This book falls into two parts: Thucydides Historicus and Thucydides Mythicus. In the first, Francis M. Cornford attempts to prove the inadequacy of Thucydides's account of the origins of the Peloponnesian War and develops a very different theory of its causes. In the second part he attempts to answer the question why Thucydides has told us so little about the War that we find accurate, consistent, or relevant.

This book falls into two parts: Thucydides Historicus and Thucydides Mythicus. In the first, Francis M. Cornford attempts to prove the inadequacy of Thucydides's account of the origins of the Peloponnesian War and develops a very different theory of its causes. In the second part he attempts to answer the question why Thucydides has told us so little about the War that we find accurate, consistent, or relevant.

Excerpt from Thucydides Mythistoricus The title of this book needs a word of explanation, if not of apology; for to any one who is accustomed to think of Thucydides as typically prosaic, and nothing if not purely historical, the epithet Mythistoricus may seem to carry a note of challenge, or even of paradox. But the sense in which the expression has here been used is quite consistent with the historian's much-talked-of 'trustworthiness', and, indeed, with the literal truth of every statement of fact in the whole of his work. It is possible, however, even for a writer of history, to be something much better than trustworthy. Xenophon, I suppose, is honest; but his honesty makes it none the easier to read him. To read Thucydides is, although certainly not easy, at any rate pleasant, because - trustworthiness and all - he is a great artist. It is the object of this essay to bring out an essentially artistic aspect of his work, which has escaped notice, partly because the history is so long that it is hard to take it in as a whole, and partly because the execution of the effect is imperfect, having been hindered by the good intentions with which Thucydides set out. The history, as it stands, is the product of two hardly compatible designs. It was originally planned as a textbook of strategy and politics in the form of a journal; and it is commonly taken to be actually nothing more. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1907 Edition.

First published in 1907 and reissued in 1965, this is a fascinating study of Thucydides's History. Thucydides set out to write a truthful account of the Pelopennesian war, but his work reflects his Athenian fourth-century B.C. context, which was of a particular interest to Cornford. In this fascinating title, Cornford analyses the causes of the war as shown by Thucydides and other sources, and then goes on to comment on the History.