History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides. Historiae, Vol 1-2. Jones, Henry Stuart, editor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1910. (1942 printing).

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This work is a historical narrative that meticulously records in chronological order the events of the Peloponnesian War, which divided the ancient Greek world between Athens and Sparta in the late 5th century BC. Beginning his records at the very outbreak of the war, the author relies on rigorous factual investigation and reconstructs numerous speeches delivered by key figures to vividly expose the political motives and human psychology of each polis. The opening book presents the immediate pretexts of the conflict alongside the "truest cause"—Sparta's fear of the growing Athenian power. The narrative proceeds to depict the moral decay brought by war, highlighted by the plague in Athens, the death of Pericles, and the famous "Melian Dialogue" which starkly exposes the cold reality of power politics. The latter half dramatizes the rise and tragic fall of the ambitious Athenian expedition to Sicily, from its magnificent departure to its catastrophic annihilation, before the text abruptly breaks off unfinished amidst Athens' internal political turmoil and Persian intervention.