I noticed a few small things in the larger Isocrates piece.  At the start he mentioned a Spartan colony that was much better placed than the Athenian colony that Athens was warring with Macedonia over.  I just thought this was odd because by the context of it, it seemed like this was a recent settlement.  What struck me about that was that I'm pretty sure this was when Sparta was essentially at the peak of its demographic crisis.  It just doesn't seem like the best time to send some of your already few citizens to found another city. 

Also I thought it was strange that I don't remember seeing Corinth mentioned at all in that document.  I generally think of Corinth before I think of the Argives, but they are mentioned all over the place, while Corinth is as far as I can remember completely ignored. I just thought that was odd.

Athletic Competitions after the Colchian Victory

Something that struck me as a little odd were the games that the Greeks hosted after their victory against the Colchians. They are still in hostile territory and are by no means safely home yet they chose to host mini Olympic games. Religion seems to be an important factor to Xenophon and the army continuously sacrifices to the gods before and after battles to win their favor. Were these games done to gain the gods' favor or was this more of a "bread and circus" situation?

Ancient Liberty

I just reread Benjamin Constant's claim that the ancients had a very different view of liberty. So as I read through the first half of the Anabasis, I had that in the back of my mind. It was interesting to see it in action. (Especially considering Constant sights Xenophon as a source several times.) Two things stood out more than anything. When the generals consulted the army to decide what to do, but that that group decision still seemed binding on the members. There are also a few points where they are talking about themselves as free men. Through Constant's analysis this just means they have a right to participate in governance. They are not slaves because they have some small say in their fates, even if they as individuals have almost no rights.

Cyrus Conpliments the Greeks

One of the more curious episodes that caught my eye in the Anabasis was how Cyrus was so generous with his compliments towards the Greeks. I was under the impression that given the history between the Greeks abd the Persians that Cyrus would be semi-hostile toward them, viewing them only as a necessary evil in his quest to overthrow his brother. Yet in I.7, he claims that he values them above all of his barbarian forces because he believes that they are braver and more valuable to him than the others. Was this a normal occurance? That is, was it ordinary for a rival culture to pay such high compliments? Or was this metely Cyrus appealing to the Greeks because he needed their support?

Lack of Communication/Assumptions Lead to War

Aside from the disastrous and questionable Syracuse Expedition, something that caught my eye was how the fragile peace that was the Fifty Year Peace came to an abrupt end because of the assumption of several city-states (not to mention their lack of communication). Sure the Spartans kind of messed up by not being able to immediately meet their side of the peace treaty, and sure they panicked and rushed into an alliance with Boeotia(who are just really really crappy people), but wow do things spiral out of control really fast. Then the Argives assumed it was about to go down and just sent things into a spiral. However, it seems like this always happens. Look at World War I. Or the Cold War. Look at how assumptions and lack of communication turned both those conflicts deadly (and in the case of the Cold War, nearly thermonuclear). Is this just human nature?

Why did Athens care so much about Sicily?

It seems like Athens was pouring resources into a war in Sicily that was far from a guaranteed win.  (I believe Thucydides said they sent 80 ships to it.)  At first glance this just seemed stupid to me.  Why, when you are already fighting a multiple front war and you know that you may have to start fighting on several more fronts very soon, would you add another front.  The humanitarian cause of helping one of your colonies that isn't even that integrated into your empire might make sense in peace time, but it clearly doesn't make sense when you fighting Corinth and other states in main land Greece.  The idea of expanding the empire was the only thing that made sense to me, but there are much better times to expand your empire especially when you have to maintain a long sea based supply line passing by waters right by states you are warring against.  This still didn't make sense to me, then I remembered Rome's servile wars.  The first two were both in Sicily.  They were put down fairly easily, but I'm pretty sure they were important for 2 reasons: 1) Rome doesn't want the slave revolt expanding as it ended up doing in the 3rd servile war and 2) I'm pretty sure Sicily was a major grain producer.  Rome (the city and empire) was essentially dependent upon Sicily and Northern Africa (including Egypt) for its massive grain consumption.  I think that Athens wanted to secure a grain supply that was independent of mainland Greece and wasn't going to be easily tampered with by the Persians who controlled Egypt and could have cut off any grain supply from the black sea region by conquering the land on both sides of either of straits going into the black sea.  The only remaining grain sources were Sicily and the land around Carthage.  It couldn't take Carthage and Carthage could probably charge through the roof for its grain when trading with Athens.  That just left Sicily.  That is the only reason I can think of for why they devote so much of its resources to fighting in Sicily when they weren't entirely secure in mainland Greece.

Something that I found interesting in the reading was the interaction between diplomats and the opposing countries. The fact that the Spartan King complained that he could not get the same answer out of two Athenian diplomats. Or the fact that when the Spartan diplomats attempted to negotiate a peace treaty in private, Cleon berated them for not wanting to negotiate in front of the entire Athenian Assembly. We started to talk about it last time we met, how because of the lack of instant communication at the time that diplomats wielded significantly more power and authority than they do today, and I think that both of these examples signifies that.