ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the type of drama to trace the literary influence under which Thucydides worked. It explains which is designed to establish Thucydides' belief that the Peloponnesian war was the most memorable of all that had ever been in Greece. The possible rivals, he points out, are the Trojan war and the Persian invasion. The chapter then describes the structure of Aeschylean tragedy. Similarly, as we hope to show, in transmission from Aeschylus to Thucydides, the dramatic type has again outlasted much of the belief which informed it in the Aeschylean stage. It is the artistic structure which is permanent; the content changes with the advance of thought. Mythical types of this sort can be discovered and classified only after wide survey of comparative Mythistoria. Thus, the legend of Harmodius illustrates both the phases of the process we described: first, it is moulded on the mythical type of the Heavenly Twins, and then invention supplies the missing third figure.
