COMPLETE: History of the Pelop. War, by Thucydides - NF/ge

kayray · Post by **kayray** » November 19th, 2005, 9:40 am

Yeah, ok, I'm game. Sign me up for Book 4.

Kara

rfrancis · Post by **rfrancis** » November 20th, 2005, 12:12 am

My heroine!

Seriously, many thanks. I was young and very foolish.

-R

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » December 18th, 2005, 8:59 pm

A heads up to all book coordinators: I?ve updated the guidelines for how to be a book coordinator: http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=425

Probably the only new information you will need is this:

Collect the following information for every file: reader's name, reader's webpage url (if applicable), runtime in hour/minute/second format --- 00:32:14. Save this information in a text document (Notepad, MS Word, etc.) to be emailed to us later. You can have the readers get this information to you by posting it in the thread, sending a private message, or sending an email, whatever works.

This shouldn?t take much extra time and will make the cataloging process much smoother and quicker. Thanks!

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » December 25th, 2005, 2:58 am

This was misposted on 25 Dec 2005 0920 GMT +1 by ianish by accident, in a new topic - I'm moving it here where it seems to belong more naturally.

Book 8 Chapter 24 has finally been completed. It does get easier, and the hope is it also gets better. Anyway, it is located at http://www.archive.org/details/ThucydidesThePeloponnesianWarbook8ch24. Hopefully the next two books will follow in much quicker order. Thanks also for the encourgement along the way.

_________________
Speaking the words of others to find another voice

kayray · Post by **kayray** » January 6th, 2006, 10:49 am

Hugh, I hate to do this to you but I just can't seem to get up the ambition to do this one. Whenever I have time to record I seem to choose something else and poor Thucydides is langushing unread. Also my section is 82 pages long...

Would you put my chapters back up for grabs?

Kara

rfrancis · Post by **rfrancis** » January 6th, 2006, 2:29 pm

kayray wrote:Hugh, I hate to do this to you but I just can't seem to get up the ambition to do this one. Whenever I have time to record I seem to choose something else and poor Thucydides is langushing unread. Also my section is 82 pages long...

Would you put my chapters back up for grabs?

Kara

What's even more sad is that I'm having the same problem with the chapters I DIDN'T give you.

-R

Post by **hugh** » January 7th, 2006, 11:09 am

yeah poor old thucydides ... I thought this was a crazy project when I saw it posted! I think this will be one of those projects that will have to just sit around till we get some real ancient greek enthusiasts. Maybe I'll may an apppeal on the blog.

But I hereby release any readers (who wish to be released) from recording their chapters. So please let me know if you wish the be liberated from this particular acoustical liberation.

kri · Post by **kri** » January 7th, 2006, 12:41 pm

Give me some time to decide, and work up to it and I may (may) be willing to take on a section if anybody decides they won't be able to do their section. I need to go through Thucydides again and decide how brave I am.

rfrancis · Post by **rfrancis** » January 10th, 2006, 9:04 am

hugh wrote:yeah poor old thucydides ... I thought this was a crazy project when I saw it posted! I think this will be one of those projects that will have to just sit around till we get some real ancient greek enthusiasts. Maybe I'll may an apppeal on the blog.

But I hereby release any readers (who wish to be released) from recording their chapters. So please let me know if you wish the be liberated from this particular acoustical liberation.

hugh, the sad part is that I AM an ancient greek enthusiast, to the point of having minored in it... but I was never in it for the histories, and Thucydides is drier than any but perhaps Xenophon. (Don't get me started about him.)

The real problem though is managing my time, and thus sadly, I will take your offer and ask to be released from my other two chapters. I have already promised to myself not to take on any further Librivox chapters until I finish what I have out -- with this release, that will leave one chapter of Dracula and I will try to get it done quite soon and then see where I'm at.

