Thucydides’s unusual praise of the Athenian general Phrynichus in 8.27.5 gives insight into how the historian thought and wrote. The praise seems unwarranted in the immediate instance and in light of Phrynichus’s subsequent actions. I argue that the praise seems directed at the manner in which Phrynichus made his decisions, and how Thucydides’s praise for him parallels his portrait of Pericles.