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Thucydides (c. 460 BC - c. 395 BC) (Greek Θουκυδίδης, Thoukudídēs) was an ancient Greek historian, and the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War , which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been regarded as the father of scientific history because of his strict standards of gathering evidence and his analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods. He also has been considered as the father of the school of political realism that views the relations between nations as based on might rather than right. More generally, he shows an interest in developing an understanding of human nature to explain human behavior in such crises as plague and civil war. Other scholars lay greater emphasis on the History’s elaborate literary artistry and the powerful rhetoric of its speeches and insist that its author exploited non-"scientific" literary genres no less than newer, rationalistic modes of explanation.
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