Thucydides

Thūcȳdĭdes, is, m., = Θουκυδίδης,

• a celebrated Greek historian, Cic. Or. 9, 30 sq.; 65, 219; id. Brut. 83, 287 sq.; id. de Or. 2, 13, 56; Quint. 10, 1, 73. — Hence, Thūcȳdĭdīus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to Thucydides, Thucydidian: genus (orationis), Cic. Opt. Gen. 6, 16. — Subst. plur.: Thūcȳdĭdĭi, ŏrum, m., imitators of Thucydides, Cic. Or. 9, 30.

Thūcȳdidēs, is u. ī, m. (Θουκυδίδης), ein Athener, berühmter Feldherr und Geschichtschreiber des peloponnesischen Kriegs, Cic. or. 30. Quint. 10, 1, 73: Genet. -didī, Cic. Brut. 29 u. 288: Akk. -didēn, Plin. 7, 111: Akk. Plur., germanos se putant esse Thucydidas, Cic. or. 32. – Dav. Thūcȳdidīus, a, um, tyukydidëisch, genus, Cic. de opt. gen. 16.

Thūcȳdĭdēs, (13) ī et is, m. (Θουκυδίδης), Thucydide [célèbre historien grec] : Cic. Br. 287, etc.; Plin. 7, 111 || -dĭdīus, a, um, de Thucydide : Cic. Opt. 16 || -dĭdīī, ōrum, m. , imitateurs de Thucydide : Cic. Or. 30.

Thucydĭdes

(Θουκυδίδης). (1) An Athenian statesman, of the deme Alopecé, son of Melesias. After the death of Cimon in B.C. 449, Thucydides became the leader of the aristocratic party, which he concentrated and more thoroughly organized in opposition to Pericles. He left two sons, Melesias and Stephanus; and a son of the former of these, named Thucydides after his grandfather, was a pupil of Socrates.

(2) The great Athenian historian, the son of Olorus or Orolus and Hegesipylé. He is said to have been connected with the family of Cimon; and we know that Miltiades, the conqueror of Marathon, married Hegesipylé, the daughter of a Thracian king called Olorus, by whom she became the mother of Cimon; and it has been conjectured with much probability that the mother of Thucydides was a granddaughter of Miltiades and Hegesipylé. According to a statement of Pamphila , Thucydides was forty years of age at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War (B.C. 431), and accordingly he was born in 471. There is a story in Lucian of Herodotus having read his History at the Olympic Games to the assembled Greeks; and Suidas adds that Thucydides, then a boy, was present, and shed tears of emulation—a presage of his own future historical distinction. But this celebrated story ought probably to be rejected as a fable. Thucydides is said to have been instructed in oratory by Antiphon, and in philosophy by Anaxagoras; but whether these statements are to be received cannot be determined. It is certain, however, that, being an Athenian of a good family, and living in a city which was the centre of Greek civilization, he must have had the best possible education; that he was a man of great ability and cultivated understanding his work clearly shows. He informs us that he possessed gold-mines in that part of Thrace which is opposite to the island of Thasos, and that he was a person of the greatest influence among those in that part of Thrace. This property, according to some accounts, he had from his ancestors; according to other accounts, he married a rich woman of Scaptesyle, and received it as a portion with her. Thucydides left a son called Timotheus; and a daughter also is mentioned, who is said by some to have written the eighth book of the History of Thucydides. Thucydides (ii. 48) was one of those who suffered from the great plague of Athens, and one of the few who recovered. We have no trustworthy evidence of Thucydides having distinguished himself as an orator, though it is not unlikely that he did, for his oratorical talent is shown by the speeches that he has inserted in his history. He was, however, employed in a military capacity, and he was in command of an Athenian squadron of seven ships, at Thasus, B.C. 424, when Eucles, who commanded in Amphipolis, sent for his assistance against Brasidas, who was before that town with an army. Brasidas, fearing the arrival of a superior force, offered favourable terms to Amphipolis, which were readily accepted, for there were few Athenians in the place, and the rest did not wish to make resistance. Thucydides arrived at Eion, at the mouth of the Strymon, on the evening of the same day on which Amphipolis surrendered; and though he was too late to save Amphipolis, he prevented Eion from falling into the hands of the enemy. In consequence of this failure, Thucydides became an exile, probably to avoid a severer punishment; for Cleon, who was at this time in great favour with the Athenians, appears to have excited popular suspicion against him. There are various untrustworthy accounts as to his places of residence during his exile; but we may conclude that he could not safely reside in any place which was under Athenian dominion, and as he kept his eye on the events of the war, he must have lived in those parts which belonged to the Spartan alliance. His own words certainly imply that, during his exile, he spent much of his time either in the Peloponnesus, or in places which were under Peloponnesian influence (v. 26); and his work was the result of his own experience and observations. His minute description of Syracuse and the neighbourhood leads to the probable conclusion that he was personally acquainted with the localities; and if he visited Sicily, it is probable that he also saw some parts of southern Italy. Thucydides says that he lived twenty years in exile (v. 26), and as his exile commenced in the beginning of 423, he may have returned to Athens in the beginning of 403, about the time when Thrasybulus liberated Athens. Thucydides is said to have been assassinated at Athens soon after his return; but other accounts place his death in Thrace. There is a general agreement, however, among the ancient authorities that he came to a violent end. His death cannot be placed later than 401.

