The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

IV

THUCYDIDES

143

empire, or that her wrong and unwise actions
were wrong and unwise because they were guided
by considerations of expediency alone. There is
no ground for supposing that he would have
had a thought of censure, if lie had lived in our
own days, for statesmen like Cavour and Bismarck
and Disraeli, who were guided exclusively by
reason of state, and are therefore blamed by
moralists for having debased the moral currency
in Europe. If, instead of a history, Thucydides
had written an analytical treatise on politics, with
particular reference to the Athenian empire, it is
probable that he would occupy a different place
from that which he holds actually in the world's
esteem; he would have forestalled the fame of
Machiavelli.
Thucydides simply observes facts; Machiavelli
lays down maxims and prescribes methods; but the
whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of
history agrees with the fundamental postulate of
Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state.
To maintain a state, said the Florentine thinker,
"a statesman is often compelled to act against
faith, humanity, and religion." In Thucydides,
reason of state appears as actually the sovran guide
in the conduct of affairs. But the essential point
of comparison is that both historians, in examining
history and politics, abstracted from all but political
considerations, and applied logic to this restricted
field. Machiavelli-the true Machiavelli, not the
Machiavelli of fable, the scelerumt inventor Ulixes