Thucydides

About this figure

Thucydides (c. 460 - c. 400 BC) was an Athenian historian and general whose "History of the Peloponnesian War" is widely regarded as the founding work of critical, evidence-based history. He lived through the long war between Athens and Sparta that began in 431 BC, and he tells readers directly that he began recording events as they happened because he recognized, even at the outset, that the conflict would prove greater than any before it. Thucydides himself held a command as one of Athens's generals in 424 BC, but was exiled after failing to prevent the Spartan general Brasidas from capturing the city of Amphipolis; he used his twenty years of exile to travel, observe the war from outside Athens, and gather accounts from participants on both sides, which he says he cross-checked as carefully as he could.

His history is notable for its deliberate avoidance of divine or mythological explanation in favor of human motives, chiefly fear, self-interest, and the pursuit of honor and power, and for its unflinching account of the war's brutalizing effects, including the plague that struck Athens and the atrocities committed by both sides as the conflict wore on. The work also contains a number of extended speeches, most famously Pericles's funeral oration honoring Athens's war dead, which Thucydides acknowledges he reconstructed to capture what he judged the speakers were likely to have said rather than a verbatim transcript. The narrative breaks off abruptly in the middle of events in 411 BC, seven years before the war's actual end, and most scholars believe Thucydides died, probably around 400 BC, before he could complete it. Later writers, including Xenophon, continued the story where he left off. Thucydides's insistence on verifiable evidence and his analysis of power politics between states have made his history a recurring reference point in the study of international relations to this day.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.