The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War ed. by Robert B. Strassler (review)

33° BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES REN DUS Hence a better understandin g of the costs and benefits of pedago gic pederasty might be possible if literary scholars contri bute more to the debate. e.g.. th rou gh a more detailed interpretation of the attitudes and values implied in the sources- wh ich would also. incident ally. require a more sensitive scr utiny of their lan gu age than Percy shows (or. in fairness. perhaps needs for his historical essay) . For example. Per cy translat es katapygon as br oad-assed, ap parently confusing it with euryproktos. jeffrey Hend erson 's findings (The Maculate Muse [1991] 2 10) suggest that the differen ce. in some contexts. could be important. (A Gre ek equ ivalent of Adam s' The Latin Sexual Vocabulery would certainly help.) In the curren t political climate. wh en even ga y activists eschew any association with pedera sty. it is courageous to maintain not onl y that sexual relationships are compatible with education. but that this kind of education played a critical ro le in the West' s cultural awakening. Yet eve n Percy's book shows tha t pro gress towa rd a prop er understanding of Gre ek sexuality has still only begun. j AMESjOPE P.O. Bo x 7 008 4 OTTAWA.ONTAI\ IO K2P 2M3 R OBERT B. STRASSLER, ed, The Lendmsrk Thucydidcs: A Comprehensive Guide to the Pclopo nncsian War. Introduction by Victor Davis Ha nson. New York: The Free Press, 1996. Pp. xxxiii + 71I. Cloth . US $45.00 . Cdn. $60.00. ISBN 0-684828 15-4. When Richard Crawley published his tr anslati on of Thucydides' History some 12 0 years ago. he star ted his Intr oduction with these charming words: "I began th is tr anslation whe n I wa s still alm ost a schoolboy. ver'y mu ch in love with my aut hor, and sufficiently simple to thin k that a ll the world mu st be eager' to read 'Thucydides'. The publicat ion of the first book very quickly conv inced me of my er ror : nobody took the least notice of my labour's. and I had not even the satisfaction of hea rin g them abu sed. Althoug h not a little discouraged by this indiffer ence. I nevertheless translat ed the second book some time afterwar ds. being now actuated . not by any idea of fame 01 ' usef ulness. but merely by an ins tinctive wish to finish wh at I had once begun. In the course of the year' r873 I complete d the re maining six books. and now offe r' the whole wor k to the publi c in the hope that it may meet with the atte ntion whi ch a Iragment failed to obtain ." BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTb-:JRENDUS 33 1 Wh en I fir st saw The Landmark Thucydidcs I wondered wh ose attention it so ught. since it has all the appearance of a college textbook. It see ms, how ever. from the publisher's prom oti onal literature that the boo k had been ad opted prior to publication as a main selection by th e History Book Club and as an alt ern ate selec tion by th e Book of th e Month Club. and thi s ma y have been th e int ended market . Th e back of th e du st jacket carries ad van ce pr aise fr om emine nt ed ucators . amo ng th em Thu cydid ean scholars of th e stature of Donald Kagan and W. Robert Co nno r . In fact. thi s book is an annotat ed re issue of Crawley 's translatio n. acco mpanied by appendices commissioned fr om va r ious scholars. I have no quarrel with Donald Kagan 's assertion that Crawley's is "the finest English tran slation ." but I wond er wh y the edito r found it necessary to tamper with it so much. Briti sh spe llings are change d to Ame ri can. Cr awley's "Victorian English usag es " ha ve been "updated ," and his "outdated punctuati on " (whatever' that mean s) has...