c. 8th century BCIonia, perhaps Smyrna or Chios
The legendary poet credited with the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundation stones of Greek literature and education.
Read the profile“I have written my work not as an essay to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.”
Life
Thucydides came from a wealthy Athenian family with links to Thrace, where it owned gold mines. He caught the great plague of 430 BC and survived, and later described it with clinical precision. In 424 BC, as a general, he failed to save the city of Amphipolis from the Spartan commander Brasidas and was exiled for twenty years, which gave him the chance to observe the war from both sides.
The History
He began writing at the very start of the war, believing it would be the greatest conflict the Greeks had ever known. Unlike Herodotus, he left out the gods and rejected stories he could not check, aiming for accuracy through eyewitness accounts. He also included speeches, such as Pericles’ Funeral Oration and the chilling Melian Dialogue, to show the arguments and motives of the people involved. The work breaks off in 411 BC, seven years before the war ended.
Legacy
Thucydides is often called the father of scientific history and of political realism. His analysis of fear, power and ambition between states is still studied in military academies and political science courses today.
Keep exploring
More in History & Letters
- c. 630–570 BCLesbos
The most celebrated female poet of antiquity, whose intense and personal poems of love survive only in fragments but still speak powerfully today.
Read the profile - c. 496–406 BCColonus, near Athens
The most successful tragedian of Classical Athens, author of Oedipus the King and Antigone, who won more first prizes than any rival.
Read the profile
