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

132 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

war." 1 When this criticism is examined, it will be
found that it mainly touches the arrangenment of
the first Book,2 but it shows that the narrative
produced upon Dionysius the impression that
Thucydides was unpatriotic.
On the other hand, it is held by some modern
critics that the account of the beginnings and first
years of the war is virtually a defence of the policy
of Pericles, and it is even insinuated that the
author manipulated facts, concealing some and
mitigating others, with the purpose of presenting
that policy in a favourable light. This view
evidently contradicts that of Dionysius; it implies
that Thucydides sympathized with Athens during
the Periclean regime and at the outbreak of the
war.
The fact that the narrative can convey two such
contradictory impressions is a certificate of the
author's critical impartiality. The censure of
Dionysius is based on the conventional principle of
later times that it is a historian's duty to be patriotic at all costs, to sacrifice his critical judgment;
and it is superfluous to refute his charge of illwill. On the other hand, the theory that Thucydides was an unreserved admirer of Pericles and
deliberately intended to exalt and defend his policy,
almost as a partisan, has some prima facie plausibility, and, as it has a direct bearing on the writer's
I Letter to Pornpeius, 3. 9.
2 But he also blames Thucydides, 3. 4, 5, for the choice of his subject.
The war was oire Ka\bs oOre E~VTtXS, and therefore should be forgotten and
ignored by posterity.