El sistema de engarce narrativo de los discursos de Tucídides

The aim of this paper is to study the settings of the speeches of Thucydides, analysing their components, functions and all the elements that constitute the system used by the historian to combine narration and speech in a coherent whole. Up till now, critics haven't paid enough attention to these elements, which are decisive for the interrelation between speech and narration, but frequently have been analysed as simple transition passages. We demonstrate, however, that those settings constitute a system in which three levels can be distinguished. Each one fulfils different but complementary functions, depending on the kind of introduced speech and its interrelation with the narration of the facts