Athenians, Amazons, and Goats: Language Contact in Herodotus
By Edward E. Nolan
Herodotus’ description of the Sauromatae’s origins has it all—love, language, and warrior-women. Most strikingly, it includes one of the first instances of an awareness of the effects of language contact, defined most simply as “the use of more than one language at the same place at the same time” (Thomason 2004: 2-3, Thomason 2001: 1). In the story, a group of Amazons travel far from home and end up among Scythians, whose territory they raid (Hdt. 4.110).
Brasidas and the Myth of the Un-Spartan Spartan
By Matthew A. Sears
The Spartan general Brasidas is one of the heroes of Thucydides’ History (Harley 1941; Daverio Rocchi 1985; Wylie 1992; Hornblower 1996: 38–61; Boëldieu-Trevet 1997; Hoffmann 2000; Howie 2005; Bosworth 2009; Nichols 2014: 78–106). Aside from receiving a literary portrayal as a virtually Homeric figure, Brasidas seems to captivate Thucydides by being so unlike his fellow Spartans.
Interstitial Politics: Thucydides, Demosthenes, and the Athenian Character
By Branden D. Kosch
When comparing Thucydides and Demosthenes, Wilamowitz (1911) said of the latter, “Thukydideische Gedankentiefe fehlt; ein Menschenkenner war er[Demosthenes] nicht….” In more recent studies, scholars have continued to view the relationship as a more or less appropriative one: Demosthenes adopted the Periclean ethos (Yunis) or simply reversed and negated Thucydides’ characterizations of Athens in its Golden Age (Mader). In this paper I argue that he was a much more sensitive reader of Thucydides than has generally been claimed.