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THUCYDIDES (OovavMns)
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See also:THUCYDIDES (OovavMns) , Athenian historian. Materials for his See also:biography are scanty, and the facts are of See also:interest chiefly as See also:aids to the appreciation of his See also:life's labour, the See also:History of the Peloponnesian See also:War. The older view that he was probably See also:born in or about 471 B.C., is based on a passage of Aulus See also:Gellius, who says that in 431 See also:Hellanicus " seems to have been" sixty-five years of See also:age, See also:Herodotus fifty-three and Thucydides See also:forty (Noct. all. xv. 23). The authority for this statement was Pamphila, a woman of See also:Greek extraction, who compiled See also:biographical and See also:historical notices in the reign of See also:Nero. The value of her testimony is, however, negligible, and See also:modern See also:criticism inclines to a later date, about 46o' (see Busolt, Gr. Gesch. iii., pt. 2, p. 621). Thucydides' See also:father Olorus, a See also:citizen of See also:Athens, belonged to a See also:family which derived See also:wealth and See also:influence from the See also:possession of See also:gold-mines at Scapte Hyle, on the Thracian See also:coast opposite See also:Thasos, and was a relative of his See also:elder namesake, the Thracian See also:prince, whose daughter Hegesipyle married the See also:great See also:Miltiades, so that See also:Cimon, son of Miltiades, was possibly a connexion of Thucydides (see Busolt, ibid., p. 618). It was in the vault of the Cimonian family at Athens, and near the remains of Cimon's See also:sister Elpinice, that See also:Plutarch saw the See also:grave of Thucydides. Thus the See also:fortune of See also:birth secured three See also:signal advantages to the future historian: he was See also:rich; he had two homes—one at Athens, the other in See also:Thrace—no small aid to a comprehensive study of the conditions under which the Peloponnesian War was waged; and his family connexions were likely to bring him from his See also:early years into See also:personal intercourse with the men who were shaping the history of his See also:time. The development of Athens during the See also:middle of the 5th See also:century was, in itself, the best See also:education which such a mind as that of Thucydides could have received. The expansion and consolidation of Athenian See also:power was completed, and the inner resources of the See also:city were being applied to the embellishment and ennoblement of Athenian life (see CIMON; See also:PERICLES). Yet the History tells us nothing of the literature, the See also:art or the social life under whose influences its author had grown up. The " Funeral Oration " contains, indeed, his See also:general testimony to the value and the See also:charm of those influences. But he leaves us to See also:supply all examples and details for ourselves. Beyond a passing reference to public " festivals," and to " beautiful surroundings in private life," he makes no See also:attempt to define those " recreations for the spirit" which the Athenian See also:genius had provided in such abundance. He alludes to the newly-built See also:Parthenon only as containing the See also:treasury; to the statue of See also:Athena Parthenos which it enshrined, only on See also:account of the gold which, at extreme need, could be detached from the See also:image; to the See also:Propylaea and other buildings with which Athens had been adorned under Pericles, only as See also:works which had reduced the surplus of funds available for the war. He makes no reference to See also:Aeschylus, See also:Sophocles, See also:Euripides, See also:Aristophanes; the architect See also:Ictinus; the sculptor See also:Pheidias; the physician See also:Hippo-See also:crates; the philosophers Anaxagoras and See also:Socrates. Herodotus, if he had dealt with this See also:period, would have found countless occasions for invaluable digressions on men and See also:manners, on letters and art; and we might almost be tempted to ask whether his more genial, if laxer, method does not indeed correspond better with a liberal conception of the historian's See also:office. No one can do full See also:justice to Thucydides, or appreciate the true completeness of his See also:work, who has not faced this question, and found the See also:answer to it. It would be a hasty See also:judgment which inferred from the omis- ' See also:Christ (Gesch. der griech. Litt.) gives the date of birth as " about 455."sions of the History that its author's interests