-R

ianish · Post by **ianish** » January 12th, 2006, 6:21 am

The battle with Chapter 25 has finally reached its close, and the file is posted up on http://www.archive.org/details/ThePeloponnesianWarbook8ch25_0. Compared to Chapter 24, the pace picks up considerably, and the telling of the gradually and bloody dissolution of Athenian democracy is certainly worth a read, or a listen.

The description of the suspicion and distrust that arose among the people due to lack of information and the perversion of a few individuals is really great stuff, and with such tremendous contemporary relevance. I hope it is not out of order just to put in a quote here, for Thucydides needs whatever support he can get.

An exaggerated belief in the numbers of the conspirators also demoralized the people, rendered helpless by the magnitude of the city, and by their want of intelligence with each other, and being without means of finding out what those numbers really were.

For the same reason it was impossible for any one to open his grief to a neighbour and to concert measures to defend himself, as he would have had to speak either to one whom he did not know, or whom he knew but did not trust.

Indeed all the popular party approached each other with suspicion, each thinking his neighbour concerned in what was going on, the conspirators having in their ranks persons whom no one could ever have believed capable of joining an oligarchy; and these it was who made the many so suspicious, and so helped to procure impunity for the few, by confirming the commons in their mistrust of one another.

The hour-long chapters certainly take their toll, and much as I may like the sound of my own voice, I can?t see many people making it through hour after hour of these intensely listener unfriendly sessions. But there is some griping stuff there, and wondered, especially with books such as these, whether something by way of short (10-15 minute) highlights could be made, maybe with a short introduction, to make the works accessible. I wonder if making judicious edits and adding a few linking passages would be more work than reading interminable passages of treaties and military maneuvers. Just an idea.

Also, for a bit of help getting into the story, I strongly recommend the novel The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault, which covers much the same period as Thucydides. It was instrumental in getting me to do Ancient History in high school, for what that?s worth. The amazon ref is
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375726810/qid=1137071407/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2827385-1414408?n=507846&s=books&v=glance.

This is an absurdly long post. Apologies.
Ian

cjohnson6382 · Post by **cjohnson6382** » January 28th, 2006, 12:17 am

The hour-long chapters certainly take their toll, and much as I may like the sound of my own voice, I can?t see many people making it through hour after hour of these intensely listener unfriendly sessions.

I promise you that there are people out here that will make it through them. Projects like Wikipedia, Gutenberg and LibriVox are as important to the world today as the Athenian democracy was in its day. It spread political power widely among its citizens. And in a world where knowledge is power, you guys are spreading that knowledge to everyone. Thank you for all your hard work.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » January 28th, 2006, 9:33 am

Hey Hugh, don't forget to remove my name from whatever bit I claimed :)

alexfoster · Post by **alexfoster** » January 28th, 2006, 2:47 pm

I have a huge chunk of this sitting on a harddrive waiting for me to finish it.

I can't guarantee it'll be any time soon, but I don't want to waste the work I've already done.

Alex

Post by **hugh** » March 17th, 2006, 9:19 am

OK everybody, could I get an update on this project - I think we have a new offer to do at least a couple of chapters, but how are the rest of you doing? random dad, alex, ianish...?

please let me know...

raynr · Post by **raynr** » March 17th, 2006, 6:15 pm

An obviously misplaced post

cberrius wrote:Hi, all. I'm volunteering for chapters 12-14 at the moment, and hoping to reinspire the faithful a little. This is too cool a project, and I'll finish it myself if that's what it takes--but you're all doing so well with something that's, frankly, pretty dark and forbidding.

I have a graduate degree in ancient history, can read a little Greek, and am still tripping occasionally over the names and the long sentences. And it's FINE. The story is about human nature in wartime, and Thucydides meant for you to fill in the unpronounceable place names from your own time. Corcyra could be Falluja or Rwanda. And I'm hearing that in your readings.

OK, end of presumptuous pep talk. I will admit that it's pretty depressing reading, but I think it's an important project to be doing right now, as the world turns. I'm curious how folks are feeling about it after a break.

Berry