T H U 



407 



T H U 



five in number, are scarcely distinguishable from those of 

 the Robin, and of an uniform bright greenish blue destitute 

 of spots. Beetles, caterpillars, and other insects, and in 

 autumn berries, constitute the principal food of the species. 

 Nuttall further states that the young remain for weeks 

 around gardens in quest of berries, and that they are 

 particularly fond of those of the various species of cornel 

 and ribiirtiiim. At this season, he says, they occasionally 

 leave their favourite glens, and in their devious wander- 

 ings, previous to their departure, sometimes venture to 

 visit the rural suburbs of the city. The young, it appears, 

 are easily reared, and, like our Throstle, sing nearly as well 

 in the cage as in their native wilds. (Manual of the 

 Ornithology of the United States and of Canada.) 



THUA'NUS. [Tnoi-, DE.] 



THUCY'DIDES (eot*>fci, e ), the son of Olorus, or Oro- 

 his, and Hegesipyle, was a native of the demus of Alimus 

 in Attica. He was connected by his mother's side with 

 Hit- family of the great Miltiades, and the name of his 

 lather was a common one among the Thracian princes. 

 It he was forty years old at the commencement of the Pelo- 

 ponnesian war, according to the statement of Pamphila 

 (Gellius, xv. 23 j, lie was born in B.C. 471. In his own 

 work he nowhere mentions his age or the time of his 

 birth, but he says that he lived through the whole of the 

 Peloponnesian war, and that he was of the proper age for 

 observing its progress (v. 20 . 



Our principal information respecting the life of Thucy- 

 dides is a biography of him written by Marcellinus, which 

 is however fnll of contradictions and doubtful stories. 

 There is also an anonymous biography of him prefixed to 

 manv editions of his works, which is still worse than that 

 of Alarcellinus. Thueydides mentions incidentally a few 

 tacts concerning himself, which is almost all that we know 

 with certainty about his life. 



There is a well-known story that when a boy he heard 

 Herodotus read his History at Olympia, and was so much 

 moved that he burnt into tears. Hut there is good reason 

 for believing that this recitation of the History of Herodo- 

 tus never took place at the Olympic games [HERODOTUS] ; 

 and if there is any foundation for the story of Thucydides 

 having heard him read it, we would rather refer it to a 

 later recitation at Athens, which is mentioned by Plutarch 

 and Eusebius. Snidas is the only writer who says that 

 Thucydides heard Herodotus at Olympia ; Marcellinus and 

 Photius relate the same tale without mentioning where the 

 recitation took place. 



There seems nothing improbable in the accounts of the 

 antient biographers that Thucydides was taught philoso- 

 phy by Anaxagoras and rhetoric by Antiphon ; but their 

 statement that he accompanied the Athenian colony to 

 Tliurii is probably a mistake arising from their confound- 

 ing him with Herodotus, who, we know, was of the colo- 

 nists. But whether he went to Thurii or not, it is certain 

 that he was in Athens in the second year of the Pelopon- 

 iicsiiin war, H.C. 4.'W, when he was one of those who had the 

 plague. (Thucyd., ii. 48.) In the eighth year of the war, 

 B.C. 424, he was in command of an Athenian fleet of seven 

 ships, which lay otf Thasos. Hrasidas, the Lacedaemonian 

 commander, made an attempt to obtain possession of Am- 

 phipolis on the Strymon, which then belonged to Athens ; 

 and Thucydides, as soon as he heard of it, sailed to protect 

 Amphipolis, but was only in sufficient time to save Eion, a 

 seaport at the mouth of the Strymon. Amphipolis had 

 fallen before he could arrive there. (Thucyd., iv. 102, &c.) 

 For this he was either condemned to death or banished by 

 the Athenians in the year following, H.C. 423 ; and in con- 

 sequence of the sentence passed upon him he spent twenty 

 years in exile, namely, till B.C. 403. (Thucyd., v. 20.) This 

 year coincides exactly with the restoration of the democracy 

 by Thrasybulus, when a general amnesty was granted, of 

 which Thucydides seems to have availed himself. Where 

 In- pn-wc'd the time of his exile is not mentioned by him- 

 cellinus says that he first went to JEgina, and 

 afterwards to Scapte-Hyle in Thrace, opposite the island of 

 Tliasos, where he had some valuable goM-mines. (Compare 

 Plutarch, />/ / / //0, p. 605.) It appears however not im- 

 probable that he visited several places during his exile: 

 the intimate knowledge which he shows respecting the 

 history of the Italiotes and Siceliotes almost inclines one 

 to suppose that he may have visited Italy and Sicily after 

 the failure of the Athenian expedition in the latter island. 

