Since he was challenging his audien

Since he was challenging his audience's notions on the past, Thucydides in the Archaeology was bound to have an idiosyncratic relationship with evidence. He had to show himself well informed, and at the same time, making reference to facts his audience had never heard about would have been superfluous, and might potentially have been suspect. Therefore the Archaeology makes a strong appeal to the audience's competence, and intertextual references are extremely frequent and perhaps also more visible than in other parts of Thucydides' work. More than ever, they are an integral part of the meaning of this text.