before cited hath testified of him. But in the characters of men's humours and manners, and applying them to affairs of consequence it is impossible not to be obscure to ordinary capacities, in what words soever a man deliver his mind. If therefore Thucydides in his orations, or in the description of a sedition, or other thing of that kind, be not easily understood; it is of those only that cannot penetrate into the nature of such things, and proceedeth not from any intricacy of expression. Dionysius further findeth fault with his using to set word against word: which the rhetoricians call antitheta. Which, as it is in some kind of speech a very great vice, so is it not improper in characters: and of comparative discourses, it is almost the only style. And whereas he further taxeth him for licentiousness in turning nouns into verbs, and verbs into nouns, and altering of genders, cases, and numbers; as he doth sometimes for the more efficacy of his style, and without solocism; I leave him to the answer of Marcellinus: who says, "That Dionysius findeth fault with this, as being ignorant" (yet he was a professed rhetorician) "that this was the most excellent and perfect kind of speaking." Some man may peradventure desire to know, what motive Dionysius might have to extenuate the worth of him, whom he himself acknowledgeth to have been esteemed by all men for the best by far of all historians that ever wrote, and to have been taken by all the ancient orators and philosophers for the measure and rule of writing history. What motive he had to it, I know not: but what glory he might expect by it, is easily known. For having first preferred Herodotus, his countryman, a Halicarnassian, before Thucydides, who was accounted the best; and then conceiving that his own history might perhaps be thought not inferior to that of Herodotus: by this computation he saw the honour of the best historiographer falling on himself. Wherein, in the opinion of all men, he hath misreckoned. And thus much for the objections of Denis of Halicarnasse. It is written of Demosthenes, the famous orator, that he wrote over the history of Thucydides with his own but proper for history, and For words that pass away (as hand eight times. So much was this work esteemed, even for the eloquence. But yet was this his eloquence not at all fit for the bar; rather to be read than heard. in public orations they must) without pause, ought to be understood with ease, and are lost else: though words that remain in writing for the reader to meditate on, ought rather to be pithy and full. Cicero therefore doth justly set him apart from the rank of pleaders; but withal, he continually giveth him his due for history, (lib. ii. De Oratore): "What great rhetorician ever borrowed any thing of Thucydides? Yet all men praise him, I confess it, as a wise, severe, grave relator of things done: not for a pleader of causes at the bar, but a reporter of war in history. So that he was never reckoned an orator: nor if he had never written a history, had his name therefore not been extant, being a man of honour and nobility. Yet none of them imitate the gravity of his words and sentences; but when they have uttered a kind of lame and disjointed stuff, they presently think themselves brothers of Thucydides." Again, in his book De Optimo Oratore, he saith thus: "But here will stand up Thucydides: for his eloquence is by some admired; and justly. But this is nothing to the orator we seek for it is one thing to unfold a matter by way of narration; another thing to accuse a man, or clear him by arguments. And in narrations, one thing to stay the hearer, another to stir him." Lucian, in his book entitled How a history ought to be written, doth continually exemplify the virtues which he requires in an historiographer by Thucydides. And if a man consider well that whole discourse of his, he shall plainly perceive that the image of this present history, preconceived in Lucian's mind, suggested unto him all the precepts he there delivereth. Lastly, hear the most true and proper commendation of him from Justus Lipsius, in his notes to his book De Doctrina Civili in these words: "Thucydides, who hath written not many nor very great matters, hath perhaps yet won the garland from all that have written of matters. both many and great. Everywhere for elocution grave; short, and thick with sense; sound in his judgments; everywhere secretly instructing and directing a man's life and actions. In his orations and excursions, almost divine. Whom the oftener you read, the more you shall carry away; yet never be dismissed without appetite. Next to him is Polybius, &c." And thus much concerning the life and history of Thucydides. THE FIRST BOOK OF THE HISTORY OF THUCYDIDES. THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS. The estate of Greece, derived from the remotest known antiquity 1. THUCYDIDES, an Athenian, wrote the war of the 1 ὡς ἐπολέμησαν. [“ As” they VOL. VIII. written, even if the words ὡς ἐπο- B I. I. pear that this war any before it, the former times; de saw the rest of Greece siding with the one or the other faction, some then presently and some To make it ap- intending so to do. For this was certainly the was greater than greatest commotion that ever happened amongst author showeth the Grecians, reaching also to part of the barbathe imbecility of rians', and, as a man may say, to most nations. For the actions that preceded this, and those again the beginning of that are yet more ancient, though the truth of them mory to the war through length of time cannot by any means clearly of Troy. 2. The be discovered; yet for any argument that, looking time from thence into times far past, I have yet light on to persuade war which he me, I do not think they have been very great, either for matter of war or otherwise. scribing the Grecian me war itself. 3. The to the present writeth. The state of 2. For it is evident that that which now is called the Trojan war. Hellas', was not of old constantly inhabited; but that at first there were often removals, every one easily leaving the place of his abode to the violence always of some greater number. For whilst traffic was not, nor mutual intercourse but with fear, neither by sea nor land; and every man so husbanded the ground as but barely to live upon it, without any stock of riches3, and planted nothing; (because it was uncertain when another should invade them and carry all away, especially not having the defence of walls); but made account to be masters, in any place, of such necessary sustenance as might serve them from day to day: they made little difficulty to change their habitations. And for this cause they were of no ability at all, either for greatness of cities or other provision. But the 1 The common appellation given by the Grecians to all nations 2 Greece. 3 χρήματα : whatever is estimated besides themselves. [μépa rivi: to by money. Aristotle. |