History of the Peloponnesian War - Table of Contents

Translator's Preface: A Very Special Tragedy: The History of the Peloponnesian War
Note

Ⅰ
Chapters 1-23
introduction.
The situation in early Hellas.
Theme, Method, and Objective of this Book
Chapters 24-65
The immediate cause of the war; the conflict between Athens and Corinth
Chapters 66-88
The Peloponnesian League meets in Lacedaemon; all condemn the Athenian attack and lean towards supporting the war.
Chapters 89-117
The fundamental cause of the war; the rise of Athens' national power after the Persian Wars
Chapters 118-125
The Peloponnesian League meets again in Lacedaemon; preparations for war are underway.
Chapters 126-146
Lacedaemon and Athens complain to each other; the story of Quilon, Pausanias, and Themistocles.
Athens rejects Lacedaemon's ultimatum

Ⅱ
Chapters 1-9
Thebes' attack on Plataea and the start of the war (431 BC); most Greeks are sympathetic to Lacedaemon.
Chapters 10-33
When the Peloponnesians invaded Attica, the Athenians launched a large-scale counterattack elsewhere.
Chapters 34-46
Pericles' Funeral Oration for the Athenian Fallen
Chapters 47-70
The second year of the war begins.
The Plague of Athens.
An overview of Pericles and his policies.
The second year of the war ends
Chapters 71-94
Plataea is besieged by the Peloponnesians and Boeotians.
The Athenians win the Battle of the Gulf of Corinth
Chapters 95-102
Athens' Thracian allies invade Macedonia.
The third year of the war ends

Ⅲ
Chapters 1-35
Lesbos revolts against Athens under the leadership of Mytilene.
A significant number of the Plataeans who were under siege escaped.
The fourth year of the war ends.
The Peloponnesians attempt to support the Mytileneans but fail.
Surrender of Mytilene
Chapters 36-50
Cleon and Diodotus debate in Athens over the punishment of the Mytileneans; the Athenians decide to spare most of the Mytileneans.
Chapters 51-68
The surrender of Plataea; the Plataeans are tried and executed.

Chapters 69-90
Civil war on the island of Kerkyra.
A psychological analysis of political change.
Athenian activities in Sicily.
The fifth year of the war ends
Chapters 91-104
The Athenian army under Demosthenes is defeated in Aetolia.
The Athenians purify the island of Delos
Chapters 105-116
The Athenian army under Demosthenes is victorious at Amphracia.
The sixth year of the war ends

Ⅳ
Chapters 1-51
The Athenians are victorious at Pylos.
The Lacedaemonians propose a peace treaty and alliance, but are rejected.
The Lacedaemonian soldiers surrender and are taken to Athens and imprisoned.
The oligarchs of Kerkyra are massacred and the civil war ends.
The seventh year of the war ends
Chapters 52-74
The Athenians had several successes against Lacedaemon.
A peace treaty is concluded between the Hellenistic settlers of Sicily.
The civil war in Megara ends in failure for the Athenians.
A permanent oligarchy was established in Megara.
Chapters 75-116
The Lacedaemonian army under Brasidas embarks on an expedition to Thrace; some of its allies there revolt against Athens.
The Athenian army is defeated by the Boeotian army at Delium.
Brasidas captures Amphipolis.
The eighth year of the war ends
Chapters 117-135
Armistice between Athens and Lacedaemon.
The Greeks of Thrace continued to leave the Athenian League.
The ninth year of the war ends

V
Chapters 1-12
The Athenians fail to recapture Amphipolis; Brasidas and Cleon are killed.
Chapters 13-39
The 50-year peace treaty and alliance treaty between Athens and Lacedaemon.
The tenth year of the war ends.
Some of Lacedaemon's disgruntled allies plotted.
The 11th year of the war ends
Chapters 40-83
Athens, Argos, and some Peloponnesian states form an alliance.
The 12th year of the war ends.
The war between Argos and Epidaurus, supported by Athens.
The 13th year of the war ends.
The Athenians, Argives, and their allies are defeated by the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea; a fifty-year peace treaty and alliance between Argos and Lacedaemon.
The 14th year of war ends.
Argos again tilts from Lacedaemon to Athens.
The 15th year of the war ends
Chapters 84-116
Athens' expedition to the island of Melos.
A conversation between the Athenian and Messianic delegations.
Melos' resistance.
The surrender of Melos.
The inhabitants of Melos are executed or enslaved.

