Influence
Thucydides' History has been enormously influential in both ancient and modern historiography. It was embraced by the author's contemporaries and immediate successors with enthusiasm; indeed, many authors sought to complete the unfinished history. For example, Xenophon wrote his Hellenica as a continuation of Thucydides' work, beginning at the exact moment that Thucydides' History leaves off. His work, however, is generally considered inferior in style and accuracy compared with Thucydides'. In later antiquity, Thucydides' reputation suffered somewhat, with critics such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus rejecting the History as turgid and excessively austere. Lucian also parodies it (among others) in his satire The True Histories. Woodrow Wilson read the History on his voyage across the Atlantic to the Versailles Peace Conference.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Peloponnesian War
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“Power lasts ten years; influence not more than a hundred.”
—Korean proverb, quoted in Alan L. Mackay, The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (1977)
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