§ 1  By Marcellinus, from the scholia on Thucydides, on the life of Thucydides and the forms of the speeches1
For those who have come to be initiates in the divine speeches and disputations of Demosthenes, and introduced to his understandings of the deliberative and judicial kind of speaking, it now remains also to be initiated into the mysteries of Thucydides. For this man was furnished at once with art, and the beauty of speeches, and an exact knowledge of deeds, and the knowledge of leading an army, and he excelled at the deliberative and panegyric kind of speaking. But it is necessary first to disclose the lineage and life of the man: for those who judge of things nobly, these ought to be scrutinized first, before they approach the speeches.

[[note 1. I have translated from the Greek text in the Oxford Classical Text of Thucydides edited by Henry Stuart Jones and Johannes Enoch Powell ([1900], [1942], 1974).]]

§ 2  Thucydides, then, that composer,2 was born from the father Oloros, who was named after Oloros the king of Thrace, and the mother Hegesipyle. He was descended, I say, from those most well reputed generals, Miltiades and Kimon.3 For in the remote past he had been joined by kinship with Miltiades the general;4 and through Miltiades, with Aiakos, the son of Zeus. Thus this composer boasts his birth from these high ancestors. (3) And Didymos5 attests to these things; he asserts that in the first book of the Histories Pherekydes speaks thus: “In Athens Philaios the kin of Ajax dwelt; from him was born Daiklos, from him Epilykos [ms. Epidykos], from him Akestor, from him Agenor, from him Olios, from him Lykes, from him Iophon [ms. Tophon], from him Laios, from him Agamestor, from him Tisander,7 from him Miltiades, from him Hippocleides (by whom, when he was archon of Athens, the Panathenaia was instituted), from him Miltiades, who settled the Chersonese.”

[[2. Here and throughout, I translate suggrapheus as “composer,” and suggraphe as “composition.” While these terms are a bit clumsy, there is no satisfactory English equivalent for the Greek. Suggrapheus is usually translated as “historian,” but this English word also translates historikos, and Marcellinus distinguishes historikos and suggrepheus at lines 38 and 48. In this he appears, moreover, to follow Thucydides, who refers to his writing not as istoria but as suggraphe (1.1.1, 4.104.4, 5.26.1).]]
[[3. Miltiades the Younger (550 B.C.-489 B.C.) was the general who led the Athenians to victory at Marathon. Cimon (510 B.C.–450 B.C.), his son, was a general who distinguished himself in the battle of Salamis (479 B.C.) and in the destruction of the Persian fleet and army at the Eurymedon River (466 B.C.).]]
[[4. Miltiades the Elder, son of Cypselus (d. 524 B.C.), and uncle of the Younger.]]
[[5. Didymus Chalcenterus (63 B.C.-10 A.D.) a prolific Hellenistic scholar and grammarian.]]
[[6. Pherecydes of Leros (c. 450 B.C.), author of a ten-volume work of genealogies.]]
[[7. After “Tisander,” the manuscripts have “who when he was archon of Athens.” The phrase appears also in the next clause, makes no sense here, and so is deleted, following the suggestion of Rutgers, as a scribe’s error.]]

§ 4  Also Hellanikos8 attests the same in the “Asopis” ascribed to him.
Nor indeed may someone say, but what has he [Miltiades] to do with Thucydides? For he is kinsman to him as follows. The Thracians and the Dolonkians waged war with the neighboring Apsinthians.

[[ 8. Hellanicus of Mytilene (490-405 B.C.), a logographer. He and his Attic Writings are mentioned by Thucydides at 1.97.]]

§ 5  But having been afflicted by this war, and having suffered all sorts of evils, since they were always inferior to their enemy, they fled to the oracle of the god, since they knew that only a god could discover the way out of the most difficult things, as also according to Aeschylus, “the strength of the gods is greatest: for oft it has freed from grievous woe a city lacking means, and lifts from our eyes the cloud hanging overhead.” (6) Nor did their hope fail them. For they were directed by the oracle to take as the mightiest leader the one who would invite these wanderers to share his hospitality. At that time Croesus held Lydia; the Peisistratids held a tyranny at Athens. While they were returning from the oracle, they chanced upon Miltiades seated before the border of Attica, distressed on account of the tyranny, and seeking a just departure from Attica. For these things the prophecy had managed for them.

