Robert B. Strassler (80) is President of Riverside Capital Management and General Partner of Weston Associates. He is also self-described “unaffiliated scholar,” a viola da gamba musician, a collector of musical instruments and Secretary/Treasurer of The Barrington Foundation, where his brother David is president. He has been an AJWS major gift donor since 2004. Bob Strassler grew-up in Brooklyn, NY and attended Ethical Fieldston , a prep school in the Bronx. His father Samuel Strassler, became wealthy during the Great Depression running syndicates that bought and fixed up liquidated companies. After graduating from Harvard Business School in the top 5% of his class in 1961, Bob went into the family business, and became Chairman and …show more content…
Although Bob received an MBA from Harvard Business School, he has also been a history major as an undergraduate, having developed an interest in ancient Greek history at Fieldston. After moving with his family to the Berkshires Bob joined the board of Simon’s Rock College and at the request of the school’s provost, a began teaching a class in ancient Greek literature in translation. It was during this period he began work on The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. At over 700 pages, “Landmark Thucydides” includes 114 detailed maps in line with the text, hundreds of margin notes, a header on every page showing time and place, and 11 appendixes. Originally published in 1996, Landmark Thucydides is still considered “the finest edition of Thucydides' history ever produced. “Following Landmark Thuucydides, success, Bob later produced the equally successful Landmark Herodotus and Landmark Xenophon’s …show more content…
He has also been a member of the Advisory Councils of the Department of Astrophysics, and the Department of Classics at Princeton University. Bob is married to Toni Strassler, a jewelry designer, whose work is inspired by Asian, Medieval, and Byzantine art, as well as the Berkshires. Toni’s work has been shown at various venues including the Forbes Galleries, the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society and the Cape Cod Museum of Art. In 2015, Toni’s work was part of a show at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and she has had exhibitions at the Brookline Library and the Newton Main Library in MA. Toni was also a (volunteer) Jewelry Curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, where she worked on exhibitions, books, and glossaries. Bob and Toni have two children Matthew and
Kendrick Pritchett in the introduction to the book "The Greek State at War" points out that in order to write history of Greek Warfare one
Albert Barnes was born to working class parents in Philadelphia. Barnes grew up working and boxing to pay his own way through Pennsylvania University. After getting
There are obviously many obligations at hand in Iphigenia at Aulis. The one however that widely catches my attention is Iphigenia’s ending decision to accept her fate. Iphigenia’s fate of death is a sacrifice that her father Agamemnon has to uphold to his brother Menelaus. Agamemnon like any father would not willingly offer his child as a sacrifice, however he does so because of his “commander-in-chief” position and the oath he took on behalf of Menelaus.
An Analysis of Thucydides' Views on the Melian Dialogue The Melian Dialogue is a debate between Melian and Athenian representatives concerning the sovereignty of Melos. The debate did not really occur-the arguments given by each side were of Thucydides own creation. Thus it is reasonable to assume that we can tease out Thucydides' own beliefs.
Burckhardt, Jacob, The Greeks and Greek Civilization, St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10010, 1998.
The book written by Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, contains two controversial debates between distinguished speakers of Athens. The two corresponding sides produce convincing arguments which can be taken as if produced as an honest opinion or out of self-interest. The two debates must be analyzed separately in order to conclude which one and which side was speaking out of honest opinion or self-interest, as well as which speakers are similar to each other in their approach to the situation.
Thucydides, Dent, J. M., & Dutton, E. P. (1910). The Peloponnesian War. London & New
The causes of the Peloponnesian War proved to be too great between the tension-filled stubborn Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. As Thucydides says in Karl Walling’s article, “Never had so many human beings been exiled, or so much human blood been shed” (4). The three phases of the war, which again, are the Archidamian war, the Sicilian Expedition and the Decelean war, show the events that followed the causes of the war, while also showing the forthcoming detrimental effects that eventually consumed both Athens and eventually Sparta effectively reshaping Greece.
In Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles commends the ergon of Athenian heroes, which has placed them in the realm of logos, while directing the Athenians to follow these ideals of logos. The maintenance and continued success of Athens' political establishment relies on the prevalence of polis, rationality and discourse over family, emotion and reckless action. However, the indiscriminate turns of fate and fortune, often place logos in opposition with the base, primal nature of ergon. Both Thucydides and Sophocles recognize that when logos conflicts with the unexpected ergon, the preservation of rationality and unanimity among the citizens of the polis depend on the leadership of a single honest leader. In the History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides presents Pericles as a man of logos, whom Athens needs to achieve its full potential as an empire and later to rescue her from disaster. Likewise, Sophocles presents Theseus, in Oedipus Colonus, as the perfect successor of Pericles, who returns Athens to its former glory before the end of the war. In these two examples, we see that the dominance of logos over ergon within a polis lies in the ability and logos of the city’s current leader.
Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound portrays a greek god detained by a superior for disobedience against the latter’s rule. On the other hand in Euripides’ Hippolytus portrays lust and vengeance of the gods and the extent that they can go to to avenge it.
1) According to Thucydides, during the civil war at Corcyra a re-evaluation of values took place in the populace (3.82). Explain the nature of these re-evaluations, and the reason(s) they took place.
Thucydides set out to narrate the events of what he believed would be a great war—one requiring great power amassed on both sides and great states to carry out. Greatness, for Thucydides, was measured most fundamentally in capital and military strength, but his history delves into almost every aspect of the war, including, quite prominently, its leaders. In Athens especially, leadership was vital to the war effort because the city’s leaders were chosen by its people and thus, both shaped Athens and reflected its character during their lifetimes. The leaders themselves, however, are vastly different in their abilities and their effects on the city. Thucydides featured both Pericles and Alcibiades prominently in his history, and each had a distinct place in the evolution of Athenian empire and the war it sparked between Athens and Sparta. Pericles ascended to power at the empire’s height and was, according to Thucydides, the city’s most capable politician, a man who understood fully the nature of his city and its political institutions and used his understanding to further its interests in tandem with his own. After Pericles, however, Thucydides notes a drastic decline in the quality of Athenian leaders, culminating in Alcibiades, the last major general to be described in The Peloponnesian War. While he is explicit in this conclusion, he is much more reticent regarding its cause. What changed in Athens to produce the decline in the quality of its leadership?
Herodotus. “Greece Saved from Persian Conquest.” Readings in Ancient History. Eds. Nels M. Bailkey and Richard Lim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.
The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) was a conflict between the Athenian Empire and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta that resulted in the end of the Golden Age of Athens. The events of the war were catalogued by the ancient historian Thucydides in The History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides’ writings showed the ancient Greek belief that there is a parallel between the city-state and the character of its citizens; in order for the city-state to be successful, its citizens must be virtuous. Thucydides did not believe that the true cause of the Peloponnesian War were the immediate policies of the Athenian Empire against the city-states in the Peloponnesian League but rather the fundamental differences in the character of the two city-states
Clarke, Fiona, and Mark Bergin. Greece in the time of Pericles. Hemel Hempstead: Simon & Schuster, 1909.