Thucydides (redirected from Thucydides (historian))

Thucydides (thsĭd`ĭdēz), c.460–c.400 B.C., Greek historian of Athens, one of the greatest of ancient historians. His family was partly Thracian. As a general in the Peloponnesian War he failed (424 B.C.) to prevent the surrender of the city of Amphipolis to the Spartan commander Brasidas and was exiled until the end of the war. He thus had opportunity to acquaint himself with both the Athenians and the Spartans and to acquire firsthand information for his one work, the incomplete History of the Peloponnesian War. It covered the period from 431 to 411 and was a departure from the histories of the past, both in method and presentation. He wrote a text to be read, not recited, and he was scrupulous in his presentation of facts. Preeminently a military history, chronicling events by the seasons, it completely avoids any reference to social conditions or state policy, unless they have to deal with the progress of the war, and interprets the succession of events in view of the general nature and behavior of man rather than as the result of a fate outside man's influence. The work is enlivened by the well-crafted speeches he puts into the mouths of participants in the events he chronicles, a common technique in his day. The most splendid of these is Pericles' funeral oration. Thucydides' account of the plague, through which he lived, displays his clinical and descriptive attitude and is a standard of its type. He is generally acclaimed as the creator of scholarly history as we know it today. The classic English translation of the History is that of Thomas Hobbes (1629; ed. by David Grene, 1959); modern translations include those by Richard Crawley (1910, repr. 1952), Rex Warner (1954), and R. W. Livingstone (1960).

Bibliography

See studies by J. H. Finley (1942, repr. 1967), G. B. Grundy (2d ed. 1948), H. D. Westlake (1968), and A. G. Woodhead (1970); A. W. Gomme et al., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (5 vol., 1945–78).

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Thucydides

(born c. 460—died c. 404 BC) Greatest of ancient Greek historians. An Athenian who commanded a fleet in the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides failed to prevent the capture of the important city of Amphipolis and consequently was exiled for 20 years. During that period he wrote his History of the Peloponnesian War; evidently he did not live to complete it, for it stops abruptly in 411 BC. It presents the first recorded political and moral analysis of a nation's war policies, treating the causes of the conflict, the characters of the two states, and the technical aspects of warfare in a carefully drawn, strictly chronological narrative of events, including some in which he took an active part.

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Thucydides

?460--?395 bc, Greek historian and politician, distinguished for his History of the Peloponnesian War

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Thucydides 

Born circa 460 B.C.; died 400 B.C. Greek historian.

Thucydides came from an aristocratic and well-to-do Athenian family. In 424 B.C, during the Peloponnesian War, he was a strategus and commanded an Athenian squadron off Thrace. He was not able to prevent the Spartan commander Brasidas from capturing Amphipolis, as a result of which he was condemned in Athens and sent into exile. During the 20 years that he was away from his native land, he collected materials for his historical work. He returned to Athens in 404.

Thucydides’ History, consisting of eight books, is devoted to the Peloponnesian War of 431–404 B.C. (the narrative is brought down to the autumn of 411). Despite the incompleteness of individual parts, the History stands as an artistic whole. As distinct from Herodotus, Thucydides ascribed great importance to the critical verification of the data that the historian has at his disposal for setting forth his theme; only after this, in Thucydides’ opinion, is it possible to turn to a reconstruction of the past. Thucydides saw the principal task of the historian as a seeking out of the truth (I, 20). In explaining historical phenomena, Thucydides paid particular attention to the causes of events. His rationalism excluded as a cause the direct intervention of divine forces in historical events, although he did not specifically deny the existence of gods or the divine principle. Ascribing primary importance to objective historical factors, not only political but also economic, Thucydides, unlike subsequent historians, was still not inclined to emphasize the role of particular individuals; he did not ignore, however, the importance of the minds and wills of outstanding figures, as is seen from his characterization of Pericles. Thucydides emphasized the importance of Athenian sea power; it was to the excessive growth of the might of Athens and to the aggressive policy of the Athenians that he ascribed the principal cause of the inter-Hellenic conflict. Although Thucydides wrote primarily a military history, he paid a great deal of attention to the sociopolitical struggle. He was one of the first to give a detailed description of civil conflicts, the clashes between democratic and oligarchic factions.

In his political views, Thucydides was an advocate of moderate, rationally regulated power. He was hostile to radical democracy, and he belittled its leaders, Cleon and Hyperbolus. In contrast, Thucydides thought highly of the moderately oligarchic rule of the Five Thousand in Athens (end of 411), considering that this constituted a rational mixing of oligarchic and democratic elements. However, neither Thucydides’ sympathy nor his antipathy is ever very noticeable in his History, and, on the whole, his exposition is distinguished for its high degree of objectivity. Thucydides is considered to be the greatest historian of antiquity, a writer who left a vivid and reliable description of one of the most important events of ancient history.

EDITIONS

Thucydides historiae, vols. 1–2. Edited by C. Hude. Leipzig, 1908–13.

Thucydides, vol. 1. Edited by O. Luschnat. Leipzig, 1954.

In Russian translation:

Istoriia, vols. 1–2. Translated by F. Mishchenko and revised by S. Zhebelev. Moscow, 1915.

REFERENCES

Mishchenko, F. G. Opyt po istorii ratsionalizma v drevnei Gretsii, part 1: Ratsionalizm Fukidida v Istorii Peloponnesskoi voiny. Kiev, 1881.
Mishchenko, F. G. Fukidid i ego sochineniia, fasc. 2. Moscow, 1888.
Buzeskul, V. P. Vvedenie v istoriiu Gretsii, 3rd ed. Petrograd, 1915.
Lur’e, S. Ia. Ocherki po istorii antichnoi nauki: Gretsiia epokhi rastsveta. Moscow-Leningrad, 1947.
Finley, J. H. Thucydides. Cambridge, Mass., 1942.
Romilly, J. de. Thucydide et l’impérialisme athénien. Paris, 1947.
Grundy, G. B. Thucydides and the History of His Age. 2nd ed., vols. 1–2. Oxford, 1948.
Diesner, H. J. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft bei Thukydides. Halle, 1956.
Fritz, K. von. Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung, vol. 1. Berlin, 1967.

E. D. FROLOV