The siege of Eion In 478 BCE, after Pausanias had been recalled from Byzantion, the leadership of the Hellenic League was taken over by the Athenian stratēgós Kimon II.[1] The remaining members of the Hellenic League, assembled in a council [sunédrion] on the holy island of Delos, decided to form an alliance led by Athens, while Sparta and its allies withdrew into the original Peloponnesian League. The objective of this… Read more
Some say that the Phaeacians built ships which moved with the swiftness of a raptor [irēx].[1] Their ships fly over water propelled by well-fitted oars [euēra eretma] that are like wings [ptera] for ships.[2] Some say Odysseus is next in line for breaking speed records with his ships that qualify as fast-sailing [ōkualos nēus].[3] Some say the fastest ships were the Iliadic ships that qualified as “swift” [thoos].[4] These are… Read more
In the last days of September of the year 480 BCE, King Xerxes proceeded to Athens, after having had his victory at Thermopylae. Also his naval forces moved southward for the final stroke. Among the Persian naval contingent were 120 triremes from Thrace, 100 ships from Ionia, 60 ships from Aeolia including Lesbos and Samos, and an unspecified number of ships from the Greek islands, including the Cyclades, and lastly,… Read more
We are pleased to share in the Text Library a revised translation of selections from Book 2 of Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War that tracks Key terms. The selected part of Book 2—chapters 34–65—includes some important and famous sections, and within these are particular focus passages indicated by highlighting: Pericles’ Funeral Oration The plague in Athens Pericles’ last speech Thucydides’ assessment of Pericles This edition was the result of a community-driven… Read more
Members of the Kosmos Society have been reading sections of Xenophon’s Anabasis, and this post provides a brief historical context to that work. The text is available on Perseus, both in Greek and in an English translation by Carleton L. Brownson (1922). Historical context The Anabasis by the Athenian soldier, historian and philosopher Xenophon, also known as The Anabasis of Cyrus, The March of the Ten Thousand and The March… Read more