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Thucydides
- The Catholic University of America Press
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THUCYDIDES MARIANNE PADE (Københavns Universitet) Fortuna. Bibliography. Composite Editions. I. Historiae. Translations. . Laurentius Valla. . Marcus Antonius Coccius Sabellicus (Books , , –, speeches). . Bilibaldus Pirckheimerus (Book , partial). . Anonymus Hamburgensis (Books –: Philippus Melanchthon or Vitus Winsemius?). . Philippus Melanchthon (Books – and –, speeches; Books and , excerpts). . Johannes Casa (Books –, speeches; Book , excerpt). . Henricus Stephanus. . Joachim Camerarius (Books –, excerpts and speeches). . Gulielmus Canterus (Book , funeral oration of Pericles). . Vitus Winsemius. . Antonius Zenus (Book , speech). . Jobus Veratius (Books and , speeches). . Franciscus Patiaequus (Book , partial). . Franciscus Portus. . Georgius Acacius Enenckelius. . Fabius Paulinus (Book , description of the plague). . Petrus de Valencia (Book , partial). Commentaries. a. Anonymus Basiliensis (Books –..). b. Anonymus Hamburgensis (Books –: Philippus Melanchthon or Vitus Winsemius?). c. David Chytraeus (Books – and , accessus only). d. Joachim Camerarius (Books –, excerpts and speeches). e. Vitus Winsemius. f. Antonius Zenus (Book , speech). g. Jobus Veratius (Books –, argumenta). h. Henricus Stephanus (Books –). i. Franciscus Portus. j. Georgius Acacius Enenckelius. k. Fabius Paulinus (Book , description of the plague). F* Thucydides, the son of Olorus, was the author of a contemporary history of the Peloponnesian War (– ..) known simply as the JIstorivai or Xuggrafhv (Latin Historiae) and comprising eight books. Through his mother he belonged to the Athenian aristocratic family of the Philaïdae; his father’s family, however, was Thracian, and throughout his life Thucydides maintained connections with that country. His mother’s family was traditionally conservative and opposed to the popular policy of Pericles, a fact which makes the strong Periclean bias of the Historiae somewhat surprising. Early in the war Thucydides caught the plague, but he recovered. He was elected general for the year / .., when he would have been at least thirty years old. Consequently he must have been born no later than .. and, in all probability , some years before that. In the winter of / .. he failed to save the city of Amphipolis from Brasidas, the Spartan commander, and was exiled. During the rest of the war he did not live in Athens, a circumstance which may have furthered his historical investigations. Thucydides began to write the Historiae immediately after the outbreak of the war in .. He was probably pardoned after the capitulation of Athens in .. and would then have been able to return to his native city. We do not know the date of his death, only that he lived to see the end of the war. Since he did not have time to finish his work, he probably died around .. The Historiae are the principal source for biographical information about Thucydides. We also have other Greek sources, namely, the Vita of Marcellinus (fifth century ..?), a short anonymous Vita, and the article in the Suda (tenth century ). The general consensus, however, now seems to be that the Historiae are the source of these later works.1 Although the Peloponnesian War was over in .., the Historiae end with the description of the events of the year / .. Book (the last) shows less stylistic perfection than books – and contains no speeches. Thucydides stresses that he writes about events that took place when he was present, or for which he has reliable eyewitnesses . He aimed to produce a work that would be “judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future.”2 Book contains two long digressions (excursus): the so called Archeology (.–), treating the early history of Greece; and the Pentecontaetia (.–), linking the Historiae to the work of Herodotus (ca. – ..) and relating the events of the fifty years from the end of the Persian Wars to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Throughout the first seven books of the Historiae we find interspersed with the ordinary narrative the famous speeches of politicians and generals . The actual wording was necessarily invented by Thucydides and the speeches are all unmistakably in his style, but he maintains that “while keeping as close as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used, [he, sc. Thucydides , would] make the speakers say what, in [his] opinion, was called for by each situation.”3 The most celebrated and most imitated passages of the Historiae are: the proem (.–); the speeches , particularly Pericles’ funeral oration (.–); * My work on this article was made possible by a travelling fellowship from the Carlsberg-foundation (Copenhagen ) and by a grant from the Niels Bohr Fond; by the hospitality of the Accademia di Danimarca (Rome), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan), and Fondation Hardt...
