I LOVE THIS BOOK!
I would have to read it 10 more times to make sense of this book.

This is one of the early classic "histories" written. Of course, Herodotus had written his "History" before. But his acceptance of the role of gods in history renders Thucydides' hard-headed accounts of the Greek internecine warfare a further advance in historiography. Thus, we begin to experience something like a real history in this volume (and that does not denigrate the real contributions of Herodotus).

This is a nice volume. The Introduction by M. I. Finley sets the stage; the translation by Rex Warner is (as far as I can tell) serviceable. The work of Thucydides comes through in this collaboration.

Thucydides' focus is on the origins of this bloody inter-Greek war. The forces of Athens (and her allies) against Sparta (and her allies) is the center of this work. He notes the cause (page 49): "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta." This is, as noted earlier, a fairly hard-headed view of history. To use contemporary terms, the author was something like a "realist."

Some major parts of the work. . . . One of these is the funeral oration by Pericles, the Athenian leader. He spoke of what made Athens special. His death, according to Thucydides, was harmful to the Athenian cause. He says (page 163): "For Pericles had said that Athens would be victorious if she bided her time and took care of the navy, if she avoided trying to add to the empire during the course of the war, and if she did nothing to risk the safety of the city itself. But his successors did the exact opposite. . . ."

This work has much of interest in it. Just one example. The Melian dialogue featured a debate between the Melians and Athenians. The Melians argued that morality was on their side. The Athenians acknowledged the argument, but also noted that they had the numbers and the weapons. This is an early debate between two schools of thought in international relations--idealists versus realists. The hard-nosed attitude of the Athenians won out in this case. . . .

In some ways, Thucydides is best understood by reading Herodotus and then comparing the two, so that one can get a sense of one of the first historians and then someone who adopts a different posture as historian. This is a very good version of Thucydides (from someone who cannot read Greek, by the way). Well worth looking at if a person is interested in the devastating Peloponnesian War.

"Είναι γνώρισμα των φρονίμων ανθρώπων να κάθονται ήσυχα, εφόσον δεν αδικούνται, είναι όμως γνώρισμα των γενεών, όταν αδικούνται, να αφήνουν την Ειρήνη και να πολεμούν, και αντιστρόφως, εάν κρίνουν κατάλληλη την περίσταση να σταματούν τον πόλεμο και να έρχονται πάλι σε συμβιβασμό. Κι ούτε να τους συνεπαίρνουν οι επιτυχίες στον πόλεμο ούτε πάλι να ανέχονται να τους αδικούν απολαμβάνοντας την ησυχία της ειρήνης. Γιατί και εκείνος που διστάζει να πράξει εξαιτίας αυτής της ευχαρίστησης, μπορεί, παραμένοντας ήσυχος, να στερηθεί πάρα πολύ γρήγορα την ευχαρίστηση της ανεμελιάς που εξαιτίας της διστάζει, κι εκείνος που επαίρεται στον πόλεμο για τις επιτυχίες του να μην έχει συλλογιστεί πόσο απατηλή είναι η αυτοπεποίθηση που τον παρασύρει."

Μετάφραση: Ν. Μ. Σκουτερόπουλος
Εκδόσεις ΠΟΛΙΣ

Read for class. Thucy is my boi

For over three years I was a history major at Grinnell College. In the junior year only one course requirement remained, historiography, a course taught by only one faculty member. That was fine by me until we got to Augustine's City of God which, at the time, I thought was absolutely crazy and unreadable (I've since read it). Having almost completed the requirements for a religion degree as well by then, I switched majors and graduated on schedule.

Although Augustine was unsupportable, I very much enjoyed being made to read Thukydides' History as anyone would because of how his seems so modern and objective an account.

What is interesting in this regard is how unique Thukydides is. To my knowledge, no other historian approaches what we regard as serious historical scholarship until the Enlightenment, until more than a thousand years later. Read Herodotos, Diodoros, Livy or Suetonius to see what I mean. Tell me if you can think of an exception. The only one who comes to mind is Caesar whose account of the Gallic Wars approaches history.

The 27-year war fought between Sparta and Athens.

Not quite as fun to read as Herodotus' eccentric Histories, but still an important primary source. I could get through it quite well with my limited knowledge of Greek history and the Peloponnesian War, but I would recommend brushing up for context. Also the Jowlett translation from 1881 (which can be found on Perseus online) is the clearest and easiest to follow.

