Thucydides

Thucydides is generally considered one of the greatest Greek historians from antiquity, and he envisioned his historiographical project primarily as a pedagogical act designed to teach future generations the fundamental laws that govern the affairs of states and individuals in both politics and war. At once the product of the intellectual developments in Athens during the latter half of the fifth century BCE, as well as a unique genius who combined literary greatness and a new level of accuracy and objectivity in the nascent genre of historiography, Thucydides wrote his text on the Peloponnesian War with a single educational aim in mind, that it be “a possession for all time,” and this he indeed accomplished in that it has inspired and influenced writers of history as well as political theorists and others from his own time until the present day. His philosophical insights into human nature, conduct, and language are still applicable to contemporary concerns, both societal and international, and together they earn him a place as one of the greatest teachers within the Western intellectual tradition.