Western literature/week17

A. The war

	Peloponnesian war was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese and attempt to suppress signs of unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese.
	The Archidamian War is the name of the first part of the Peloponnesian War (431-404), the great conflict between Athens and Sparta. It is called after the Spartan king Archidamus II. This war started in 431 and ended in 421 with something that came close to an Athenian victory and a Spartan defeat. However, Athenian diplomatic mistakes, Spartan intransigence, and a catastrophic Athenian attempt to conquer the island of Sicily were enough to change the balance of power, so that Sparta got a second chance: the Decelean or Ionian War.
	Decelean War or Ionian War: name of the last part of the Peloponnesian War (431-404). The first phase, the Archidamian War, had ended in 421 with something that came close to an Athenian victory. However, Athenian diplomatic mistakes, Spartan intransigence, and a disastrous Athenian attempt to conquer the island of Sicily changed the balance of power. After this entr'acte, the Spartans declared war again in 413 and occupied the town of Decelea near Athens; with Persian money, they built a navy and provoked revolutions in Athens' possessions in Ionia. In 404, Athens surrendered..

B. Leonardo da Vinci

	Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci, was an Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography.
	The Virgin of the Rocks (sometimes the Madonna of the Rocks) is the name used for two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, and of a composition which is identical except for several significant details. The version generally considered the prime version, that is the earlier of the two, hangs in The Louvre in Paris and the other in the National Gallery, London. The paintings are both nearly 2 metres (over 6 feet) high and are painted in oils. Both were painted on wooden panel; that in the Louvre has been transferred to canvas.
	The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is an oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicting St Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb symbolizing his Passion as the Virgin tries to restrain him. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo.

C. Noah and the flood

D. Others

Lysistrata

Lysistrata is a comedy by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes.