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319 THUCYDIDES

" Thuctdides," says Sir Richard Jebb, " was the frreat- est historian of antiquity, and, if not the greatest that ever lived, as some have deemed him, at least the historian whose work is the most wonderful, when it is viewed relatively to the age in which he did it."

He was born in Athens not earlier than 470 B. c, and possibly not before 455. By family ties he was brought into connection with Cimon, the son of Miltiades, and other men who were shaping the events of his time, — the bril- liant period of the Periclean age. The turning point of his life came in 424 b. c, when he was one of the Athenian generals in the Peloponnesian war. While he was in com- mand of the fleet off the Thracian coast, the Spartan general Brasidas surprised and captured Amphipolis, the stronghold of the Athenian possessions in northern Greece. Thucydi- des arrived with the fleet just too late to save the city. Whether his delay was excusable or not is uncertain, but at any rate he was held responsible for the disaster, and was deprived of his command. For twenty years, until the close of the ΛvaΓ in 40.3 b. c, he lived in exile, spending much of his time in travel. He visited the homes of the Peloponnesian allies, and was thus enabled to view the war from the Spartan as well as the Athenian standpoint. He himself speaks of the increased leisure for studying events which his banishment secured to him, and the opportunity it offered for gathering materials for his history from com- batants in both armies. In 403 B. c. he returned to Athens for a short time, but soon retired to his property in Thrace,