Thucydides
Thucydides
c. 460 BC – c. 400 BC
Thucydides was born around 460 BC in Athens. He served as a general in 424 BC but failed to prevent the capture of Amphipolis. For this he was exiled, spending twenty years in Thrace. He died around 400 BC with his work unfinished.
The History of the Peloponnesian War is the most rigorous historical work produced in antiquity. Thucydides recorded the great war between Athens and Sparta (431–404 BC) with a historian's accuracy and a political philosopher's depth. The Melian Dialogue and the Sicilian Expedition are among the most powerful passages in all historical writing.
Thucydides invented the idea that history, properly written, could be a 'possession for all time'. He was right.
Works
-
1
History of the Peloponnesian War history
The war that destroyed classical Greece, told by a general who fought in it and was exiled for losing. Thucydides strips away myth and divine interven...