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

APPENDIX

THE RE-HANDLING OF HIS HISTORY BY
THUCYDIDES
THE natural probability that Thucydides occupied the years
of his exile after the Fifty Years' Peace in finishing and
revising the history of the war which was apparently over,
is borne out by a number of passages which evidently contemplate only the Ten Years' War, and must have been
differently phrased if they had been composed after 404 B.c.
But, on the other hand, there are also a number of passages
which refer to later events, and imply the Sicilian expedition
and the fall of Athens. The obvious explanation is that the
author read over the first portion of his work, and made
a number of additions and alterations, but allowed some
inconsistent phrases to escape his eye.1
The most unmistakable of these additions is the passage 2
in which the author escorts Pericles from the scene and
characterizes his statesmanship in the light of the subsequent
events which approved its wisdom, showing that if his policy
had been pursued, and if he had had a successor like himself, the issue would have been different. Here Thucydides
comments on the Sicilian expedition and refers to the later
events of the war.3
But there is a far longer and more important section in
1 As iv. 48. 5; ii. 94. 1 (which was not revised in the light of viii. 96. 1).
2 ii. 65. 5 to end.
3 The last sentences of ii. 81 were posterior to the Sicilian expedition.
The notice of Archelaus (413-399 B.C.), ii. 100. 2, is a late insertion; likewise iv. 74. 4. E. Meyer has noted that Kp%,vat yap ofrco ^-av abvr6o0, ii. 48. 2,
points to a date after 414 B.C. (schol. Arist. Av. 997).
26I