ABSTRACT
Thomas Hobbes began his career of scholar, man of letters, and philosopher by translating Thucydides. In the half-century after Seyssel's edition Thucydides was translated and retranslated into several modern languages and Thomas Hobbes was, consequently, working in a well established tradition when he began his translation. Consequently, when Thomas Hobbes decided to translate Thucydides, he was deciding to carry on a respected and living tradition of thought and language. The Rev. William Smith wrote in the preface of his translation of Thucydides: Mr. Hobbes, however sorry and mischievous a philosopher, was undoubtedly a very learned man. In fact, Thucydides' account of the tyrants of Greece seems to have provided Hobbes with one of his principal arguments in favor of absolute monarchy and in opposition to classical political theories. Thus it appears that Hobbes' reading of Thucydides confirmed for him, or perhaps crystallized for him, the broad outlines and many of the details of his own thought.
