Thucydides
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Thucydides. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
historian of the Peloponnesian War; born in the deme Halimus most probably in 471 b. c.; was the son of Olorus and Hegesipyle , and was related to Miltiades and Cimon. An Athenian of good family, he must have known Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Phidias, Protagoras, Gorgias, and possibly Herodotus and Æschylus . He was further possessed, either by inheritance or by acquisition through marriage, of gold mines in that part of Thrace lying opposite the island of Thasos . We know from himself that he was one of the sufferers from the terrible plague of Athens, and also one of the few who recovered. He held military command , and he had under him an Athenian squadron of seven ships at Thasos, 424 B. C., when he failed to relieve Amphipolis, which fell into the hands of Brasidas . Condemned to death as a traitor, he took refuge in exile and retired to his Thracian estates. His exile enabled him to associate with Peloponnesians quite as much as with the Athenians; and he probably spent some time also in Sicily. According to his own account, he lived in exile 20 years, and probably returned to Athens after the destruction of its walls , in 404. How or when he died is unknown. But he did not live long enough to revise book viii. or to bring his history down to the end of the war. If Herodotus was "the father of history," Thucydides was the first of critical historians , and no better account of his methods can be given than is contained in his own words: "Of the events of the war I have not ventured to speak from any chance information, nor according to any notion of my own; I have described nothing but what I either saw myself or learned from others, of whom I made the most careful and particular inquiry. The task was a laborious one, because eye witnesses of the same occurrences gave different accounts of them, as they remembered or were interested in the actions of one side or the other." There is hardly a literary production of which posterity has entertained a more uni formly favorable estimate than the history of Thucydides. This high distinction he owes to his undeviating fidelity and impartiality as a narrator; to the masterly concentration of his work, in which he is content to give in a few simple yet vivid expressions the facts which it must have often taken him weeks or even months to collect, sift, and decide upon; to the sagacity of his political and moral obervations , in which he shows the keenes' insight into the springs of human action and the mental nature of man; and to the unrivaled descriptive power exemplified in his account of the plague of Athens, and of the Athenian expedition to Sicily. Often, indeed, does the modern student of Greek history share the wish of Grote , that the great writer had been a little more communicative on collateral topics, and that some of his sentences had been expanded into paragraphs, and some of his paragraphs into chapters. But this want cannot have been felt by the contemporaries of Thucydides, while the fate of other ancient historians warns us that had his work, like theirs, been looser in texture, or less severely perfect, it would not have survived, as it has done, the wearing influence of time, or remained, in its own language, the ktema es aei-the "possession for ever"-it has proved to the world. THUCYDIDES It has been reserved for the 19th century to impeach the credibility, depreciate the matter, and to condemn the style of Thucydides. As these indictments, however, usually conclude with the statement that Thucydides remains nevertheless the greatest of historians, they might here be passed over in silence were it not in the first place that they serve to show that Thucydides' fame is proof against the solvents of modern criticism, and next that they help us to complete understanding of the qualities which have given to Thucydides' work such a wonderful hold over the intellects and imaginations of all his readers and critics. The attacks on Thucydides' credibility have proceeded from Germany, but have met with little acceptance there, and have found only one English-speaking follower, Professor Mahaffy. The most serious outcome of the discussion seems to be that Thucydides' knowledge of the topography of the Platea was defective, and that his account of the siege is consequently in accordance with the situation rather as he conceived it than as it actually was. But, even if we accept this application of the methods of modern criticism, it must not be imagined that those methods have all the same tendency. On the contrary, the actual treaty which Thucydides quotes in v. 47 has been discovered of late years, and confirms the accuracy and truth of the historian in a most unexpected and startling manner. The exact amount of accuracy or inaccuracy in Thucydides' account of the siege of Platea is matter of opinion; his accuracy in the matter of the treaty is not it is beyond dispute. But, after all, it is not by tests such as these, welcome as they are, that we can form an adequate opinion on the credibility of Thucydides. As an Athenian comedian remarks, we do not believe a man because he takes an oath-we trust the oath because we believe in the man. And so we believe in Thucydides, not because we have external tests to apply (for we have not enough), but because the universal experience of all who read him is a feeling of conviction that his intention was to speak the truth, so far as he could ascertain it. This conviction is ultimately due to the fact that in the man's work we are brought directly into touch with the man, and we judge his character as we judge that of any acquaintance whom we know in the flesh. No man can