Thucydides (460 BC-400 BC) was an Athenian historian and general who fought in the Peloponnesian War, after which he wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, a history of the war until 411 BC. He and Herodotus are considered to be two of the most important Greek historians of their time.
Biography[]
Thucydides was born in Athens, Attica, Greece in 460 BC, the son of Olorus. Thucydides owned a gold mine in Thrace before becoming a general during the Peloponnesian War, commanding a fleet off Ikario Pelagos. He survived the Plague of Athens, and he fought at the Battle of Amphipolis in 423 BC. Because of his failure to save the city, he was exiled, and he used his exile to hear the other side's accounts of the war and compile The History of the Peloponnesian War, a history of the conflict until 411 BC; his work included the Melian dialogue and Pericles' funeral oration, and he is seen as the father of political realism due to his study of the roles of fear and self-interest in politics. He returned to Athens after the city's surrender in 404 BC, and he died there in 400 BC at the age of 72.