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

LECTURE III

THUCYDIDES
~ 1. His life and the growth qf his work
THUCYDIDES belonged by descent to the princely
family of Thrace into which Miltiades, the hero
of Marathon, had married. He was thus a cousin
of the statesman Cimon, and he inherited a rich
estate with gold mines in Thrace. And so, while
he was an Athenian citizen and connected with a
distinguished family of Athens, he had an independent pied ai terre in a foreign country. His
mind was moulded under the influence of that
intellectual revolution which we associate with
the comprehensive name of the Sophists, the
illumination which was flooding the educated
world of Hellas with the radiance of reason.
Without accepting the positive doctrines of any
particular teacher, he learned the greatest lesson
of these thinkers: he learned to consider and
criticize facts, unprejudiced by authority and
tradition. He came to be at home in the
"modern" way of thinking, which analysed
politics and ethics, and applied logic to every75