devote himself for 27 years to composing a work without putting a good deal of himself into the work, or without writing his character down in it-unconsciously, but none the less legibly. What, then, are the qualities of character which impress the reader of Thucydides? In the first place, his impartiality. This is a quality unknown to Latin historians for instance. Tacitus will not admit that the Romans were ever defeated-the result was, at most, indecisive even though the subsequent movements of the troops, as described by himself, clearly show that the Romans lost. Thucydides, on the other hand, sm, and lostich Thucydides an Athenian, never extenuates oven the mistakes of the Athenians; and hough himself banished by them, sets down naught in malice against them. Next, the reader feels that Thucydides strove-and that always-to ascertain facts, and to put down as facts nothing but facts. This conviction is forced on one in many ways, some of which are palpable enough to admit of being clearly indicated. To begin with, there is the fact that, when in search of a subject, Thucydides did not, like all other historians before him, choose a period of ancient history, which, being ancient, must be based on vague hearsay or dim tradition. He preferred contemporary history and events which he himself witnessed in part, while he could obtain the evidence of eye witnesses for the remainder. Nor did he wait till the conclusion of the war before setting about his task; from the very beginning he began collecting his facts. Next, his history is not designed to prove or illustrate any theory. He himself, in the passage quoted above, disclaims all attempt to adapt facts "to any notion of his own"; and it is evident that beginning to write, as he began, at the commencement of the war, when its course and its issue were yet in the future, he could not have designed to bring its history into conformity with any preconceived or a priori theory. Herodotus, writing the history of the past, was in a position to trace the finger of destiny in what had happened, and to explain history by means of final causes. But Thucydides, when he undertook to record the present, thereby deliberately elected to confine himself to ef- This preference for efficient causes. ficient causes and for "scientific" history, in 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 contains facts, and facts only, facts stated with a precision and objectivity whiche. g., in his description of the symptoms of fever in sufferers from the great plague - have been the marvel of all subsequent generations, and the greatest marvel to those who by special profesprofessional knowledge are competent ent The speeches, on the other hand, are not what the speakers actually said but of this Thucydides warns the reader at the beginning, showing clearly at once the distinction he drew between facts and inference, and his anxiety that the reader should realize the distinction. In fine, most of the untruth in this world is due not to deliberate perversion, but to the simple fact that so many people are quite unconscious what truth is. When, then, we find that Thucydides had a conception of historic truth and fact such as 2,000 subsequent years have been unable to improve, and that he strove strenuously all his life to live up to that conception and write up to it, we can well understand that even 19th-century criticism acknowledges itself incapable of shaking his credibility.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
thu-sid'i-deez (about 471-396 B. C.), a Greek historian. Little is known of his early life save that he was born of a good Athenian family and had opportunity for study and travel. His chief work is a History of the Peloponnesian War, still an authority on the subject. He depicts with clearness the progress of public events, showing how each grew out of what preceded. In this respect he is unsurpassed. It is much to be regretted that he did not describe the arts, social life, and institutions of his day. There is a tradition that he was killed by robbers. At all events the history breaks off in the middle of a sentence at the end of eight books. Grote, the English historian of Greece, depended on Thucydides. When he reached 411 B. C., the point at which Thucydides' narrative ceases, he says with regret, "To pass from Thucydides to the Hellenism of Xenophon is a descent truly mournful. . . . The historical propositions and conceptions of Thucydides are exalted and philosophical to a degree altogether wonderful when we consider that he had no preexisting models before him from which to derive them." Thucydides is beyond doubt the greatest historian of antiquity.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A celebrated Greek historian born at Athens . He wrote a history of the events connected with the Peloponnesian war. He died at Athens in his eightieth year, B. C. 391. Tiberis (Tiber or Tevere). The chief river in Central Italy, on which stood the city of Rome. It is said to have been originally called Albula, from the whiteness of its waters, and to have received the name of Tiberis in consequence of Tiberinus, king of Alba, having been drowned in it. Pliny claims that it rises in the Apennines above Arretium. Tiberius, Claudius Nero. A Roman emperor descended from the Claudii. In his early years he entertained the people with magnificent shows and gladiatorial exhibitions, which made him popular. At a later period of his life he retired to the island of Capreae, where he indulged in vice and debauchery. He died aged 'seventy-eight, after a reign of twenty-two years. Tibullus, Aulus Albius. A Roman knight celebrated for his poetical compositions. His favorite occupation was writing love-poems. Four books of elegies are all that remain of his compositions.