History of the Peloponnesian War

The greatest achievement of former times was the Persian war, and yet this was quickly decided in two sea-fights[*](Artemisium and Salamis.) and two land-battles.[*](Thermopylae and Plataea.) But the Peloponnesian war was protracted to a great length, and in the course of it disasters befell Hellas the like of which had never occurred in any equal space of time.

Never had so many cities been taken and left desolate, some by the Barbarians,[*](As Colophon (3.34), Mycalessus (7.29.) and others by Hellenes[*](e.g. Plataea (68.3, Thyrea (4.57.) themselves warring against one another; while several, after their capture, underwent a change of inhabitants.[*](2.30, Potidea (2.70, Anactorium (4.49, Scione (5.32, Melos (5.116.) Never had so many human beings been exiled, or so much human blood been shed, whether in the course of the war itself or as the result of civil dissensions.

And so the stories of former times, handed down by oral tradition, but very rarely confirmed by fact, ceased to be incredible: about earthquakes, for instance, for they prevailed over a very large part of the earth and were likewise of the greatest violence; eclipses of the sun, which occurred at more frequent intervals than we find recorded of all former times; great droughts also in some quarters with resultant famines; and lastly- the disaster which wrought most harm to Hellas and destroyed a considerable part of the people—the noisome pestilence. For all these disasters fell upon them simultaneously with this war.

And the war began when the Athenians and Peloponnesians broke the thirty years' truce,[*](445 B.C.; cf. 115.1) concluded between them after the capture of Euboea.

The reasons why they broke it and the grounds of their quarrel I have first set forth, that no one may ever have to inquire for what cause the Hellenes became involved in so great a war.

The truest explanation, although it has been the least often advanced, I believe to have been the growth of the Athenians to greatness, which brought fear to the Lacedaemonians and forced them to war. But the reasons publicly alleged on either side which led them to break the truce and involved them in the war were as follows.