162-648: The siege of Melos occurred in 416 BC during the Peloponnesian War , which was a war fought between Athens and Sparta . Melos is an island in the Aegean Sea roughly 110 kilometres (68 miles) east of mainland Greece . Though the Melians had ancestral ties to Sparta, they were neutral in the war. Athens invaded Melos in the summer of 416 BC and demanded that the Melians surrender and pay tribute to Athens or face annihilation. The Melians refused, so
324-504: A philobarbaros , a "barbarian lover", to the detriment of the Greeks. Unlike Thucydides, however, these authors all continued to view history as a source of moral lessons, thereby infusing their works with personal biases generally missing from Thucydides's clear-eyed, non-judgmental writings focused on reporting events in a non-biased manner. Due to the loss of the ability to read Greek, Thucydides and Herodotus were largely forgotten during
486-577: A congress of their allies to discuss the possibility of war with Athens. Sparta's powerful ally Corinth was notably opposed to intervention, and the congress voted against war with Athens. The Athenians crushed the revolt, and peace was maintained. The more immediate events that led to war involved Athens and Corinth. After a defeat by their colony of Corcyra , a sea power that was not allied to either Sparta or Athens, Corinth began to build an allied naval force. Alarmed, Corcyra sought alliance with Athens. Athens discussed with both Corcyra and Corinth, and made
648-669: A defensive alliance with Corcyra. At the Battle of Sybota , a small contingent of Athenian ships played a critical role in preventing a Corinthian fleet from capturing Corcyra. In order to uphold the Thirty Years' Peace, the Athenians were instructed not to intervene in the battle unless it was clear that Corinth would invade Corcyra. However, the Athenian ships participated in the battle, and the arrival of additional Athenian triremes
810-553: A great victory at the Battle of Sphacteria . In a shocking turn of events, 300 Spartan hoplites encircled by Athenian forces surrendered. The Spartan image of invincibility took significant damage. The Athenians jailed Sphacterian hostages in Athens and resolved to execute the captured Spartans if a Peloponnesian army invaded Attica again. After these battles, the Spartan general Brasidas raised an army of allies and helots and marched
972-451: A great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This is all that Thucydides wrote about his own life, but a few other facts are available from reliable contemporary sources. Herodotus wrote that the name Olorus , Thucydides's father's name, was connected with Thrace and Thracian royalty. Thucydides was probably connected through family to the Athenian statesman and general Miltiades and his son Cimon , leaders of
1134-444: A heroic stylistic register. A celebrated example is Pericles' funeral oration , which heaps honour on the dead and includes a defence of democracy: The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men; they are honoured not only by columns and inscriptions in their own land, but in foreign nations on memorials graven not on stone but in the hearts and minds of men. ( 2:43 ) Stylistically, the placement of this passage also serves to heighten
1296-483: A historian's objectivity rather than a chronicler's flattery. The historian J. B. Bury writes that the work of Thucydides "marks the longest and most decisive step that has ever been taken by a single man towards making history what it is today". Historian H. D. Kitto feels that Thucydides wrote about the Peloponnesian War, not because it was the most significant war in antiquity but because it caused
1458-534: A history, Thucydides had written an analytical treatise on politics, with particular reference to the Athenian empire, it is probable that ... he could have forestalled Machiavelli ... [since] the whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of history agrees with the fundamental postulate of Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state . To maintain a state, said the Florentine thinker, "a statesman
1620-551: A land attack and subject to Spartan control. According to Thucydides, although the Spartans took no action then, they "secretly felt aggrieved". Conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC, when a helot revolt broke out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, to help them suppress the revolt. Athens sent out a sizable contingent (4,000 hoplites ), but upon its arrival, this force
1782-469: A minor Spartan victory by their skillful general Lysander at the naval battle of Notium in 406 BC. Alcibiades was not re-elected general by the Athenians and he exiled himself from the city. He would never again lead Athenians in battle. Athens won the naval battle of Arginusae . The Spartan fleet under Callicratidas lost 70 ships and the Athenians lost 25 ships. But, due to bad weather, the Athenians were unable to rescue their stranded crews or finish off
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#17327802599151944-518: A model of truthful history. Lucian refers to Thucydides as having given Greek historians their law , requiring them to say what had been done ( ὡς ἐπράχθη ). Greek historians of the fourth century BC accepted that history was political and that contemporary history was the proper domain of a historian. Cicero calls Herodotus the "father of history"; yet the Greek writer Plutarch, in his Moralia ( Ethics ) denigrated Herodotus, notably calling him
2106-459: A number of other states. For a time during this conflict, Athens controlled not only Megara but also Boeotia . But at its end, a massive Spartan invasion of Attica forced Athens to cede the lands it had won on the Greek mainland, and Athens and Sparta recognized each other's right to control their respective alliance systems. The war was officially ended by the Thirty Years' Peace , signed in
2268-459: A number of sorties, at one point capturing part of the Athenian line, but failed to break the siege. In response, Athens sent reinforcements under the command of Philocrates. The Athenians also had help from traitors within Melos. Melos surrendered in the winter. The Athenians executed the men of fighting age and sold the women and children into slavery. They then settled 500 of their own colonists on
2430-655: A period now called the Athenian Empire . By mid-century, the Persians had been driven out of the Aegean and had ceded control of vast territories to Athens. Athens had greatly increased its own power; a number of its formerly independent allies were reduced, over the course of the century, to the status of tribute-paying subject states of the Delian League. This tribute was used to fund a powerful fleet and, after
2592-428: A plague ( loimos ). Thucydides admired Pericles , approving of his power over the people and showing a marked distaste for the demagogues who followed him. He did not approve of the democratic commoners nor of the radical democracy that Pericles ushered in, but considered democracy acceptable when guided by a good leader. Thucydides's presentation of events is generally even-handed; for example, he does not minimize
2754-585: A political philosopher than his successor, Polybius , although Poggio Bracciolini claimed to have been influenced by him. There is not much evidence of Thucydides's influence in Niccolò Machiavelli 's The Prince (1513), which held that the chief aim of a new prince must be to "maintain his state" [i.e., his power] and that in so doing he is often compelled to act against faith, humanity, and religion. Later historians, such as J. B. Bury , however, have noted parallels between them: If, instead of
2916-529: A powerful Peloponnesian state that had remained independent of Lacedaemon. With the support of the Athenians, the Argives forged a coalition of democratic states in the Peloponnese, including the powerful states of Mantinea and Elis . Early Spartan attempts to break up the coalition failed, and the leadership of the Spartan king Agis was called into question. Emboldened, the Argives and their allies, with
3078-582: A retreat to Athens, but Nicias at first refused. After additional setbacks, Nicias seemed to agree to a retreat until a bad omen, in the form of a lunar eclipse , delayed withdrawal. The delay was costly and forced the Athenians into a major sea battle in the Great Harbor of Syracuse. The Athenians were thoroughly defeated. Nicias and Demosthenes marched their remaining forces inland in search of friendly allies. The Syracusan cavalry rode them down mercilessly, eventually killing or enslaving all who were left of
3240-529: A thousand years after his death. According to Pausanias , someone named Oenobius had a law passed allowing Thucydides to return to Athens , presumably shortly after the city's surrender and the end of the war in 404 BC . Pausanias goes on to say that Thucydides was murdered on his way back to Athens , placing his tomb near the Melite gate . Many doubt this account, seeing evidence to suggest he lived as late as 397 BC, or perhaps slightly later. Plutarch preserves
