THUCYDIDES 



5804 



THYME 



THUCYDJDES 



THUCYDIDES, thusid'ideez, a Greek his- 

 torian of the fifth century B.C., celebrated as 

 the first historian to write from a critical stand- 

 point. His great masterpiece, A History of the 

 Peloponnesian War, is divided into eight books, 

 the last of which 

 concludes 

 abruptly and 

 bears evidence of 

 not having been 

 carefully revised. 

 The narrative 

 covers twenty- 

 one of the 

 t we n t y-e i ght 

 years of the war, 

 the period from 

 431 to the middle 

 of 411 B.C. It is 

 a terse, impartial 

 record of the conflict, and a striking testimony 

 to the author's painstaking efforts to obtain 

 and present accurate information. As the 

 events are given according to the record of each 

 summer and winter, they are not always prop- 

 erly grouped, but on the whole the history is 

 one of the best available sources of information 

 on that period. The author is admired, too, 

 for his skill in analyzing characters and his 

 ability to show the relation between cause and 

 effect. 



Thucydides was born in Attica. He came of 

 an aristocratic and wealthy family, and was 

 the possessor of rich Thracian gold mines. 

 During the Peloponnesian War, in 424 B. c., he 

 was in command of part of the Athenian fleet, 

 but his failure to relieve the siege of Am- 

 phipolis made him an exile for twenty years. 

 He returned to Athens in 403 B. c., shortly after 

 the close of the war, and it is supposed that he 

 died two or three years later. 



THUGS, the name . commonly applied in 

 America to "holdup" men or highwaymen. The 

 word is from the Hindustani thag, meaning a 

 cheat or rascal, and was first applied to a reli- 

 gious society in India whose members commit- 

 ted murders and plundered victims in honor of 

 Kali, the patron goddess of the thugs. Accord- 

 ing to legend they formerly believed that Kali 

 assisted them in disposing of the bodies of their 

 victims by devouring them, but when one of 

 the fraternity became curious and pried into 

 the proceedings of the goddess she became 

 angry and condemned them in the future to 

 bury their victims. The native Indian and the 

 English governments have tried to suppress 



thuggee the practice of the thugs at various 

 periods, and in 1831 the British authorities 

 adopted strenuous measures to put an end to 

 the evil. It is now practically wiped out. 



THULE, ihu'le, or, more commonly, ULTIMA 

 THULE, the name usually given in ancient lit- 

 erature to the most northern of lands. Some 

 writers say that Iceland was meant, others 

 that the name was given to one of the Shet- 

 land Islands. 



THURS'DAY, the fifth day of the week, 

 literally Thor's day, sacred to the ancient Scan- 

 dinavian or Teutonic god of thunder. This is 

 probably a translation of the Latin dies jovis, 

 meaning Jove's day, Jove or Jupiter being the 

 corresponding Roman god. In the United States 

 the last Thursday in November is celebrated as 

 Thanksgiving Day. Maundy Thursday, also 

 called Holy Thursday, is the day preceding 

 Good Friday. See THOR. 



THWAITES, thwayts, REUBEN GOLD (1853- 

 1913), an American historian, born at Dorches- 

 ter, Mass. He attended the high school, but 

 his college work, in preparation for a post- 

 graduate course at Yale, he did by himself. In 

 1866 he went to Wisconsin, and ten years later 

 was made managing editor of the Wisconsin 

 State Journal, at Madison. From 1886 until 

 his death he was secretary and superintendent 

 of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 

 and editor of its publications. Among his pub- 

 lished volumes are Down Historic Waterways; 

 The Story of Wisconsin; The Colonies, 1492- 

 1750; On the Storied OMo; Stories of the 

 Badger State and biographies of Daniel Boone, 

 Marquette and George Rogers Clark. Besides 

 his part in making the Wisconsin State His- 

 torical Society efficient beyond those of many 

 other states, his greatest work was the editing 

 of the seventy-three volumes of Jesuit Rela- 

 tions. This is considered by authorities one of 

 the most excellent examples of scholarship ever 

 shown by an American historian. 



THYME, time, a fragrant garden herb be- 

 longing to the same family as the mints. Its 

 scent is due to an oil contained in the leaves 

 and stems, from which is prepared the drug 

 thymol. In Europe thyme is cultivated for use 

 as a flavoring. The plant grows from six to 

 ten inches high, and has square, hairy stems, 

 narrow leaves and small lilac or purplish flow- 

 ers, borne in separate whorls. A variety known 

 as creeping thyme, with woody, branching stems, 

 makes an admirable cover for rocks and waste 

 places. There is an old tradition that at mid- 

 night in midsummer the king of the fairies and 



