History of the Peloponnesian War

In his Introduction, Thucydides claims that his evidence is better “than that of the poets, who exaggerate the importance of their themes, or of the prose chroniclers, who are less interested in telling the truth than in catching the attention of their public, whose authorities cannot be checked, and whose subject-matter, owing to the passage of time, is mostly lost in the unreliable streams of mythology” (47). In what ways does Thucydides both rely on and subvert poetic traditions? Use at least three specific examples from the text in your discussion.

Is Thucydides trustworthy as a historian? Using specific examples from the text, explain why or why not.

Thucydides reproduces 141 speeches in his text but admits that he and his informants “found it difficult” to remember the exact words they heard spoken. His method is to keep “as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used, and to make the speakers say what, in [his] opinion, was called for by each situation” (47). Select one speech that seems most likely to have been creatively reconstructed for thematic purposes. Discuss the specific arguments in the speech to support your