So I've started reading "History of Peloponnesian War"

books written by athenians grossly overrepresents athenes

>>9559411
Thucydides was exiled from Athens, and clearly displayed admiration for Sparta. The war aspect of the book is a less important point anyways, it's about human nature.

>>9559404

>really well written

Oh wow OP, you're reading it in ancient Greek?

>>9559404
The Spartans won, so yes.

Also, for a much, much more balanced work try Plutarch, who gives due consideration to all members of both sides, of course at a loss of historical preciseness.

>>9559404
>Do Spartans ever get good in this book or was the manly image in popular media all a lie?

Just wait for Brasidas to appear

>>9559442
>original language meme
translating is really easy.

>>9559463

big hopes for him desu. current spartan king looks like he can't get his dick up and corithians need to do the dirty business

>>9559404
Sparta was notoriously cautious about going to war; with the Helots ready to revolt at any time, and the number of Spartiates usually being low, they were very concerned not to oblige themselves to any ventures that might decimate them.

I HIGHLY recommend, if you don't mind doing a shitload of extra work, torrenting Kenneth Harl's Teaching Company course in video format, which follows along the book.

Here's one of them apparently (I googled, so this is probably a site with 300 viruses):
http://farinsoft.ir/TTC-Peloponnesian-War

Kenneth Harl's dissertation adviser was Donald Kagan, the venerable classicist at Yale whose free lectures are available online. Here are the ones where you read The Peloponnesian War, specifically:
http://oyc.yale.edu/classics/clcv-205/lecture-17
http://oyc.yale.edu/classics/clcv-205/lecture-18
http://oyc.yale.edu/classics/clcv-205/lecture-19
http://oyc.yale.edu/classics/clcv-205/lecture-20

He also has a very good book on the war itself, I think just called _The Peloponnesian War_

>>9559404
Ancient history is garbage. Read Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? by Paul Veyne.

>>9560083

i wish teaching company courses were more commonly used around here. they are the patricians audiobooks.

>>9559404
>>9559437
>>9559487
>reads his first ever classic history book
>"really well written"
>shit talks one of the major players in the war
>"it's about human nature"

babby's first greek

Read Herodotus, finish Thucydides, and then read another dozen ancient writers/historians. Are you so naive as to allow your perspective of an entire culture to be wholly dictated by half of a single book? Nothing is ever so black and white as "were the Spartans manly or not," and you should know that.

Also hate to break it to you but the Athenians are niggers just as much as the Spartans, even in Thucydides.

>let's seize all of Sicily for our own gain
>wait I meant to say "let's liberate Sicily" :^)

Did you read the historical background between the Persian wars and the Peloponnesian war? Literally 50 years of Athens dicking its "allies" and extorting what was basically protection money, while building up its "empire" and creating the classical civilization we now glorify at the cost of pissing off all Greece. It was hoped that Sparta would check their power and restore a more traditional rule to Greece, but (spoilers) totally fucked up (see Xenophon's Hellenika), proved themselves unable to maintain a leadership position in Greece, and left everyone vulnerable to a certain Macedonian upstart.

Also this: >>9559451, because you get a ton of "in between" stories of characters you may have not even noticed in major histories. But you do need those main histories (Herodotus/Thucydides/Xenophon for classical Greece) to even know what Plutarch is talking about.

Keep reading it, keep reading other Greeks. You're on the right track but don't act smug for no reason when you don't even know how things end or really how they began.

Instead of creating my own thread I'm just gonna post this here: Does anyone have any good materials on Herodotus? I've finished book I and been able to follow most of what's going on but there are a ton of digressions that I'm not sure whether they are going to play a role later. Also started reading book II and goddamn 20 pages about the Nile River is tough to get through.

chapters in plutarch:moralia are the main source for spartans, even though he lived couple of centuries later.

>>9559404
>Do Spartans ever get good in this book or was the manly image in popular media all a lie?
The Spartans kick the Athenians asses so bad they blame it on their most prolific thinker.
Fuck off you attic faggot
>muh boats

>>9560726
At the risk of sounding very hand-waving, that's exactly the experience you're supposed to have with Herodotus, so don't force an analysis/interpretation that doesn't really fit. It's the first "history" book and its weird digressions and fables and contraction/expansion of focus is not just Herodotus, but history as genre, trying to wrangle with and establish "history." Read it through, read whatever intro you may have in your edition, and then move to Thucydides to follow the track of history as genre to see the sharp turn it takes.

If you really want to analyze Herodotus, do it on your second reading.

>>9561138
Herodotus is shit, no matter how you look at him. He is shit. I mean he is half useful for Persian wars because we don't have anything else, but that's it. For everything else, you're better off reading fairy tales.

As for Spartans, yeah, they were a bit girly. They would sacrifice before taking a shit, and if it didn't go well, they'd keep it in. Now, your only problem is that when the sacrifice went well, they would take that same shit right into your mouth, and after they'd defalcated themselves with gusto, you'd be complimenting them on a job well done.

>>9559404
pdf?

>>9561869
asl?

>>9561867
>reading for "usefulness"
>unnecessary defecation references

wew

>>9561916
Oh yes, Herodotus is shit. His historical aspect is all that he's got going for himself. His language is pathetic, his stories dull, one would have to like already digested foodstufs to like reading him more than twice. I bet you do like that.

>>9561986

Are you for real? Herodotus is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. You're either lying, or a boring brainlet.