The time when he composed his work has been a matter of dispute. He informs us himself that he was busy in collecting materials all through the war from the beginning to the end (i. 22), and of course he would register them as he got them. Plutarch says that he wrote the work in Thrace; but the work in the shape in which we have it was certainly not finished until after the close of the war, and he was probably engaged upon it at the time of his death. A question has been raised as to the authorship of the eighth and last book of Thucydides, which breaks off in the middle of the twenty-first year of the war (411). It differs from all the other books in containing no speeches, and it has also been supposed to be inferior to the rest as a piece of composition. Accordingly, several ancient critics supposed that the eighth book was not by Thucydides: some attributed it to his daughter, and some to Xenophon or Theopompus, because both of them continued the history. The words with which Xenophon's Hellenica commence (μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα) may chiefly have led to the supposition that he was the author, for his work is made to appear as a continuation of that of Thucydides. But this argument is in itself of little weight; and, besides, both the style of the eighth book is different from that of Xenophon, and the manner of treating the subject, for the division of the year into summers and winters, which Thucydides has observed in his first seven books, is continued in the eighth, but is not observed by Xenophon. The rhetorical style of Theopompus, which was the characteristic of his writing, renders it also improbable that he was the author of the eighth book. It seems the simplest supposition to consider Thucydides himself as the author of this book, since he names himself as the author twice (viii. 6, 60); though it is probable that he had not the opportunity of revising it with the same care as the first seven books. It is stated by an ancient writer that Xenophon made the work of Thucydides known, which may be true, as he wrote the first two books of his Hellenica, or the part which now ends with the second book, for the purpose of completing the history. The work of Thucydides, from the commencement of the second book, is chronologically divided into winters and summers, and each summer and winter make a year (ii. 1). His summer comprises the time from the vernal to the autumnal equinox, and the winter comprises the period from the autumnal to the vernal equinox. The division into books and chapters was probably made by the Alexandrian critics. The history of the Peloponnesian War opens the second book of Thucydides, and the first is introductory to the history.

He begins his first book by observing that the Peloponnesian War was the most important event in Grecian history, which he shows by a rapid review of the history of the Greeks from the earliest period to the commencement of the war (i. 1-21). After his introductory chapters he proceeds to explain the alleged grounds and causes of the war: the real causes were, he says, the Spartan jealousy of the Athenian power. His narrative is interrupted (chs. 89-118), after he has come to the time when the Lacedaemonians resolved on war, by a digression on the rise and progress of the power of Athens; a period which had been either omitted by other writers, or treated imperfectly, and with little regard to chronology, as by Hellanicus in his Attic history (ch. 97). He resumes his narrative (ch. 119) with the negotiations that preceded the war; but this leads to another digression of some length on the treason of Pausanias (chs. 128-134), and the exile of Themistocles (chs. 135-138). He concludes the book with the speech of Pericles, who advised the Athenians to refuse the demands of the Peloponnesians; and his subject, as already observed, begins with the second book.

A history which treats of so many events, which took place at remote spots, could only be written, in the time of Thucydides, by a man who took great pains to ascertain facts by personal inquiry. In modern times facts are made known by printing as soon as they occur; and the printed records of the time, such as newspapers, are often the only evidence of many facts which become history. When we know the careless way in which facts are now reported and recorded by incompetent persons, often upon very indifferent hearsay testimony, and compare with such records the pains that Thucydides took to ascertain the chief events of a war with which he was contemporary, in which he took a share as a commander, the opportunities which his means allowed, his great abilities, and serious, earnest character, it is a fair conclusion that we have as exact a history of a long eventful period by Thucydides as we have of any period in modern times.