I need more stars! Thucydides is the man. In 1947, George Marshall "doubt[ed] seriously whether a man can think with full wisdom and with deep convictions regarding certain of the basic issues today" without having read this book. The parallels between the Cold War and the Peloponnesian War as T. describes it are certainly striking. My two favorite sections of this book are the civil war in Corcyra, which T. describes as representative of many civil wars going on in the Aegean at the time--and which he would not be at all surprised to learn was a pretty good description also of many 20th century internecine conflicts; and the siege of Plataea.
The sociological insight of the Corcyra section is breathtaking, as T. describes the values of a society crumbling as its citizens adapt to the demands of a war with no fronts, in which every friend might secretly be an enemy and anything is justified in the name of the faction's cause.
The siege of Plataea is, in T.'s telling, by turns exciting, inspirational, terrifying, and heart-rending. Both sides show great ingenuity in their attempts to outwit each other; there is a great escape story; and it ends with the battle of political, religious, patriotic and ethical motives as the Spartans must decide how to deal with their prisoners.
I could go on and on. The point is, read it! The "Landmark" edition with the maps and stuff is the best one.

Full marks to Martin Hammond for an up to date modern translation. Unfortunately, given that the text is over 2000 years old it reads like a rather dry and tedious war log. There are so many players, both individuals and cities states making and breaking alliances that it's hard to keep track of who's who and who's on which side.

Having been written at the time of the war by somebody who actually participated in it, historians or specialists of this era will find a gold mine of information to pour over and dissect. For a lay person with a passing interest in the period then it's possibly not the most accessible read.

The highlights for me were the speeches by the generals and statesmen putting forward their opposing views and strategies. They were very persuasive and I often found myself changing my mind after listening to each one.

Frustratingly the history finishes 7 years prematurely. So after finishing 500 pages you then need to look elsewhere to find out how it all ended.

Probably 4.5 stars due to Thucydides dry narrative but an awesome read. Political stupidity has not changed.

"Oh God, Not the Peloponnesian War Again", lamented an article in Foreign Policy. To be honest, I understand where the author is coming from. Besides the fact that there is so much more of history to learn from and read about, Thucydides has been excerpted and misinterpreted almost to meaninglessness. Sentences, summaries, and single anecdotes from his book have been used as the basis for predictions on great power politics and the fate of China and the United States, like white noise over an actual discussion. I don't need to go over the fine detail about how the United States is different from Athens and China is different from Sparta.

Thucydides does not always help his own case. His prose style is dense and demands close attention; he recites distant place names and generals that can bewilder a casual reader. He is often excerpted, which helps to show the points of his narrative brilliance but also begets the risk of misinterpretation. A student who only reads to the sudden end of the text and then nothing else might overthink about how Sparta overtook Athens - but not know that Thebes would soon prove that Sparta was not invincible, or that Persia loomed over them both, or that Alexander the Great would soon fall upon them all like a lightning bolt or a tornado.

For all that Thucydides was talked about and debated made me realize how much I had forgotten, and so I decided to pick up this edition to reread him and recover some of what I had lost. This edition was better than I had hoped. The text is an older translation, but really there is no effort spared to guide the reader. This massive volume has the text, but a running banner at the top with the year, margins along the side summarizing and dating the events, references to other chapters in the text, eleven appendices on everything from dialects to naval warfare, dozens of maps, and a table in the back comparing events across different theatres of the war. It is an excellent teaching aid, and the rewards of this once inaccessible book are held out for the patient reader to grasp.

Thucydides' telling of the war is filled with battles, rituals, and so many literary speeches. He is a skeptic of Athenian democracy, almost in awe of certain figures like Pericles, and his is a brutish story of power politics, fear, and suspicion. Generals mak1e ruinous mistakes, political leaders talk their way in and out of trouble. There is talk of honor amid cold self-interest. There is stunning cruelty, and it becomes almost routine. It is a small, almost familiar setting - the loss of a few hundred or a thousand is a catastrophe, and the Peloponnesus itself is just smaller than New Jersey. Other people have summarized it better here, so I won't go into the details for the sake of discovering them for yourself. This is an excellent place to do it.

Fabtastic book.The level of detail with which the author presents the war is astonishing.

To think that Thucydides puts together the timeline of a 30 years war would be hard even in modern times but to do it in 5th century BC is on a completely new level (considering the frugality of written texts at that time).

Not only does he present the stages of the war with extreme rigourousity but he also gets us accustomed with the whole greek world from the mainland city states (Athens,Sparta,Corinth,Thebes,Argos,Megara) to most of the islanders (Lemnos,Lesbos,Samos) , Asia Minor and also the Greek colonies in Sicily.

From my point of view regarding Athens, the book is a testimonial for the saying "don't eat more than you can chew" and just like in Germany in WW2 ....don't start a second front when you haven't concluded the situation of the former one.

The book also proves that it takes only one charismatic, ambitious man to lead the city to glory or total ruin.In our case that would be Pericles or Demosthenes and Alcibiades.

A must read for anyone interested in ancient history & civilisation.