ABSTRACT
In the language used by Thucydides when he speaks of the tragic passions, are to see mere poetical metaphor, out of which all literal meaning has faded; or does some of this meaning still linger behind the words, as an unanalysed fund of mythical conception, When Thucydides borrowed the form of the Aeschylean drama, much, certainly, of the explicit theological theory which had been the soul of that form, was left behind in the transmission. It then traces back the tragic theory of human nature, in the hope that a sketch of its development may help us to answer our question, how much of it survives in Thucydides. The Thucydides contains in summary form the motives of Cleon's drama and of the tragedy of Athens, we observe that the so-called 'personifications' named in it fall into a series or cycle.
