Thucydides

Ancient Greek historian whose main work, The History of the Peloponnesian War, was meant to provide future generations with valuable lessons on the causes and dynamics of all violent conflicts. His extraordinary insight into the historical implications of a single, albeit prolonged, armed dispute, as well as his scholarly impartiality, set Thucydides apart even from such illustrious predecessors as the Greek historian Herodotus.

Thucydides was born in the ancient city of Athens around the year 460 BCE to a wealthy, aristocratic family. At that time, Athens was the center of a flourishing empire, kept under tight control with the help of an impressive military force hardly matched by any of the other powers in the region. Around the year 431 BCE, however, these powers rallied around the rival city-state of Sparta. The war that subsequently broke out between the two city-states and their allies—the Peloponnesian War—raged on and off for more than 25 years. The conflict eventually came to an end with the capitulation of Athens.

His Life

At the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides was in his 20s, possibly already serving in the Athenian army as an infantryman, or hoplite. In 424 BCE, while in his 30s, he was elected general and shared the command of military operations in Thrace, a region northeast of Athens. Unable to deliver the important city of Amphipolis from the hands of a Spartan army, Thucydides was exiled from Athens.

For the next 19 years, Thucydides lived in Thrace, spending much of his time traveling in the Peloponnesian region (southwest of Athens). Thanks to his aristocratic roots and his status as an Athenian exile, Thucydides was able to speak to many of the war's major participants, who provided him with precious information for his history of the conflict. Thucydides was permitted to return to Athens in 404 BCE, at the end of the war, but he returned to Thrace soon after. He spent the rest of his life working on his account of the Peloponnesian War. He died around 401 BCE, possibly by violent means.

The History

Thucydides died before he could complete The History of the Peloponnesian War, which ends abruptly in the middle of a sentence. The author begins his work by explaining his belief that this particular war is “more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it” (even greater than the Trojan War), mainly due to the high state of military development that both Athens and Sparta enjoyed at the time. Thucydides then lays out the principles on which he sees fit to undertake the writing of his History.

According to Thucydides, his aim is to produce a truthful account of the war, avoiding the temptation to blend historical events with myths and legends. In doing so, the Greek historian introduces a term on which all realist theories of international relations have since been founded—the balance of power. Thucydides was the first historian to work with the assumption that the rise of a powerful state will, by necessity, be accompanied by constant attempts from other states to arrest that development. Because of the exceptional scholarly rigorousness of his work and the introduction of concepts that are now considered to be political-science fundamentals, many consider Thucydides to be the true father of modern historians.

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