The Mind of Thucydides

The publication of Jacqueline de Romilly's Histoire et raison chez Thucydide in 1956 virtually transformed scholarship on Thucydides. Rather than mining The Peloponnesian War to speculate on its layers of composition or second-guess its accuracy, it treated it as a work of art deserving rhetorical and aesthetic analysis. Ahead of its time in its sophisticated focus upon the verbal texture of narrative, it proved that a literary approach offered the most productive and nuanced way to study Thucydides. Still in print in the original French, the book has influenced numerous Classicists and historians, and is now available in English for the first time in a careful translation by Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings. The Cornell edition includes an introduction by Hunter R. Rawlings III and Jeffrey Rusten tracing the context of this book's original publication and its continuing influence on the study of Thucydides. Romilly shows that Thucydides constructs his account of the Peloponnesian War as a profoundly intellectual experience for readers who want to discern the patterns underlying historical events.Employing a commanding logic that exercises total control over the data of history, Thucydides uses rigorous principles of selection, suggestive juxtapositions, and artfully opposed speeches to reveal systematic relationships between plans and outcomes, impose meaning on the smallest events, and insist on the constant battle between intellect and chance. Thucydides' mind found in unity and coherence its ideal of historical truth.

Winner of 2013 Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title.

“"This translation is valuable in making more widely available a book which, though half a century old, has endured as a classic of Thucydidean scholarship. Reading this book will give all those who encounter Thucydides, whether in the original Greek or in translation, much more of a feeling for the texture of his language. The chapter on the Archaeology is particularly significant: it remains the most lucid analysis of Thucydides' techniques in this important section of the work."-Timothy Rood, St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, author of Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation”

"Rawlings has done a great favor to students of Thucydides by making Romilly's work available to an English-speaking audience. With this work Romilly revolutionized how scholars approached and studied Thucydides. Instead of analyzing the accuracy of his narrative on the Peloponnesian War, Romilly examines how Thucydides thought. She treats the history like a piece of intellectual art and Thucydides like an artist." -Nikolaus Overtoom, Louisiana State University, H-War (May 2014) "Students at every level, from undergraduates to advanced scholars, will be grateful for this English translation of Histoire et raison chez Thucydide, the best of all Jacqueline de Romilly's many and distinguished publications on Thucydides, and one of the best books on Thucydides of any period and in any language. It was way ahead of its time in its sophisticated examination of Thucydides' narrative technique."-Simon Hornblower, University of Oxford, author of Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry

Jacqueline de Romilly (1913-2010) was the author of more than thirty books on the literature and history of ancient Greece; among her many honors, she was the first woman Professor of the College de France, and in 1989 was the second woman elected to the Academie Francaise. Hunter R. Rawlings III is President of the Association of American Universities and Professor of Classics and History at Cornell University, where he served as president from 1995 to 2003. He is the author of The Structure of Thucydides' History and a number of articles on Thucydides. Jeffrey Rusten is Professor of Classics at Cornell University, author of The Birth of Comedy: Texts, Documents, and Art from Athenian Comic Competitions, 486-280, and editor of Thucydides (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies). Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings is an independent translator of books including The Mind of Thucydides by Jacqueline de Romilly, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity by Eric Rebillard and The Mourning Voice by Nicole Loraux, all from Cornell.

The publication of Jacqueline de Romilly's Histoire et raison chez Thucydide in 1956 virtually transformed scholarship on Thucydides. Rather than mining The Peloponnesian War to speculate on its layers of composition or second-guess its accuracy, it treated it as a work of art deserving rhetorical and aesthetic analysis. Ahead of its time in its sophisticated focus upon the verbal texture of narrative, it proved that a literary approach offered the most productive and nuanced way to study Thucydides. Still in print in the original French, the book has influenced numerous Classicists and historians, and is now available in English for the first time in a careful translation by Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings. The Cornell edition includes an introduction by Hunter R. Rawlings III and Jeffrey Rusten tracing the context of this book's original publication and its continuing influence on the study of Thucydides. Romilly shows that Thucydides constructs his account of the Peloponnesian War as a profoundly intellectual experience for readers who want to discern the patterns underlying historical events. Employing a commanding logic that exercises total control over the data of history, Thucydides uses rigorous principles of selection, suggestive juxtapositions, and artfully opposed speeches to reveal systematic relationships between plans and outcomes, impose meaning on the smallest events, and insist on the constant battle between intellect and chance. Thucydides' mind found in unity and coherence its ideal of historical truth.

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