What makes Thucydides such an unsatisfactory historian is that he suppresses the evidence that would have allowed us to disagree with him. Jonathan HannaWord count: 2054 Thucydides ignored social, economic and cultural matters and excluded topics that he felt unable to write about, such as women. Further inadequacies can be found throughout the History, especially when the search for truth seems to have become subordinate to artistic considerations. The narrative is punctuated by speeches, the primary literary device used in the 'History' and these are unreliable and subjective. In refusing to verify his sources we are forced to accept or reject his testimony based on the satisfactory (or otherwise) nature of the account of the war as a piece of history. However, there are inconsistencies throughout and from the few sources available to modern historians we must consider Thucydides' creditability as questionable. The reader's dissatisfaction with Thucydides as an historian is derived from a combination of the suppression of evidence, which leads us to decipher his validity from the consistency of the text, and the problems we have with the text when we do so. Thucydides systematically ignores certain issues for instance religious, economic and social issues. He abandoned breadth to achieve depth, but in ignoring these issues he missed certain aspects of the war. Further and even closer to his chosen topic he completely ignores Persia as a factor in the background to the war and only alludes to the Megara decree which in other accounts has an important role to play in the out break of war. Religion had an important role to play in the lives of many of the Greeks, Thucydides himself may have rejected Religion but he also underplayed its role. It is clear that Religion was a vital part of the decision making process, for instance the Spartan's, on deciding whether or not to declare war, first went to enquire to the god's at Delphi and o...