The work of Thucydides shows the most scrupulous care and diligence in ascertaining facts; his strict attention to chronology, and the importance that he attaches to it, are additional proof of his historical accuracy. His narrative is brief and concise to a degree which makes the thought, or the crowd of thoughts, concentrated in a short and involved sentence often hard to understand; it generally contains bare facts expressed in the fewest possible words, but this stern and apparently passionless brevity is able to produce a pathos unsurpassed by any prose-writer. This is seen most notably in his account of the Athenian catastrophe at Syracuse. Few can read it (and there are other passages almost as moving in the history) without agreeing with the opinion of Macaulay, that nothing finer has been written in prose. But it is still more important to notice that Thucydides is the founder of philosophical history. He first showed that a great historian should not merely narrate events accurately, should not even content himself with a critical examination of his authorities, but should also try to trace the causes of events, and their consequences, their teaching in politics, and the light which they throw upon character. Many of his speeches are political essays, or materials for them; they are not mere imaginations of his own for rhetorical effect; they contain in many cases the general sense of what was actually delivered as nearly as he could ascertain, and in many instances he had good opportunities of knowing what was said, for he heard some speeches delivered (i. 22); but they are employed to show the motives and sentiments of the speakers and of their partisans or countrymen.

The number of existing manuscripts of Thucydides is about fifty, the oldest being the Codex Laurentianus (Florence) of the tenth century. Among the best are the Codex Cassellanus (Cassel), dated 1252, the Codex Augustanus (formerly at Augsburg, now in Munich), the Codex Cantabrigiensis (Cambridge), the Codex Palatinus (Heidelberg) of the eleventh century, and a Codex Vaticanus of somewhat later date. A manuscript (Codex Italus) collated by Bekker at Paris in 1812 is now lost.

The standard editions of Thucydides are those of Bekker, 4 vols. (1821); Poppo, 11 vols. (1821-40); the same abridged and revised by Stahl; Goeller, 2 vols. (1836); Didot, 3 vols. (1868); Arnold, 3 vols. (last ed. 1874); Bloomfield, 2 vols. (1842-43); Krüger, 2 vols. (1846-47); Steup (1893 foll.); Böhme-Widmann (5th ed. 1882). There are a number of excellent editions of parts of the history, of which may be mentioned those of Shilleto, bks. i. and ii.; Marchant, bk. ii.; Smith, bk. iii.; Graves, bks. iv. and v.; Fowler, bk. v.; Rutherford, bk. iv.; Lamberton, bks. vi. and vii.; Holden, bk. vii.; Smith, bk. vii.; Goodheart, bk. viii. See Forbes, The Life and Method of Thucydides (1895). There is an analysis of the history by Wheeler (1880).

There is a lexicon to Thucydides by Bétant, 2 vols. (1843-47), and a complete index by Von Essen (1887). There are translations into English by Bloomfield, 2 vols. (1843-47); Dale (1848); Crawley (1874); and especially by Jowett, with an introduction, 2 vols. (1881). The speeches contained in the history are translated by Wilkins (3d ed. 1881); on which see also Jebb in Abbott's Hellenica (1880).

Thucydides Life

Birth of Thucydides c. 460

Plague at Athens, from which Thucydides suffers but recovers 430-426

Thucydides was an Athenian general in Thrace 424/3

Thucydides exiled from Athens 424/3-404

Death of Thucydides c. 400

On several occasions in the HistoryThucydides refers to himself; these references are the best surviving evidence about his life. Thucydides recalls that at the opening of the war people cited a prophecy which predicted the war would last “thrice nine years” (Thuc. 5.26.4) and he tells us that he began work on his history at the beginning of the war (Thuc. 5.26.5, Thuc. 1.1.1); this implies that he was at least a young adult in c. 431.

Thucydides informs us that the plague at Athens began at the beginning of summer in 430. (Thuc. 1.47.1 and 3). Later on he comments that the plague continued for two years unabated, then let up a bit in the summer of 428 (though never entirely dying out), only to flare up again in the winter of 427/6 for one more intense period which lasted about one year. Sometime during this period, Thucydides himself became ill with the disease, and his description, he tells us, thus draws from personal experience as well as observation (Thuc. 2.48.3).

Thuc. 4.102-108provides an overall description of the campaign which the Spartan Brasidas waged against Amphipolis, an Athenian colony in the north of Greece, and Thucydides himself emphasizes the strategic significance of this site (Thuc. 4.108.1).

