The Melian Dialogue

Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE) was an Athenian historian and general. One of the earliest historians, he is responsible for a contemporary account of the Peloponnesian War. Born an Athenian citizen in the Attic countryside—the rural area surrounding the city of Athens—he was expected to serve in the military. As such, he participated in the opening phase of the war. After contracting and recovering from the plague that gripped Athens at the outset of the conflict, he was made a general, or strategos, and sent to the island of Thasos, opposite the strategic city of Amphipolis in Thrace. After the Spartans captured the city, Thucydides was blamed for the loss and exiled. He had considerable wealth through his ownership of gold mines in Thrace, and thus his exile was paradoxically beneficial to him as a historian, since it allowed him to travel and learn of the events of the unfolding conflict from both sides.

Thucydides is regarded as the founder of “scientific history,” or history as supported by evidence and analysis, characterized by impartiality, and without reference to supernatural intervention. This tone sets him apart from the “father of history” who preceded him a generation before, Herodotus, who referenced the supernatural in his landmark work, The Histories.