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• Advertisement.
• To the Right Honourable Sir William Cavendish, Knight of the Bath, Baron of Hardwick, and Earl of Devonshire.
• To the Readers.
• Of the Life and History of Thucydides.
• The First Book of the History of Thucydides.
• The Second Book of the History of Thucydides.
• The Third Book of the History of Thucydides.
• The Fourth Book of the History of Thucydides.
• Books Published By John Bohn.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The merit of Hobbes’ translation of Thucydides lies principally in the simplicity and force of the language: bearing in that respect some affinity to the original. Viewed merely as a translation, it will be found to contain, owing partly to the corrupt state of the Greek text of his day, partly to his habitual disregard of minute details so that accuracy were attained in essentials, manifold errors and omissions. As these defects disfigure the narrative, and sometimes perplex the reader, it has been considered worth while to attempt, by short notes, something towards their removal: without however affecting to offer a translation either critically correct or even free from many errors. In the performance of this task the interpretations of Goeller, Arnold, Thirlwall and others, have been followed wheresoever they were available: where such help failed, the editor had to rely on his own imperfect resources.

To render the work more useful to the English reader and those not deeply versed in Grecian history, some historical notes have been added, drawn for the most part in substance from Mueller’s history of the Dorians, Hermann’s Grecian Antiquities, Thirlwall’s history of Greece, Niebuhr’s history of Rome, &c. Wheresoever Aristotle is cited, his Politics will be understood to be the work referred to.

Several phrases having been marked by Hobbes himself with square brackets, to designate them as interpolations, the same marks have been added for the same purpose to other words and passages.

Those corrections of the Greek text by Bekker and others only have been noticed, which serve to explain the cause of Hobbes’ departure in those instances from the right interpretation.

It has been considered useless to reprint the maps belonging to the original edition, and referred to in the Epistle to the Reader. These were unavoidably rude and imperfect, and have been long superseded both by the more general maps to be found in any modern Atlas, and the numerous maps and plans which have been published of late years for the particular illustration of this history. It has however been thought useful to append Goeller’s map of the siege of Syracuse, which is accessible only in his edition of the text.