Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1124

Rh 1112 THUCYDIDES. in the city from marching down to attack the rioters, representing the mischief attendant on civil discord while the Lacedaemonians were so close at hand. (Thuc. viii. 92.) 3. A lieutenant of Martins Verus, by whom he was sent to establish Soaemus on the throne of Armenia, in the reign of M. Aiirelius Antoninus. Thucydides accomplished his mission. (Said. s. v. MdpTios ; see above. Vol. I. p. 363, a.) [E. E.] THUCY'DIDES (OowkuSiStjs), the historian, be- longed to the demos Halimus,and Halimus belonged to the phyle Leontis. He simply calls himself an Athenian (Thuc. i. 1). His father's name was Olo- rus (iv. 104). Marcellinus, and some other later writers, say that the name was Orolus. The two forms are easily confounded, and we assume the true name to be Olorus. Herodotus (vi. 39) men- tions a Thracian king called Olorus. whose daugh- ter Hegesipyle married Miltiades, the conqueror of Marathon, by whom she became the mother of C'imon. The ancient authorities speak of consan- guinity between the family of Cimon and that of Thucydides, and the name of the father of Thucy- dides is some presumption of a connection with this Thracian king. The mother of Thucydides was also named Hegesipyle, though Marcellinus is the only authority for his mother's name. It is conjectured that Hegesipyle may have been a granddaughter of Miltiades and Hegesipyle, but there is no evidence to show who the mother of Thucydides was, nor how his father was connected with the family of Miltiades. It is also said that there was consanguinity between the family of Thucydides and the Peisistratidae ; but this also cannot be satisfactorily explained. A statement by Pamphilus, which is preserved by Gellius (xv. 23), makes Thucydides forty years of age at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war or B. c. 431, and accordingly he was born in B. c. 471. The historian says that he lived to see the end of the war, and the war ended in b. c. 404. Krliger attempts to show, on the authority of Marcellinus, that Thucydides was only about twenty-five years of age at the commencement of the war ; but he relies too much on his own inter- pretation of certain words of Thucydides, which are by no means free from ambiguity (v. 26, otV- 6av6ixcvos rfj rjAiKiq,). There is a story in Lucian's Herodotus or Aetion of Herodotus having read his History at the Olympic games to the assembled Greeks ; and Suidas (s. v. ©oukwSiStjj) adds that Thucydides, then a boy, was present, and shed tears of emulation; a presage of his own future historical distinction. This story was first doubted by Bredow, and has since been critically discussed by others, and most completely by Dahlman {Ile- rodot, ^c.) who rejects it as a fable. The truth of the story is maintained at great length, and with greater tediousness, by Kriiger. It is of little importance what any man thinks of the story : it is enough to remark that the direct evidence in support of it is very weak, and there are many plausible objections to be urged against it. Kriiger has collected in his essay on Thucydides all that he could say in support of the story. Antiphon of Rhamnus, the most distinguished orator of the time, is said to have been the master of Thucydides in the rhetorical art ; and as An- tiphon was a contemporary of Thucydides and older, there is no internal improbability in the statement. But the evidence for it, as Kriiger THUCYDIDES. shows, is really nothing more than this, that Caecilius in his life of Antiphon conjectures that Thucydides must have been a pupil of Anti- phon's, becnuse he praises Antiphon. Cicero, in his Brutus (c. 12), speaks of the eloquence of An- tiphon, and cites Thucydides as evidence, and it seems verj' unlikely that, if he knew Thucydides to have been a pupil of Antiphon, he would not have mentioned it. Anaxagoras also is named by Marcellinus, on the authority of Antyllus, as one of the teachers of Thucydides, as to which we may observe that it is possible that he was, for Anaxa- goras was some time at Athens, and Thucydides might have had the advantage of his instruction. That Thucydides, an Athenian, of a good family, and living in a city which was the centre of Greek civilisation, must have had the best possible edu- cation, may be assumed ; that he was a man of great ability and cultivated understanding his work clearly shows. He informs us that he possessed gold mines in that part of Thrace which is oppo- site to the island of Thasos, and that he was a person of the greatest inlluence among those in that part of Thrace (iv. 105). This property, ac- cording to some accounts, he had from his ances- tors : according to other accounts he married a rich woman of Scaptesyle, and received them as a por- tion with her. Kriiger has a conjecture that Ciraon, who took these mines from the Thasians, got an interest in them, and gave a part to that branch of his family to which Thucydides belonged. Suidas says that Thucydides left a son, called Timotheus ; and a daughter also is mentioned, who is said to have written the eighth book of the History of Thucydides. Thucydides (ii. 48) was one of those who suffered from the great plague of Athens, and one of the few who recovered. We have no trustworthy evidence of Thucydides having distinguished himself as an orator, though it is not unlikely that he did, for his oratorical talent is shown by the speeches that he has in- serted in his history. He was, however, em- ployed in a military capacity, and he was in com- mand of an Athenian squadron of seven ships, at Thasus, B. c. 424, when Eucles, who commanded in Amphipolis, sent for his assistance against Brasidas, who was before that town with an army. Brasidas, fearing the arrival of a superior force, offered favourable terms to Amphipolis, which were readily accepted, for there were few Athenians in the place, and the rest did not wish to make re- sistance. Thucydides arrived at Eion, at the mouth of the Strymon, on the evening of the same day on which Amphipolis surrendered ; and though he was too late to save Amphipolis, he prevented Eion from failing into the hand of the enemy (iv. 102, &c.). In consequence of this failure, Thucydides be- came an exile, probably to avoid a severer punish- ment, that of death, for such appears to have been the penalty of such a failure as his, though he may have done the best that he could. According to ' Marcellinus, Cleon, who was at this time in great favour with the Athenians, excited popular sus- picion against the unfortunate commander. Thu- cydides (v. 26) simply says that he lived in exile twenty years after the affair of Amphipolis, but he does not say whether it was a voluntary exile or a punishment. If it was voluntary, we may assume that he did not return to Athens, because he knew what fate awaited him. There are various un-