Thucydides, historian of the Peloponnesian War
Most of our knowledge of the causes and the events of this decisive war depends on
the history written by the Athenian
Thucydides1 (c. 460-400 B.C.).
Thucydides served as an Athenian
commander in northern Greece in the early years of the war until the assembly exiled
him for losing an outpost to the enemy.2 During his exile, Thucydides was able to interview witnesses from both sides
of the conflict. Unlike Herodotus, Thucycdides concentrated on contemporary history
and presented his account of the events of the war in an annalistic framework, that
is, by organizing his history according to the years of the war with only occasional
divergences from chronological order. Like Herodotus,
he included versions of
direct speeches3 in addition to the description of events. The speeches in Thucydides, usually
longer and more complex than those in Herodotus, deal with major events and issues of
the war in difficult and dramatic language. Their contents often address the motives
of the participants in the war and offer broad interpretations of human nature and
behavior. Historians disagree about the extent to which Thucydides has put words and
ideas into the mouths of his speakers, but it seems indisputable that the speeches
deal with the moral and political issues that Thucydides saw as central for
understanding the Peloponnesian War as well as human conflict in general. His
perceptive narrative and interpretation of the causes and events of the war made his
book a pioneering work of history as the narrative of great contemporary events and
power politics.
