Thucydides

Thucydides (?460-?400 BCE) - in Greek Thoukudides (Θουκυδίδης); but the normal English pronunciation is IPA: /θuː'sɪdɪ,diːz/ or IPA: /θjʊ'sɪdɪ,diːz/ - was an Athenian citizen. The first half of his life coincided with the period when Athens, under the great statesman Pericles (whom Thucydides very much admired), was at the height of its power. The second half coincided with the Peloponnesian War (431-404) between Athens and Sparta - a long and bitter struggle which brought immense hardship, and ultimately defeat, to the Athenians. Until 424 Thucydides lived in Athens, where he caught, and recovered from, the plague which ravaged the city during the early years of the war. In 424 he was sent as an Athenian military commander to defend the city of Amphipolis, an Athenian ally in the north of Greece, against the Spartan army under their general Brasidas The expedition was a failure, and later that year Thucydides was exiled from Athens. He did not return to the city until the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404, and he died there a few years later.

Thucydides' masterpiece, the Histories, is an account of the Peloponnesian War. He tells us that he began work on the account immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, anticipating that 'it was going to be a great war and more worth writing about than any of those which had taken place in the past' (Histories I 1); and it is probable that many parts of the Histories were written very soon after the events with which they deal. However, the Histories is unfinished - in more than one way. It does not cover the Peloponnesian War in its entirety, but breaks off in the winter of 411. Further, the events of the years which it does cover, i.e., 431-411, are not all dealt with in the same degree of detail: while there are full accounts of the so-called Ten Years' War (431-421) and of the Sicilian Expedition (415-413), the accounts of other parts of the war are sketchier or more fragmentary.

Thucydides does not recount the events of the Peloponnesian War from a neutral or detached point of view - his admiration for Pericles and contempt for the demagogue Cleon are patent - but he has nonetheless a strong sense of his responsibilities as an historian. He is, e.g., much more critical than Herodotus of his sources; he takes great pains to establish the facts; and he writes clearly, often with an almost clinical conciseness. He is arguably the greatest historian of the classical world.

At least three historians in the ancient world wrote works which began where Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War.broke off - Xenophon (c430-c354) with his Hellenica, Theopompus (4th century BCE), and Cratippus (probably 1st century BCE). Of these works only Xenophon's Hellenica has survived.

For the other Greek historian widely regarded as 'great', see Herodotus.

For some help with the pronunciation of Greek names see Pronunciation of Greek Proper Names.