History of the Peloponnesian War

…but Thucydides’ judgment in his History, when describing the revolution of the Four Hundred, is that it was Antiphon “who conceived the whole matter and the means by which it was brought to pass.” He was reluctant to put himself forward in public debate because, says Thucydides, he realized that…

…historians and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the struggle between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century bc. His work was the first recorded political and moral analysis of a nation’s war policies.

For example, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 404 bce) contains marvelous renditions of speeches in which the leaders of different states attempt to persuade their listeners to follow a given course of action. Furthermore, strategy invariably rests on assumptions of many kinds—about what is lawful or…

…advised to begin with Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 404 bce), which describes the contest between two coalitions of Greek city-states between 431 and 404 bce. Athens, a predominantly maritime power, led the former members of the Delian League (now incorporated in the Athenian empire) against the Peloponnesian…

…in Book II of his History of the Peloponnesian War casually mentions a man called Evarchus as “tyrant” of a small northwestern Greek polis called Astacus in the 420s bce. But for this chance mention, one would never have guessed that tyranny could have existed or persisted in such a…

English translation of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, which he thought contained important lessons for his contemporaries regarding the excesses of democracy, the worst kind of dilution of sovereign authority, in his view.