3402-566: A tradition that he was murdered in Skaptē Hulē and that his remains were returned to Athens, where a monument to him was erected in Cimon 's family plot. There are problems with this, since this was outside Thucydides's deme and the tradition goes back to Polemon , who asserted he had discovered just such a memorial. Didymus mentions another tomb in Thrace. Thucydides's narrative breaks off in
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#17327802599153564-679: A tribute of fifteen talents of silver (roughly 390 kg). This sum could have paid the wages of a trireme crew for 15 months, or bought 540 metric tons of wheat, enough to feed 2,160 men for a year. Given the relative size of Melos, this suggests that it was a prosperous island. Melos refused to pay. In the summer of 416 BC, during a truce with Sparta, Athens sent an army of at least 3,400 men to conquer Melos: 1,600 heavy infantry, 300 archers, and 20 mounted archers all from Athens, plus 1,500 heavy infantry from other Delian League cities. The fleet that transported this army had 38 ships: 30 from Athens, 6 from Chios, and 2 from Lesbos. This expedition
3726-592: Is Thucydides's inclusion of lengthy formal speeches that, as he states, were literary reconstructions rather than quotations of what was said—or, perhaps, what he believed ought to have been said. Arguably, had he not done this, the gist of what was said would not otherwise be known at all—whereas today there is a plethora of documentation—written records, archives, and recording technology for historians to consult. Therefore, Thucydides's method served to rescue his mostly oral sources from oblivion. We do not know how these historical figures spoke. Thucydides's recreation uses
3888-403: Is morally just. The Athenians counter that the gods will not intervene because it is the natural order of things for the strong to dominate the weak. The Melians argue that their Spartan kin will come to their defense. The Athenians counter that the Spartans don't have enough at stake in Melos to risk an intervention, noting that Athens has the stronger navy. The Athenians express their shock at
4050-471: Is not raised in the Melian Dialogue; in fact the Melians struggle to understand why Athens can't leave them alone. The Athenians had shown mercy to their defeated enemies in the earlier years of the Peloponnesian War, and in preceding wars. For instance, after putting down the rebellious city of Potidaea in 429 BC, the Athenians spared the surviving Potidaeans and allowed them to leave the city. As
4212-522: Is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion". ... But ... the true Machiavelli, not the Machiavelli of fable ... entertained an ideal: Italy for the Italians, Italy freed from the stranger: and in the service of this ideal he desired to see his speculative science of politics applied. Thucydides has no political aim in view: he was purely a historian. But it was part of
4374-515: Is regarded as a seminal text of international relations theory , while his version of Pericles's Funeral Oration is widely studied by political theorists, historians, and students of the classics . More generally, Thucydides developed an understanding of human nature to explain behavior in such crises as plagues , massacres, and wars. In spite of his stature as a historian, modern historians know relatively little about Thucydides's life. The most reliable information comes from his own History of
4536-649: Is the History of the Peloponnesian War . This subdivision was most likely made by librarians and archivists, themselves being historians and scholars, most likely working in the Library of Alexandria . Thucydides is generally regarded as one of the first true historians. Like his predecessor Herodotus , known as "the father of history", Thucydides places a high value on eyewitness testimony and writes about events in which he probably took part. He also assiduously consulted written documents and interviewed participants about
4698-433: Is typically regarded by scholars to have been an innocent victim of Athenian imperialism. The islands of the Aegean Sea provided valuable tax revenue for Athens, but what was probably more vital was control of their ports. Warships of the era ( triremes ) could carry little in the way of supplies and had no sleeping space for the crew, and thus needed to stop in port on a daily basis to buy supplies, cook meals, and camp for
4860-443: Is unlikely. Euripides was probably developing his play before the siege of Melos even began, and he had only a month or two after its fall to make revisions. It's also unlikely that Euripides would have dared to offend his Athenian audiences given how expensive the production was. It is uncertain whether the fate of Melos was decided by the government of Athens or the Athenian generals on Melos. A historical speech falsely attributed to
5022-802: The Aegean . He had his satrap Tissaphernes make alliance with Sparta against Athens . In 412 BC, this led to the Persian reconquest of most of Ionia . Tissaphernes also helped fund the Peloponnesian fleet. Facing the resurgence of Athens, from 408 BC, Darius II decided to continue the war against Athens and give stronger support to the Spartans . He sent his son Cyrus the Younger into Asia Minor as satrap of Lydia , Phrygia Major and Cappadocia , and general commander ( Karanos , κἀρανος) of
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5184-579: The Byzantine era as it is mentioned in the Suda , a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia. In March 415 BC, the Athenian playwright Euripides premiered a play called The Trojan Women , which explores the suffering of the inhabitants of a conquered city. Although Melos isn't explicitly mentioned (the setting is the Trojan War ), many scholars regard it as a commentary on the massacre at Melos, but this
5346-824: The Greco-Persian Wars were over. After defeating the Second Persian invasion of Greece in the year 480 BC, Athens led the coalition of Greek city-states that continued the Greco-Persian Wars with attacks on Persian territories in the Aegean and Ionia. What ensued was a period which Thucydides called the Pentecontaetia , in which Athens increasingly became an empire, carrying out an aggressive war against Persia and increasingly dominating other city-states. Athens brought under its control all of Greece except for Sparta and its allies, ushering in
5508-518: The Histories provided a basis for establishing Biblical chronology as advocated by Isaac Newton . The first European translation of Thucydides (into Latin) was made by the humanist Lorenzo Valla between 1448 and 1452, and the first Greek edition was published by Aldo Manuzio in 1502. During the Renaissance , however, Thucydides attracted less interest among Western European historians as
5670-452: The History —such as his views on nature revolving around the factual, empirical, and the non-anthropomorphic—which suggest that he was at least aware of the views of philosophers such as Anaxagoras and Democritus . There is also evidence of his knowledge concerning some of the corpus of Hippocratic medical writings. Thucydides was especially interested in the relationship between human intelligence and judgment, fortune and necessity, and
5832-636: The Middle Ages in Western Europe, although their influence continued in the Byzantine world. In Europe, Herodotus become known and highly respected only in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century as an ethnographer, in part due to the discovery of America , where customs and animals were encountered that were even more surprising than what he had related. During the Reformation , moreover, information about Middle Eastern countries in
5994-603: The Thirty Tyrants , a reactionary regime set up by Sparta. In 403 BC, the oligarchs were overthrown and a democracy was restored by Thrasybulus . Although the hegemony of Athens was broken, the Attic city completed the recovery of its autonomy in the Corinthian War and continued to play an active role in Greek politics. Sparta was later defeated by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. A few decades later,
6156-418: The gods , as outlined in his introduction to his work. Thucydides has been called the father of the school of political realism , which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, fear and self-interest . His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide. The Melian dialogue
6318-592: The hegemony of the Greek world . The war remained undecided until the later intervention of the Persian Empire in support of Sparta. Led by Lysander , the Spartan fleet (built with Persian subsidies) finally defeated Athens which began a period of Spartan hegemony over Greece. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. The first phase (431–421 BC) was named the Ten Years War, or