were exclusively See also:political. Thucydides was not See also:writing the history of a period. His subject was an event—the Peloponnesian War—a war, as he believed, of unequalled importance, alike in its See also:direct results and in its political significance for all time. To his task, thus defined, he brought an intense concentration of all his faculties. He worked with a See also:constant See also:desire to make each successive incident of the war as clear as possible. To take only two instances: there is nothing in literature more graphic than his description of the See also:plague at Athens, or than the whole narrative of the Sicilian expedition. But the same See also:temper made him resolute in excluding irrelevant topics. The social life of the time, the literature and the art did not belong to his subject. The biography which bears the name of See also:Marcellinus states that Thucydides was the See also:disciple of Anaxagoras in See also:philosophy and of See also:Antiphon in See also:rhetoric. There is no See also:evidence to confirm this tradition. But Thucydides and Antiphon at least belong to the same rhetorical school and represent the same early See also:stage of See also:Attic See also:prose. Both writers used words of an See also:antique or decidedly poetical See also:cast; both point verbal contrasts by insisting on the precise difference between terms of similar import; and both use metaphors somewhat bolder than were congenial to Greek prose in its riper age. The See also:differences, on the other See also:hand, between the See also:style of Thucydides and that of Antiphon arise chiefly from two general causes. First, Antiphon wrote for hearers, Thucydides for readers; the latter, consequently, can use a degree of condensation and a freedom in the arrangement of words which would have been hardly possible for the former. Again, the thought of Thucydides is often more complex than any which Antiphon undertook to interpret; and the greater intricacy of the historian's style exhibits the endeavour to See also:express each thought.2 Few things in the history of See also:literary prose are more interesting than to See also:watch that vigorous mind in its struggle to See also:mould a See also:language of magnificent but immature capabilities. The obscurity with which Thucydides has sometimes been reproached often arises from the very clearness with which a complex See also:idea is See also:present to his mind, and his strenuous effort to present it in its entirety. He never sacrifices thought to language, but he will sometimes See also:sacrifice language to thought. A student may always be consoled by the reflection that he is not engaged in unravelling a See also:mere rhetorical tangle. Every See also:light on the sense will be a light on the words; and when, as is not seldom the See also:case, Thucydides comes victoriously out of this struggle of thought and language, having achieved perfect expression of his meaning in a sufficiently lucid See also:form, then his style rises into an intellectual brilliancy—thoroughly manly, and also penetrated with intense feeling—which nothing in Greek prose literature surpasses. The uncertainty as to the date of Thucydides' birth renders futile any discussion of the fact that before 431 he took no prominent See also:part in Athenian politics. If he was born in 455, the fact needs no explanation; if in 471, it is possible that his opportunities were modified by the See also:necessity of frequent visits to Thrace, where the management of such an important See also:property as the gold-mines must have claimed his presence. The manner in which he refers to his personal influence in that region is such as to suggest that he had sometimes resided there (iv. 105, I). He was at Athens in the See also:spring of 430, when the plague See also:broke out. If his account of the symptoms has See also:net enabled physicians to agree on a diagnosis of the malady, it is at least singularly full and vivid. He had himself been attacked by the plague; and, as he briefly adds, " he had seen others suffer." The See also:tenor of his narrative would See also:warrant the inference that he had been one of a few who were active in ministering to the sufferers.
The turning-point in the life of Thucydides came in the See also:winter of 424. He was then forty seven (or, according to Busolt, about See also:thirty-six), and for the first time he is found holding an See also:official position. He was one of two generals entrusted with the command of the regions towards Thrace (ra Elri Opp,Kos), a phrase which denotes the whole Thracian seaboard from See also:Macedonia
