1.1 Preface. Thucydides introduces himself and his subject as Herodotus had introduced himself and his subject; whereas Herodotus ‘presented the results of [his] enquiry [historie]’, Thucydides ‘wrote this history of the war’, or, more literally, ‘put together in writing [xynegrapse] the war’. Herodotus wrote about the Persian Wars and (generously interpreted) their background, ‘to preserve the fame of . . . remarkable achievements’; Thucydides wrote about the Peloponnesian War (much more strictly interpreted), ‘reckoning that this would be a major war and more momentous than any previous conflict’. So we see from the beginning that, although much of his writing is matter-of-fact, Thucydides’ history also has a superlative side to it. Although he never names Herodotus, there are various points where he clearly has Herodotus in mind. ‘He began his work right at the outbreak’; he lived beyond the end of the war (see e.g. 5.26); and there has been much discussion of how much of his history was written at different times and how far what was written early was revised later, on which see Introduction, pp. xxv–xxviii. He begins by justifying his claim that the Peloponnesian War was greater than any previous war, and insists from the outset on his credentials as a historian: ‘accurate research’ into the distant past was impossible, but he ‘enquired as far into the past’ as he could, looking for ‘evidence which [he could] trust’. The last sentence of the chapter opens a ring (cf. Introduction, p. xlii), which will be closed at the beginning of 1.20.

К главе 1.

1 Фукидид (как и большинство греческих историков) писал вообще для всех греков, а не только для афинян. Поэтому он дает имя своего города (подобно тому как Геродот из Галикарнасса и Гекатей Милетец стоят в начале их   сочинений). 2 Вся Эллада раньше или позже была вовлечена в войну, а также много неэллинских народностей (например, эпироты, македоняне, фракийцы, сицилийцы). 3. Т. е. за весь период истории до Пелопоннесской войны или непосредственно перед 431 г. 4 Т. е. выводов на основании свидетельств.

1. Θουκυδίδης ’Αθηναίος: ‘Thucydides, an Athenian’. On the third person singular here see M. J. Wheeidon in Averil Cameron (ed.), History as Text (London, 1989), 45 ff., who sees it as a device intended to produce a ‘truth-effect’ and follows R. Scholes and R. Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (Oxford, 1976), in saying that the third person derives from the formal narrative of epic [? and Herodotus]. ‘Formal’ is obviously right, but in fact Th. is not simple and can oscillate between persons within a single ch. (v. 26). As for Homer, he can intrude, if that is the right word, his personality to the extent of addressing a hero direct: ‘but the gods did not forget you, Menelaos ...’ (Iliad, iv. 127). This is in ‘narrative’, but it is not ‘formal’. In any case Homer docs not refer to himself in the third person, unless we count Hymn to Apollo (for the first person see e.g. Iliad, ii. 488-900, Odyssey, i. 1). For all this see I.J. F. dejong, Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad (Amsterdam, 1987), esp. 227: Homer not ‘impersonal’ nor on the other hand ‘subjective’, but ‘multiple’. On the first person singular in Th. see also Loraux (above, introductory n.), 156.

Th. introduces himself by his city of Athens, but not by his deme (village) of Halimous, although it was part of his official name (his ‘demotic’). That would have been inappropriate in a work intended for the wider world (ii. 55 nn.) and for posterity (i. 22. 4), although Hdt.—not a native Athenian—had included demotics; see 'Thucydides, 97 n. 98. Th.’s deme (for which see Thucydides, 2) is known from the Hellenistic Life of Thucydides printed at the beginning of the Oxford text: his verse epitaph began Θουκυδίδης Όλόρου Άλιμούσως, ‘Thucydides son of Oloros of Halimous’.

But when describing himself and his actions as a historical person in Book iv (104. 4) Th. will call himself Θουκυδίδης Όλόρου, ‘Th. the son of Oloros’ (though he will add ‘who wrote this’): see G. T. Griffith, ‘Some Habits of Thucydides when Introducing Persons’, PCPhS 187 (1961), 21 ff. at 22 n. 2. Name plus father’s name (‘patronymic’) is Th.’s standard way of specifying historical agents. But here (in i. r) Th. conforms to literary tradition: Hekataios and Hdt. had introduced themselves as a Milesian and a Halikarnassian respectively in their prefaces (FGrHist i F i; Hdt. i. i). The distinction author/agent is precisely, even quaintly, observed, in i. i, given that Th. is talking about himself.

Oloros was a royal Thracian name (Hdt. vi. 39. 2), which helps to explain Th.’s financial interests there (iv. 105): he had Thracian blood. For further material and speculation about his life see Thucydides, 2-7.