Thucydides on the Spartan Ethic for War - Commentary by Steven Willett
In his
History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides lays out the events that precipitated a long, enormously destructive war between the city-states of Athens and Sparta. The war ran from 431BCE to 404BCE with only a few years of intervening peace. Like many wars this one began in minor incidents far from the two states: Sparta was a land power with a league of allied cities in the Peloponnesus, while Athens was a sea power with a far-flung empire extending over the shores of the Aegean all the way to the Hellespont. The Athenian Empire embraced hundreds of cities and the Aegean islands, and before the start of the war was so wealthy it had begun a magnificent building program on the Acropolis. Sparta became quite concerned about the growing power of a rival and that led to deliberations on possible war with Athens.