WorkThucydides

History of the Peloponnesian War [Historiae]

History of the Peloponnesian War [Historiae] (c. 431–404 BCE), Inferred

Thucydides · c. 431–404 BCE

InferredFuller explicitly attributes a key phrase to "the motto on my ring"—"a possession forever for man"—and this is Thucydides' celebrated declaration from the *History of the Peloponnesian War*, Book I, chapter 22, where he distinguishes his serious historical work from mere performance by saying it is composed "as a possession for ever." Fuller's aspiration for her own history of the Italian revolution mirrors exactly Thucydides' aspiration for his account of the Peloponnesian War.

ReadMentioned

Documented 1849

Letters

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

AttestedConfirmed readingEvidence ↓

Confirmed reading

Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had this work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

undatedHistory of the Peloponnesian WarAttested
“Thucydides couched in expressive style, but in its tissue of wars more like the annals of hornets than of men.”
Recollections of Richard F. Fuller, Chapters Four-Six
Continuation of the same explicit first-person reading account naming Thucydides among works read.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist

V. New York

VI. Europe1record

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1849—

Letter to Richard F. Fuller

p213

read

“would be what the motto on my ring indicates "a possession forever for man.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. V. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Inferred Fuller explicitly attributes a key phrase to "the motto on my ring"—"a possession forever for man"—and this is Thucydides' celebrated declaration from the History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, chapter 22, where he distinguishes his serious historical work from mere performance by saying it is composed "as a possession for ever." Fuller's aspiration for her own history of the Italian revolution mirrors exactly Thucydides' aspiration for his account of the Peloponnesian War.