[Footnote 18: Jowett says Thucydides "stands absolutely alone among
historians, not only of Hellas, but of the world, in his impartiality
and love of truth." Macaulay's enthusiasm for him is well known.
Mahaffy says his work was intended to be a military history, compiled
from original documents and from personal observations made by himself
and other eye-witnesses. "There can not be the smallest doubt," adds
Mahaffy, "that, in the hands of Thucydides, the art of writing history
made an extraordinary stride and attained a perfection which no
subsequent Hellenic, and few modern writers have attained." He is
praised for the "lofty dignity" which he imparts to every subject. His
temper is so solemn and severe as to be "strangely un-Attic." Among
his great and enduring merits is the fact that he has "taught us to
know more of Greek interpolitical life than all other Greek writers
put together." No historian has been greater than he, not only in
dignity of language, but in calmness of judgment, in intellectual
force, and in breadth and acuteness of observation.]
[Footnote 19: From Book I of the "History of the Peloponnesian War."
Translated by Benjamin Jowett.]
[Footnote 20: The Peloponnesians were the people of the peninsula
which forms the southern part of Greece, and which is now known as
Morea. In ancient times this territory was called the Peloponnesus.
Its people comprized the inhabitants of several political domains
called Achaia, Sicyonia, Corinthia, Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia,
Messenia, and Elis. Laconia was otherwise, and quite anciently, known
as Lacedæmon, its capital being the city of Sparta.]
[Footnote 21: Potidæa, the modern Pinaka, had revolted from Athens in
432 B.C., but did not capitulate until the end of the second year of
the Peloponnesian war. It was a rich and flourishing town, originally
Dorian, but colonized later from Corinth. During one of the Eastern
invasions of Greece, it fell into Persian hands.]
[Footnote 22: These walls connected Athens with its port, the Piræus,
and were each about five miles long. They ran parallel and were
separated from each other by about 500 feet of space. This intervening
land was used for a carriage road, on either side of which were
houses. Thus was formed a continuous walled street from Athens to the
sea, so that communication in case of war was made secure.]
[Footnote 23: The battle of Marathon was fought in September, 490. It
ended the attempts of Darius to subdue Greece.]
[Footnote 24: The battle of Salamis took place in September, 480, and
was fought in waters lying between the Piræus and the island of
Salamis. Themistocles commanded the Greeks. The Persian ships were
practically annihilated. Byron's lines on this battle, in his poem
"The Isles of Greece," will be recalled.]