Thucydides - For All Time

More from Edith Hamilton's "The Greek Way"

Knowledge for the sake of knowledge had little attraction for the Athenians.  They were realists.  Knowledge was to be desired because it had a value for living; it led men away from error to right action.  Thucydides wrote his book because he believed that men would profit from a knowledge of what brought about that ruinous struggle (The Peloponnesian War) precisely as they profit from a statement of what causes a deadly disease.  He reasoned that since the nature of the human mind does not change any more than the nature of the human body, circumstances swayed by human nature are bound to act in the same way unless it is shown to them that such a course in other days ended disastrously.  When the reason why a disaster came about is perceived, people will be able to guard against the particular danger.  

   "It will perhaps be found," he writes, "that the absence of storytelling in my work makes it less attractive to listen to, but I should be satisfied if it is considered useful by all who wish to know the plain truth of the events which happened and will according to human nature happen again in the same way."

   It was written, not for the moment, but for all time.  

- pg. 140