ABSTRACT
The style of Thucydides goes beyond not only the privileges, but even the aberrations of genius. It has been a scandal and a stumbling-block to the learned for two thousand years; and his commentators are at great pains to account for it. The case of Thucydides is more serious than any known to the nosology of letters. The brain of Thucydides, they claim, is not like other brains: it is a brain which subtilises, which rationalises, which concentrates, which, shortly, seethes with a crowd of thoughts pressing for an exit; and, it would seem, no language is wide enough to let them out in decent order. Further, it is pointed out, Thucydides tries to pack much thought into a few words: pregnant brevity is one of his salient characteristics. Thucydides having related the Corcyraean sedition, goes aside to reflect, at some length, on the manifold effects of the revolutionary upheaval all over Greece.
