Core Curriculum : Literature Humanities

Hobbes' first publication was this 1629 translation of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (RBML Lodge 1629 T42). Hobbes wrote in his introduction to this translation of Thucydides that he believed that men could learn from history “how to bear themselves prudently in the present and providently toward the future.” An accomplished linguist, Hobbes devoted significant time to translation projects and could read Italian, French, Greek, and Latin. He wrote his first philosophical writings in Latin, but Leviathan was first published in English and only later translated into Latin.