Thūcy̆dĭdes

, a celebrated Greek historian, born at Athens. His father’s name was Olorus, and among his ancestors he reckoned the great Miltiades. His youth was distinguished by an eager desire to excel in the vigorous exercises and gymnastic amusements which called the attention of his contemporaries, and when he had reached the years of manhood, he appeared in the A then i an armies. During the Peloponnesian war he was commi ioned by his countrymen to relieve A mph i polis; but the quick march of Brasidas the Lacedæmonian general defeated his operations, and Thucydides, unsucce ful in his expedition, was banished from Athens. This happened in the eighth year of this celebrated war, and in the place of his banishment the general began to write an impartial history of the important events which had happened during his administration, and which still continued to agitate the several states of Greece. This famous history is continued only to the 21st year of the war, and the remaining part of the time, till the demolition of the walls of Athens, was described by the pen of Theopompus and Xenophon. Thucydides wrote in the Attic dialect, as po e ed of more vigour, purity, elegance, and energy. He spared neither time nor money to procure authentic materials; and the A then i ans, as well as their enemies, furnished him with many valuable communications, which contributed to throw great light on the different transactions of the war. His history has been divided into eight books, the last of which is imperfect, and supposed to have been written by his daughter. The character of this interesting history is well known, and the noble emulation of the writer will ever be admired, who shed tears when he heard Hercules repeat his history of the Persian wars at the public festivals of Greece. The historian of Halicarna us has been compared with the son of Olorus, but each has his peculiar excellence. Sweetne of style, grace, and elegance of expre ion, may be called the characteristics of the former, while Thucydides stands unequalled for the fire of his descriptions, the concisene , and, at the same time, the strong and energetic matter of his narratives. His relations are authentic, as he himself was interested in the events he mentions; his impartiality is indubitable, as he nowhere betrays the least resentment against his countrymen, and the factious partisans of Cleon, who had banished him from Athens. Many have blamed the historian for the injudicious distribution of his subjects; and while, for the sake of accuracy, the whole is divided into summers and winters, the thread of history is interrupted, the scene continually shifted; and the reader, unable to pursue events to the end, is transported from Persia to Peloponnesus, or from the walls of Syracuse to the coast of Corcyra. The animated harangues of Thucydides have been universally admired; he found a model in Hero dot us, but he greatly surpa ed the original; and succeeding historians have adopted, with succe , a peculiar mode of writing which introduces a general addre ing himself to the pa ions and the feelings of his armies. The history of Thucydides was so admired, that Demosthenes, to perfect himself as an orator, transcribed it eight different times, and read it with such attention, that he could almost repeat it by heart. Thucydides died at Athens, where he had been recalled from his exile, in his 80th year, 391 years before Christ. The best editions of Thucydides are those of Duker, folio, Amsterdam, 1731; of Glasgow, 12mo, 8  vols. , 1759; of Hudson, folio, Oxford, 1796, and the 8vo of Zweibrücken, 1788. Cicero , On Oratory , . — Diodorus , bk. 12 .— Dionysius of Halicarna us , Thucydides .— Ælian , Varia Hist or i a , bk. 12 , ch. 50 .— Quintilian. ――A son of Miles i as, in the age of Pericles. He was banished for his opposition to the measures of Pericles, .