In all such passages and in the pas

In all such passages and in the passage where Thucydides discusses the " truest prophasis of the war," it is perfectly correct to use the word cause in translation, but it is still inaccurate to say that prophasis means "cause." One should say that these are instances in which there is no distinction between "cause" and "explanation." It is important to distinguish the meaning of a word from the right or acceptable translation in a particular context. It is a bad habit among students of the classics (and a very difficult habit to discard, however severely we may criticize it in others) to pretend that ancient writers are thinking in our own modern terms and are deciding for us how we should translate the words they are usinig