The Life of Thucydides by Marcellinus

Life of Thucydides by Marcellinus is an exceptional example of ancient biography of the type known as a Life. Many such Lives, were written in antiquity and still survive today. Lives are typically biographies of Greek authors who were widely read in antiquity. Good examples include the ancient Lives of Homer, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Lives differed from later more substantial biographical works, such as those of Diogenes Laertius and, of course, Plutarch, in that the Lives were normally attached to texts of their subject and were intended to give the reader an introduction to the author of the text being read and to the work.