Thucydides for the Amateur

Extract

Thucydides is, naturally enough, almost always considered purely and simply as a historian. Scholars deal with such problems as textual readings, the composition of the History, topography, land and sea forces, and the authenticity of the speeches. Yet treated just as a work of literature, as a book to take down off the shelves and read in an easy chair (though not, like Macaulay's;s scholar, with feet on the fender), the History can exercise an ever-increasing fascination. I do not suppose Thucydides has very many compulsive readers, but over one of them at any rate he has cast his spell, and as an amateur in every sense I should like to attempt to explain why.