2 See See also:Jebb's Attic Orators, i. 35.
THUCYDIDES
or meditating such See also:action. Nor was the See also:movement confined within even the widest limits of Hellas; the " See also:barbarian "See also:world also was affected by it—the non-Hellenic populations of Thrace, Macedonia, See also:Epirus, See also:Sicily and, finally, the See also:Persian See also:kingdom itself. The aim of Thucydides was to preserve an accurate See also:record of this war, not only in view of the See also:intrinsic interest and importance of the facts, but also in See also:order that these facts might be permanent See also:sources of political teaching to posterity. His See also:hope was, as he says, that his History would be found profitable by " those who desire an exact knowledge of the past as a See also: Thucydides stands alone among the men of his own days, and has no See also:superior of any age, in the width of See also:mental grasp which could seize the general significance of particular events. The political education of mankind began in See also:Greece, and in the time of Thucydides their political life was still See also:young. Thucydides knew only the small city-See also:commonwealth on the one hand, and on the other the vast barbaric kingdom; and yet, as has been well said of him, " there is hardly a problem in the See also:science of See also:government which the statesman will not find, if not solved, at any See also:rate handled, in the pages of this universal See also:master." 1 Such being the spirit in which he approached his task, it is interesting to inquire what were the points which he himself considered to be distinctive in his method of executing it. His Predebeen, Greek predecessors in the recording of events had been, he conceived, of two classes. First, there were cessors. the epic poets, with See also:Homer at their See also:head, whose characteristic tendency, in the eyes of Thucydides, is to exaggerate the greatness or splendour of things past. Secondly, there were the Ionian prose writers whom he calls " chroniclers " (see See also:LOGOGRAPHI), whose general See also:object was to diffuse a knowledge of legends preserved by oral tradition and of written documents—usually lists of officials or genealogies—preserved in public archives; and they published their materials as they found them, without criticism. Thucydides describes their work by the word Evvrt%vat, but his own by ti yypa¢ew—the difference between the terms answering to that between compilation of a somewhat See also:mechanical See also:kind and historical See also:composition in a higher sense. The See also:vice of the " chroniclers," in his view, is that they cared only for popularity, and took no pains to make their narratives trustworthy. Herodotus was presumably regarded by him as in the same general See also:category. In contrast with these predecessors Thucydides has subjected his materials to the most searching See also:scrutiny. The ruling principle of his work has been strict adherence to carefully Distindlve verified facts. As to the deeds done in the war, Aim of I have not thought myself at See also:liberty to record them on Thucydides. hearsay from the first informant or on arbitrary See also:con- jecture. My account rests either on personal knowledge or on the closest possible scrutiny of each statement made by others. The See also:process of See also:research was laborious, because conflicting accounts were given by those who had witnessed the several events, as partiality swayed or memory served them." It might be supposed that the speeches which Thucydides has introduced into his History conflict with this See also:standard of scientific accuracy; it is, therefore, well to consider their nature The and purpose rather closely. The speeches constitute Speeches. between a See also:fourth and a fifth part of the History. If they were eliminated, an admirable narrative would indeed remain, with a few comments, usually brief, on the more striking characters and events. But we should lose all the most vivid light on the inner workings of the Greek political mind, on the motives of the actors and the arguments which they used—in a word, on the whole See also:play of contemporary feeling and See also:opinion. To the speeches is due in no small measure the imperishable intellectual interest of the History, since it is chiefly by the speeches that the facts of the Peloponnesian War are so lit up with keen thought as to become illustrations of general See also:laws, and to acquire a permanent suggestiveness for the student of politics. When Herodotus made his persons hold conversations or deliver speeches, he was following the precedent of epic See also:poetry; his See also:tone is usually colloquial rather than rhetorical ; he is merely making thought and See also:motive vivid in the way natural to a See also:simple age. Thucydides is the real founder of the tradition by which historians were so See also:long held to be warranted in introducing set speeches of their own composition. His own account of his practice is given in the following words: " As to the speeches made on the See also:eve of the war, or in its course, I have found it difficult to retain a memory of the precise words which I had heard spoken; and so it was with those who brought me reports 1 See also:Freeman, Historical Essays, 2nd See also:series, vol. iii. ; on the general questions of the structure of the work and the view of the See also:wai which it represents see PELOPONNESIAN WAR; and GREECE See also:Ancient History, § Authorities. eastward to the vicinity of the Thracian See also:Chersonese, though into two parties, either actively helping one of the two