Thucydides (the one “who composed this history,” the text carefully informs us) happened to be the Athenian general nearest to Amphipolis. At the time of Brasidas invasion, he was in command of forces at Thasos, an island just a half day's sailing away from Amphipolis (Thuc. 4.104.4), departed immediately with the seven ships that he happened to have with him. His intention was to secure Amphipolis, if possible, or, failing that, at least to prevent Eion, the port town a few miles down river from Amphipolis, from falling into Brasidas’ hands. Brasidas knew that Thucydides was in charge and, more importantly, that Thucydides owned a mining concession in the area and had excellent contacts among the leading citizens on the mainland (Thuc. 4.105.1). The Athenian general knew the area well, and Brasidas had to act quickly. He gained control of Amphipolis first, but Thucydides was just able to reach Eion late in the day, preventing Brasidas from seizing the town at dawn the next morning (Thuc. 4.106.3-4). Brasidas did make an attempt on Eion, but was beaten back and the situation stabilized (Thuc. 4.107.2).

Because he had failed to save Amphipolis, Thucydides spent the rest of the war in exile, a period of twenty years (Thuc. 5.26.5). He thus had the opportunity to meet with people of both sides, Peloponnesians no less than Athenians, and could investigate matters “at his leisure” (καθ' ἡσυχίαν). Thucydides’ unsuccessful campaign plays a key role in our analysis of his career, not simply because it informs us roughly when and why he went into exile. If Thucydides was a general in 424/3, then he must have been at least 30 years old at the time, and scholarship traditionally dates his birth to c. 460 BC.

Paus. 1.23.9mentions that a certain Oinobios successfully pushed a decree through the Athenian assembly which allowed Thucydides to return home from exile after the war was over. In the same passage, Pausanias also claims that Thucydides was treacherously murdered on his way home. Whether or not we believe this story, Thucydides did live past the end of the war, but he did not live to complete his history. Thuc. 5.26contains the so-called “second preface,” in which Thucydides introduces the second phase of the Peloponnesian War. In this passage, Thucydides states that the war as a whole lasted twenty-seven years and he thus was clearly writing after the war had ended (404). Earlier in the history, Thucydides defends the strategic vision of the statesman Pericles (Thuc. 2.65), and at the conclusion of this passage he points out how difficult it proved for Sparta and its allies to prevail in the end Thuc. 2.65.12-13. Some have seen Thuc. 2.100.2as a kind of epitaph summing up the career of the Macedonian king Archelaus, and, if true, this would indicate that Thucydides was still alive in 399 when Archelaus died.

A recently published inscription, dated to 397, mentions someone named Lichas. If this is the same Lichas whose death is mentioned at Thuc. 8.84.5, then Thucydides must still have been working in 397 ([Pouilloux, 1983]), but relatively few scholars are convinced that the Lichas in the inscription is the same as the Lichas in Thucydides (e.g., [Hornblower, 1987] 151). Most still assume that he died sometime around 400 B.C.

Thucydides’ Family

Thucydides thus came from one of the leading families of Athens, with long standing connections to the leading families of Thrace as well as access to considerable sources of wealth in this area. He was thus clearly familiar not only with others from all factions of the Greek world, but with non-Greeks in Thrace and doubtless elsewhere as well. His background was thus elite and cosmopolitan.

Thucydides’ father was named Olorus, a Thracian name and thus very odd for a Greek. He was thought in antiquity to belong to the same family as Cimon (Plut. Cimon 4.1-2; Paus. 1.23.9; see also Marcellinus, Life of Thucydides16-17), and his tomb was among those of Cimon's family, and very near to that of Elpinice, Cimon's sister. The inscription relates that he was of the deme Halimous. While there is some question as to the precise family tree, Thucydides’ great-great grandfather was a Thracian king named Olorus (whence the name entered the family). Where the Athenians as a whole prided themselves on their ethnic homogeneity-they had sprung from the soil itself-Thucydides’ family based its identity on connections with those who were not just non-Athenian, but non-Greek as well. Both his family and his subsequent exile made Thucydides both an Athenian and an outsider, and this surely affected his outlook and his actions as he composed his history.

