Thucydides
Thucydides, son of Olorus, was an Athenian who began his history of the war between Athens and Sparta as soon as it broke out in 431 BCE. He caught the plague that struck Athens in 430 and recovered. In 424 he commanded an Athenian fleet in the north, failed to save Amphipolis from the Spartan general Brasidas, and spent twenty years in exile, which let him see the war from both sides. His History, in eight books, breaks off unfinished in 411 BCE, seven years before Athens surrendered.