The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War

by Thucydides

the Peloponnesian War was a twenty-seven-year nightmare that wrecked Greece.

Before the fifth century, the Greek poleis (city-states) had been unusually isolated from the turbulence of Mediterranean history. Free to form their own customs and traditions, the many hundreds of poleis nevertheless shared a common and venerable religious, linguistic, and political culture.

as early as 478, the two most atypical and powerful of the city-states, Athens and Sparta, could not agree on joint leadership of the Greek alliance that had been so successful against the Persians

The antagonism set the stage, as Thucydides saw, for a horrific war like none other in the Greek past

Inward, blinkered, reluctant to venture on the sea, Sparta’s self-interested conservatism takes on the appearance of an anti-Athenian philosophical system, in which most Greek states should be left alone to practice justice under absolute canons of Hellenic law

Thucydides saw that the ultimate confrontation between these two remarkable societies would be both inevitable and terrible (1.23.2; 2.11.6–9; 2.12.3); inevitable, because of their remarkable antitheses between land and sea, autocracy and liberality, narrow Dorian gentry and broader Ionian commerce; terrible, because there existed between the two powers neither an adherence to the past restrictions on Greek warmaking nor sufficient common political ground to negotiate a lasting peace.

contrasting views of human and divine justice.

Athens’ biggest worry was the sheer recklessness of its own democratic government (1.144.1). A simple majority of the citizenry, urged on and incensed by clever demagogues, might capriciously send out military forces in unnecessary and exhausting adventures

Her narrow and conservative policy of simple challenges to pitched battle, coupled with the unimaginative agricultural devastation of Attica, could never bring a maritime Athens to her knees

Peloponnesian victory required innovative thinking and a veritable change in Spartan character itself

a war between opposites, who would become ever more desperate and barbaric as the fighting progressed, as they learned that innovative and murderous responses were required for absolute victory.

the legacy of the Peloponnesian War would not be the victory of Spartan authoritarianism and the repudiation of the imperial democratic culture of Athens. No, it would be the irrevocable exhaustion and bankruptcy of the Greek city-state itself.

The Athenians are addicted to innovation, and their designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception and execution; you have a genius for keeping what you have got, accompanied by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you never go far enough.

there is promptitude on their side against procrastination on yours; they are never at home, you are most disinclined to leave it, for they hope by their absence to extend their acquisitions, you fear by your advance to endanger what you have left behind.

endeavor not to let the Peloponnesus under your supremacy degenerate from the prestige that it enjoyed under that of your ancestors.”

“You, at all events, Spartans, have used your supremacy to settle the states in the Peloponnesus as is agreeable to you.

“We imagine that our moderation would be best demonstrated by the conduct of who should be placed in our position; but even our equity has very unreasonably subjected us to condemnation instead of approval.”

Not only is your life at home regulated by rules and institutions incompatible with those of others, but your citizens abroad act neither on these rules nor on those which are recognized by the rest of Hellas.”

We are both warlike and wise, and it is our sense of order that makes us so.

“The long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend to understand. They said a good deal in praise of themselves, but nowhere denied that they are injuring our allies and the Peloponnesus.