6480-616: The 17th year of the war, word came to Athens that one of their distant allies in Sicily was under attack from Syracuse, the main city of Sicily. The people of Syracuse were ethnically Dorian (as were the Spartans), while the Athenians, and their ally in Sicilia, were Ionian. The Athenians felt obliged to help their ally. They also held visions, rallied on by Alcibiades , who ultimately led an expedition, of conquering all of Sicily. Syracuse
6642-435: The Aegean, and Sparta's other allies were also slow to furnish troops or ships. The Ionian states that rebelled expected protection, and many rejoined the Athenian side. The Persians were slow to send promised funds and ships, frustrating battle plans. At the start of the war, the Athenians had prudently put aside some money and 100 ships that were to be used only as a last resort. These ships were then released, and served as
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6804-494: The Amphipolitans for their surrender, which they accepted. Thus, when Thucydides arrived, Amphipolis was already under Spartan control. Amphipolis was of considerable strategic importance, and news of its fall caused great consternation in Athens. It was blamed on Thucydides, although he claimed that it was not his fault and that he had simply been unable to reach it in time. Because of his failure to save Amphipolis , he
6966-651: The Archidamian War, after the Spartan king Archidamus II , who invaded Attica several times with the full hoplite army of the Peloponnesian League , the alliance network dominated by Sparta (then known as Lacedaemon). The Long Walls of Athens rendered this strategy ineffective, while the superior navy of the Delian League (Athens' alliance) raided the Peloponnesian coast to trigger rebellions within Sparta. The precarious Peace of Nicias
7128-445: The Athenian cause. But instead of attacking, Nicias procrastinated and the campaigning season of 415 BC ended with Syracuse scarcely damaged. With winter approaching, the Athenians withdrew into their quarters and spent the winter gathering allies. The delay allowed Syracuse to request help from Sparta, who sent their general Gylippus to Sicily with reinforcements. Upon arriving, he raised a force from several Sicilian cities, and went to
7290-484: The Athenian fleet, in 405 BC, at the Battle of Aegospotami , destroying 168 ships. Only 12 Athenian ships escaped, and several of these sailed to Cyprus , carrying the strategos (general) Conon , who was anxious not to face the judgment of the Assembly . Facing starvation and disease from the prolonged siege , Athens surrendered in 404 BC, and its allies soon surrendered as well. The democrats at Samos , loyal to
7452-467: The Athenian orator Andocides claims that the statesman Alcibiades advocated the enslavement of the Melian survivors before the government of Athens. This account gives no date for the decree, so it could have been passed to justify the atrocities after the fact. Thucydides made no mention of any such decree in his own account. The treatment of the Melians is sometimes considered an example of genocide in
7614-468: The Athenian people, the demos, who had exiled him, nor of its imperialist policy. Thucydides and his immediate predecessor, Herodotus , both exerted a significant influence on Western historiography. Thucydides does not mention his counterpart by name, but his famous introductory statement is thought to refer to him: To hear this history rehearsed, for that there be inserted in it no fables, shall be perhaps not delightful. But he that desires to look into
7776-449: The Athenian population died. Athenian manpower was correspondingly drastically reduced and even foreign mercenaries refused to hire themselves out to a city riddled with plague. The fear of plague was so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica was abandoned, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy. After the death of Pericles, the Athenians turned somewhat against his conservative, defensive strategy and to
7938-415: The Athenians had broken the peace, essentially declaring war. The first years of the Peloponnesian war are known as the Archidamian War (431–421 BC), after Sparta's king Archidamus II . Sparta and its allies, except for Corinth, were almost exclusively land-based, and able to summon large armies which were nearly unbeatable (thanks to the legendary Spartan forces ). The Athenian Empire, although based in
8100-538: The Athenians laid siege to their city. Melos surrendered in the winter, and the Athenians executed the men of Melos and enslaved the women and children. This siege is best remembered for the Melian Dialogue , a dramatization of the negotiations between the Athenians and the Melians before the siege, written by the classical Athenian historian Thucydides . In the negotiations, the Athenians offered no moral justification for their invasion, but instead bluntly told
8262-463: The Athenians were Ionians . In general, the Melians sought to remain neutral in the war, although there is archaeological evidence that sometime between 428 and 425 BC, some Melians donated at least twenty minas of silver (about 12.5 kg) to the Spartan war effort. In 426 BC, Athens sent an army of 2,000 men to raid the Melian countryside, but the Melians would not be bullied into submission. In 425 or 424 BC, Athens demanded of Melos
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#17327802599158424-468: The Athenians; but instead of withdrawing, the Athenians sent another hundred ships and another 5,000 troops to Sicily. Under Gylippus, the Syracusans and their allies decisively defeated the Athenians on land; and Gylippus encouraged the Syracusans to build a navy, which defeated the Athenian fleet when they tried to withdraw. The Athenian army tried to withdraw overland to friendlier Sicilian cities, but
8586-417: The Melians could win, and they will regret not trying their luck. The Athenians counter that the Melians should not indulge in hope when their odds of winning are so evidently faint, and the consequences of defeat so terrible. If the Melians resist, they will likely lose and come to bitterly regret their irrational optimism. The Melians argue that they will have the assistance of the gods because their position
8748-434: The Melians shocked the Greek world, even in Athens. The Athenian rhetorician Isocrates , in his apologia for Athens' conquests, mentioned the massacre at Melos as a major point of criticism against Athens, but he argued that it was necessary and that the other warring states were just as brutal. The Athenian historian Xenophon wrote that in 405 BC, with the Spartan army closing in on Athens, the citizens of Athens worried that
8910-408: The Melians that Athens needed Melos for its own ends and that the only thing Melians stood to gain in submitting without a fight was self-preservation. It is taught as a classic case study in political realism to illustrate that selfish and pragmatic concerns motivate a country at war. The Peloponnesian War lasted from 431 to 404 BC. The war was fought between the Peloponnesian League , which
9072-426: The Melians' lack of realism. They reiterate that there is no shame in submitting to an overwhelmingly stronger enemy, especially one who is offering reasonable terms. The Melians do not change their minds and politely dismiss the envoys. Thucydides explained that the purpose of conquering Melos was to demonstrate the strength and sternness of Athens so as to discourage its island territories from rebelling. Whether it
9234-547: The Peloponnese. Athens stretched their military activities into Boeotia and Aetolia , quelled the Mytilenean revolt and began fortifying posts around the Peloponnese. One of these posts was near Pylos on a tiny island called Sphacteria , where the first war turned in Athens's favor. The post off Pylos exploited Sparta's dependence on the helots, slaves who worked the fields while its citizens trained to be soldiers. The Pylos post began attracting helot runaways. In addition,
9396-796: The Peloponnesian League would respect each other's autonomy and internal affairs. A further provocation was Athens in 433/2 BC imposing trade sanctions on Megarian citizens (once more a Spartan ally after the First Peloponnesian War). It was alleged that the Megarians had desecrated the Hiera Orgas . These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree , were largely ignored by Thucydides , but some modern economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with
9558-535: The Peloponnesian War , in which he mentions his nationality, paternity, and birthplace. Thucydides says that he fought in the war, contracted the plague, and was exiled by the democracy . He may have also been involved in quelling the Samian Revolt . Thucydides identifies himself as an Athenian , telling us that his father's name was Olorus and that he was from the Athenian deme of Halimous . A disputed anecdote from his early life says that when Thucydides
