Jonas Grethlein

In his archaeology, the important Greek historian and strategist Thucydides reviews the history of Greece to show that the Peloponnesian War was the greatest military undertaking of all time. To prove this, he uses figures from ship catalogs on the one hand and relies on Homer’s Iliad on the other – but at the same time critically questions his figures. Jonas Grethlein uses Thucydides’ work to discuss the use of literature as an important historical source and argues that literary works should not only be regarded as artistic creations, but also as documents of their time that offer insights into past cultures, societies and ways of thinking.

Jonas Grethlein is Professor of Classics at the University of Heidelberg. After being diagnosed with cancer, he studied Homer and the fundamental questions of humanity in depth.

In the History Telling series