The matter of this paper has been a subject of consideration with me for some time past, and I venture to put forward the conclusion I have arrived at, not because I consider it to be a certain one, but as possibly affording a working hypothesis providing an explanation of what has been to me, and may have been to others, an obscure and difficult point. That the subject demands the earnest attention of those who study Thukydides will, I think, be generally admitted, and this, together with the fact that I have formed the conclusion on a certain amount of first-hand experience, may afford some excuse for the publication of my views.

The vast majority of the incidents in the Peloponnesian War are treated by Thukydides with great brevity, in some cases with a brevity disproportionate to their importance. There are, however, according to the ordinary acceptation, three incidents into which he enters with a peculiar and striking amount of detail.