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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why is Book One considered difficult to read?
(a) Book One assumes that the reader will know information not available to modern readers.
(b) There is some evidence that someone other than Thucydides wrote this section.
(c) It has many obscure references that cannot be corroberated.
(d) It is organized along thematic lines rather than being chronological.

2. What are the dates of the Peloponnesian War ?
(a) 431 to 404 BC
(b) 190 BC to 25 AD
(c) 380 to 45 BC
(d) 525 to 480 BC

3. What Athenian general becomes successful in 425 BC?
(a) Demosthenes leads Athenian troops and allies to victory over a combined Peloponnesian and Ambraciot army
(b) Sophocles defeates the Spartans in Attica.
(c) Alcibiades leads many successful raids into the Peloponesian isthmus.
(d) Androclese uses lions to put fear in the Spartan soldiers.

4. In 424 BC, how does Sparta change its military methods?
(a) They formalize defensive units of archers and cavalry.
(b) They become more proficient sailors.
(c) They invent the catapult.
(d) They add extra soldiers to their infantry.

5. Book One concludes in the winter before hostilities erupt. What date is given by modern scholars for this time?
(a) 421/420 BC
(b) 398/397 BC
(c) 410/409 BC
(d) 432/431 BC

6. Why does Thucydides say that Sparta chose to go to war against Athens?
(a) Because of Athens' great political power at the time.
(b) Because Spartan soldiers need war to stay in shape.
(c) Because Athens refuses to join the Peloponnesian League.
(d) Because Athens is interfering in Spartan politics.

7. What natural phenomenon affects the war at the same time as a failed peace envoy to Sparta?
(a) An earthquake brings down much of Athens' walls.
(b) Cyclones sweep across the eastern side of Greece.
(c) The plague appears in Lesbos, then Athens, and then Potidaea.
(d) A tsunami causes widespread destruction in the Peloponnesian isthmus.

8. Why is the Theban attack able to precipitate the war?
(a) Athens and Sparta both embrace the Theban attack as the justification for, and opportunity toward, a greater conflict.
(b) There is a serious debate over which league would be allied to Thebes.
(c) False information has Thebes invading Athens.
(d) It threatenes to weaken the Spartan strength and made immediate war necessary.

9. What distant event at this time would later prove important in the Peloponnesian War?
(a) Sparta invades Syracuse.
(b) Syracuse invades Messana.
(c) Sicily and Syracuse sign a defense pact.
(d) Sicily invades Sparta.

10. Who is the first Athenian to suggest fortifying Pylos?
(a) Nicias
(b) Cleon
(c) Demosthenes
(d) Brasidas

11. Who prevents the Athenian army from marching out to meet the Spartans?
(a) Thucydides
(b) Socrates
(c) Androclese
(d) Pericles

12. What happens to the annual raids on Attica in 426 BC?
(a) They are postponed because of a lingering winter.
(b) The Peloponnesian army is prevented from ravaging Attica by a series of earthquakes.
(c) The Spartans decide to try something else.
(d) Athens is ready for Sparta at the Attica border.

13. What is Thucydides' conclusion about the ravages of the war?
(a) It is dehumanizing.
(b) It is misrepresented on both sides.
(c) It is something to be glorified.
(d) It is tempered on both sides by benevolence.

14. What is Athens doing toward the end of the 526 BC campaign?
(a) Athens is adding to its already sizable fleet.
(b) Athens is reenforcing its position in Attica.
(c) Athens is sending out envoys to even more surrounding states.
(d) Much of the latter campaign season is consumed by Athenian attacks upon Aetolia.

15. What is detailed in Book Two?
(a) The biographies of important individuals ca. 421 BC
(b) The formula Thucydides uses for writing the remainer of the history
(c) A complex layout of the geography of the day
(d) The beginning history of the Peloponesian War

Short Answer Questions

1. In the early days of the war, which power seems to have the upper hand?

2. Where is the initial confrontation between Sparta and the Athenians?

3. When the annual siege of Attica begins in 427 BC, what naval move does Sparta make?

4. From Thucydides' analysis, who of the Mytilene population actually wants to break away from the Delian League?

5. Why is Athens in a superior position at the start of the war?

(see the answer keys)

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