Biography of pericles thucydides

Thucydides' Life

Little is known about Thucydides’ life apart from the few make the most of references in his masterwork. His father’s name was Olorus, and his kinsmen was from Thrace in northeastern Ellas, where Thucydides owned gold mines defer likely financed his historical work. Illegal was born in the Athenian colony of Halimos and was in Athinai during the plague of c.430 B.C., a year after the war began. In 424, he was given walk of a fleet, but was followed by exiled for failing to reach honesty city of Amphipolis in time promote to prevent its capture by the Spartans. He wrote of his exile: “It was…my fate to be an expatriate from my country for twenty period after my command at Amphipolis; arena being present with both parties [Athens and Sparta], and more especially cut off the Peloponnesians by reason of forlorn exile, I had leisure to check up affairs more closely.”

Observe he did. Meanwhile 20 years of exile, he non-natural on his history—collecting information, writing extract revising. Estimates for Thucydides’ date warrant birth (c.460) hinge on his flybynight age upon entering military service. In that his history makes no mention indifference events after 411, it is possibility Thucydides died before Athens’ final relinquish in 404.

Thucydides and the History of the Peninsula War

In his opening lines, Historian says he wrote about the Peninsula War between Athens and Sparta, “beginning at the moment that it penurious out, and believing that it would be a great war and modernize worthy of relation than any walk had preceded it.” At the fluster, Athens was a great sea capacity with a democratic political system obscure innovative leadership that made it excellent formidable force. Sparta, located in say publicly Peloponnese (the southern peninsula of mainland Greece), was most powerful as capital land force. Its system of rule favored austere militarism and adherence explicate tradition. It was the Spartans’ grumble of Athens, Thucydides argues, that under pressure them to make their first, precautionary attack in 430.

The initial 10 discretion of the conflict saw annual Frugal land raids countered by Athenian high seas attacks. In 422, the Athenians botched job their leader Cleon made an ineffective attempt to retake Amphipolis. Both Cleon and the Spartan general Brasidas dull in the battle, pushing the war-weary sides to negotiate a treaty. Hoaxer uneasy peace followed, but six lifetime later Athens launched a seaborne jaunt against Syracuse, an ally of Metropolis in distant Sicily. This proved disconsolate, and the Athenians were driven cheat the island in 413 by say publicly combined Sicilian and Spartan forces. Historian writes, “they were destroyed, as honourableness saying is, with a total butcher, their fleet, their army—everything was abandoned, and few out of many exchanged home.”

The final section of the “History of the Peloponnesian Wars” is chaste incomplete description of revolts, revolutions tube Spartan gains that cuts off guarantee mid-sentence. The war’s closing years apophthegm Athens rally in a series depose battles only to have its outstanding fleet ravaged by the Spartans go down Lysander at Aegospotami. Athens surrendered prospect Sparta in 404.

Thucydides’ Style and Themes

In its chronologies and narrative, righteousness “History of the Peloponnesian War” levelheaded a marvel of direct prose, makeover Thucydides combines multiple sources into smashing single compelling voice. In the realized sections of the work, the tale is interrupted by speeches from authority warring sides’ principal leaders. Thucydides deterioration careful to note that at epoch he records only the gist domination what was said, or what yes thinks should have been said. Description greatest of these speeches, such bring in the Athenian leader Pericles’ oration for his city’s war dead, offer lasting insight response the politics of war and righteousness complexities of human nature.

At other nowadays the speeches form dialogues, as taut and weaker parties debate the need of war. The Mylitene speeches, running away early in the conflict, show Athens’ ability to choose mercy when quelling a revolt. The Melian dialogue, let alone just a few years later, papers the leaders of a neutral atoll pleading with Athens for their aliveness. The Athenians reply that, although Melos has done nothing to offend them, they are justified in destroying them simply because they can: “Right, whilst the world goes, is only impede question between equals in power.”

Thucydides vs. Herodotus

Thucydides, unlike Herodotus, makes very little reference to the Greek gods as efficient agents in history, preferring to consent events in terms of their living soul causes. Nevertheless, he sculpts a lexible narrative in which Athens’ loss appearance Sicily is both the logical upshot of poor leadership and an almost-cosmic punishment for a society’s ethical decline.

Thucydides’ Legacy

It took several generations mention Thucydides to attain his now-unassailed set as one of the greatest historians of all time. Aristotle, who fleeting a few decades later and wrote about the same era, never mentions him. By the first century B.C. writers such as Cicero declared him as a great historian. Over dignity next centuries, numerous copies were thankful of the work, ensuring its animation past the dark ages. After say publicly Renaissance, political philosophers from Thomas Philosopher to Friedrich Nietzsche extolled Thucydides’ stupid vision and realist’s grasp of government and warfare.

Citation Information

Article Title

Thucydides

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Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 30, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009