Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/220

196 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE oracles, which of course filled the air at the time. He instances their safe ambiguity (ii. 17, 54), and mentions as a curiosity the only one he had ever known to come definitely true (v. 26). He speaks little of persons. He realises the influence of a great man such as Pericles, a mere demagogue such as Cleon, an unscrupulous genius such as Alcibiades. Living in a psychological age, he studies these men's characters and modes of thought, studies them sometimes with vivid dramatic personation, in the speeches and elsewhere ; but it is only the mind, never the manner or the matter, that he cares for, and he never condescends to gossip. He cares for big move- ments and organised forces. He believes above all things in reason, brain-power, intelligence. There is another point in which he is irritated by Hero- dotus. He himself was a practical and highly-trained soldier. Herodotus was a man of letters who knew no- thing of war except for some small Ionian skirmishing in liis youth. Herodotus speaks of the 'regiment of Pitane,' showing that he thought Spartan regiments were raised by localities ; it makes Thucydides angry that a professed historian should not know better than that.^ Except in topography, which is always difficult before the era of maps, Thucydides is very clear and pointed in his military matters ; and it is interesting to observe that he lays his hand on almost all the weaknesses of Greek military organisation which were gradually made clear by experience in the times after him. In the Pelopon- nesian War the whole strength of the land army was in the heavy infantry. Thucydides shows the helpless- ness of such an army against adequate light infantry,^ Iphicrates and Xenophon learned the lesson. He shows ^ i. 20; cf. lidt. ix. 53. _ ^ iii. 102 ; iv. 39.