9720-483: The Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century BC and the golden age of Greece . The main historical source for most of the war is the detailed account in The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides . He states that he began writing his history as soon as the war broke out and took his information from first-hand accounts, including events he witnessed himself. An Athenian who fought in
9882-509: The Peloponnesian allies, he was able to view the war from the perspective of both sides. Thucydides claimed that he began writing his history as soon as the war broke out, because he thought it would be one of the greatest wars waged among the Greeks in terms of scale: Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be
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#173278025991510044-401: The Persian troops. There, Cyrus allied with the Spartan general Lysander . In him, Cyrus found a man willing to help him become king, just as Lysander himself hoped to become absolute ruler of Greece by the aid of the Persian prince. Thus, Cyrus put all his means at the disposal of Lysander in the Peloponnesian War. When Cyrus was recalled to Susa by his dying father Darius , he gave Lysander
10206-525: The Sicilian Expedition, Lacedaemon encouraged the revolt of Athens's tributary allies, and indeed, much of Ionia rose in revolt. The Syracusans sent their fleet to the Peloponnesians, and the Persians decided to support the Spartans with money and ships. Revolt and faction threatened in Athens itself. The Athenians managed to survive for several reasons. First, their foes lacked initiative. Corinth and Syracuse were slow to bring their fleets into
10368-465: The Spartan assembly. This debate was also attended by an uninvited delegation from Athens, which also asked to speak, and became the scene of a debate between the Athenians and the Corinthians. Thucydides reports that the Corinthians condemned Sparta's inactivity until then, warning Sparta that if it remained passive, it would soon be outflanked and without allies. In response, the Athenians reminded
10530-420: The Spartan elite forces to defeat them. The result was a complete victory for the Spartans, which rescued their city from the brink of strategic defeat. The democratic alliance was broken up, and most of its members were reincorporated into the Peloponnesian League. With its victory at Mantinea, Sparta pulled itself back from the brink of utter defeat, and re-established its hegemony throughout the Peloponnese. In
10692-407: The Spartan fleet. Despite their victory, these failures caused outrage in Athens and led to a controversial trial . The trial resulted in the execution of six of Athens's top naval commanders. Athens's naval supremacy would now be challenged without several of its most able military leaders and a demoralized navy. Unlike some of his predecessors, the new Spartan general, Lysander, was not a member of
10854-582: The Spartan royal families and was also formidable in naval strategy; he was an artful diplomat, who had even cultivated good personal relationships with the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the Younger , son of Emperor Darius II . Seizing its opportunity, the Spartan fleet sailed at once to the Dardanelles , the source of Athens's grain . Threatened with starvation, the Athenian fleet had no choice but to follow. Through cunning strategy, Lysander totally defeated
11016-467: The Spartans of Athens's record of military success and opposition to Persia, warned them of confronting such a powerful state, and encouraged Sparta to seek arbitration as provided by the Thirty Years' Peace. The Spartan king Archidamus II spoke against the war, but the opinion of the hawkish ephor Sthenelaidas prevailed in the Spartan ecclesia . A majority of the Spartan assembly voted to declare that
11178-509: The Spartans would treat them with the same cruelty that the Athenian army had shown the Melians. There is circumstantial evidence that suggests that the Melians surrendered only after enduring extreme starvation: the expression "Melian famine" entered the Greek language as a metaphor for extreme starvation. The first known appearance of this phrase is in Aristophanes ' play The Birds (414 BC), and its usage seems to have lasted well into
11340-487: The ancient Greek world. Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta became established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece, poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens was devastated and never regained its pre-war prosperity. The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society,
11502-435: The ancient world. 36°41′N 24°25′E / 36.683°N 24.417°E / 36.683; 24.417 Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War ( Ancient Greek : Πόλεμος τῶν Πελοποννησίων , romanized : Pólemos tō̃n Peloponnēsíōn ), was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for
11664-495: The arts, literature, or the social milieu in which the events in his book take place and in which he grew up. He saw himself as recording an event, not a period, and went to considerable lengths to exclude what he deemed frivolous or extraneous. Paul Shorey calls Thucydides "a cynic devoid of moral sensibility". In addition, he notes that Thucydides conceived of human nature as strictly determined by one's physical and social environments, alongside basic desires. Francis Cornford
11826-457: The atrocities committed during the civil conflict on Corcyra , which includes the phrase "war is a violent teacher" ( πόλεμος βίαιος διδάσκαλος ). Thucydides believed that the Peloponnesian War represented an event of unmatched importance. As such, he began to write the History at the onset of the war in 431 BC. He declared his intention was to write an account which would serve as "a possession for all time". The History breaks off near
11988-554: The battle, the Athenians obliterated the Spartan fleet, and succeeded in re-establishing the financial basis of the Athenian Empire. Between 410 and 406, Athens won a continuous string of victories, and eventually recovered large portions of its empire. All of this was due, in no small part, to Alcibiades. From 414 BC, Darius II , ruler of the Achaemenid Empire had started to resent increasing Athenian power in
12150-458: The bitter last, held on slightly longer, and were allowed to flee with their lives. The surrender stripped Athens of its walls, its fleet, and all of its overseas possessions. Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved. However, the Spartans announced their refusal to destroy a city that had done a good service at a time of greatest danger to Greece, and took Athens into their own system. Athens
12312-460: The bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger's pyre and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another that was burning, and so went off. ( 2:52 ) Thucydides omits discussion of
12474-471: The conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made war a common occurrence in the Greek world. Ancient Greek warfare , originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states , complete with mass atrocities. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities,
12636-467: The conquest of all of Italy and Carthage , and to use the resources and soldiers from these new conquests to conquer the Peloponnese. The Athenian force consisted of over 100 ships and some 5,000 infantry and light-armored troops. Cavalry was limited to about 30 horses, which proved to be no match for the large and highly trained Syracusan cavalry. Upon landing in Sicily, several cities immediately joined
12798-453: The contemporary Athenian historian Thucydides included a dramatization of the negotiations between the Athenian emissaries and the rulers of Melos. Thucydides did not witness the negotiations and in fact had been in exile at the time, so this dialogue paraphrases what he believed was discussed. The Athenians offer the Melians an ultimatum: surrender and pay tribute to Athens, or be destroyed. The Athenians do not wish to waste time arguing over
12960-610: The context of Greek thinking about international politics. Since the appearance of her study, other scholars further examined Thucydides's treatment of realpolitik . Other scholars have brought to the fore the literary qualities of the History , which they see in the narrative tradition of Homer and Hesiod and as concerned with the concepts of justice and suffering found in Plato and Aristotle and questioned in Aeschylus and Sophocles . Richard Ned Lebow terms Thucydides "the last of
