Abstract
The structure of the Archaeologia is a product of three preconceived ideas of Thucydides'; namely, his conception of power, his conception of cyclic history and his conception of proof. 1. Conception of Power: the power of a state consists of four elements; stability (A), unification of city-states (B), seapower (C) and wealth (D). In the Archaeologia each element is surveyed in turn. 2. Conception of Cyclic History: Thucydides seems to have thought, at least when he was writing the Archaeologia, that these four elements of power developed successively from (A) to (D) during a certain period, and that after (D) there was a war, and then another cycle. Since he knew that there had been two large wars before the Peloponnesian War (i. e, the Trojan War and the Persian War), he divided the past into three periods marked by the two wars, and believed that each period constituted a cycle. 3. Conception of Proof: Thucydides seems to have thought that he had to prove that the Peloponnesian War was the greatest war of all. He employs a specific form of proof. First he states what he is going to prove (T); then he explains his theme (E); and then finally he states again what he has proved (T). This TET form is only applied to the parts of the Archaeologia where he wanted to prove his case. (E) can further be divided into two parts, X and Y. [table] Thucydides' a priori attitude is apparent in the Archaeologia. His subjective attitude in the structure of the First Book and in the Pentecontaetia has already been discussed by the writer in JCS XIV 1966, pp. 77-85. By tracing the changes and developments in the character of his subjectivity, one can discover the path that Thucydides' thought took for thirty years. Using the results of this study, one may possibly establish the chronological order of his writings.