§ 7  Now when he saw them assembled in the outfit of wanderers, since he knew what wandering is capable of, he invited the men to his home, becoming the unknowing servant of the prophecy. They were delighted at receiving the leader as a hospitality gift, and when they had recounted everything to him, they elected him their general.
Now some say that, asking the god, he left, others that he made the departure not without the tyrant’s consent, but after recounting to the ruler the summons by the Thracians. He [the Peisistratid tyrant] gave him a military force and sent him away,, delighted that a very capable man should leave Athens.

§ 8  This one, then, having been made the leader [of the Thracians] fulfilled the prophecy, and after bringing forth the victory, he became also the colonizer of the Chersonese. (9) When he died without children,9 Stesagoras, his half-brother by the same mother, received the rule of the Chersonese.
(10) But when this one also died, Miltiades received the rule, having the same name as the first colonizer, and being the brother of Stesagoras by the same mother and father.

[[9. I here follow Casaubon’s suggested emendation, apaidos. The manuscripts read tou paidos. See Herodotus 6.38, which appears to be Marcellinus’ source.]]

§ 11  This one, then, although he had children by an Attic wife, nevertheless, desiring lordship, took Hegesipyle, daughter of Oloros king of the Thracians, as wife, from whom a son was born to him. (12) But the Persian coming into Greece, he dispatched his packed-up things and most of his clan to Athens. But the ship was captured, in which also were his own children, yet not those from the Thracian wife; these were let loose by the King, at least if Herodotus should not lie.10 Miltiades, fleeing from Thrace, made his way safely into Attica. (13) But he did not sneak away from the calumny of his enemies: for they attacked his own crimes, relating in full his tyranny. But he both escaped from this charge and in the war against the barbarians became a general.

[[10. See Herodotus 6.38-41. Herodotus’ account mentions the capture of Miltiades’ oldest son Metiochus, not born of the daughter of Olorus, and chronicles Darius’ generous treatment of Metiochus, but it says nothing of any other children of Miltiades. It does confirm that Olorus was the name of the father-in-law of Miltiades.]]

§ 14  From this [Miltiades], then, he [i.e., Didymos] says that the stock of Thucydides derives. And the greatest evidence of this they believe to be the extraordinary wealth and the possessions he had in Thrace, and those goldmines in Skapte Hyle. He seems to certain people, then, to have been the grandson of Miltiades or a grandson from a daughter of Miltiades. (15) Besides, he himself furnishes the occasion of inquiry, since he himself makes no mention of his stock.

§ 16  In truth, lest we be senseless, the name of the father was Oloros, [not Orolos].11 The first syllable of this name, but not Oloros, has a rho, the second a lambda––which writing, as it also seems to Didymos, is corrupt. For that it is Oloros is openly attested by the monument-column, where these words are inscribed: Thucydides Olorou Halimousios.12

[[11. With Powell, I follow the addition of Grauert. Marcellinus appears here to be referring to Thucydides’ text at 4.104.4, where Thucydides states his patronymic; it must have appeared in some mss. as Orolus, though none of the critical apparatuses that I have consulted gives any indication of this. William Smith (1855, xvi) in his “On The Life of Thucydides,” states that “Orolus” appears in Thucydides’ text. Smith, History of the Peloponnesian War, New York: Bangs, Brother, & Co., [1753] 1855), xvi.]]
[[12. With Powell, I follow the correction of Grauert. The manuscript has the lambda and rho transposed: Thukydides Orolou Halimousios. In the second reference to the monument-column, at line 55, below, the manuscript reads “Thukydides Halimousios.” Casaubon adds “Olorou.”]]

§ 17  For at the Melitides Gates in Koile13 are the so-called Kimonian monuments, where the tomb of Herodotus and Thucydides is exhibited. Hence one clearly discovers that he came from the stock of Miltiades. For no stranger [to that stock] is buried there. Polemon attests to the same thing in ‘On the Acropolis,’ where he narrates besides that Timotheus came into being from him.14

[[13. “Koile,” or “The Hollow” was one of the demes of Attica, belonging to the tribe Hippothoontis.]]
[[14. Polemon of Athens (second century B.C.), nicknamed Polemon Stelokopas (Polemon the Columnist), was a Stoic who collected inscriptions on votive offerings and columns around Greece. The work to which Marcellinus refers, “On The Acropolis,” is not extant.]]

§ 18  And Hermippos draws him from the stock of the Peisistratid tyrants; this also, he says, is the reason why, in writing on Harmodios and Aristogeiton [Thucydides] speaks invidiously and denies that they were tyrant-slayers. For they killed not the tyrant but the tyrant’s brother, Hipparchos.

