Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THUCYDIDES: THE FIRST MODERN HISTORIAN
The writing of history began among the Greeks, first with
Herodotus
, then with Thucydides.
Whereas Herodotus gives the feeling that he prefers telling a good story, that he still inhabits
Homer's world of epic poetry, with
Thucydides
the paramount concern is to analyze events.
In that sense Thucydides is the first modern historian; wherever possible he seeks out primary
sources, and his concern is always with objectivity, detail and chronology. Not that there is
anything dry about his writing; its vividness and insight make reading him as powerful an
experience as watching a Greek drama.
Thucydides began writing his history at the outset of the
Peloponnesian War
, intending to
give an account of its whole duration, For reasons unknown, however, he abruptly stopped
writing in the twentieth year, though he is thought to have survived the war by a few years,
living until about 400 BC. Born into a wealthy, conservative Athenian family around 455 BC, he
was a democrat and an admirer of Pericles; his reconstruction of Pericles' speeches presents
the most eloquent expression of the Athenian cause. But when Thucydides was exiled from his
city seven years into the war, this was the making of him as a historian. As he put it,
“Associating with both sides, with the Peloponnesians quite as much as with the Athenians,
because of my exile, I was thus enabled to watch quietly the course of events”.
Thucydides was himself a military man, who understood war at first hand. Hence his concern
for method in his research and analysis in his writing, for he intended his book to be useful to
future generals and statesmen. For these reasons we have a better understanding of the
Peloponnesian War than of any ancient conflict until Julius Caesar wrote his own first-hand
accounts of his campaigns. And for these reasons too, Thucydides' history stands on a par with
the greatest literature of ancient Greece.
Peloponnesians lacked the sea power to carry the fighting into Asia Minor and the
Aegean islands or to interfere with Athens' trade, while the Athenians used their
maritime superiority to launch attacks against the coasts of the Peloponnese, the Ionian
islands and the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, hoping to detach members from the
Peloponnesian League. So long as Athens remained in command of the sea, it had
every reason to expect that it could wear down its enemies' resolve.
Pericles' death
in 429 BC was an early blow to the Athenian cause. Although
Kleon
,
his successor, is widely blamed for Athens' eventual defeat, after Pericles the city was in
fact always divided into a peace party and a military one, unable to pursue a consistent
policy. The final straw came in 415 BC, when a bold operation designed to win Sicily
to the Athenian cause turned into a catastrophic debacle. Though not entirely defeated,
Athens was never to be a major power again.
City-state rivalries
The Peloponnesian War left
Sparta
the supreme power in Greece, but those whom the
Spartans had “liberated” swiftly realized that they had simply acquired a new and
inferior master, one that entirely lacked the style, the ability and the intelligence of
Athens. Meanwhile Athens had lost its empire but not its trade, and as it rapidly rebuilt
its navy its mercantile rivals faced no less competition than before.
Adding to the intrigues between Persia, Athens and Sparta was a bewildering and
unstable variety of alliances involving other Greek states. The most important of these
was
Thebes
, which had been an ally of Sparta during the Peloponnesian War but came
359 BC
338 BC
336 BC
335 BC
Philip II becomes king of
Macedonia.
Philip II's victory at
Chaeronia unites Greece
under Macedonian rule.
Alexander the Great
succeeds his father, and
within six years has
conquered all of Persia.
Aristotle founds the
Lyceum in Athens.
