Thucydides

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Thucydides's historical approach, which is documentary yet personal, partisan yet does not assume that only what wins is right, is the genesis of contemporary modes of recording and, more importantly, creating history. The author points out that Thucydides asked not only what happened, but also why something happened. From the perspective of a losing army, he indicated that, if an army like the Spartans were winning, this did not mean automatically that the Spartans were morally better than the Athenians. The paper relates that, in Thucydides, history was transformed from merely being a fabric of myths and legends about the wonderful nature of one's own land and became a portrait of moral governance.

From the Paper:

"This is most apparent in Chapter IV, the Second Book, where the funeral oration of Pericles is recorded and depicted. In the words of the historian, "Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium," of a fallen warrior Pericles himself says that it is not winning or losing battles that matters most in history, rather "hat part of our [Athenian] history which tells of the military achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valor with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by," rather "what the form of government under which our greatness grew," is of greatest importance."

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