This chapter investigates the function of speeches in Thucydides’ work. It shows how speeches are used to advance the action of the story (using the examples of Brasidas’ speeches in Book 4 to illustrate this) and how they play on the expectations and assumptions of Thucydides’ rhetorically aware audience. The function of messengers is also discussed, along with the ‘soundscape’ evoked by less formal speech. Finally, the long-standing debate about of the composition and selection of the speeches is addressed, along with the question of how the speeches (and what Thucydides claims for his speeches) bear on the wider problem of the purpose of the work.

This chapter investigates Thucydides’ views about morality and justice and the role that these concepts play in his work. It argues that Thucydides’ own ideas about justice were conventional, but that his understanding of the role of justice in shaping human affairs was more novel. The chapter explores the methodological problem of reconstructing Thucydides’ views about justice and morality, given that most statements on these themes are made by characters rather than the author. It then analyses the text’s representation of key ideas about justice, morality and other virtues; it explores how these are manifested in Thucydides’ characterization of individuals in the work; and it surveys the differences between Thucydides’ representation of Spartan and Athenian approaches to justice and morality.

This chapter offers an analysis of the first book of the History, paying particular attention to the distinctive structure of Book 1. Thucydides’ plan of narrating the war chronologically, by summers and winters, is announced only at the start of Book 2; the structure of Book 1 is much more complex. The chapter starts by exploring ancient critics’ reactions to Book 1’s unusual form, and then it goes on to analyse each of the disruptions to chronological sequence in the book and the reasons for them. It compares these chronological disruptions to other sorts of disjunction (e.g. in style and mode of historical writing) in Book 1. Finally, it raises the question of whether similar disruptions and disjunctions might be found elsewhere in the work.

Thucydides’ reception in the 19th century is a key moment for modern historical thought. This was a period when history was becoming institutionalized as a university discipline, and this chapter shows how Thucydides was invoked as a predecessor by a number of major figures in the field. The chapter also explores why this was the case, drawing attention to the paradox that this invocation of Thucydides entailed: how did a discipline that was seeking to establish itself as ‘modern’ find legitimacy in this ancient text? And how did this influence the way in which Thucydides’ historical project was read and understood?

This chapter discusses responses to Thucydides’ History in the thousand-year period between the foundation of Constantinople in 330 CE and the appearance of the first translations of Thucydides in the late 14th century. The chapter describes the processes by which the text was preserved and transmitted and how it was read and understood in this period. It also explores the question of why the Byzantines were interested in Thucydides and the creative ways in which some Byzantine authors adapted or redeployed Thucydides’ work in their own writing.

This chapter explores Thucydides’ depiction of leadership in the Greek city states. For Thucydides, the association between leader and led is an essential determinant of the direction taken by a state; his text often explores the ways in which the thought and rhetoric of an individual are converted into the actions of a citizen group. Thucydides’ portrait of Pericles’ leadership is central to this question; the characteristics and behaviours that he embodies are replicated, with variations, in other political leaders who appear in the work. After analysing Thucydides’ representation of Pericles, therefore, this chapter goes on to discuss how other leaders in the work – Hermocrates, Archidamus and Brasidas – relate to this Periclean template.

Thucydides served as elected general (strategos) for Athens, and it is likely that he had (perhaps extensive) personal experience of warfare. His work is therefore an important guide both to the practicalities of warfare in 5th-century BCE Greece and to the wider function(s) that war played in politics and society. This chapter analyses what the History tells us about the ‘art of war’ in this period, discussing the use of land troops (light-armed soldiers and cavalry as well as hoplites) and naval forces. It discusses military strategy and tactics, the nature of combat and the consequences of warfare, for non-combatants as well as soldiers.

This chapter introduces the most significant aspects of Thucydidean interpretation in the Renaissance and Reformation. It outlines key developments in the accessibility of the text (through knowledge of Greek and through translation into Latin and other European languages). It also analyses a number of key responses to the work. These include the group centred around Philipp Melanchthon, who saw Thucydides as a source of both rhetorical and moral lessons; Calvinist readings, which enlisted Thucydides to rebut Machiavelli’s views on statecraft; Grotius, who appealed to Thucydides in formulating his theory of Just War; and Thomas Hobbes’ influential translation of the text.

This chapter examines statements in Thucydides’ work that predict or foreshadow the future (prolepses), placing them in the context of a wider study of the narratological structure of the History as a whole. It analyses predictions made by the narrator himself (including 1.22.4’s famous claim about the future utility of the work), as well as the (often unreliable) claims that characters in the History make about the future course of events. The combined effect of these prolepses is a notable instability in the ‘unreal future’ that the text predicts. Thucydides’ work offers us no clear conclusion about the ultimate significance of the war that he has described: the work as a whole is not a teleological narrative.

The history and nature of the Athenian Empire (arche) is not the primary subject of Thucydides’ History, but his text is nevertheless a critical piece of evidence for it. After briefly surveying the key features of the Athenian Empire and its development, this chapter explores Thucydides’ picture of Athenian imperialism, focusing on three areas in particular. First: how can imperial power be justified? Second – a related but different question – why do states seek imperial power (is it, indeed, something over which states have a choice or is it an inevitable feature of interstate politics)? Finally, how and why do empires fail?

Thucydides emphasizes the labour that he has put into creating his History, but this is a text that also requires labour from its readers if they are to uncover the truth about past events. This chapter explores what that process of uncovering the truth might look like using as case studies Thucydides’ account of the growth of Athenian imperial power in Book 1 and his narrative of the plague in Book 2. Finally, the chapter addresses the question of why Thucydides might have adopted this approach to writing and presenting his History.

Thucydides’ History is a rich source for our understanding of the character and interrelations of the ethnic sub-groups of the Greeks and different communities within the Greek world, as well as the relations between Greeks and non-Greek (‘barbarian’) communities. After establishing some key methodological principles relating to studying ethnicity in the Greek world, this chapter explores Thucydides’ contribution to our understanding of Greek ethnicity. It analyses the role of descent and cultural factors in the construction of ethnicity. It also explores the role that ethnicity plays in Thucydides’ description and analysis of the Peloponnesian War.