What
Thucidydes intended his work to be, and publicly said so: a
possession for ever.
So what?
Thucidydes was explicitly elitist. He was distrustful of democracy and merciless in his depiction of the demagogues of his time, in particular the Athenian Cleon. Elitism is, quite rightly, unappealing to modern people. But it also enabled him to write his History of the Peloponnesian War, which probably will last, if not for ever, then for as long as civilisation.
Bathetic conclusion: noding for XP may not be conducive to noding for the ages.
Of course, just because my nodes get voted down, doesn't mean they're going to last forever....