[For the greatest part, men come] to the
reading of history with an affection much like that of the people in Rome: who
came to the spectacle of the gladiators with more delight to behold their
blood, than their skill in fencing. For they be far more in number, that love
to read of great armies, bloody battles, and many thousands slain at once, than
that mind the art by which the affairs both of armies and cities be conducted
to their ends. (p. 8)
[It is no marvel if Thucydides]
meddled as little as he could in the business of the [Athenian] commonwealth;
but gave himself rather to the observation and recording of what was done by
those that had the managing thereof. . . . How he was disposed to a work of
this nature, may be understood by this: that when being a young man he heard
Herodotus the historiographer reciting his history in public, (for such was the
fashion both of that, and many ages after) he felt so great a sting of
emulation, that it drew tears from him. (14)
[No one can] justly doubt the truth of
[Thucydides], in whom they had nothing at all to suspect of those things that
could have caused him either voluntarily to lie, or ignorantly to deliver an
untruth. He overtasked not himself by undertaking a history of things done long
before his time, and of which he was not able to inform himself. He was a man
that had as much means, in regard both of his dignity and wealth, to find the
truth of what he related, as was needful for a man to have. He used as much
diligence in search of the truth, (noting everything whilst it was fresh in
memory, and laying out his wealth upon intelligence), as was possible for a man
to use. He affected least of any man the acclamations of popular auditories,
and wrote not his history to win present applause, as was the use of that age:
but for a monument to instruct the ages to come. (17)
He was far from the necessity of
servile writers, either to fear or flatter. And whereas he may peradventure be
thought to have been malevolent towards his country, because they deserved to
have him so; yet he has not written anything that discovereth such passion.
Nor is there any thing written of them that tends to their dishonor as
Athenians, but only as people; and that by the necessity of the narration, not
by any sought digression. So that no word of his, but their own actions do
sometimes reproach them. In sum, if the truth of a history did ever appear by
the manner of relating, it does so in this history: so coherent, perspicuous
and persuasive is the whole narration, and every part thereof. (17)
The grounds and motives of every
action he sets down before the action itself, either narratively, or else contrives
them into the form of deliberative orations in the persons of such as from time
to time bare sway in the commonwealth. After the actions, when there is just
occasion, he gives his judgment of them; showing by what means the success came
either to be furthered or hindered. Digressions for instruction's cause, and
other such open conveyances of precepts, (which is the philosopher's part), he
never uses; as having so clearly set before men's eyes the ways and events of
good and evil counsels, that the narration itself doth secretly instruct the
reader, and more effectually than can possibly be done by precept. (18)
Thucydides was
criticized harshly by one writer for getting things backwards in his
introductory exposition, putting first in his narrative “the public and avowed cause of the
war,” and only later giving its “true and inward motive.” Hobbes found the allegation
absurd:
For it is plain, that a cause of
war divulged and avowed, how slight soever it be, comes within the task of the
historiographer, no less than the war itself. For without a pretext, no war
follows. This pretext is always an injury received, or pretended to be
received. . . . In a word, the image of the method used by Thucydides in this
point, is this: "The quarrel about Corcyra passed on this manner; and the
quarrel about Potidæa on this manner": relating both at large, "and
in both the Athenians were accused to have done the injury. Nevertheless, the
Lacedæmonians had not upon this injury entered into a war against them, but
that they envied the greatness of the power, and feared the consequence of
their ambition.” I think a more clear and natural order cannot possibly be
devised. (23-24)
It is written of Demosthenes, the
famous orator, that he wrote over the history of Thucydides with his own hand
eight times. So much was this work esteemed, even for the eloquence. But yet
was this his eloquence not at all fit for the bar; but proper for history, and
rather to be read than heard. For words that pass away (as in public orations
they must) without pause, ought to be understood with ease, and are lost else:
though words that remain in writing for the reader to meditate on, ought rather
to be pithy and full. (26)
Lastly, hear the most true and
proper commendation of him from Justus Lipsius, in his notes to his book De Doctrina Civili in these words:
"Thucydides, who hath written not many nor very great matters, hath
perhaps yet won the garland from all that have written of matters both many and
great. Everywhere for elocution grave; short, and thick with sense; sound in
his judgments; everywhere secretly instructing and directing a man's life and
actions. In his orations and excursions, almost divine. Whom the oftener you
read, the more you shall carry away; yet never be dismissed without appetite.
(27)
* * *
I have modernized some spelling, though not with much
consistency. The extract is from Hobbes's
Thucydides, Edited with an introduction by Richard Schlatter (Rutgers University Press, 1975). The first quote is from Hobbes's note to the readers, the remainder from his "Of the Life and History of Thucydides." Immediately below is the title page of the 1634 edition of Hobbes's translation (in the frontmatter of the Schlatter edition).
