SOURCE: "The Plan and Methods of the History," in Thucydides, The University of Michigan Press, 1963, pp. 74-110.

Focusing on the opening chapters or "archeology" of the History in the following excerpt from his 1942 monograph, Finley asserts that the material reveals Thucydides' "belief that history is both useful and scientific. "

[The] transition from Thucydides' age to his work is necessarily abrupt, because it is impossible to follow his development step by step as Plato's, for instance, can to some extent be followed. Thus one is confronted, on the one hand, with many facts of his life and many tendencies of his age which have an obvious bearing on his completed work and, on the other hand, with the complicated and impersonal work itself. But to see exactly how the one set of facts concerning his life and age grew into the other fact which is his History is impossible...