Human Nature And Justice In Thucydides' Peloponnesian War

Strauss called Thucydides "a silent educator", the main reason is Thucydides was good at narrating significant events, and could analyze the clue in developing events, found the essence of history. Thucydides thought that human nature is the factor which develop history. And because human nature is the same, so if we are familiar with human nature that can understand what human nature do in events. Human nature concern about security, profit and honor and other factors, but these three factors was emphasized by Thucydides in his writing. Polises principally considered survival and security, safety caused by passive has always decided the development of historical events. Compared with the passive safety, profit is the human manifestation to greed, actively pursuing by human. The two powerful polises Athens and Sparta at that time used profit and safety as reciprocal conditions in the city-state's foreign affairs, never stop to pursue security and profit. Thucydides thought honour was very important, which reflect selfless quality, is the embodiment of virtue. Invariant human nature and the relationship between the three factors can help us analyze those various events that appears in text, find the perpetual essence of history to teach people when the same event happen in the future helpfully.There was sad atmosphere in Thucydides" works, which derived from results that Thucydides observed justice were ignored in wartime. Justice are divers and fragile in historical reality, but human nature would not always against justice. When human desire for safety, profit and honor, Thucydides thinks we can avoid destroying the justice. The historian emphasizes human nature can guarantee justice not be ignored. He hoped that when human nature motive history can show goodness, to guarantee justice. Descendant who reading his writings should not forget lessons which learn from history, that is a manifestation of society progress if they can do that.