The History of the Peloponnesian WarThucydides wrote the story of the first democracy in history, and of the fortunes and fall of its empire, but his pages contain the modern world-scene in miniature. Ancient Greece is twentieth-century Europe, incapable of union, tearing itself to pieces in wars it did not desire but could not avoid. Here are familiar modern phenomena -- democracy and imperialism, the class struggle, the revolutionary spirit, the technique of aggression, cynical Real-politik, the importance of sea-power, even quisling and evacuation problems -- together with a brilliant account of campaigning in Sicily. The tale is told by a great political thinker, whose penetrating insight and dramatic power caused Macaulay to call him the 'greatest historian that ever lived'. His work, slightly abridged is here present in translation with an introduction and notes. |
Contents
PREFACE | xi |
BOOK I | 33 |
From the end of the Persian to the beginning | 47 |
20 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
accordingly afterwards Alcibiades alliance allies Amphipolis Archidamus Argives Argos armament arms army arrived Athenians Athens attack Attica battle began Boeotians Brasidas carried Catana cavalry citizens Cleon command conquer Corcyra Corcyraeans Corinth Corinthians danger Decelea defeated democracy Demosthenes disaster Dorian empire enemy enemy's envoys Epipolae Euboea expedition fear fight fleet force fortified friends galleys garrison Greece Greeks guard Gylippus harbour heavy infantry Hermocrates honour hope hostile hundred invaded Ionian island join Lacedae Lacedaemon Lacedaemonians land mainland Mantineans Meanwhile Megara Mitylene Mitylenians naval navy neighbours never Nicias night Nisaea once party Pausanias peace Peloponnese Peloponnesians Pericles Persian Plataeans Potidaea present Pylos rest retreat revolt round ruin sail sent ships Sicilian Sicily side soldiers Sparta speech Syracusans Syracuse temple Thebans thought Thucydides took town treaty troops truce vessels victory voted wall whole wished yourselves