How did thucydides view greece?
The concept of Greece (Hellas) as a cultural entity was certainly around (for instance it’s central to Herodotus’ history of the Persian wars), but Thucydides doesn’t stress the idea of Greece as a unity. He is more interested in conflicts and ideological/political inconsistencies both within and between Greek states. The nature, capabilities and limits of power are central to what he writes about – see for instance the Melian dialogue. Similarly, Pericles’ famous speech (in 431BC) praising the Athenian war dead outlines a typically Athenian ideology, contrasted with that of Sparta. Though he never uses any remotely similar metaphor, I would say that Thucydides views Greece as a crucible in which a large number of violent reactions is simultaneously taking place. He records a bang here, a fizz there, a moment of stillness elsewhere – but the overall picture is one of violent reactions, decompositions, new compounds, in their turn breaking down…. The outcome, when he wrote the last wo
