ABSTRACT
Thoukydides son of Oloros, the man to whom we owe what some have considered the most profound work of political analysis that has ever been written, a history of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, is our earliest - and ought also to be our most trustworthy - witness concerning Perikles. He himself tells us (4.104.4) that he held the office of general in 424/3 BeE; if (as seems likely) the minimum age for generals was 30, he would have been born before 454, but how much before it is impossible to be sure. Most modern accounts put his birth-date between 460 and 455, and this means that he was aware of what was going on around him, and Perikles' involvement in it, from (say) the Thirty Years' Peace with Sparta onwards; from what he has left as his 'possession for all time', it is clear from his narrative at 1.115.2ff. (see Chapter 9) that his notes from the period of the Samian War onward were very full indeed.
