I was struck by this assertion by Thucydides.   His work is still being read some 2,500 years after he lived and I wonder if he imagined it would still be appreciated in the 21st century. 

My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever.

I keep asking what we are writing or making now which will be enjoyed and cherished 2,500 years hence, or even 250, or 25 …?  Will there be anyone to appreciate anything?  Will anything we do or make last any notable stretch of time? 

See also Thucycdides’ comment on the effort of sorting fact from fake.  

Source: Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. by Rex Warner (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1959), p. 6

Photo credit: Luca Nicoletti at unsplash