Thucydides; Translated by Steven Lattimore
[Lattimore] gets closer to the Greek than either of his two
available rivals, Richard Crawley and Rex Warner. . . . Lattimore's
uncompromising version now leads the field. --Peter Green, The Los
Angeles Times Book Review
Lattimore . . . has produced the most rigorously accurate
translation since Crawley and, in my view, the most true to all
ellipses, contractions, twists, ambiguities, and syntactical knots
of the original. His willingness to confront, not shirk, the
challenges of Thucydides can be seen at every stylistic level,
though perhaps more in the speeches and analytical portions than in
the purely narrative passages. All this makes it demanding for
students, but gives them the closest English experience of what
it’s like to read Thucydides in Greek. --Steven J. Willett,
Syllecta Classica
Lattimore's The Peloponnesian War challenges and may well supplant
the currently popular translations of Rex Warner and Richard
Crawley. The table of contents lists events and chapter numbers in
detail, thoughtful and useful summaries introduce the eight books,
and superb footnotes and a trenchant glossary accompany the text.
Maps (of Greece and Sicily, Greece, Syracuse, Pylos and Sphakteria,
Athens and its neighbors) are collected conveniently at the end of
the text, following the list of works cited, an index of speeches,
and a comprehensive general index. In an excellent, concise
introduction, Lattimore describes current controversies in
Thucydidean scholarship and assesses the historian's prose style.
Although Thucydides' style is 'intense when it succeeds,' he
'occasionally passes beyond concentration into congestion' (p.
xviii). Lattimore claims that accuracy is the translator's
'fundamental responsibility' and that whenever ‘the aims of
fidelity, clarity and readability come into conflict with one
another,' he has opted for 'fidelity' (p. xix). In general, this
approach effectively transmits both the spirit and the substance of
Thucydides' prose. For example, in 2. 65.7, defending his war
strategy, Pericles assures the Athenians that if they should follow
his advice, 'they would prevail.' Lattimore's translation keeps
'Athenians' as the subject of the verb and remains consistent with
Pericles' war aims, which had more to do with survival through
endurance than with active, aggressive action. (Cf. Warner’s
over-stated ‘Athens would be victorious' and Crawley's mild but
vague 'promised them a favorable result'.) Lattimore's ‘they would
prevail' seems to strike the note exactly. --George Cawkwell, New
England Classical Journal
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