Thucydides Θουκυδίδης

historian · general · Athens, ancient Greece · 460?–400? BC

An Athenian general. Exiled for twenty years after a failed operation, he used that time to write the history of the Peloponnesian War.

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c. 400 BC

It has been composed as a possession for all time, not as a prize piece to be heard for the moment.

κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν ξύγκειται.

History of the Peloponnesian War, book 1, chapter 22

c. 400 BC · From the funeral speech which, he writes, Pericles gave for the soldiers who died in the first year of the war (431 BC)

For of famous men the whole earth is the tomb.

ἀνδρῶν γὰρ ἐπιφανῶν πᾶσα γῆ τάφος

History of the Peloponnesian War, book 2, chapter 43