Today in a very strange coincidence I bumped into the same nugget
of information about Thucydides, a general and historian from ancient
Athens, in two completely different places. The fact was that he
made up some parts of the speeches included in his history (of the
Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta). I read this in the
morning in an Economist book review of a biography of Cleopatra
(which apparently also made some things up), then in the afternoon
I read the same nugget used as an analogy in Nancy Cartwright's
'How the Laws of Physics Lie' (in the essay on 'Fitting Facts to
Equations') - the Nancy Cartwright essay even included the quote
from Thucydides explaining why he made these things up. Seeing as
I sadly know and read very little history it seemed quite amusing
to me that I'd run into this pretty specific nugget in two completely
different places in one day. Incidentally Thucydides said that while
he made up some parts of the speeches he tried to remain close to
the spirit of what was said, which is not such a bad thing - for
me certainly better than quoting the exact words but out of context
so they give a misleading impression.
