But Thucydides either sees not, or desires not to
see, in either of these events the finger of Providence, or the
punishment of wicked doers. The death of the heralds is merely an
Athenian retaliation for similar outrages committed by the opposite
side; the long agony of the ten years' siege is due merely to the
want of a good commissariat in the Greek army; while the fall of
the city is the result of a united military attack consequent on a
good supply of provisions.
Now, it is to be observed that in this latter passage, as well as
elsewhere, Thucydides is in no sense of the word a sceptic as
regards his attitude towards the truth of these ancient legends.
Agamemnon and Atreus, Theseus and Eurystheus, even Minos, about
whom Herodotus has some doubts, are to him as real personages as
Alcibiades or Gylippus. The points in his historical criticism of
the past are, first, his rejection of all extra-natural
interference, and, secondly, the attributing to these ancient
heroes the motives and modes of thought of his own day. The
present was to him the key to the explanation of the past, as it
was to the prediction of the future.
Now, as regards his attitude towards the supernatural he is at one
with modern science.
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