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He was sent to Thrace possibly because of his connections with the region and he had considerable influence with the Thracians. In the winter of 423 BC, the Spartans attacked the strategic city of Amphipolis, which was not far from where Thucydides and an Athenian force were based. The Athenian commander at Amphipolis sent a message for help. The Spartan commander, Brasidas was aware that Thucydides was nearby, and he offered the citizens of Amphipolis, generous terms. This clever strategy meant the Spartans were able to take the city before Thucydides arrived.
When news arrived in Athens that Amphipolis was captured by the enemy there was an outcry. The Athenian Assembly voted to exile Thucydides for his perceived failure to save the city. All his life, he maintained that he simply arrived too late to save the city and it does seem that he was unfairly treated. It appears that the historian was to spend most of the rest of his life, unable to return to Athens. He was a very resourceful man and he used his status as an exile to travel throughout the Greek world and he was able to collect the eyewitness accounts of both sides in the Peloponnesian War. Moreover, he was an independently wealthy man, and this meant in his own words ‘I had leisure to observe affairs somewhat particularly’ particularly.’<ref>Thucydides, 2, 5</ref>.
After his exile from Athens, the sources on his life becoming even more fragmentary and unreliable. In one account it is claimed that he was permitted to return to the city of his birth and once again entered into public life. In another work, it is reported that Thucydides was murdered in Thrace. What we do know is that his great history of the Peloponnesian War ended in 411 BC. It is widely believed that this was possibly the year of his death. His work of recording the war between Athens and Sparta was continued by others. Thucydides only wrote one work and he devoted his life to it.
