History of the Peloponnesian War

Our fathers, at any rate, withstood the Persians, although they had no such resources as ours, and abandoned even those which they possessed, and by their resolution more than by good fortune and with a courage greater than their strength beat back the Barbarian and advanced our fortunes to their present state. And we must not fall short of their example, but must defend ourselves against our enemies in every way, and must endeavour to hand down our empire undiminished to posterity."

Sucl were the words of Pericles: and the Athenians, thinking that he was advising them for the best, voted as he directed, and answered the Lacedaemonians according to his bidding, both as regards the particulars as he set them forth and on the whole question, to the effect that they would do nothing upon dictation, but were ready in accordance with the treaty to have all complaints adjusted by arbitration on a fair and equal basis. So the Lacedaemonian envoys went back home and thereafter came on no further missions.

These were the grounds of complaint and the causes of disagreement on both sides before the war, and they began to appear immediately after the affair of Epidamnus and Corcyra. Nevertheless the two parties continued to have intercourse with one another during these recriminations and visited each other without heralds,[*](i.e. without the formalities which are indispensable after war is declared.) though not without suspicion; for the events which were taking place constituted an actual annulment of the treaty and furnished an occasion for war.

AT this point in my narrative begins the account of the actual warfare between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians and their respective allies. While it continued they ceased having communication with one another except through heralds, and when once they were at war they waged it without intermission. The events of the war have been recorded in the order of their occurrence, summer by summer and winter by winter.[*](The mode of reckoning customary in the time of Thucydides and continued long afterwards. In such a scheme the summer included the spring and the winter the autumn; the summer period was equal to about eight months, the winter to about four.)