The Ancient Greek Thucydides was not a prophet but a historian renowned for his chronicle of the Peloponnesian War. This conflict, between the ancient Greek city states of Athens and Sparta, would encompass most of all of Greece (or Hellas) and bring an end to that special time in human history known as the Golden Age of Greece. When addressing the subject of prophecy, Thucydides is one such "voice of reason" worth citing because early in his narrative, Thucydides strives to set himself apart from any entertainment factor in order to confront the truth of human nature, as he describes in the following passage:
And it may well be that my history will seem less easy to read because of the absence in it of a romantic element. It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future. My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever.
While the circumstances of historical events may change, human nature remains constant; consequently, if one knows human nature, one can make projections based on models of human nature, and thus to some degree predictions. Drawing on the mythos, the poet can then symbolize either extreme by referring to it as either
heaven or
hell on earth. This would be introducing a romantic element that Thucydides clearly distances himself from. Yet in the subsequent paragraph from the passage quoted above, Thucydides nevertheless felt compelled to cite what appeared to him to be the phenomena of prophecy at that time, as excerpted below.
Old stories of past prodigies, which had not found much confirmation in recent experience, now became credible. Wide areas, for instance, were affected by violent earthquakes; there were more frequent eclipses of the sun than had ever been recorded before; in various parts of the country there were extensive droughts followed by famine; and there was the plague which did more harm and destroyed more life than almost any other single factor. All these calamities fell together upon the Hellenes [ancient Greeks] after the outbreak of war.
As Thucydides wrote his history not for the immediate public but to last in time, so we have a timeless affirmation of what appeared to be the phenomena of prophecy reminiscent of the new testament Biblical Book of Revelation and the unleashing of the four horsemen of the apocalypse -- but over four hundred years
before Christ. But again, as I noted in the previous entry, it's not that I argue that one shouldn't be skeptical, I only argue that one should not be dismissive.
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