Thucydides
5th-century BC Athenian historian and general · Writers · Lived 460 BC to 395 BC · aged 65
Thucydides is read about 1,505 times a day, in 93 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 27 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 400 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He stripped the gods out of history and left only power, fear, and self-interest - a framework still taught in every war college and theory seminar 2,400 years later.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 9
The ruins of Amphipolis as envisaged by E. Cousinéry in 1831: the bridge over the Strymon, the city fortifications, and the acropolis
Thucydides Mosaic from Jerash, Jordan, Roman, 3rd century AD at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin
Bust of Pericles
10th-century minuscule manuscript of Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War![Pericles's Funeral Oration (Perikles hält die Leichenrede) by Philipp Foltz (1852)[43]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Discurso_funebre_pericles.PNG/500px-Discurso_funebre_pericles.PNG)
Pericles's Funeral Oration (Perikles hält die Leichenrede) by Philipp Foltz (1852)[43]
Bust of Thucydides residing in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
Double herm showing Herodotus and Thucydides. Farnese Collection, NaplesIn their own words 10
, For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller cities to subjection.
But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth became more an objective, the revenues of the states increasing, tyrannies were established almost everywhere...
So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.
About this person
Thucydides was an Athenian general who turned historian after living through the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens. His History of the Peloponnesian War covered the conflict through 411 BC, applying what he claimed were strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering, with no divine intervention to explain events. That approach earned him the title "father of scientific history" and made him the founding voice of political realism - the idea that fear and self-interest, not ideals, drive political behavior and relations between states. His Melian dialogue became a cornerstone text in international relations theory, and his account of Pericles's Funeral Oration remains a staple for political theorists and classicists. He developed a model of human nature tested against plagues, massacres, and wars, and the text still sits on syllabi at universities and military colleges worldwide.
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