Thucydides (c.460-400 BC). 1888 illustration of a bust of the Ancient Greek historian and general Thucydides. Thucydides was author of 'History of the Peloponnesian War', which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. He is known as the 'father of scientific history' due to his strict standards of gathering evidence and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to mythology.