History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides, an Athenian wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, how they warred against each other; having begun from its very outset, with the expectation that it would prove a great one, and more worthy [*]( Literally, most worthy—of all, etc.: but this use of the superlative, though one of the most common idioms of the Greek language, has not been naturalized in our own; notwithstanding Milton's well-known imitation of it, in which he makes Adam the goodliest of all his sons since born, The fairest of her daughters Eve. ) of relation than all that had been before it; inferring so much, as well from the fact that both sides were at the height of all kinds of preparation for it, as also because he saw the rest of Greece joining with the one side or the other, some immediately, and some intending so to do.