The History of the Peloponnesian War Author:Thucydides Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: T II U C Y D I D E S. LOOK I. I'huctdides, an Athenian, wroto the history of tho war between the Peloponnesians and tho Athenians, how they warred against ... more »each other; having begun from its very outset, wiih the expectation that it would prove a great one, and more worthy' of relation than all that had been before it; inferring so much, as well from the fact that both sides were at the height of all kinds of preparation for it, as also because he saw the rest of Greece joining with the one side or tho other, some immediately, and some intending so to do. For this was certainly the greatest movement that ever happened among the Greeks, and some part of the barbarians, and extending, as one may s.iy, even to most nations of the world. For the events that preceded this, and those again that are yet more ancient," it was impossible, through length of time, to ascertain with certainty; but3 from such evidence as I am led 1 Literally, "most worthyof all,"etc.; but this use of the superlative, though one of the most common idioms of tho Greek language, has not been naturalized in our own; notwithstanding Milton's well-known imitation of it, in which ho makes Adam tho " goodliest of all his sons sinco barn, The fairest of her daughters Eve." 2 As he refers, I think, to his own actual investigations on the subject, there seems no reason for giving to ?/v the hypothetical force, as translators have generally done. The same remark applies to the use of tho came verb in the first sentence of chap. 22, xaAenov rfv uxpiJeiav avrf/v Tuv %£xttcvTcjv AiaftvTjaoveuaat jjv; and the truth of it appears to be confirmed by the expression txiirovuf di Cvihokcto in the same chapter. 1 The relative uu is referred by some to aKomwvn, by others to mtrrcvmi; and in either case it would seem bu...« less