Book II - Wilbourhall.org

Ivi INTRODUCTION. [iii.to a thoughtful reader. In another case, he gives asan instance the end of c. 44 of this book, where thetext is certainly wrong, whether we take that whichDionysius gives, or that found in the MSS. of theauthor. The truth is that far more is known aboutAttic at the present day than either Cicero or Dionysiusknew; and if Thucydides is less obscure to usthan he was to them, we may be sure that those forwhom he wrote did not find him so very hard tounderstand.One great difficulty which Thucydides felt was tofind a vocabulary suited to his purpose. Attic prosewas then in its infancy, and a literary dialect for prosewas unknown. He was therefore forced to follow thelead of Gorgias and seek the aid of poetry. He modifiedthe Attic spoken in his day by adding manywords used by the poets or in Ionic prose. Many passagesshow that he studied the tragic poets ; and, inelaborating his terminology, he adopted several wordsand expressions no longer in use in spoken Attic.He also formed new words wherever he felt the needof terms more abstract than any he could find inlanguage.theIn spite of his occasional obscurity, Thucydidesdepicts the events of the war with extraordinaryclearness. Without one word of remark from thewriter, the narrative sweeps irresistibly on.Plutarchsays somewhere that while reading Thucydides' descriptions,we seem to see that long tragedy, the war,being enacted before our very eyes. The account ofthe epidemic that broke out at Athens in 430 B.aillustrates well both the tragic power and the vivid