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

IV

THUCYDIDES

125

power discerns, in the development of the plot,
imminent above the actors a superhuman control
and the occult operation of nemesis. The only
external influence recognised by the younger writer
appears in the form of the incalculable element
which he calls Tyche, Chance. Herodotus interpreted history and life, in the sense that the decline
of a state or of a man from a post of commanding
eminence was due to the action of a supernatural
power which would not tolerate the exaltation
which invariably leads to immoderate elation of soul
and often to acts of insolence and rashness. In
one of the speeches in Thucydides this anthropopathic idea is translated into the dry formula: " It
is the nature of human things to decline." But
it can hardly be said that he believed unreservedly
in this principle (which may be found in Ionian
philosophers) as a certain fact. And his analysis
of the course of the war and his explanation
of its issue show that the operation of the incalculable element of chance need not be decisive.
It contributed to the decline of the Athenian
power, but that power might have survived and
defied its outrages, if it had not been for human
mismanagement.
In the early stage of the war there were two
cases of the play of the incalculable. There was
first of all the plague. But though severe, maiming and weakening more than anything else the
offensive power of the State for years to come, it
was not crushing, it did not spell doom; one of its