Since the publication of Ullrich's

Since the publication of Ullrich's Beitráge zur Erklarung des Thukydides in 1845/6, there has existed in the field of Classics the so-called "Thucydidean Question'. In 1899 Ed. Meyer was already lamenting that it was 'not a good sign for the efficiency of the philological discipline' that this problem had not yet been solvedThe problem as raised by Ullrich comes down to this: the work as we have it is not a unit but rather-I concentrate here only on the most important points-consists of two drafts or designs, written at different times, which the author did not have time to integrate consistently with one another, According to Ullrich, the first part consists of Books 1 to 4 (middle) and was written soon after the end of the Archidamian War (421); the later part consists of the remaining Books and reworkings of certain passages of the earlier part and was composed soon after the collapse of Athens (404).The effects of the "Thucydidean Question' become relevant to our point of view with Schwartz's (1919) work on Thucydides. This book has often been credited with lending fresh momentum to Ullrich's thesis, which by then had already undergone several attempts at modification: "Schwartz for the first time raised this question decisively to the level of a problem of intellectual development'.