With brilliant critical insight and surprising objectivity and precision, the Athenian historian has bequeathed us a legacy that is everlasting or a struggle for the present moment. And a continuous, great lesson, since similar events will always occur or be threatened as long as human nature remains the same.
Things happening and always being so as long as the same nature of humans exists (III,82,2). Thucydides does not describe the surface of events; he penetrates and anatomizes their inner physiology, that is, the passions, virtues, and inherent vices of humans.
Truthful, impartial, cool-headed in the approach to situations, people, and relationships. Concise and adept in expression and the entire art of speech.
(. . .) [Excerpt from the text of the preface]