[[15. See Thucydides 1.20 and 6.53-60.]]

§ 19  But Thucydides took a most wealthy wife from the city of Skapte Hyle, Thrace, who possessed goldmines in Thrace.16
(20) Having obtained this wealth, however, he did not spend it in luxurious delights, but when before the Peloponnesian war he perceived the motion to come, and because he intended to write about it, he paid many Athenian and Lakedaemonian soldiers and many others, so that they might report to him, he wishing to compose what came to be in that time and things spoken in that war.

[[16. Cf. Plutarch, Life of Kimon, 4. Thucydides (4.105) says only that he had the concession to work the gold mines.]]

§ 21  But it must be inquired: why did he give some to both the Lakedaemonians and the others, when he could have given it to Athenians alone and have learned from them? We answer, that not aimlessly was money given to the others: for the aim he proposed to himself was to compose the truth of the deeds. And it was likely that the Athenians, serving their own utility in their reports, would lie, and would say ‘we have been victorious over an enemy,’ when they had not been victorious. For this reason he gave [money] to everyone, so that from the agreement of many he could hunt down and seize the truth: for by the harmony and agreement of many what is obscure becomes openly demonstrated.

§ 22  The teachers he had were, in philosophy, Anaxagoras––whence, as Antyllos attests, he was held to be mildly atheist, from the theoria he absorbed from there –– and the rhetorician Antiphon, a man terribly clever in the art of rhetoric, of whom he makes mention in the eighth book, and says that he was the cause that the democracy was abrogated and the rule of the Four Hundred constituted. The fact, however, that after his death the Athenians hurled Antiphon’s body outside the city as vengeance, this Thucydides, in gratitude to his teacher, passed over in silence. (For some say that his body was thrown out by the Athenians because he was the cause of the change from democracy.)

[[17. With Powell, I here follow the transposition of clauses suggested by Casaubon.]]
[[18. See Thucydides 8.68.1-3 and 8.90.1.]]

§ 23  The composer did not take part in political life when he came of age, nor did he approach the podium. But he received the generalship as the original source of his troubles, for on account of this very thing he was exiled. For when he was sent to Amphipolis, and Brasidas arrived beforehand and took that city, he took the blame; and yet his efforts were not altogether useless to the Athenians, since, while he failed [to capture Amphipolis], he seized Eion on the river Strymon. Nonetheless, in spite of this the Athenians, made the first misfortune into a misdeed and exiled him.

[[19. See Thucydides 4.104-108 and 5.26.]]

§ 24  In Aigina after his flight, being wealthy, he invested the majority of his money in usury. (25) Yet from there too he departed, and passing time in Skapte Hyle, he wrote under a plane tree. By no means let us be persuaded by Timaios, who says that Thucydides, having been sentenced to exile, passed his life in Italy.

[[20. Timaios (ca. 345-ca 250 B.C.) nicknamed “Timaios Epitimaios” (Timaios the Fault-Finder), was born in Sicily, forced during the rule of Agathokles to migrate to Athens, studied under Isokrates, and returned to Sicily under the rule of Hiero II. He wrote a 40-volume history of Greece, Italy, and Sicily, of which only fragments survive.]]

§ 26  Nevertheless he did not write as one remembering the evils done to him by the Athenians, but was a lover of truth and measured in morals––at least neither Kleon nor Brasidas, who had been the cause of his calamity, suffers any abuse, as they would from an angry composer. (27) Most composed histories in accordance with their private passions, the truth being to them not at all a concern. For Herodotus, because he had been treated disdainfully by the Corinthians, said that they escaped by stealth the naval battle at Salamis;21 Timaiosthe Tauromenitan praised Timoleon beyond measure, because his father Andromachos was not despoiled by him of the monarchy; Philistos attacked the younger Dionysios like an enemy in his speeches; Xenophon reviled Meno, the companion of Plato, because he himself was in zealous emulation of Plato.22 But [Thucydides was] a measured and fair servant of the truth.

[[21. See Herodotus 8.72-94.]]
[[22. Or “zealous rivalry” (zelos). The term is often distinguished from low-minded phthonos (envy), but it can mean jealousy. It is used below (lines 35-37) with respect to Thucydides’ imitation of Homer, Pindar, Prodicus, and Gorgias of Leontini.]]

