Thucydides (c. 460 BC – c. 395 BC), Greek Θουκυδίδης, Thoukudídēs) was an ancient Greek historian, and the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides is considered by many to be a scientific historian because of his efforts in his History to describe the human world in terms of cause and effect, his strict standards of gathering evidence, and his neglect of the gods in explaining the events of the past. Other scholars lay greater emphasis on the History’s elaborate literary artistry and the powerful rhetoric of its speeches and insist that its author exploited non-"scientific" literary genres no less than newer, rationalistic modes of explanation.