combatants often used with more See also:special reference to the Chalcidic penin- sula. His colleague in the command was Eucles. About the end of See also:November 424 Eucles was in See also:Amphipolis, the stronghold of Athenian power in the See also:north-See also:west. To guard it with all possible vigilance was a See also:matter of See also:peculiar urgency at that moment. The ablest of Spartan leaders, See also:Brasidas (q.v.), was in the Chalcidic See also:peninsula, where he had already gained rapid success; and part of the See also:population between that peninsula and Amphipolis was known to be disaffected to Athens. Under such circumstances we might have expected that Thucydides, who had seven See also:ships of war with him, would have been ready to co-operate with Eucles. It appears, however, that, with his ships, he was at the See also:island of Thasos when Brasidas suddenly appeared before Amphipolis. Eucles sent in all haste for Thucydides, who arrived with his ships from Thasos just in time to See also:beat off the enemy from Eion at the mouth of the Strymon, but not in time to See also:save Amphipolis. The profound vexation and dismay See also:felt at Athens found expression in the See also:punishment of Thucydides, who was exiled. See also:Cleon is said to have been the See also:prime mover in his condemnation; and this is likely enough. From 423 to 404 Thucydides lived on his property in Thrace, but much of his time appears to have been spent in travel. He visited the countries of the Peloponnesian See also:allies—recommended to them by his quality as an See also:exile from Athens; and he thus enjoyed the rare See also:advantage of contemplating the war from various points of view. He speaks of the increased leisure which his banishment secured to his study of events. He refers partly, doubtless, to detachment from Athenian politics,.partly also, we may suppose, to the opportunity of visiting places signalized by See also:recent events and of examining their See also:topography. The See also:local knowledge which is often apparent in his Sicilian books may have been acquired at this period. The mind of Thucydides was naturally judicial, and his impartiality—which seems almost superhuman by contrast with See also:Xenophon's Hellenicawas in some degree a result of temperament. But it cannot be doubted that the evenness with which he holds the scales was greatly assisted by his experience during these years of exile. His own words make it clear that he returned to Athens, at least for a time, in 404, though the precise date is uncertain. The older view (cf. Classen) was that he returned some six months after Athens surrendered to See also:Lysander. More probably he was recalled by the special See also:resolution carried by Oenobius See also:prior to the See also:acceptance of Lysander's terms (Busolt, ibid., p. 628). He remained at Athens only a See also:short time, and retired to his property in Thrace, where he lived till his See also:death, working at his History. The preponderance of testimony certainly goes to show that he died in Thrace, and by violence. It would seem that, when he wrote See also:chapter 116 of his third See also:book, he was ignorant of an eruption of See also:Etna which took See also:place in 396. There is, indeed, strong See also:reason for thinking that he did not live later than 399. His remains were brought to Athens and laid in the vault of Cimon's family, where Plutarch (Cimon, 4) saw their resting-place. The abruptness with which the History breaks off agrees with the See also:story of a sudden death. The historian's daughter is said to have saved the unfinished work and to have placed it in the hands of an editor. This editor, according to one account, was Xenophon, to whom See also:Diogenes Laertius (ii. 6, 13) assigns the See also:credit of having " brought the work into reputation, when he might have suppressed it." The tradition is, how-ever, very doubtful; it may have been suggested by a feeling that no one then living could more appropriately have discharged the office of literary executor than the writer who, in his Hellenica, continued the narrative. The History.—At the outset of the History Thucydides indicates his general conception of his work, and states the principles which governed its composition. His purpose had been formed at the very beginning ofPthe war, in the conviction that it would prove more important than any event of which Greeks had record. The leading belligerents, Athens and See also:Sparta, were both in the highest See also:condition of effective equipment. The whole Hellenic world—including Greek settlements outside of Greece proper—was divided But I have made the persons say what it seemed to me most op- rtune for them to say in view of each situation; at the same time r have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said." So far as the language of the speeches is concerned, then, Thucydides plainly avows that it is mainly or wholly his own. As a general See also:rule, there is little attempt to See also:mark different styles. The case of Pericles, whom Thucydides must have repeatedly heard, is probably an exception; the Thucydidean speeches of Pericles offer several examples of that bold imagery which See also:Aristotle and Plutarch agree in ascribing to him, while the " Funeral Oration," especially, has a certain See also:majesty of See also:rhythm, a certain See also:union of impetuous movement with lofty grandeur, which the historian has given to no other See also:speaker. Such strongly marked characteristics as the curt bluntness of the Spartan See also:ephor Sthenelaidas, or the insolent vehemence of See also:Alcibiades, are