Thucydides

Thucydides was an Athenian general and historian of the Peloponnesian War. After exile following the loss of Amphipolis, he produced an analytical account of strategy, plague, civil conflict, diplomacy and the destruction of Athenian power.

Elected one of Athens’ generals in 424 BCE, Thucydides was responsible for forces in the northern Aegean when the Spartan commander Brasidas captured Amphipolis; his failure to save the city led to roughly twenty years of exile. He later argued that exile gave him opportunities to observe the war from both Athenian and Peloponnesian perspectives. His insistence on evidence, causation and human political motives, rather than divine intervention, gave his unfinished history an enduring reputation as a foundational work of analytical historiography and political thought.

In Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is the central ancient source for the war between Athens and Sparta from 431 to 411 BCE.