This is a historical account of the first 21 years of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) between Athens and Sparta by the contemporary Thucydides, who, for a short time, served as an Athenian general in the conflict before he was exiled for failing to achieve his objectives. From the beginning of the war he was determined to write a record of it, in which he eschewed the gods and prophecies because history was, in his opinion, man-made, and so he instead aimed for an unbiased […]