also indicated. But the dramatic truth of the speeches generally resides in the matter, not in the form. In regard to those speeches which were delivered at Athens before his banishment in 424—and seven such speeches are contained in the History—Thucydides could rely either on his own recollection or on the sources accessible to a See also:resident citizen. In these cases there is See also:good reason to believe that he has reproduced the substance of what was actually said. In other cases he had to See also:trust to more or less imperfect reports of the " general sense "; and in some instances, no doubt, the speech represents simply his own conception of what it would have been " most opportune " to say. The most evident of such instances occur in the addresses of leaders to their troops. The historian's aim in these military harangues—which are usually short—is to bring out the points of a strategical situation; a modern writer would have attained the object by comments prefixed or subjoined to his account of the See also:battle. The See also:comparative indifference of Thucydides to dramatic verisimilitude in these military orations is curiously shown by the fact that the speech of the general on the one See also:side is sometimes as distinctly a reply to the speech of the general on the other as if they had been delivered in debate. We may be sure, however, that, wherever Thucydides had any See also:authentic See also:clue to the actual tenor of a speech, he preferred to follow that clue rather than to draw on his own invention. Why, however, did he not content himself with simply stating, in his own See also:person, the arguments and opinions which he conceived The Greek to have been prevalent? The question must be viewed view. from the standpoint of a Greek in the 5th century B.C. Epic poetry had then for many generations exercised a powerful influence over the Greek mind. Homer had accustomed Greeks to look for two elements in any See also:complete expression of human See also:energy—first, an account of a See also:man's deeds, then an image of his mind in the See also:report of his words. The Homeric heroes are exhibited both in action and in speech. Further, the contemporary readers of Thucydides were men habituated to a civic life in which public speech played an all-important part. Every adult citizen of a Greek See also:democracy was a member of the See also:assembly which debated and decided great issues. The See also:law courts, the festivals, the See also:drama, the See also:market-place itself, ministered to the Greek love of animated description. To a Greek of that age a written history of political events would have seemed strangely insipid if speech " in the first person " had been absent from it, especially if it did not offer some See also:mirror of those debates which were inseparably associated with the central interests and the decisive moments of political life. In making historical persons say what they might have said, Thucydides confined that oratorical See also:licence to the purpose which is its best See also:justification: with him it is strictly dramatic, an aid to the complete presentment of action, by the vivid expression of ideas and arguments which were really current at the time. Among later historians who continued the practice, See also:Polybius, See also:Sallust and See also:Tacitus most resemble Thucydides in this particular; while in the See also:Byzantine historians, as in some moderns who followed classical precedent, the speeches were usually mere occasions for rhetorical display. See also:Botta's History of See also:Italy from 178o to 1814 affords one of the latest examples of the practice, which was peculiarly suited to the See also:Italian genius. The present See also:division of the History into eight books is one which might well have proceeded from the author himself, as being a The Eight natural and convenient disposition of the contents. Boots. The first book, after a general introduction, sets forth the causes of the Peloponnesian War. The first nine years of the war are contained in the second, third and fourth books—three years in each. The fifth book contains the tenth See also:year, followed by the See also:interval of the " insecure See also:peace." The Sicilian expedition fills the See also:sixth and seventh books The eighth books opens that last chapter of the struggle which is known as the " Decelean " or " Ionian " War, and breaks off abruptly—in the middle of a See also:sentence, indeed—in the year 411.
The See also:principal reason against believing that the division into eight books was made by Thucydides himself is the fact that a "See also:gin of different division, into thirteen books, was also current that in antiquity, as appears from Marcellinus (§ 58). It is Division. very improbable—indeed hardly conceivable—that this
should have been the case if the eight-book division had come down from the hand of the author. We may infer, then,that the division of the work into eight books was introduced at See also:Alexandria—perhaps in the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. That division was already See also:familiar to the grammarians of the Augustan age. See also:Dionysius of See also:Halicarnassus, who recognizes it, has also another mode of indicating portions of the work, viz. by stichometria, or the number of lines which they contained. Thus, in the MS. which he used, the first 87 chapters of book i. contained about 2000 lines (See also:equivalent to about 1700 lines in See also:Bekker's stereotyped 8vo See also:text). (On the order of composition, see PELOPONNESIAN WAR, ad init.; and GREECE: Ancient History, § Authorities).
