Editing Thucydides (section)

== The ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' ==
{{Main|History of the Peloponnesian War}}
[[File:Thucydides Manuscript.jpg|thumb|10th-century minuscule manuscript of Thucydides's ''[[History of the Peloponnesian War]]'']]
Thucydides believed that the [[Peloponnesian War]] represented an event of unmatched importance.<ref>{{Thucydides|en|1|1|1|shortref}}</ref> As such, he began to write the ''History'' at the onset of the war in 431 BC.<ref>{{Thucydides|en|1|1|shortref}}</ref><ref>[[Zagorin, Perez]]. ''Thucydides.'' (Princeton University Press, 2015), p. 9</ref> He declared his intention was to write an account which would serve as "a possession for all time".<ref>{{Thucydides|en|1|22|4|shortref}}</ref> The ''History'' breaks off near the end of the twenty-first year of the war (411 BC), in the wake of the Athenian defeat at Syracuse, and so does not elaborate on the final seven years of the conflict.

The ''[[History of the Peloponnesian War]]'' continued to be modified well beyond the end of the war in 404 BC, as exemplified by a reference at [[s:History of the Peloponnesian War/Book 1#1:13|Book I.1.13]]<ref>{{cite wikisource |chapter=Book 11#1:13 |wslink=History of the Peloponnesian War |plaintitle=History of the Peloponnesian War |last=Thucydides}}</ref> to the conclusion of the war.<ref>Mynott, Jeremy, ''The War of the Peloponnesians and Athenians''. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (2013). p. 11</ref> After his death, Thucydides's ''History'' was subdivided into eight books: its modern title is the ''History of the Peloponnesian War''. This subdivision was most likely made by librarians and archivists, themselves being historians and scholars, most likely working in the [[Library of Alexandria]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}

Thucydides is generally regarded as one of the first true historians. Like his predecessor [[Herodotus]], known as "the father of history", Thucydides places a high value on [[eyewitness testimony]] and writes about events in which he probably took part. He also assiduously consulted written documents and interviewed participants about the events that he recorded. Unlike Herodotus, whose stories often teach that a [[wikt:hubris|hubris]] invites the wrath of the deities, Thucydides does not acknowledge divine intervention in human affairs.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Grant|first1=Michael|title=Greek and Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation|url=https://archive.org/details/greekromanhistor00gran|url-access=limited|date=1995|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=0-415-11770-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/greekromanhistor00gran/page/n66 55]–56}}</ref>

Thucydides exerted wide historiographical influence on subsequent Hellenistic and Roman historians, although the exact description of his style in relation to many successive historians remains unclear.<ref>Hornblower, Simon, Spawforth, Antony, Eidinow, Esther, ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary.'' New York, Oxford University Press (2012). pp. 692–693</ref> Readers in antiquity often placed the continuation of the stylistic legacy of the ''History'' in the writings of Thucydides's putative intellectual successor [[Xenophon]]. Such readings often described Xenophon's treatises as attempts to "finish" Thucydides's ''History''. Many of these interpretations, however, have garnered significant scepticism among modern scholars, such as Dillery, who spurn the view of interpreting Xenophon ''qua'' Thucydides, arguing that the latter's "modern" history (defined as constructed based on literary and historical themes) is antithetical to the former's account in the ''[[Hellenica]]'', which diverges from the Hellenic historiographical tradition in its absence of a preface or introduction to the text and the associated lack of an "overarching concept" unifying the history.<ref>Dillery, John, ''Xenophon and the History of His Times''. London, Routledge (2002).</ref>

[[File:Discurso funebre pericles.PNG|thumb|Pericles's Funeral Oration  (''Perikles hält die Leichenrede'') by [[Philipp Foltz]] (1852)<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=131618 | title=Pericles' Funeral Oration | publisher=the-athenaeum.org | access-date=1 January 2015}}</ref>]]
A noteworthy difference between Thucydides's method of writing history and that of modern historians is Thucydides's inclusion of lengthy formal speeches that, as he states, were literary reconstructions rather than quotations of what was said—or, perhaps, what he believed ''ought'' to have been said. Arguably, had he not done this, the gist of what was said would not otherwise be known at all—whereas today there is a plethora of documentation—written records, archives, and recording technology for historians to consult. Therefore, Thucydides's method served to ''rescue'' his mostly oral sources from oblivion. We do not know how these historical figures spoke. Thucydides's recreation uses a heroic stylistic register. A celebrated example is [[Pericles' funeral oration]], which heaps honour on the dead and includes a defence of democracy:
<blockquote>The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men; they are honoured not only by columns and inscriptions in their own land, but in foreign nations on memorials graven not on stone but in the hearts and minds of men. ([[s:History of the Peloponnesian War/Book 2#2:43|2:43]])</blockquote>

Stylistically, the placement of this passage also serves to heighten the contrast with the description of the plague in [[Athens]] immediately following it, which graphically emphasizes the horror of human mortality, thereby conveying a powerful sense of verisimilitude:
<blockquote>Though many lay unburied, birds and beasts would not touch them, or died after tasting them [...]. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water. The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of persons who had died there, just as they were; for, as the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became equally contemptuous of the property of and the dues to the deities. All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger's pyre and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another that was burning, and so went off. ([[s:History of the Peloponnesian War/Book 2#2:52|2:52]])</blockquote>

Thucydides omits discussion of the arts, literature, or the social milieu in which the events in his book take place and in which he grew up. He saw himself as recording an event, not a period, and went to considerable lengths to exclude what he deemed frivolous or extraneous.