Even within Athens, his family connections are significant and place the history in a particular light. The Thracian king Olorus’ daughter Hegesipyle married Miltiades, the victorious general at Marathon. Cimon, the leading figure at Athens after the Persian War, was Miltiades’ son, while Thucydides was Miltiades’ great-grandson. Thus, Cimon was Thucydides great uncle-an important point, since the Athenian statesman Pericles was Cimon's enemy and helped drive him from Athens. Finally, another Thucydides, the son of Melesias, succeeded Cimon to the leadership of conservative forces in Athens and was an opponent of Pericles until he was ostracized in 443 B.C. The name Thucydides is not a common one, and at least one scholar has tried to work Thucydides the son of Melesias into the family tree of Thucydides the son of Olorus(for two family trees for Thucydides, see [Rusten, 1989] 2). To the extent that Thucyides supported a populist Pericles, he was turning his back not only on the interests of his own elite background, but he was supporting someone who had attacked the most prominent members of his family.

Surviving Works

Work begins on the History c. 431

Work ceases on the unfinished the History c. 400

importance and Influence of Thucydides prose as an emerging medium

When Thucydides composed his history, prose literature was a relatively new medium. Most of his contemporaries looked to poetry as the dominant mode of expression. Children learned large stretches of the Iliadand Odysseyby heart, and well-educated Greeks grew up citing passages from Homer and other poets wherever possible. Even recent poets such as Simonides and Pindar had enormous prestige. At Plat. Prot. 339a, for example, the fifth century intellectual Protagoras is portrayed arguing that an understanding of poetry is the basis of education. The discussion which follows illustrates how, in this view, the moral judgments inscribed in famous poems are the basis for the moral evaluation which people should make in their daily life.

thucydides and Homer

Thucydides was not the first author to contrast his own truthful account with the distortions of Homer, and such a critique of Homer had already appeared in poetry (see, for example, the lyric poet Pindar's comments on Ajax and Odysseus at Pind. N. 7.20-21). Nevertheless, Thucydides dedicates himself to a level of accuracy far greater than the looser genre of poetry. He claims to make his points without distortion or exaggeration.

On several occasions, Thucydides distinguishes his work from that of the poets, especially Homer. He opens his work with a summary of Greek history that portrays the heroic period as a weak and violent time, vastly overrated (Thuc. 1.2-21). Thucydides argues that the Greece of his day is far more powerful and important than it ever was before (Thuc. 1.1). Where the lyric poet Bacchylides (Bacch. 3portrays the mythical Cretan king Minos as an evil tyrant who oppresses the Greeks, Thucydides claims that he brought order and prosperity to a Greek world in which piracy had heretofore flourished (Thuc. 1.4). The Greeks of the heroic period were so backward that they exhibited no shame or horror at the prospect that someone newly-met was a pirate (Thuc. 1.5.2). Thucydides refers to “the poets of antiquity” (οἱ παλαιοὶ τῶν ποιητῶν), and he certainly had Homer specifically in mind (see, for example, the four line formula which reappears at Hom. Od. 3.71-74, Hom.Od. 9.252-255, and HApol. 452-455). He has no great faith in the accounts of events as they appear in Homer, and openly raises the question of how far one could trust the epic poet (Thuc. 1.9.3, Thuc. 1.10.3). When the statesman Pericles boasts that Athens will not in future generations need some poet like Homer to exaggerate its achievements Thuc. 2.41.4, the history in which this statement appears is itself intended to prove Pericles’ point.

thucydides and other prose works

Thucydides was not the first person to compose prose history. He explicitly criticizes his contemporary Hellanicus at Thuc. 1.97.2. He almost certainly has Herodotus at least generally in mind when, in a famous passage, he contrasts his history from that composed by others. He went to great pains to verify his sources, carefully weeding out the inconsistencies which memory or partiality caused (1.22.3). The audience may, Thucydides observes, find his work less pleasant (1.22.4: ἀτερπέστερον) because it is not not full of elaborate stories (τὸ μὴ μυθῶδες αὐτῶν). But whoever looks to history for typical events which will find parallels in the future, Thucydides asserts, will be able to determine that his work is quite useful (ὠφέλιμα κρίνειν αὐτὰ ἀρκούντως ἕξει). Thucydides composed his history as a possession to be kept for all time rather than a piece to win a particular competition (κτῆμα ἐς αἰεὶ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα). The cool precision of his work may cost Thucydides something in terms of his immediate popularity, but the accuracy and reliability of his account will give his work far more value in the long run.