13122-424: The continuation of the stylistic legacy of the History in the writings of Thucydides's putative intellectual successor Xenophon . Such readings often described Xenophon's treatises as attempts to "finish" Thucydides's History . Many of these interpretations, however, have garnered significant scepticism among modern scholars, such as Dillery, who spurn the view of interpreting Xenophon qua Thucydides, arguing that
13284-470: The contrast with the description of the plague in Athens immediately following it, which graphically emphasizes the horror of human mortality, thereby conveying a powerful sense of verisimilitude: Though many lay unburied, birds and beasts would not touch them, or died after tasting them [...]. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all
13446-402: The core of the Athenians' fleet throughout the rest of the war. An oligarchical revolution occurred in Athens, in which a group of 400 seized power. Peace with Sparta might have been possible, but the Athenian fleet, now based on the island of Samos , refused the change. In 411 BC, this fleet engaged the Spartans at the Battle of Syme . The fleet appointed Alcibiades their leader, and continued
13608-470: The early part of the war, Thucydides was exiled in 423 BC and settled in the Peloponnese, where he spent the rest of the war collecting sources and writing his history. Scholars regard Thucydides as reliable and neutral between the two sides. A partial exception are the lengthy speeches he reports, which Thucydides admits are not accurate records of what was said, but his interpretation of the general arguments presented. The narrative begins several years before
13770-448: The end of the twenty-first year of the war (411 BC), in the wake of the Athenian defeat at Syracuse, and so does not elaborate on the final seven years of the conflict. The History of the Peloponnesian War continued to be modified well beyond the end of the war in 404 BC, as exemplified by a reference at Book I.1.13 to the conclusion of the war. After his death, Thucydides's History was subdivided into eight books: its modern title
13932-597: The episode is most likely from a later Greek or Roman account of his life. He survived the Plague of Athens , which killed Pericles and many other Athenians. There is a first observation of acquired immunity. He also records that he owned gold mines at Scapte Hyle (literally "Dug Woodland"), a coastal area in Thrace , opposite the island of Thasos . Because of his influence in the Thracian region, Thucydides wrote, he
14094-433: The events that he recorded. Unlike Herodotus, whose stories often teach that a hubris invites the wrath of the deities, Thucydides does not acknowledge divine intervention in human affairs. Thucydides exerted wide historiographical influence on subsequent Hellenistic and Roman historians, although the exact description of his style in relation to many successive historians remains unclear. Readers in antiquity often placed
14256-401: The expedition without being tried (many believed in order to better plot against him). After arriving in Sicily, Alcibiades was recalled to Athens for trial. Fearing that he would be unjustly condemned, Alcibiades defected to Sparta and Nicias was placed in charge of the mission. After his defection, Alcibiades claimed to the Spartans that the Athenians planned to use Sicily as a springboard for
14418-422: The fables related to him during his extensive travels. Typically, he passes no definitive judgment on what he has heard. In the case of conflicting or unlikely accounts, he presents both sides, says what he believes and then invites readers to decide for themselves. Of course, modern historians would generally leave out their personal beliefs, which is a form of passing judgment upon the events and people about which
14580-409: The family considerable and lasting affluence. The security and continued prosperity of the wealthy estate must have necessitated formal ties with local kings or chieftains, which explains the adoption of the distinctly Thracian royal name Óloros into the family. Once exiled, Thucydides is commonly said to have taken up permanent residence in the estate and, given his ample income from the gold mines, he
14742-476: The fear of a revolt of helots emboldened by the nearby Athenians drove the Spartans to attack the post. Demosthenes outmaneuvered the Spartans in the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC and trapped a group of Spartan soldiers on Sphacteria as he waited for them to surrender. But weeks later he proved unable to finish them off. Instead, the inexperienced Cleon boasted in the Assembly that he could end the affair, and did win
14904-480: The film based on it boosted the sale of the Histories to a wholly unforeseen degree) and—as food for a starved soul—of an equally imaginative foreign correspondent from Iron Curtain Poland, Ryszard Kapuscinski . These historians also admired Herodotus, however, as social and ethnographic history increasingly came to be recognized as complementary to political history. In the twentieth century, this trend gave rise to
15066-401: The fleet. The Athenian fleet, the dominant Greek naval force, went on the offensive, winning at Naupactus . In 430 BC, an outbreak of a plague hit Athens. The plague ravaged the densely packed city, and in the long run, was a significant cause of its final defeat. The plague wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers, including Pericles and his sons. Roughly one-third to two-thirds of
15228-408: The following year and lost all its empire. Lysander imposed puppet oligarchies on the former members of the Delian League, including Athens, where the regime was known as the Thirty Tyrants . The Peloponnesian War was followed ten years later by the Corinthian War (394–386 BC), which, although it ended inconclusively, helped Athens regain its independence from Sparta. The Peloponnesian War changed
15390-407: The fountains in their longing for water. The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of persons who had died there, just as they were; for, as the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became equally contemptuous of the property of and the dues to the deities. All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they buried
15552-403: The future. Outraged, the Corinthians encouraged Potidaea to revolt and assured them that they would ally with them should they revolt from Athens. During the subsequent Battle of Potidaea , the Corinthians unofficially aided Potidaea by sneaking contingents of men into the besieged city to help defend it. This directly violated the Thirty Years' Peace, which stipulated that the Delian League and
15714-416: The harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots, needed to be kept under control, and could not be left unsupervised for long. The longest Spartan invasion, in 430 BC, lasted just 40 days. The Athenian strategy was initially guided by the strategos , or general, Pericles , who advised the Athenians to avoid open battle with the far more numerous and better trained Spartan hoplites, relying instead on
15876-983: The historian is reporting. The work of Herodotus is reported to have been recited at festivals, where prizes were awarded, as for example, during the games at Olympia . Herodotus views history as a source of moral lessons, with conflicts and wars as misfortunes flowing from initial acts of injustice perpetuated through cycles of revenge. In contrast, Thucydides claims to confine himself to factual reports of contemporary political and military events, based on unambiguous, first-hand, eye-witness accounts, although, unlike Herodotus, he does not reveal his sources. Thucydides views life exclusively as political life, and history in terms of political history. Conventional moral considerations play no role in his analysis of political events while geographic and ethnographic aspects are omitted or, at best, of secondary importance. Subsequent Greek historians—such as Ctesias , Diodorus , Strabo , Polybius and Plutarch —held up Thucydides's writings as
16038-470: The hostages for the towns captured by Brasidas, and signed a truce. With the death of Cleon and Brasidas , both zealous war hawks for their nations, the Peace of Nicias was able to last six years. However, it was a time of constant skirmishes in and around the Peloponnese. While the Spartans refrained from action themselves, some of their allies began to talk of revolt. They were supported in this by Argos ,
16200-457: The idea that history is too irrational and incalculable to predict. Scholars traditionally viewed Thucydides as recognizing and teaching the lesson that democracies need leadership but that leadership can be dangerous to democracy. Leo Strauss (in The City and Man ) locates the problem in the nature of Athenian democracy, about which, he argued, Thucydides was ambivalent. Thucydides's "wisdom
