Although both sides claimed that they were coerced into the conflict, in Thucydides’ way of determinist thinking, if Sparta did not go to war over the pretexts of Corinthian and Megarian grievances against Athens, then the sheer dynamism of Pericles’ imperial culture—majestic buildings, drama, intellectual fervor, an immense fleet, radical democratic government, an expanding population, and a growing overseas empire—would eventually spread throughout its area of influence in southern Greece.*
