Thucydides was a prominent politician of ancient
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and the leader for a number of years of the powerful conservative faction. While it is likely he is related to the later historian (and general)
Thucydides son of OlorusThucydides was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century B.C. war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 B.C...
, the details are uncertain; maternal grandfather and grandson fits the available evidence.
Thucydides, the son of Melesias, was born in the
demeIn Ancient Greece, a deme was a subdivision of Attica, the region of Greece surrounding Athens. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, but did not acquire particular significance until the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508 BC...
of Alopecê (Αλωπεκή) of
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
. The exact year of his birth is unknown, but his family was noble and he was a relative of Cimon, the charismatic general and leader of the conservative party.
Thucydides was a prominent politician of ancient
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and the leader for a number of years of the powerful conservative faction. While it is likely he is related to the later historian (and general)
Thucydides son of OlorusThucydides was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century B.C. war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 B.C...
, the details are uncertain; maternal grandfather and grandson fits the available evidence.
Thucydides, the son of Melesias, was born in the
demeIn Ancient Greece, a deme was a subdivision of Attica, the region of Greece surrounding Athens. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, but did not acquire particular significance until the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508 BC...
of Alopecê (Αλωπεκή) of
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
. The exact year of his birth is unknown, but his family was noble and he was a relative of Cimon, the charismatic general and leader of the conservative party. After Cimon's death, he succeeded him in the leadership of the conservatives and decided to exert a vehement opposition against
PericlesPericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...
, who was leading Athens, at the time.
Thucydides represented the thorough-going conservative party at Athens; their views are most clearly represented by "the Old Oligarch" in his
Constitution of the Athenians, which has come down to us among the works of
XenophonXenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens and Xenophon of Thebes, was a soldier, mercenary, and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
.
Donald KaganDonald Kagan is an American historian at Yale specializing in ancient Greece, notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. He was Dean of Yale College from 1989–1992. He formerly taught in the Department of History at Cornell University...
suggests that Thucydides' ultimate goal, which he could not state openly as doing so would alienate the pro-democratic majority, was to roll back the constitutional changes made by
EphialtesEphialtes of Trachis was the son of Eurydemus of Malis. He showed the Persian forces a path around the allied Greek position at the pass of Thermopylae, which helped them win the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE.The allied Greek land forces, which Herodotus states numbered no more than 4,200 men,...
, reinstituting the more aristocratic and conservative government that had prevailed in Cimon's day.
Thucydides' political strength reached its peak in the wake of the
First Peloponnesian WarThe First Peloponnesian War was fought between Sparta as the leaders of the Peloponnesian League and Sparta's other allies, most notably Thebes, and the Delian League led by Athens with support from Argos. This war consisted of a series of conflicts and minor wars, such as the Second Sacred War...
and the reorganization of the Athenian empire in the early 440s BC. Thucydides developed a new and effective political tactic by having his supporters sit together in the assembly, increasing their apparent strength and giving them a united voice. Kagan asserts that this tactic helped Thucydides mount a concerted opposition to Pericles which brought to light ideological differences among Pericles' supporters.
In 444 BC, the conservative and the democratic parties confronted each other in a fierce battle. Though some modern scholars doubt the details of Plutarch's account, according to Plutarch, Thucydides, the new leader of the conservatives, accused Pericles, the leader of the democrats, of profligacy, criticizing the way Pericles spent the money for his ambitious building plan. Thucydides managed to incite the passions of the
Athenian AssemblyThe ecclesia or ekklesia was the principal assembly of the democracy of ancient Athens during its Golden Age . It was the popular assembly, opened to all male citizens over the age of 30 by Solon in 594 BC meaning that all classes of citizens in Athens were able to participate, even the thetes...
in his favor, but when Pericles took the floor, the atmosphere immediately changed. Pericles proposed to pay for all the construction from his own purse, under the term that all these monuments would belong to him and not to
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
. The public applauded his stance and Thucydides suffered an unexpected defeat from the charismatic orator. As a result of his failure in confronting Pericles, Thucydides was
ostracizedOstracism was a procedure under the Athenian democracy in which a prominent citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the victim, ostracism was often used pre-emptively...
for ten years, in 442 BC, and Pericles once again stood unchallenged in the Athenian political arena. Plutarch relates that, when Thucydides was asked by
SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
's king,
Archidamus IIArchidamus II was a king of Sparta who reigned from approximately 476 BC to 427 BC. He was of the Eurypontid dynasty. His father was Zeuxidamus , who died before his father, Leotychidas, after having his son, Archidamus....
, if he or Pericles was a better fighter, Thucydides answered without any hesitation that Pericles was a better fighter, because, even when he is defeated, he achieves to convince the audience that he won!
After being ostracized, Thucydides is said to have travelled to
SybarisSybaris was a celebrated city of Magna Graecia on the western shore of the Gulf of Taranto. The wealth of the city in the 6th century BC was such that the Sybarites became synonymous with pleasure and luxury...
, a city of
Magna GraeciaMagna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that was extensively colonized by Greek settlers, especially the Achaean collonies of Tatentium, Crotone and Sybaris but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neopolis to the north...
on the
Gulf of TarantoThe Gulf of Taranto is a gulf of the Ionian Sea, in southern Italy.The Gulf of Taranto is almost square, 140 km long and wide, and is delimited by the capes Santa Maria di Leuca and Colonna...
in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, or
AeginaAegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island...
, but this is unconfirmed.
While in
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
, Thucydides is also said to have accused Pericles' personal friend,
AnaxagorasAnaxagoras was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae in Asia Minor, Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to bring philosophy from Ionia to Athens. He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows, and the sun, which he described as a fiery mass larger than...
, of
atheismAtheism can be either the rejection of theism,or the position that deities do not exist.In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities....
and sympathy for the Persians.