The division of the war by summers and winters (icaea Olpos See also:act' Xeiµiava)—the end of the winter being considered as the end of the year—is perhaps the only one which Thucydides him-
self Mode
" summer of
used, for there is no indication that he made any See also:hind" division of the History into books. His Time. includes spring and autumn and extends, generally
speaking, from See also: 20, 3), the phrase is not to be pressed: it means merely that he divides his year into these two parts. The mode of reckoning is essentially a rough one, and is not to be viewed as if the commencement of summer or of winter could be precisely fixed to constant See also:dates. For See also:chronology, besides the festivals, he uses the Athenian See also:list of archons, the Spartan list of ephors and the Argive list of priestesses of See also:Hera. There is no reference to the History of Thucydides in the extant Greek writers of the 4th century B.C.; but See also:Lucian has preserved a tradition of the See also:enthusiasm with which it was studied by See also:Demosthenes. The great orator is said to have copied it out eight times, or even to have learnt it by See also:heart. The Alexandrian critics acknowledged Thucydides as a great master of Attic. Sallust, See also:Cornelius See also:Nepos, See also:Cicero and See also:Quintilian are among the See also:Roman writers whose admiration for him can be traced in their work, or has been expressly recorded. The most elaborate ancient criticism on the diction and composition of Thucydides is contained in three essays by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Among the best See also:MSS. of Thucydides, the Codex vaticanus 126 (11th century) represents a recension made in the Alexandrian or Roman age. In the first six books the number of mss., etc. passages in which the Vaticanus alone has preserved a true See also:reading is comparatively small; in book vii. it is somewhat larger; in book viii. it is so large that here the Vaticanus, as compared with the other MSS., acquires the See also:character of a revised text. Other important MSS. are the Palatinus 252 (11th century); the Casselanus (A.D. 1252); the Augustanus monacensis 430 (A.D. 1301). A See also:collation, in books i., ii., of two See also:Cambridge MSS. of the 15th century (NN. 3, 18; Kx. 5, 19) has been published by See also:Shilleto. Several Parisian MSS. (H. C. A. F.), and a Venetian MSS. (V.) collated by See also:Arnold, also deserve mention. The Aldine edition was published in 1502. It was formerly supposed that there had been two Juntine See also:editions. Shilleto, in the " See also:Notice " prefixed to book i., first pointed out that the only Juntine edition was that of 1526, and that the belief in an earlier Juntine, of 1506, arose merely from the accidental omission of the word vicesimo in the Latin version of the imprint. Some See also:papyrus fragments were published in Grenfell and See also:Hunt's Oxyrhynchus papyri (1908), vi., which also contains an See also:anonymous commentary (pub. 1st century) on Thuc. ii. The most generally useful edition is Classen's, in the Weidmann Series (1862–1878; new ed. by Steup, 1882–1892) ; each book can be obtained separately. Arnold's edition (1848–1851) contains much that is still valuable. For books i. and ii. Shilleto's edition (1872–1876) furnishes a commentary which, though not full, deals admirably with many difficult points. Among other important complete editions, it is enough to name those of See also:Duker, Bekker, Goeller, See also:Poppo and See also:Kruger. For editions of See also:separate books and selections (up to 1895) see J. B. See also:Mayor's See also:Guide to the Choice of Classical Books. Special mention may be made of those by E. C. Marchant. Later editions of the text are by H. See also:Stuart See also: Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, iii. 616-693, is invaluable. For the life of Thucydides, U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, " See also:Die Thukydides-Legende," See also:Hermes, (1878) xii., is all important. All works on ancient Greek History contain discussions of Thucydides, and an interesting criticism is that of J. B. See also:Bury, Ancient Greek Historians (190. F. M. Cornford, Thucydides mythistoricus (1907), sought to prove that the. History is really only an historical tragedy, i.e. a dramatized version of the facts, but this view has not been adopted. (R. C. J.; J. M. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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