§ 28  Also, lest we be ignorant of this, there were many Thucydideses. For there was this one, a son of Oloros, and second the demagogue, the son of Milesios, who was a political rival of Perikles; a third was a Pharsalian by birth, of whom Polemon makes mention in the book about the Acropolis, saying that Meno was his father. There was in fact another Thucydides, a fourth, a poet from the deme of Acherdous, whom Androtion, mentioning in his history of Attic things [Atthis], calls a son of Ariston.

§ 29  He lived, however, as is attested to by Praxiphanes in a book about history, at the same time as Plato the comic poet, Agathon the tragedian, Nikeratos the epic poet, and Choirilos, and Melanippides. (30) And while Archelaos was alive, [Thucydides] was for the most part obscure, as the same Praxiphanes indicates.23 Afterwards, however, he was admired marvelously.

[[23. (Archelaos was King of Macedon from 413 till his death in 399 BCE) Praxiphanes, a native of Mytilene, studied at the Lyceum under Aristotle’s successor Theophrastus in 322 BC, then opened his own school, where Epicurus is said to have been his pupil.]]

§ 31  Some say he died there where he was spending time in exile, and they present as evidence that his body was not buried in Attica. For an ikrion [pole?] was placed on his tomb, but this, from established Attic custom and law, is the mark of an empty tomb, for those who die in such misfortune and are not buried in Athens. (32) But Didymos [says that] Thucydides, having returned from exile, [died] a violent death at Athens. And this he says is inquired into24 by Zopyros. For the Athenians offered return to all exiles except the Peisistratids after the defeat in Sicily. Having returned, however, [Thucydides] underwent a violent death and was buried among the Kimonian monuments. But [Didymos] charges with simplicity those who believe him to have met his end abroad and yet to be buried in the Attic earth.25 For then [they would hold Thucydides' body] either not to have been put in the family monument, or to have been secretly put into it, and would chance to have neither a column nor an inscription. Yet the monument on the tomb indicates the name of the composer [Thucydides]. But it is clear that return was granted to the exiles, as Philochoros attests, as does Demetrios in the book about the Archons.

[[24. Or “recorded.” The verb is historein. The opinion does not seem to have been held by Zopyrus himself (see below, 33), unless Marcellinus means to refer here only to the opinion that Thucydides died a violent death.]]
[[25. That he died abroad in Thrace, in Scapte Hyle, and that his remains were then brought to Attica, is asserted by Plutarch, Life of Cimon, 4.]]

§ 33  I myself believe Zopyros is being silly when he says that he met his end in Thrace, even if Kratippos holds him to have spoken truly. But what Timaios and others say––that he was buried in Italy––is exceedingly ridiculous. (34) It is said that he had this form: the face thoughtful, the head with hair grown short, and the rest a manner naturally suited to the composer. [He is said] to have died with his life brought toward its fiftieth year, with the planned composition not brought to its completion.

[[26. Kratippus was, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De Thucydidis charactere, ch. xvi) a contemporary of Thucydides. Plutarch also mentions him (De gloria Atheniensium, ch. 1) between Thucydides and Xenophon, in a list of Athenian historians that is apparently chronological.]]

§ 35  Thucydides was the zealous emulator of Homer in artistic arrangement, of Pindar in the grand [lit. ‘great-natured’] and lofty character, but a man designedly obscure in speech, lest it be accessible to all, and lest it should appear cheap, if easily understood by everyone. He wished rather to meet the test of the exceedingly wise, and to be marveled at by them. For whoever is commended by the best and obtains a reputation by their decision, is inscribed thereafter and the honor he acquires runs no risk of being wiped out by another judgment. (36) He zealously imitated a few, as Antyllos says: the even balancing and antithesis of words of Gorgias of Leontini, which was well regarded at that time by the Greeks, and Prodikos of Keos indeed he imitated, in the precise selection of words.

[[27. Oikonomia. A distinction developed among teachers of rhetoric between taxis, or natural order, and oikonomia, which we might also translate as “household management” or––with a view to its usage by the rhetors––as “interior design.”]]
[[28. Antyllus is otherwise unknown. A discussion of him can be found in Luigi Piccirilli, Storie dello storico Tucidide (Genova, 1985), 96–97.]]
[[29. See Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On Thucydides 25. An extract of a work known as “The Funeral Oration of Gorgias” (fr. DK 82 B6) is given in a late scholium from a work of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in which one sees the antithetical style to which Marcellinus here refers.]]

