Thucydides style of writing History of the Peloponnesian War

The tone of the text is academic, impressive, and reliable—if difficult and occasionally obtusely difficult. Thucydides is traditionally considered to be an objective and severely detached historian who provides the reader with the first truly-modern historical account of political and military events. A more recent view suggests that the text can be better understood as a work of literature which attempts to be an objective record. Obviously, the two views are not mutually exclusive and a current scholastic synthesis is broadly underway. In any case, Thucydides is a masterful author in clear possession of his material. He marshals facts, thought, and opinion and presents them in a consistent manner. Thucydides' material is organized in a fairly strict chronology; a marked departure from earlier historical works which were predominantly thematically organized. Although Book One is complicated by a fair amount of non-chronological presentation, it is relatively easy to assign events discussed within the text to a particular year. When Thucydides wrote each city-state in the theater of operations utilized a distinct calendar system—to be as inclusive as possible, Thucydides abandoned the Athenian calendar in favor of a system of his own reckoning: the author selects a base year—the opening of hostilities—and refers to it as the 'first' year of the history. Nearly all modern publications standardize this year to 431 BC on the modern calendar.

Another peculiarity of Thucydides' work is the extensive presentation of lengthy speeches. Although out of character in modern histories, such presentation would have been familiar to and expected by an audience steeped in oral tradition. Thucydides explains that such speeches are not verbatim transcriptions, but instead are re-creations based upon recollections of witnesses and also based upon what must probably have been said in response to prevailing political conditions and the various outcomes observed. Much of the text is based upon eye-witness accounts of events—scholastically referred to as 'autopsy'—and Thucydides was himself probably a frequent witness to events described. Finally, the text is presented from a neutral point of view. Despite being an Athenian military commander in the conflict, Thucydides is usually regarded as being an unbiased historian—most, but not all, scholars feel he presents historical facts without an essential pro-Athenian bias.