Strassler's translation of Thucydides is NOT the standard. Martin Hammond's is (https://www.amazon.com/Peloponnesian-War-Oxford-Worlds-Classics-ebook/dp/B006OISTLY/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=thucydides&qid=1589175259&sr=8-4). Victor Hanson is a controversial right-wing political ideologue as well as a classics prof, and many classicists think he distorts the ancient texts' meanings in the service of his ideology. Just putting that out there, fwiw.

I want to add only that it's worth taking a look at how and why the gates are kept. It should always be possible to question and challenge the gatekeepers, on the basis of logic and other qualities. And gatekeepers need to be replaced and revised often. Sometimes they are not needed at all, and should be kicked out. But in our current economic and governmental system, a great amount of money can be made by simply lying to people. And if there is nobody checking up on the lying, a lot of people can be (and are regularly) harmed and even killed, all for the sake of money. The supposed Covid-19 controversies all seem to boil down to: will you pay me money to protect you? and how much?

It comes down to this: As long as we have an economic system in place that encourages lying and cheating, we need to have a cadre of logical, calm folks who are trusted to sift through the lies, as much as humanly possible, and report back. Right now, that job has been left to the social media and internet gurus themselves: even they don't want this job, but they do it to some degree, and I do thank them for trying even a bit. But we need a stable, non-partisan group to be put together at some point, for our own protection.

Snopes.com would not have the popularity it has, were it not for the overwhelming encouragement our system gives liars who want to make money. We can change the system, or we can live with the gatekeepers.