Thucydides

Thucydides (c. 460–c. 400 BC) was an Athenian historian and general. Little is known of his life beyond what he tells us: he survived the plague of 430, commanded a squadron in the northern Aegean in 424, failed to prevent the loss of Amphipolis to the Spartan Brasidas and was exiled for twenty years, during which he traveled on both sides of the war and gathered his material. His History of the Peloponnesian War, which stops in mid-sentence in 411, seven years before the end, is the first work of history to exclude the gods and explain events by human fear, interest and power. He probably died before finishing it.