Thucydides was born in the
deme of
Alopeke (Ἀλωπεκή) of
Athens. The exact year of his birth is unknown, but his family was noble and he was a relative of
Cimon, the charismatic general and leader of the conservative party. After Cimon's death, he succeeded him in the leadership of the conservatives and decided to exert a vehement opposition against
Pericles, who was leading Athens at the time. Thucydides represented the thorough-going conservative party at Athens; their views are most clearly represented by "the Old Oligarch" in his
Constitution of the Athenians, which has come down to us among the works of
Xenophon.
Donald Kagan suggests that Thucydides' ultimate goal, which he could not state openly as doing so would alienate the pro-democratic majority, was to roll back the constitutional changes made by
Ephialtes, reinstating the more aristocratic and conservative government that had prevailed in
Cimon's day. Thucydides' political strength reached its peak in the wake of the
First Peloponnesian War and the reorganization of the Athenian empire in the early 440s BC. Thucydides developed a new and effective political tactic by having his supporters sit together in the assembly, increasing their apparent strength and giving them a united voice. Kagan asserts that this tactic helped Thucydides mount a concerted opposition to Pericles which brought to light ideological differences among Pericles' supporters. the details of
Plutarch's account, according to Plutarch, Thucydides, the new leader of the conservatives, accused Pericles, the leader of the democrats, of
profligacy, criticizing the way Pericles spent the money for his ambitious building plan. Thucydides managed to incite the passions of the
Athenian Assembly in his favor, but when Pericles took the floor, the atmosphere immediately changed. Pericles proposed to pay for all the construction from his own purse, under the term that all these monuments would belong to him and not to Athens. The public applauded his stance and Thucydides suffered an unexpected defeat from the charismatic orator. As a result of his failure in confronting Pericles, Thucydides was
ostracized for ten years, in 442 BC, and Pericles once again stood unchallenged in the Athenian political arena. Plutarch relates After being ostracized, Thucydides is said to have traveled to
Sybaris, a city of
Magna Graecia on the
Gulf of Taranto in
Italy, or
Aegina, but this is unconfirmed. Thucydides is mentioned in
The Wasps by
Aristophanes, as an example of a defendant who is silenced by the overwhelming power of his accuser's (Pericles') arguments. While in Athens, Thucydides is also said to have accused Pericles' personal friend,
Anaxagoras, of
atheism and
sympathy for
the Persians. ==Notes==