Democritean philosophy and Thucydides' 'History'

Few historical texts can rival the influence of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War on intellectual thought as well as on events. The power of this work derives from the assumption that it is an objective and accurate account of circumstances in the Hellenic world of the late fifth-century BC. In recent years, however, research has demonstrated convincingly that this work contains serious discrepancies and irregularities. Scholars have proposed numerous and disparate theories to account for the problems they have identified. A solution able to account satisfactorily for most or all of the difficulties, however, has not yet been available. This thesis proposes an explanation hitherto little explored: that Thucydides' History was shaped and informed by the pre-Socratic philosophy of the atomist of Abdera, Democritus.