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Citoyen Thucydides: Thucydidean Influences on French Revolutionary Political Thought
| In the preface to his 1795 translation of the Histories, Pierre-Charles Levesque argues that Thucydides is the one historian who should be read in a country where all citizens take part in the government. Levesque calls Thucydides the “historian of politics” because he describes the “political action” of people and nations rather than tales of kings and courtiers. Precisely why the citizens of modern France should read Thucydides over other classical or modern historians and which political actions they should take note of and to what purpose are questions Levesque leaves unanswered. Historians of the French Revolution and ancient historians interested in the reception of their subject have often focussed on the ubiquity of classical references in the rhetoric and arts of this period. However, there have been no studies to date who was reading which classical historians during the revolution and how different ideas of politics and political history were drawn from these texts and entered into contemporary political discourse. This paper will argue for the widespread influence of Thucydides during the revolution and examine the number of very different and not necessarily compatible forms that this influence took. It shall show how Thucydides depiction of Pericles, the demos and the Athenian constitution made inroads into French culture in surprising ways and the difficulties that this posed for contemporary democratic and republican thinkers.
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