impact of Thucydides' History

If Thucydides had Herodotus specifically in mind at Thuc. 1.22.4), his expectations were only half true. Herodotus’ history did not vanish, but came to occupy a secure role in the canon of Greek historians. Thucydides himself, however, not only acquired enormous prestige over the centuries, but his work quickly established itself as a classic. Thucydides’ history breaks off unexpectedly (in mid-sentence!) while describing events the summer of 411. Xenophon, who was about thirty years younger than Thucydides, wrote a history which continued Thucydides. Xenophon did not even compose an introduction to his history. He not only opens his own history Xen. Hell. 1.1.1, at the precise point at which Thucydides’ narrative breaks off, but the very first words of his work are “after these things,” (μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα). Xenophon foreswore adding an introduction to his own history, and his abrupt leap into the change of events described by Thucydides reflects the authority which Xenophon attributed to it. At least two other historians, Cratippus and Theopompos of Chios, wrote histories likewise designed to begin where Thucydides left off. Already in the fourth century, Thucydides’ Historyoccupied a commanding position in the eyes of those who wrote about Greek affairs.

Thucydides' criteria for historical importance

Thucydides justifies his history in terms similar to those which Herodotus adduces at the beginning of his history. Herodotus’ history will prevent the memory of great and marvelous events from growing dim (Hdt. 1.0). Thucydides argues that the events which he will relate command attention because they are the greatest in the history of the Greek peoples (e.g. Thuc. 1.1, Thuc. 1.23). Where Herodotus briefly compares the magnitude of Xerxes’ invasion with the Trojan War and other major events (Hdt. 7.20), Thucydides devotes the opening of his history to illustrating how much greater the Peloponnesian War was than any previous historical event in the Greek world (Thuc. 1.2-21). In this regard, Thucydides accepts traditional categories in which the magnitude of events determine their importance.

Thucydides' method

Methodologically, however, Thucydides seeks to draw a sharp distinction between his work and that of his predecessors. At Thuc. 1.22.2-3, he describes the care which he took in ascertaining he truth about what happened (τὰ ἔργα τῶν πραχθέντων). He sought out the best possible sources, not relying simply on the first informant he met nor even on his own limited perspective on events in which he personally participated. This research required a great deal of effort (ἐπιπόνως δὲ ηὑρίσκετο), because different people said contradictory things about the same events, whether for personal reasons or because their memories played tricks on them.

Thucydides contrasts the manner in which he records events (ἔργα) and things spoken (λόγοι). Thucydides, however, had no transcripts of the debates and speeches discussing crucial decisions during the Peloponnesian War. Nevertheless, these speeches were themselves events and readers needed, in Thucydides’ view, a clear idea of what was said if they were to understand why events took place as they did. Thucydides thus offers a compromise. In a sentence that has been much disputed by modern scholarship, Thucydides explains that he will give the best possible reconstruction of speeches, “keeping as close as possible to the overall idea of what was in fact said,” (Thuc. 1.22.1: ἐχομένῳ ὅτι ἐγγύτατα τῆς ξυμπάσης γνώμης τῶν ἀληθῶς λεχθέντων). While many scholars have offered varying interpretations of this section, Thucydides seems to promise that while the speeches recorded in his history are not faithful copies of what was spoken (in the way that the text in a reader's hand strives to be an accurately transcribed copy of Thucydides’ history) but are the best possible reconstructions of speeches which did in fact take place.

Thucydides' work has perplexed many modern readers. On the one hand, it aims at a level of precision unparalleled in previous historians: when Thucydides says how many troops were engaged or who was in charge or where they went or when a battle took place, he claims to offer the best possible data. And yet, he openly fills out the speeches with his own reconstructions of what must have been said. Thucydides includes these semi-fictionalized speeches because they give his readers a clearer and more insightful view of why things happened than would be possible without them. Nevertheless, the speeches violate the canons of documentary accuracy now in force. It should, however, be recalled that Thucydides had nothing remotely comparable to the infrastructure or records and archives on which modern academic historians base their work. Thucydides did not simply produce an excellent history of a particular war. He transformed the conception of what history was and could be as thoroughly as anyone who has ever attempted to analyze human events.

For discussions of what we know about Thucydides’ life and career, see [Lesky, 1966] 455-481, [Easterling, 1985] 441-456, 784-786. [Rusten, 1989] 1-28 gives an excellent introduction into Thucydides’ style as well.

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• son of Olorus, recalled from banishment by means of Oenobius: Paus. 1.23.9
• murdered: Paus. 1.23.9
• his tomb near Melitian Gate of Athens: Paus. 1.23.9
• passage of his history referred to: Paus. 6.19.5