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Thucydides c.460-c.400BC
Greek historian

Born near Athens, he suffered in the Athenian plague (c.430BC) but recovered. In the Peloponnesian war he commanded an Athenian squadron of ships at Thasos (424), but after losing the colony of Amphipolis to the Spartans (424BC) he was condemned as a traitor, and retired to his Thracian estates. He lived in exile for 20 years (possibly visiting Sicily), and wrote his eight-volume De Bello Peloponnesiaco ('History of the Peloponnesian War'). He probably returned to Athens in 404. According to tradition he was assassinated. His account of the war ends in 411, but the Hellenica of Xenophon was written to continue Thucydides' narrative to the end of the war in 404.

Bibliography: The Peloponnesian War (Eng trans Rex Warner, 1954)