16362-412: The island. In 405 BC, by which time Athens was losing the war, the Spartan general Lysander expelled the Athenian colonists from Melos and restored the survivors of the siege to the island. The once-independent Melos became a Spartan territory, which would mean that it had a Spartan garrison and a military governor (a harmost ). In History of the Peloponnesian War (Book 5, Chapters 84–116),
16524-562: The latter's "modern" history (defined as constructed based on literary and historical themes) is antithetical to the former's account in the Hellenica , which diverges from the Hellenic historiographical tradition in its absence of a preface or introduction to the text and the associated lack of an "overarching concept" unifying the history. A noteworthy difference between Thucydides's method of writing history and that of modern historians
16686-566: The length of Greece to the Athenian colony of Amphipolis in Thrace. Amphipolis controlled several nearby silver mines whose that supplied much of the Athenian war fund. A force led by Thucydides was dispatched but arrived too late to stop Brasidas capturing Amphipolis; Thucydides was exiled for this, and, as a result, had conversations with both sides of the war which inspired him to record its history. Both Brasidas and Cleon were killed in Athenian efforts to retake Amphipolis (see Battle of Amphipolis ). The Spartans and Athenians agreed to exchange
16848-545: The method of both alike to eliminate conventional sentiment and morality. In the seventeenth century, the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes , whose Leviathan advocated absolute monarchy, admired Thucydides and in 1628 was the first to translate his writings into English directly from Greek. Thucydides, Hobbes, and Machiavelli are together considered the founding fathers of western political realism , according to which, state policy must primarily or solely focus on
17010-465: The middle of the century, massive public works in Athens, causing resentment. Friction between Athens and the Peloponnesian states, including Sparta, began early in the Pentecontaetia. In the wake of the departure of the Persians from Greece, Sparta sent ambassadors to persuade Athens not to reconstruct their walls, but was rebuffed. Without the walls, Athens would have been defenseless against
17172-470: The middle of the year 411 BC, and this abrupt end has traditionally been explained as due to his death while writing the book, although other explanations have been put forward. During his description of the Athenian plague , he remarks that old Athenians seemed to remember a verse predicting a Dorian War that would bring about a "plague" ( loimos ) λοιμός . A dispute later arose, when some claimed that
17334-446: The mighty Athenian fleet. The Lacedaemonians were not content with simply sending aid to Sicily; they also resolved to take the war to the Athenians. On the advice of Alcibiades, they fortified Decelea , near Athens, and prevented the Athenians from making use of their land year round. The fortification of Decelea prevented overland supplies to Athens, and forced all supplies to be brought in by sea at greater expense. More significantly,
17496-523: The morality of the situation, because in practice might makes right—or, in their own words, "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must". The Melians argue that they are a neutral city and not an enemy, so Athens has no need to conquer them. The Athenians counter that if they accept Melos' neutrality and independence, they would look weak: Their subjects would think that they left Melos alone because they were not strong enough to conquer it. The Melians argue that an invasion will alarm
17658-410: The more aggressive strategy of bringing the war to Sparta and its allies. Rising to particular importance in Athenian democracy at this time was Cleon , a leader of the hawkish elements of the Athenian democracy. Led militarily by a clever new general Demosthenes (not to be confused with the later Athenian orator Demosthenes ), the Athenians managed some successes as they continued their naval raids on
17820-416: The most suffering. Several passages of Thucydides's book are written "with an intensity of feeling hardly exceeded by Sappho herself". In his book The Open Society and Its Enemies , Karl Popper writes that Thucydides was the "greatest historian, perhaps, who ever lived". Thucydides's work, Popper goes on to say, represents "an interpretation, a point of view; and in this we need not agree with him". In
17982-512: The nearby silver mines were totally disrupted, with as many as 20,000 Athenian slaves freed by the Spartan hoplites at Decelea. With the treasury and emergency reserve of 1,000 talents dwindling, the Athenians were forced to demand even more tribute from her subject allies, further increasing tensions and the threat of rebellion within the Empire. Corinth, Sparta, and others in the Peloponnesian League sent more reinforcements to Syracuse, to drive off
18144-486: The need to maintain military and economic power rather than on ideals or ethics. Nineteenth-century positivist historians stressed what they saw as Thucydides's seriousness, his scientific objectivity and his advanced handling of evidence. A virtual cult following developed among such German philosophers as Friedrich Schelling , Friedrich Schlegel , and Friedrich Nietzsche , who claimed that, "[in Thucydides],
18306-445: The negative effect of his own failure at Amphipolis . Occasionally, however, strong passions break through, as in his scathing appraisals of the democratic leaders Cleon and Hyperbolus . Sometimes, Cleon has been connected with Thucydides's exile. It has been argued that Thucydides was moved by the suffering inherent in war and concerned about the excesses to which human nature is prone in such circumstances, as in his analysis of
18468-485: The night. Triremes were also not particularly seaworthy and thus needed harbors to shelter from rough weather. A trireme could normally travel around 80 kilometres (50 mi) in a day whereas a trip from Athens to Asia Minor is roughly 300 kilometres (190 mi). Thus, in order to control the Aegean, Athens needed to control the islands' ports for its navy. If Melos was neutral, enemy ships could resupply there, so capturing it denied that to Athens' enemies. But this issue
18630-528: The old aristocracy supplanted by the Radical Democrats . Cimon's maternal grandfather's name also was Olorus, making the connection quite likely. Another Thucydides lived before the historian and was also linked with Thrace, making a family connection between them very likely as well. Combining all the fragmentary evidence available, it seems that his family had owned a large estate in Thrace , one that even contained gold mines, and which allowed
18792-451: The other neutral Greek states, who will become hostile to Athens for fear of being invaded themselves. The Athenians counter that the other Greek states on the mainland are unlikely to act this way, because they are free and independent and thus loath to take up arms against Athens. What worries Athens is potential rebellions in its empire from disgruntled peoples they have already conquered, including islands that would threaten its dominance of
18954-517: The peninsula of Attica, spread out across the islands of the Aegean Sea; Athens drew its immense wealth from tribute paid by these islands. Athens maintained its empire through naval power. Thus, the two powers were relatively unable to fight decisive battles. The Spartan strategy during the Archidamian War was to invade the land around Athens. While this invasion deprived Athenians of the productive land around their city, Athens maintained access to
19116-454: The portrayer of Man, that culture of the most impartial knowledge of the world finds its last glorious flower." The late-eighteenth-century Swiss historian Johannes von Müller described Thucydides as "the favourite author of the greatest and noblest men, and one of the best teachers of the wisdom of human life". For Eduard Meyer , Thomas Babington Macaulay and Leopold von Ranke , who initiated modern source-based history writing, Thucydides
19278-487: The prosperous Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans, and so have considered the sanctions a contributing causing of the war. Historians who attribute responsibility for the war to Athens cite this event as the main cause. At the request of Corinth, the Spartans summoned members of the Peloponnesian League to Sparta in 432 BC, especially those who had grievances with Athens, to make their complaints to
19440-621: The purposes which arise out of it, shapes his course. That is all, in Thucydides' view, that we can say: except that, now and again, out of the surrounding darkness comes the blinding strokes of Fortune, unaccountable and unforeseen.' Thucydides's work indicates an influence from the teachings of the Sophists that contributes substantially to the thinking and character of his History . Possible evidence includes his skeptical ideas concerning justice and morality. There are also elements within