§ 37  Most of all, as I said before, he zealously imitated Homer, both in choice of words and in precise combination of them, and in strength of explanation, and in beauty and swiftness. (38) But while the composers and historians who came before him brought forward the composition as if soulless and furnished only a bare narrative in everything, nor inserted direct speeches, nor made demagoric speeches––though Herodotus made the attempt, but was not quite able (for he made speeches expressed in few words, more as personification than demagoric speech)––this composer [i.e., Thucydides] alone both discovered demagoric speeches and made them perfect and according to chief points and divisions, and arranged as a demagoric speech, which is the form of a perfect speech.

§ 39  Since there are however three characters of speaking––high, simple, and middle––omitting the others, he zealously emulated the high, since it was suitable to his own nature and befitting the magnitude of so great a war.30 For of those things of which the deeds are great, it is befitting that the speech about such things match the deeds. (40) But so that you31 may not be ignorant also of the other characters of speeches, know that Herodotus furnishes the middle kind, which is neither high nor simple, while Xenophon furnishes the simple.
(41) Thucydides therefore, so that he might achieve the high type, often furnished both poetical diction and certain metaphors. Concerning this whole kind of composition, some have dared to proclaim that that form of composition does not pertain to the rhetorician but to the poet. But that it is not poetical is clear, since it is subject to no meter. But if someone should answer that not all speech without meter belongs to a rhetorician, such as the writings of Plato or of surgeons, we answer that the composition certainly belongs to the rhetoricians that is divided into chief points and taken up in the rhetorical form.

[[30. The classification into three types or styles of speaking to which Marcellinus refers was probably developed by Theophrastus. The first extant mention of them occurs in Rhetorica ad Herrenium (c. 90 B.C.), 4, 8. Helpful elaborations upon the three styles and their relation to the ends of rhetoric can be found in Cicero’s Orator and De Oratore.]]
[[31. Here the second person singular pronoun is used.]]

§ 42  In fact, all composition is commonly ascribed to the deliberative. (Some nevertheless also ascribe it to the panegyric, since, they say, it praises those who are the best in battles.) In a special way Thucydides’ [writing] falls into each one of these three forms. For certainly all the demagoric speeches fall into the deliberative, except for that of the Plataians and the Thebans in the third book.32 The funeral oration falls into the panegyric. Into the judicial falls the deliberation of the Plataians and the Thebans, which we separated out above. For the Lacedaemonian judges were present, and the Plataians are interrogated in a court of justice, and they respond to the interrogation with a longer speech, and against this speech the Thebans speak, so that they may inflame the anger of the Lakedaimonians. In sum, the arrangement of the speech, the method, and the schema, make manifest that the form is the judicial.

[[32. See Thucydides 2.52-68.]]

§ 43  Some say that the eighth book of history is adulterated or is not by Thucydides. And some say that it is by his daughter, others by Xenophon. To these we reply, first: that it is not his daughter’s is clear. For it is not of the womanly nature nor art to imitate such virtue. Furthermore, if such a one should exist, she would be anxious not to be unknown, nor would she have written only that eighth book, but would have left behind many others, bringing to light her nature. Next, that it could no more be Xenophon’s, its character alone cries out: by much indeed differs the simple character from the high. But neither is it Theopompos’ work, by exactly the same assessment. (44) To some––and these the more refined––it seems to be of Thucydides indeed, but not yet beautified––models jotted down, with much to be filled in in the chief parts and the deeds to be beautified and capable of being extended. Whence we almost say that it indicates he was infirm––it appears to be put together in the manner of the weakened. For when the body is infirm, the reasoning [logismos] is wont to slacken somewhat. For there is a slight sympathy to one another of the reasoning and the body.

§ 45  He died after the Peloponnesian war, in Thrace, writing the deeds of this to the twenty first year; seven and twenty years in fact this war lasted. The deeds of the remaining six years Theopompos and Xenophon supplement, who attached to these a history of the Greeks.

§ 46  One must see that Thucydides was sent as a general to Amphipolis, expecting Brasidas to arrive there, but with the seizure of it beforehand by Brasidas, he was exiled by the Athenians, through the calumnies of Kleon. (For which reason he detested Kleon, and introduces him everywhere as raving and a lightweight.) Having been exiled, he went, as they say, to Thrace, where he put together that beautiful composition. (47) For he had indeed noted down already from the start of the war all the speeches and the deeds: he was not, however, concerned about beauty from the beginning, but only that he should preserve by his notation the things done. Afterwards indeed living the life of an exile,33 in Skapte Hyle, a place in Thrace, he composed with beauty those things that from the beginning he had only in notation for the sake of memory.