 His property in Thrace would however naturally lead him 



to pass the greater part of his time in that country. This 

 property, which was very considerable (.Thucyd., iv. 105), 

 was probably derived from his family, which came from 

 ! Thrace, though Marcellinus says that he obtained it by 

 marrying a Thracian heiress. 



How long he lived after his return from exile, and 

 whether he continued at Athens till the time of his death, 

 is quite uncertain. According to some accounts he was 

 assassinated at Athens, according to others he died at 

 Thasos, and his bones were carried to Athens. He is said 

 to have been buried in the sepulchre of the family of Mil- 

 tiades. 



The Peloponnesian war forms the subject of the History 

 of Thucydides. He tells us that he foresaw it would be 

 the most important war that Greece had ever known, and 

 that he therefore began collecting materials for it$ histoiy 

 from its very commencement ; that, where he had to rely 

 upon the testimony of others, he caremlly weighed and 

 examined the statements that were made him ; and that he 

 spared neither time nor trouble to arrive at the truth, and 

 that in consequence of his exile he was enabled to obtain 

 information from the Peloponnesians as well as his own 

 countrymen (i. 22; v. 26). Though he was engaged in 

 collecting materials during the whole of the war, he does 

 not appear to have reduced them into the form of a regular 

 histoiy till after his return from exile, since he alludes in 

 many parts of it to the conclusion of the war (i. 13 ; v. 

 20, KO.)I He did not however live to complete it : the 

 eighth book ends abruptly in the middle of the year B.C. 

 411, seven years before the termination of the war. Even 

 the eighth book itself does not seem to have received the 

 last revision of the author, although there is no reason at 

 all for doubting its genuineness, as it bears on every page 

 indubitable traces ni' his style and mode of thought. Some 

 antient writers however attributed it to his daughter, others 

 to Theopompus or Xenophon. As the work of Thucydides 

 is evidently incomplete, it would appear that it was not 

 published in his lifetime ; and there is therefore great pro- 

 bability that the statement is correct which attributes the 

 publication of it to Xenophon. Niebuhr has brought for- 

 ward reasons which seem to render it almost certain that 

 Xenophon's ' Hellenics' consist of two distinct works, and 

 that the last five books were not published till long after 

 the first two. The first two, which seem to have borne 

 the title of the ' Paralipomena ' of Thucydides, complete 

 the histoiy of the Peloponnesian war, and were not impro- 

 bably published by Xenophon, together with the eight 

 books of Thucydides. (Niebuhr, in Philological Museum, 

 i. 4STi, &c.) 



The first book of Thucydides is a kind of introduction to 

 the history. He commences by observing that the Pelo- 

 ponnesian war was more important than any that had been 

 known before ; and to prove this, he reviews the state of 

 Greece from the earliest times down to the commencement 

 of the war (c. 1-21). He then proceeds to investigate the 

 causes which led to it, of which the real one was the 

 jealousy which the Peloponnesians entertained of the 

 power of Athens ; and interrupts his narrative to give an 

 account of the rise and progress of the Athenian empire 

 down to the commencement of the war (c. 89-118). He 

 had an additional reason for making this digression, since 

 this history had either been passed over by previous writers 

 altogether, or had been treated briefly, without attention 

 to chronology (c. 97). He resumes the thread of his nar- 

 rative at c. 1 19, with the negotiations of the Peloponnesian 

 confederacy previous to the declaration of the war : but 

 the demand of the Lacedaemonians, that the Athenians 

 should drive out the accused, which was answered by the 

 Athenians requiring the Lacedaemonians to do the same, 

 leads to another digression respecting the treason and 

 death of Pausanias (c. 128-134) ; and as proofs were found 

 implicating Themistocles in the designs of the Spartan 

 king, he continues the digression in order to give an ac- 

 count of the exile and death of Themistocles (c. 135-138). 

 He then resumes the narrative, and concludes the book 

 with the speech of Pericles which induced the Athenians to 

 refuse compliance with the demands of the Peloponnesians. 

 The history of the war does not therefore begin till the 

 second book ; but it would be out of place to give here an 

 abstract of the remainder of the work. 



Thucydides had formed a high opinion of the value and 

 importance of the work he had undertaken. It was not 

 his object to afford amusement, like former writers, but to 



