Tucidide: la storia e il senso tragico della vita

Abstract

Thucydides, following Herodotus, consolidated history as an autonomous discipline, based on the positive method. He had the privilege of being born in Athens and living in the capital of Attica during the golden age of Pericles. He was therefore a contemporary of the Sophists and Socrates, but also a student of the philosopher Anaxagoras and the orator Antiphon. His work, divided into eight books, focuses on the History of the Peloponnesian War that took place between 431 and 404 BC; the events therefore concern the decades-long conflict between Athens and Sparta, confirming the barbarity represented by the clash between peoples. Like Herodotus, Thucydides uses the positive method, taking into account the chronological evolution of the events examined from the origins to the end of the conflict that arose between the two poleis of ancient Greece.