[[33. Some (lesser) manuscripts read “of an historian” (historian).]]

§ 48  To the mythical, however, he was opposed, on account of his delight in the truth. For he did not pursue what other composers and the historians––who themselves mix myths into histories––did, seeking after the pleasant more than the truth. But while they proceeded in this way, this composer did not care to write for the delight of those who listen, but for the precise understanding of those who learn. For he calls this composition of his a contest [agonisma]. For he avoided much that was toward pleasure, and he turned aside from digressions that the many are accustomed to make.

[[34. There appears to be a lacuna here in the text. The whole section is a gloss on Thucydides’ text at 1.22. At 1.22.4, immediately after discussing the absence of the mythical from his work, Thucydides says that his work is not written as an agonisma, but as a possession for all time. Hence editors of Marcellinus’ text have suggested additions that would have this sentence read as follows: “For he calls this composition of his not a contest, but a possession for all time.”]]

§ 49  At some places, at any rate, they are made even by Herodotus––with the dolphin who is a lover of hearing and Arion steering [the dolphin to shore] to the music.35 Indeed [Herodotus’] whole second book of histories falsifies the purpose. Conversely, if this composer [i.e., Thucydides] recounts something wondrous, he says the necessary, but recounts only that which has come to be known by his audience. For his account of Tereus indicates only the passions of the women;36 and [he tells] the history of the Cyclops for the sake of the places [concerned];37 and of Alkmaion whom he mentions to be moderate, where that which has to do with his moderation [i.e., the flux over time of land and water] makes the islands.38 The rest he does not investigate closely.

[[35. See Herodotus 2.24.]]
[[36. See Thucydides 2.29.3. For a late version of the myth, see Ovid, Metamorphoses, 6.422-674. Thucydides does mention, however, that many poets call the nightingale the bird of Daulia, i.e., of the land where the “Thracian” Tereus had dwelt. He thereby draws some attention to the poets’ account of Tereus’ cutting out of Philomela’s tongue (lest men or gods hear Philomela’s tale of his rape of her) and of Philomela’s transformation by the gods, in the end, into a nightingale.
37. Thucydides 6.2.1.]]
[[38. See Thucydides 2.102.5-6. With Powell, I here follow the manuscript rather than the emendations suggested by editors, which would eliminate the clause “where that which has to do with his moderation makes the islands” and substitute “where he makes him mindful.” Thucydides makes no mention of moderation (sophrosune) in his account. He does, however, mention an oracle’s intimation that the matricide Alcmeon would have no “release from terrors” until he found a land that had not been seen by the sun when he killed his mother. And as he indicates, Alcmeon managed to achieve this very release by the recognition of what we might call the flux of nature in the formation of land where there had been sea. This release from terrors appears to be what Marcellinus has in mind by Alcmeon’s achieving “moderation.”]]

§ 50  But certainly about such myths, the rest are described, in a terribly clever manner, and certainly are clear in their parts. But in the arrangement sometimes, on account of the stretching out of the interpretation, he seems not to be clear.
His speech has an exceedingly grave and grand character. The ordering is harsh, full, and heavy in hyperbaton [transposition of words], sometimes indeed obscure, wondrous in brevity, and his diction very thoughtful.

§ 51  In the pronouncing of judgments, he excelled. In the narratives, he is indeed exceedingly powerful, when he sets out in full for us the sea battles, the sieges of the cities, the plagues, and the seditions. Of many kinds in his figures, the most imitating Gorgias of Leontini––swift in his signs, short in his severity, and of character representation the best writer. You will see at any rate, beside the elevated thought in Perikles, in Kleon––I know not what to say of him; in Alkibiades, youthfulness; in Themistokles, all; in Nikias, kindness, fear of the gods, and good fortune—until Sicily. And countless others which severally in their turns we will make an attempt to behold.

§ 52  In his [work] there is much use of the ancient Attic [language], in which xi substitutes for sigma, as whenever he says xunegraphes and xummaxian. And the diphthong ai he wrote instead of a, and said aiei. And he was the inventor of wholly new words. For some are older than his own time, such as autoboei, and polemeseiontes, and pagchalepon, and hamartada, and hules phakelous. Others are for the poets, such as epilugsai and epelutai and anakos and such. And some are peculiar to him, such as aposimosis, and kolume, and apoteichisis, and any number of others, which are not read in works by others but that he puts in his work.

