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Book Chapter

Nature and natural phenomena in Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War: physis and kinesis as factors of political disturbance

  • Martinho Soares

Thucydides’ attention to natural phenomena, such as the plague, volcanoes, earthquakes, eclipses and floods, is well known. These are uncontrollable events that typically cause enormous environmental, political and military disturbance, further heightening the unpredictability and destructiveness of a war that, from the outset, is characterised as a great movement (kinesis megiste). But it is not only catastrophic natural phenomena that pique the Athenian historian’s interest. As we aim to demonstrate in this study, nature and natural phenomena impose themselves as active forces that are superior to man, interfering in the Peloponnesian War with significant political consequences. On the other hand, the bellicose actions of man impose themselves upon nature with grave environmental costs.

  • Keywords:
  • Thucydides,
  • environment,
  • war,
  • nature,
  • ecocriticism,
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Martinho Soares

University of Coimbra, Portugal - ORCID: 0000-0001-8153-2014

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  • Publication Year: 2022
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  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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  • Publication Year: 2022
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Nature and natural phenomena in Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War: physis and kinesis as factors of political disturbance

Authors

Martinho Soares

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-612-4.05

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Crises (Staseis) and Changes (Metabolai)

Book Subtitle

Athenian Democracy in the Making

Editors

Breno Battistin Sebastiani, Delfim Ferreira Leão

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

140

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-612-4

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-611-7

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-612-4

eISBN (epub)

978-88-5518-613-1

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-614-8

Series Title

Studi e saggi

Series ISSN

2704-6478

Series E-ISSN

2704-5919

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