The History of Herodotus and The History of the Peloponnesian War
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The makers of Encyclopaedia Britannica bring you one of the Great Books of the Western World. This text captures major ideas, stories, and discoveries that helped shape Western culture.
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“Having now given the result of my inquiries into early times, I grant that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular detail. The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered, without applying any critical test whatever.” (Pages 353–354)
“Dear friend, it is not possible for man to avert that which God has decreed shall happen. No one believes warnings, however true. Many of us Persians know our danger, but we are constrained by necessity to do as our leader bids us. Verily ’tis the sorest of all human ills, to abound in knowledge and yet have no power over action.’” (Page 291)
“‘What I did, oh! king, was to thy advantage and to my own loss. If there be blame, it rests with the god of the Greeks, who encouraged me to begin the war. No one is so foolish as to prefer war to peace, in which, instead of sons burying their fathers, fathers bury their sons. But the gods willed it so.’” (Page 21)
“All speculation as to its origin and its causes, if causes can be found adequate to produce so great a disturbance, I leave to other writers, whether lay or professional; for myself, I shall simply set down its nature, and explain the symptoms by which perhaps it may be recognized by the student, if it should ever break out again. This I can the better do, as I had the disease myself, and watched its operation in the case of others.” (Page 399)
“Vengeance is not necessarily successful because wrong has been done, or strength sure because it is confident; but the incalculable element in the future exercises the widest influence, and is the most treacherous, and yet in fact the most useful of all things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus makes us consider before attacking each other.” (Page 462)
- Title: The History of Herodotus and The History of the Peloponnesian War
- Authors: Herodotus, Thucydides
- Edition: Second Edition
- Series: Great Books of the Western World
- Volume: 5
- Publishers: Robert P. Gwinn, Encyclopedia Britannica
- Print Publication Date: 1990
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: History, Ancient; Persian Wars, 500-449 B.C; Greece › Antiquities
- ISBNs: 0852295316, 9780852295311
- Resource ID: LLS:GBWW05
- Resource Type: text.monograph.ancient-manuscript.translation
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:11:00Z