§ 53  An object of his care also was the weight of words, and terrible cleverness of enthymemes––outstripping39 as we say––in composition, brief. For often many deeds are brought to light by a single statement. Often indeed also he substitutes passion and deeds for the man, as in that antipalon deos.40 He has indeed something of the panegyric, as in the funeral oration. And he introduced variously irony and questioning and making a philosophic form of the demagoric speech: for in those which answer one to the another, he philosophizes. To be sure, the many blame the form of composition of these same speeches. Such a one is Dionysios of Halikarnassos: for he reproaches him as unrestrained and not having the power to use civic oratory,41 not knowing that in all these [Thucydides] was of extraordinary power and of advantageous habit.

[[39. That is, with the thoughts outstripping the words.]]
[[40. The Mytilenaeans are made to use this formulation in their speech to the Spartans at 3.11.1. It means fear or awe that is as equally balanced as the strength of two wrestlers.]]
[[41. See Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On Thucydides, chs. 36-43.]]

§ 54  He seems to have come to be in the time of Herodotus, if indeed Herodotus makes mention of the attack of the Thebans into Plataia, concerning which history Thucydides narrates in the second book.42 And so it is said, that once when Herodotus was making a display of his own history, Thucydides was present at the recital and, hearing it, wept. Thereupon, they say, Herodotus noticing, said to Oloros the father of Thucydides, “O Oloros, truly the nature of your son is violently bent toward learning.”

[[42. Marcellinus is referring to Herodotus 7.233, where we are told that Eurymachus, the son of the Medizing Theban general Leontiadas, would “in later times” be killed as the general leading the attack of Thebans against Plataea. Thucydides presents that Theban attack on Plataea as the start of the Peloponnesian War (2.2-7); in fact, Eurymachus son of Leontiades is the only person whom he mentions by name in his account, both as the Thebans’ leader in the negotiations with the Theban fifth column in Plataea and as having been among the slain Thebans (2.2.3 and 2.5.7).]]

§ 55  He died in Thrace, and some say he was buried there. But others claim that his bones were secretly carried to Athens, and in like manner buried; nor indeed was it allowed openly to bury at Athens one who had been exiled on the charge of treason. His tomb, however, is near the gates, in the place of Attica called Koile, just as Antyllos affirms, a most trustworthy man to bear witness, and a discerning historian, and for instruction terribly clever. And a stele, he says, stood in Koile bearing the inscription “Thucydides [Olorou] Halimousios.” Some have added “lies here.” We say that this was left to be understood as implied, for it was not in the [original] inscription.

§ 56  The form and character [of his writing] is magnificent, and indeed one should certainly stay away, in this magnificent form, from appeals to pity. The elocution is grave, the thought obscure, because he delights in hyperbaton, and he indicates many things with few words. And he certainly has variety in his figures of speech, but on the other hand, the thought is without figures. For neither ironies, nor reproaches, nor oblique speech, nor any other such knavery against the listener did he use, when nevertheless Demosthenes in these especially displayed the terrible cleverness of his eloquence.

§ 57  I think however that not from ignorance of any figure but by design did Thucydides leave such things out, putting together the speeches suitable to and harmonizing with the given person. For it was not suitable to Perikles, and Archidamos, and Nikias, and Brasidas––human beings high-minded, and well born, and holding heroic reputations––to bestow upon them speeches of irony and knavery, as if these did not possess the frankness openly to accuse or to censure without disguise, or that they wished not to speak so. For this reason therefore I think he made a practice of the sincere and un-characterized [form of speeches], preserving in these the fitting and the skill. For it belongs to the skilled man to keep watch over the reputation bestowed on the persons, and to apply to the deeds the corresponding embellishment.

§ 58  But one must see that some men cut his work up into thirteen histories, others otherwise. Nonetheless, by most and by common rule the work has been divided up to the eight; this Asklepios43 also determined.

[[43. Because of the use of katetemon (“they cut up”) in the preceding sentence, I here follow the manuscripts, which read Asklepios, by whom doctors swore, in the Hippocratic oath, not to take the knife to anyone. Powell follows Poppo’s suggested Asklepiades, which would make the sentence refer to one of five possible known writers by that name between the fourth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D.]]