19602-411: The raid by Nicias in 426 BC, the Melians assumed "an attitude of open hostility", but neither Thucydides nor any other writer of the era mentioned any specific offence that Melos committed against Athens. There is archaeological evidence that Melos once donated some money to Sparta (roughly 12.5 kg in silver), but it's uncertain whether this donation happened before or after the raid by Nicias. Melos
19764-489: The relief of Syracuse. He took command of the Syracusan troops, and in a series of battles defeated the Athenian forces, and prevented them from invading the city. Nicias then sent word to Athens asking for reinforcements. Demosthenes was chosen and led another fleet to Sicily, joining his forces with those of Nicias. More battles ensued and again, the Syracusans and their allies defeated the Athenians. Demosthenes argued for
19926-422: The revenues from all of his cities of Asia Minor. Cyrus the Younger would later obtain the support of the Spartans in return, after having asked them "to show themselves as good friend to him, as he had been to them during their war against Athens", when he led his own expedition to Susa in 401 BC in order to topple his brother, Artaxerxes II . The faction hostile to Alcibiades triumphed in Athens following
20088-498: The rivalry between Athens and Sparta ended when Macedonia became the most powerful entity in Greece and Philip II of Macedon unified all of the Greek world except Sparta, which was later subjugated by Philip's son Alexander in 331 BC. Thucydides Thucydides ( / θj uː ˈ s ɪ d ɪ ˌ d iː z / thew- SID -ih-deez ; Ancient Greek : Θουκυδίδης , romanized : Thoukudídēs [tʰuːkydǐdɛːs] ; c. 460 – c. 400 BC)
20250-420: The saying referred to the advent in such a war of "famine" or "starvation" ( limos ) λιμός . Thucydides draws the conclusion that people adapt their recollections to their present state of suffering. Were the same situation to recur, but with people experiencing famine rather than a pestilence, the verse would be remembered differently, in terms of starvation ( limos ), thereby cancelling the received adage about
20412-504: The sea, and did not suffer much. Many of the citizens of Attica abandoned their farms and moved inside the Long Walls , which connected Athens to its port of Piraeus . At the end of the first year of the war, Pericles gave his famous Funeral Oration (431 BC). The Spartans also occupied Attica for periods of only three weeks at a time; in the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare, the soldiers were expected to go home to participate in
20574-406: The seas. Conquering Melos will demonstrate Athens' strength and discourage rebellions. The Melians argue that it would be shameful and cowardly of them to submit without a fight. The Athenians advise the Melians to swallow their pride because they are not facing a fair fight and defeat will mean annihilation. The Melians argue that though the Athenians are far stronger, there is still a chance that
20736-617: The situation before the war as: "The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon , made war inevitable". The nearly 50 years before the War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world. Its empire began as a small group of city-states, called the Delian League – from the island of Delos , on which they kept their treasury – that formed to ensure that
20898-405: The son of a physician, speculated that Thucydides generally (and especially in describing the plague in Athens ) was influenced by the methods and thinking of early medical writers such as Hippocrates of Kos . After World War II , classical scholar Jacqueline de Romilly pointed out that the problem of Athenian imperialism was one of Thucydides's preoccupations and situated his history in
21060-630: The strategic city of Naupaktos on the Gulf of Corinth . In 459 BC, there was a war between Spartan allies Megara and Corinth , which were neighbors of Athens. Athens took advantage of the war to make an alliance with Megara, giving Athens a critical foothold on the Isthmus of Corinth . A 15-year conflict, commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War , ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina , and
21222-407: The summer of 416 BC, during a truce with Sparta, Athens invaded the neutral island of Melos , and demanded that Melos ally with them against Sparta, or be destroyed. The Melians rejected this, so the Athenian army laid siege to their city and eventually captured it in the winter. After the city's fall, the Athenians executed all the adult men, and sold the women and children into slavery . In
21384-491: The support of a small Athenian force under Alcibiades , moved to seize the city of Tegea , near Sparta. The Battle of Mantinea was the largest land battle within Greece during the Peloponnesian War. The Lacedaemonians, with their neighbors the Tegeans, faced the combined armies of Argos, Athens, Mantinea, and Arcadia . In the battle, the allied coalition scored early successes, but failed to capitalize on them, which allowed
21546-699: The third phase of the war (413–404 BC), named the Decelean War, or the Ionian War, when the Persian Empire supported Sparta to recover the suzerainty of the Greek cities of Asia Minor , incorporated into the Delian League at the end of the Persian Wars . With Persian money, Sparta built a massive fleet under the leadership of Lysander, who won a streak of decisive victories in the Aegean Sea, notably at Aegospotamos , in 405 BC. Athens capitulated
21708-480: The topics of the war's conclusion and aftermath. Born in Athens, Xenophon spent his military career as a mercenary , fighting in the Persian Empire and for Sparta in Asia Minor , Thrace and Greece. Exiled from Athens for these actions, he retired to live in Sparta, where he wrote Hellenica around 40 years after the war had ended. His account is generally considered favourable to Sparta. A briefer account of
21870-494: The tragedians", stating that "Thucydides drew heavily on epic poetry and tragedy to construct his history, which not surprisingly is also constructed as a narrative". In this view, the blind and immoderate behaviour of the Athenians (and indeed of all the other actors)—although perhaps intrinsic to human nature—leads to their downfall. Thus his History could serve as a warning to leaders to be more prudent, by putting them on notice that someone would be scrutinizing their actions with
22032-424: The truth of things done, and which (according to the condition of humanity) may be done again, or at least their like, shall find enough herein to make him think it profitable. And it is compiled rather for an everlasting possession than to be rehearsed for a prize. ( 1:22 ) Herodotus records in his Histories not only the events of the Persian Wars , but also geographical and ethnographical information, as well as
22194-674: The walls of Amphipolis and grave of Brasidas , excavated in the 20th century. Some buildings and artworks produced during the war have survived, such as the Erechtheion temple and Grave Stele of Hegeso , both in Athens; these provide no information on military activity but do reflect civilian life during the war. Several plays by the Athenian Aristophanes were written and set during the war (particularly Peace and Lysistrata ), but these are works of comedic fiction with little historical value. Thucydides summarised
22356-434: The war ( Pericles , Nicias , Alcibiades and Lysander ) in his Parallel Lives . Plutarch's focus was on the character and morality of these men, but he does provide some details on the progress of the war that are not recorded elsewhere. Written in the first century AD, Plutarch based his work on earlier accounts which are now lost. More limited information on the war is derived from epigraphy and archaeology , such as
22518-415: The war between Athenian democracy and the "arrested oligarchic tribalism of Sparta", we must never forget Thucydides's "involuntary bias", and that "his heart was not with Athens, his native city." Although he apparently did not belong to the extreme wing of the Athenian oligarchic clubs who conspired throughout the war with the enemy, he was certainly a member of the oligarchic party, and a friend neither of
22680-405: The war dragged on, the Athenians came to feel that leniency made them look weak and encouraged revolts. The rising brutality of the Athenians was also a response to Spartan brutality, which had been extreme from the beginning. In particular, it was after the massacre committed by the Spartans at Plataea in 429 BC that the Athenians habitually massacred their own prisoners. Even so, the massacre of
22842-413: The war in Athens's name. Their opposition led to the reinstitution of a democratic government in Athens within two years. Alcibiades, while condemned as a traitor, still carried weight in Athens. He prevented the Athenian fleet from attacking Athens; instead, he helped restore democracy by more subtle pressure. He also persuaded the Athenian fleet to attack the Spartans at the battle of Cyzicus in 410. In
