb footnotes and a trenchant glossary accompany the text. Maps (of Greece and Sicily, Greece, Syracuse, Pylos and Sphakteria, Athens and its neighbors) are collected conveniently at the end of the text, following the list of works cited, an index of speeches, and a comprehensive general index. In an excellent, concise introduction, Lattimore describes current controversies in Thucydidean scholarship and assesses the historian's prose style. Although Thucydides' style is 'intense when it succeeds,' he 'occasionally passes beyond concentration into congestion' (p. xviii). Lattimore claims that accuracy is the translator's 'fundamental responsibility' and that whenever ”

[Lattimore] gets closer to the Greek than either of his two available rivals, Richard Crawley and Rex Warner. . . . Lattimore's uncompromising version now leads the field. --Peter Green, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

Lattimore . . . has produced the most rigorously accurate translation since Crawley and, in my view, the most true to all ellipses, contractions, twists, ambiguities, and syntactical knots of the original. His willingness to confront, not shirk, the challenges of Thucydides can be seen at every stylistic level, though perhaps more in the speeches and analytical portions than in the purely narrative passages. All this makes it demanding for students, but gives them the closest English experience of what it’s like to read Thucydides in Greek. --Steven J. Willett, Syllecta Classica

Lattimore's The Peloponnesian War challenges and may well supplant the currently popular translations of Rex Warner and Richard Crawley. The table of contents lists events and chapter numbers in detail, thoughtful and useful summaries introduce the eight books, and superb footnotes and a trenchant glossary accompany the text. Maps (of Greece and Sicily, Greece, Syracuse, Pylos and Sphakteria, Athens and its neighbors) are collected conveniently at the end of the text, following the list of works cited, an index of speeches, and a comprehensive general index. In an excellent, concise introduction, Lattimore describes current controversies in Thucydidean scholarship and assesses the historian's prose style. Although Thucydides' style is 'intense when it succeeds,' he 'occasionally passes beyond concentration into congestion' (p. xviii). Lattimore claims that accuracy is the translator's 'fundamental responsibility' and that whenever ‘the aims of fidelity, clarity and readability come into conflict with one another,' he has opted for 'fidelity' (p. xix). In general, this approach effectively transmits both the spirit and the substance of Thucydides' prose. For example, in 2. 65.7, defending his war strategy, Pericles assures the Athenians that if they should follow his advice, 'they would prevail.' Lattimore's translation keeps 'Athenians' as the subject of the verb and remains consistent with Pericles' war aims, which had more to do with survival through endurance than with active, aggressive action. (Cf. Warner’s over-stated ‘Athens would be victorious' and Crawley's mild but vague 'promised them a favorable result'.) Lattimore's ‘they would prevail' seems to strike the note exactly. --George Cawkwell, New England Classical Journal

Thucydides; Translated by Steven Lattimore

The first unabridged translation into American English, and the first to take into account the wealth of Thucydidean scholarship of the last half of the twentieth century, Steven Lattimore's translation sets a new standard for accuracy and reliability. Notes provide information necessary for a fuller understanding of problematic passages, explore their implications as well as the problems they may pose, and shed light on Thucydides as a distinctive literary artist as well as a source for historians and political theorists.

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