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Thug (THAG tory if the Peloponnesian)

or THAG tory, if the Peloponnesian War was not As for the subject of Thucydides' history, it was at least not Thucydides' fault a matter of importance in universal histhat he was not a contemporary with beg leave to doubt whether the Peloponnesian War was of inferior interest for some more important war. But we may the fortunes of mankind. Had it not been for the exhaustion it induced, Greece would not have succumbed to the Macedonian, and consequently Alexander's conquests would never have spread Greek culture over the ancient world. But, apart from this, Thucydides' history is the history of the effects of empire on ways be of enthralling interest to citizens of sovereign communities. Finally, Thuan imperial state; and, as such, will alcydides' style, criticized by Dionysius and condemned by Mure, is (in the speeches) difficult beyond all possibility of dispute. on the unformed condition of Attic Greek To throw the blame of this obs warrantable indeed, but is no adequate at the time when Thucydides wrote is obscurity defense. To point, on the other hand, to proof that Attic prose could be translucent in Thucydides' time is beside the cent in Thucydides' time is beside the only be written well by those who lived continuously in Athens, and Thucydides was exiled for many a year. But, in ides or the literary age in which he lived that is to be blamed for his obscurity is contains facts, and facts only, facts stated a wholly irrelevant question. Obscurity, with a precision and objectivity which- whatever be its cause, is a crime in a e. g., in his description of the symptoms writer. But it is a crime which carries whatever be its cause, is a crime in a plague-have been the marvel of all sub- number of an author's readers. The sequent generations, and the greatest exact amount of criminality is not to be marvel to those who by special professional knowledge are competent profesdetermined on any abstract principles or The speeches, on the other hand, are not "taste"; it admits of one simple practical ent to judge. by the exercise of any mysterious what the speakers actually said but of test-viz., has the obscurity of his style Herodotus, writing the history of the past, was in a position to trace the finger of destiny in what had happened, and causes. But Thucydides, when he undercauses. But Thucydides, when he undertook to record the present, thereby deliberately elected to confine himself to efficient causes. ficient causes and for "scientific" history, This preference for efin the best sense of the term, is intimately connected with the "positive" nature of his history-that is to say, with his perpetual endeavor to record facts and to distinguish them from inferences drawn from facts. A clear consciousness of this difference is involved in one of the most characteristic features of his history-that is, the marked difference between his narrative and the speeches which he introduced into it. The former this Thucydides warns the reader at the beginning, showing clearly at once the distinction he drew between facts and should realize the distinction. In fine, most of the untruth in this world is due simple fact that so many people are quite we find that Thucydides had a conception of historic truth and fact such as 2,000 subsequent years have been unable to imsubsequent years have been unable to imhis life to live up to that conception and write up to it, we can well understand edges itself incapable of shaking his credibility. (in so far as it exists), as a matter of fact, prevented him from attaining fame?

In the case of Thucydides it has had no fact, prevented him from attaining fame? not read a difficult author if there is an easier one out of whom they can get as much. That Thucydides has, in spite of sufficient testimony that there is no other historian to rank with him. his difficulty , always been read is in itself historian to rank with him. sufficient testimony that there is no other the sole means of staying the wrath of the N. provinces of India to a member of a fraternity who looked on murder as cipal means of support from the plunder of their victims. In old times, according to Hindu mythology, Kali made war on of their victims. In old times, according cipal means of support from the plunder