Leviathan
or The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was born in Wiltshire, England. Educated at Oxford, where he studied classics, he later became tutor to the son of William Cavendish, Baron of Hardwick. His first published work was a translation of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War in 1628. An interest in science and philosophy soon developed, heightened by extended travels in Europe. This led to Leviathan—the crowning achievement of his political science. It was so influential that it came under widespread attack and was in danger of condemnation by the House of Commons. Hobbes perforce lived quietly and published little more on political matters. At the age of eighty-four, he composed an autobiography in Latin verse and within the next three years translated the whole of Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad.