Poem XI: 1826

I have an 1826 Greek edition

Lipsiae sumptibus et typis caroli tauchnitii

of Thucydides Peloponnesian War

once owned by a guy named, if I read it right,

Thauxag Anomouia of Casa Crambousa (?)

His handwriting is crap

if he ever lost this book I bet he never got it back.

It then became a library book, for it is stamped

library

state teachers college

johnson city tennessee

it was last checked out April 10, 1966

by, it looks like, Hamdamader McBnearney (?)

It contains, let me see, the last three books 

of the War, and begins with...uh...

Tou= d’ e)pigignome/non qe/rouv, ai0 me\n e0niau/sioi spondai\ diele/lunto me/xri Puqi/wn…

Book V! My second favorite

fucking book of Thucydides!

—It is the tenth year of the War

and Cleon, after his improbable successes at Pylos (425)

and having persuaded the assembly to let him attack Thrace

is killed while running away.

‘Cleon himself’ (the historian writes) ‘had no intention of standing his ground;

he immediately took flight and was soon overtaken

by a Myrcinian peltast

and killed.’

(the fuck is a peltast?)

He who scarcely deserved death in battle.

Despite his improbable successes, etc.

A peltast –I promise this poem will be over soon—

was a light-infantry spearman

with a crescent-shaped goat-hide shield.

They chucked their javelins at close range

and retreated

they could leap away from hoplites

(wtf? à Greek heavy-armed foot-soldiers)

like so many gazelles.

Book Five of The Peloponnesian War ends with the Battle of Mantinea (418-17)

and the Melian Dialogue.

The Peloponnesian War ends with Athens

a plague-ridden 

smoking 

ruin.