What they cannot convey is his orig

What they cannot convey is his originality. There are, here again, some facts that Thucydides juxtaposes simply because they follow each other in time. There are elements that provide comparison, because they oppose each other in reality, and because this opposition is inescapable. In all these cases, there is no reason to reject the comparison, the contrast, the similarity. But we must avoid drawing conclusions about Thucydides. That is the one difficulty, for the reserve that has led him to express his views only under the cover of facts also means that readers who are committed to this path may not be able to tell where the facts end or Thucydides' own views begin. Thucydides' work mixes the historian into the history so well that personal interpretation looks like evidence, and sometimes, contrariwise, critics make the mistake of taking the most necessary facts to be personal. This error itself, while it may be understandable, is but further confirmation of our conclusions. Thucydides calls for subtlety, and subtlety includes risks.