Thucydides (ca. 460/455?–ca. 400 BCE)

AbstractThucydides, an Athenian, authored a work describing the conflict between the Athenians and the Spartans, generally referred to as the Peloponnesian War, that occurred during the last three decades of the fifth centurybce(1998). Thus, Thucydides is often described as the “historian” of the Peloponnesian War, though the practice of history in ancient Greece did not have the baggage it currently possesses and though it is through his narrative that he constructs a series of conflicts with an intervening peace into a unified war. Thucydides says simply in his first sentence: “Thucydides the Athenian wrote [zunegrapse] about the war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians and how they fought with one another.” He adds that he began writing immediately when the war began expecting that it would be a significant event and “most worthy of report.”