Stanza analysis from Auden's "September 1, 1939"

"September 1, 1939"
 third stanza:

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To and apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
the enlightenment driven away, 
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.


This stanza from Auden's widely popular poem provides droves of historical information even in the first line, 
with the connotations of the name "Thucydides." After working as a general for an Athenian military commander, Thucydides was blamed for the fall of a strategic city to the Spartans. He was then banished for this, and seeing it as fate, chose to look at war and other events from an unbiased perspective. Hugely influential in western history and society, Thucydides is known as the father of scientific history. His expansive tome of the Pelopnnesian war recounts not only historical facts, but provides detailed conclusions based on evidence and analysis of cause and effect. Scholars have traditionally viewed the core of Thucydides' work as teaching the necessity of leaders for the function of democratic government, but that democratic government can also be endangered by leaders.
This idea comes out further in the lines of this stanza, with the implication of "what dictators do," and "the elderly rubbish they talk."

The line in the stanza speaking of "the enlightenment driven away," could be related to Thucydides having been grouped in along with Thomas Hobbes and Machiavelli, as a father of political realism, or realpolitik, which emphasizes the priority of the nation's well being in military and economy over the ideals of society and human morals and dignity. This ironic twist in the history of the historian, as the twisting of words into something else, much like dictators twisting democracy into something ugly is what Auden speaks of causing grief and suffering.