23004-403: The war, explaining why it began, then reports events year-by-year. The main limitation of Thucydides' work is that it is incomplete: the text ends abruptly in 411 BC, seven years before the conclusion of the war. The account was continued by Xenophon , a younger contemporary, in the first book of his Hellenica . This directly follows Thucydides' final sentence and provides a similar record, on
23166-474: The whole war is provided by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus in books 12 and 13 of his Bibliotheca historica . Written in the first century BC, these books appear to be based heavily (possibly entirely) upon an earlier universal history by Ephorus , written in the century after the war, which is now lost . The Roman-Greek historian Plutarch wrote biographies of four of the major commanders in
23328-405: The winter of 446/5 BC. The Thirty Years' Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens's powerful ally Samos rebelled from its alliance with Athens . The rebels quickly secured the support of a Persian satrap , and Athens faced the prospect of revolts throughout its empire. The Spartans, whose intervention would have been the trigger for a massive war to determine the fate of the empire, called
23490-406: The works of Johan Huizinga , Marc Bloch , and Fernand Braudel , who pioneered the study of long-term cultural and economic developments and the patterns of everyday life. The Annales School , which exemplifies this direction, has been viewed as extending the tradition of Herodotus. At the same time, Thucydides's influence was increasingly important in the area of international relations during
23652-492: Was exiled : I lived through the whole of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and giving my attention to them in order to know the exact truth about them. It was also my fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis ; and being present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs somewhat particularly. Using his status as an exile from Athens to travel freely among
23814-410: Was "to have the same friends and enemies" as Sparta. The overall effect of the war in Greece proper was to replace the Athenian Empire with a Spartan empire. After the battle of Aegospotami , Sparta took over the Athenian empire and kept all its tribute revenues for itself; Sparta's allies, who had made greater sacrifices in the war than had Sparta, got nothing. For a short time, Athens was ruled by
23976-477: Was 10–12 years old, he and his father were supposed to have gone to the agora of Athens where the young Thucydides heard a lecture by the historian Herodotus . According to some accounts, the young Thucydides wept with joy after hearing the lecture, deciding that writing history would be his life's calling. The same account also claims that after the lecture, Herodotus spoke with the youth and his father, stating: Oloros your son yearns for knowledge . In all essence,
24138-424: Was able to dedicate himself to full-time history writing and research. In essence, he was a well-connected gentleman of considerable resources who, after involuntarily retiring from the political and military spheres, decided to fund his own historical investigations. The remaining evidence for Thucydides's life comes from later and rather less reliable ancient sources; Marcellinus wrote Thucydides's biography about
24300-415: Was again the model historian. Generals and statesmen loved him: the world he drew was theirs, an exclusive power-brokers' club. It is no accident that even today Thucydides turns up as a guiding spirit in military academies, neocon think tanks and the writings of men like Henry Kissinger ; whereas Herodotus has been the choice of imaginative novelists (Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient and
24462-409: Was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of " scientific history " by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by
24624-411: Was an alliance of Greek cities led by Sparta , and the Delian League , which was an alliance led by Athens . Athens had the superior navy and controlled nearly all the islands in the Aegean Sea . Melos was the only significant island in the Aegean Sea that Athens did not control. The people of Melos were Dorians , the same ethnic group as the Spartans, but they were independent of the Spartan empire;
24786-403: Was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain. According to Thucydides, the Spartans did this out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots; the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta. When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the state, the Athenians settled them at
24948-410: Was divided and defeated. The entire Athenian fleet was destroyed, and virtually the entire Athenian army was sold into slavery. Following the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, it was widely believed that the end of the Athenian Empire was at hand. Their treasury was nearly empty, its docks were depleted, and many of the Athenian youth were dead or imprisoned in a foreign land. After the destruction of
25110-429: Was effective at discouraging rebellion is uncertain. Just a few years after the conquest of Melos, Athens suffered a devastating defeat in a military expedition to Sicily , after which rebellions happened throughout the empire. Whatever benefit the conquest of Melos produced was wiped away by the disaster that happened in Sicily. Whether Melos was truly neutral is sometimes debated by scholars. Thucydides wrote that after
25272-475: Was enough to dissuade the Corinthians from exploiting their victory, thus sparing much of the routed Corcyrean and Athenian fleet. Following this, Athens instructed Potidaea in the peninsula of Chalkidiki , a tributary ally of Athens but a colony of Corinth, to tear down its walls, send hostages to Athens, dismiss the Corinthian magistrates from office, and refuse the magistrates that Corinth would send in
25434-416: Was led by the generals Cleomedes and Tisias. After setting up camp on the island, the Athenians sent emissaries to negotiate with the rulers of Melos. The emissaries demanded that Melos join the Delian League and pay tribute to Athens or face destruction. The Melians rejected the ultimatum. The Athenians laid siege to the city and withdrew most of their troops from the island to fight elsewhere. The Melians made
25596-571: Was made possible" by the Periclean democracy, which had the effect of liberating individual daring, enterprise and questioning spirit; this liberation, by permitting the growth of limitless political ambition, led to imperialism and eventually, to civic strife. For Canadian historian Charles Norris Cochrane (1889–1945), Thucydides's fastidious devotion to observable phenomena, focus on cause and effect and strict exclusion of other factors anticipates twentieth-century scientific positivism . Cochrane,
25758-401: Was more nuanced: Thucydides's political vision was informed by a tragic ethical vision, in which: Man, isolated from, and opposed to, Nature, moves along a narrow path, unrelated to what lies beyond and lighted only by a few dim rays of human 'foresight'(γνώμη/ gnome ), or by the false, wandering fires of Hope. He bears within him, self-contained, his destiny in his own character: and this, with
25920-428: Was not much smaller than Athens, and conquering all of Sicily would bring Athens immense resources. In the final preparations for departure, the hermai (religious statues) of Athens were mutilated by unknown persons, and Alcibiades was charged with religious crimes. Alcibiades demanded that he be put on trial at once, so that he could defend himself before the expedition. However, the Athenians allowed Alcibiades to go on
26082-500: Was sent as a strategos (general) to Thasos in 424 BC. During the winter of 424–423 BC, the Spartan general Brasidas attacked Amphipolis , a half-day's sail west from Thasos on the Thracian coast, sparking the Battle of Amphipolis . Eucles , the Athenian commander at Amphipolis, sent to Thucydides for help. Brasidas, aware of the presence of Thucydides on Thasos and his influence with the people of Amphipolis, and afraid of help arriving by sea, acted quickly to offer moderate terms to
26244-533: Was signed in 421 BC and lasted until 413 BC. Several proxy battles took place during this period, notably the battle of Mantinea in 418 BC, won by Sparta against an ad-hoc alliance of Elis , Mantinea (both former Spartan allies), Argos , and Athens. The main event was the Sicilian Expedition , between 415 and 413 BC, during which Athens lost almost all its navy in the attempt to capture Syracuse , an ally of Sparta . The Sicilian disaster prompted
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