Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/503

481 LITERATURE 6F ANCIENT GREECE, 481 roughly in his old age as to change his own notions in accordance with them. Thucydides, therefore, is altogether an old Athenian of the school of Pericles ; his education, both real and formal, is derived from that grand and mighty period of Athenian history ; his political principles arc those which Pericles inculcated ; and his style is, on the one hand, a repre- sentative of the native fulness and vigour of Periclean oratory, and on the other hand an offshoot of the antique, artificial rhetoric taught in the school of Antiphon * § 2. As an historian, Thucydides is so far from belonging to the same class as the Ionian logographi, of whom Herodotus was the chief, that he may rather be considered as having commenced an entirely new class of historical writing. He was acquainted with the works of several of these Ionians (whether or not with that of Herodotus is doubtful f), but he men- tions them only to throw them aside as uncritical, fabulous, and designed for amusement rather than instruction. Thucydides directed his attention to the public speeches delivered in the public assemblies and the law- courts of Greece : this was the foundation of his history, in regard both to its form and its materials. While the earlier historians aimed at giving a vivid picture of all that fell under the cognizance of the senses by describing the situation and products of different countries, the peculiar customs of different nations, the works of art found in different places, and the military expeditions which were undertaken at different periods ; and, while they endeavoured to represent a superior power ruling with infinite authority over the destinies of people and princes, the attention of Thucydides was directed to human action as it is developed from the character and situations of the individual, as it operates on the condition of the world in general. In accordance with this object, there is a unity of action in his work ; it is an historical drama, a great law-suit, the parties to which are the belligerent republics, ana the object of which is the Athenian domination over Greece. It is very remarkable that Thucydides, who created this kind of history, should have conceived the idea more clearly and vigorously than any of those who followed in his steps. His work was destined to be only the history of the Peloponnesian war, not the history of Greece during the Peloponnesian war : conse- who, in the preface to his Ecloya Historical, justly remarks: Thucydides it a se ad Periclis imitationem composuisse videtur, ut, guum scriptum viri nullum exstet, ejus eloquential formam effigiemque per totum historus opus expressam postcritati ser- varet. On the teaching of Antiphon, sec Chap. XXXIII. $ 3. t The supposed references to Herodotus in I, 20, II. 8. 'J7, are not quite clear ; in the history of the murder of Hipparchus, which Thucydides refers to twice (I 20., VI. 54 — 59), in order to correct the false opinions of his contemporaries, Herodotus agrees almost entirely with him, and is true from those false opinions : see Herodotus, V. 55, VI. 123. Thucydides would probably have written differ- ently on several points had he been acquainted with the work of Herodotus, especially the^passages, I." 74, II 8. Comp. above Chap. XIX. § 3. 2 i
 * The relation between Thucydides and Pericles is recognized by Wyttenbach,