Ⅵ
Chapters 1-7
Athens plans to invade Sicily.
An overview of the inhabitants of Sicily.
The 16th year of the war ends
Chapters 8-32
Athens embarks on an expedition to Sicily.
Nicias and Alcibiades are appointed generals.
Nicias publicly opposes the expedition.
Alcibiades is accused of blasphemy
Chapters 33-61
When the Syracusans heard the report that the Athenian expedition had set sail, a debate arose as to its plausibility.
The Athenians arrive in Sicily and seek local support and military funds.
Alcibiades fled and went into exile when he was recalled from his home country.
Chapters 62-88
The Syracusan army is defeated by the Athenian army.
Hermocrates reorganizes Syracuse's defenses.
In the city of Camarina, Hermocrates and the Athenian envoy Euphemus argue over who should become allies; the Camarina people choose a neutral course.
Chapters 89-105
Alcibiades fled to Lacedaemon and persuaded the Lacedaemonians to attack Athens simultaneously in Sicily and Attica.
The 17th year of war ends.
The Athenians defeat the Syracusans and begin to besiege the city.
The arrival of Peloponnesian reinforcements under Guilippus

Ⅶ
Chapters 1-30
The Syracusans prepare for war again.
Nicias sends a letter to Athens requesting either reinforcements or withdrawal of the army.
At his request, the Athenians sent reinforcements.
The 18th year of the war ends.
The Lacedaemonian army invades Attica.
The Lacedaemonians fortify Deceleia.
The Thracians, returning from their support of Athens, sacked the town of Mycaletsus on their way home.
Chapters 31-49
The Athenian navy is defeated by the Syracusans and their allies in the port of Syracuse.
Athenian reinforcements under Demosthenes arrive.
The Athenian army launched a night attack to capture the fortress of Syracuse, but was defeated just before it fell.
Demosthenes insisted on withdrawing to Athens, but Nicias postponed it.
Chapters 50-71
The Athenians make a desperate attempt to escape by sea, but the Syracusans resolutely stop them.
The Syracusan army wins a decisive naval victory.
Chapters 72-87
The Athenian army withdrew by land and was continually attacked by the enemy.
After numerous soldiers were slaughtered, the Athenian army surrendered.
Demosthenes and Nicias are killed.
The survivors were imprisoned in a quarry.

Ⅷ
Chapters 1-6
The Athenians resolve to continue the war.
The Peloponnesians are confident that they will soon achieve final victory.
The cities of Ionia are about to revolt against Athens.
The Persian king offered to pay part of the Peloponnesian army's maintenance costs.
The 19th year of the war ends
Chapters 7-18
The fighting resumes; the Lacedaemonians are demoralized by their naval defeat.
Chios leaves the Athenian League under Alcibiades' dukes, followed by Miletus and other cities.
A treaty is concluded between the Persian king and his satrap Tissaphernes, and the Lacedaemonians and their allies.
Chapters 19-44
Fighting continues, mainly in the Ionian region, but no victor is determined.
The Lacedaemonians and their allies began to cede some of the territories previously controlled by Persia in exchange for subsidies from the Persians.
The agreement between Lacedaemon and Persia is revised.
45~60 pages
The feud between Lacedaemon and Alcibiades.
Alcibiades, who had taken refuge with Tissaphernes, advised the Persians not to take sides, but to ensure that the two great powers of Hellas were evenly matched and that they would wear each other out.
The oligarchic faction within the Athenian army plots, arranged by Alcibiades, to obtain subsidies from Persia.
The Athenian people reluctantly agree.
The 20th year of the war ends
Chapters 61-88
The democratic government of Athens was replaced by a narrow-minded and radical oligarchy.
The Athenian soldiers strongly opposed this, and civil war was on the verge of breaking out.
Tensions rise between the Peloponnesians and Persians
Chapters 89-109
The collapse of the Athenian oligarchy.
The Lacedaemonian navy won a naval battle in the Eripus Strait west of the island of Euboea, but due to a lack of adventurous spirit, they were unable to inflict a decisive blow on Athens.
Athens wins a major victory in a naval battle off Cape Cynosema in the Hellespont.

References
Weights and Measures Conversion Table
Find a speech
Search
map

The Persian and Peloponnesian Wars that changed human history

Had Greece not won the war against the great empire of Persia, which had conquered the Orient around 500 BC and was eyeing Greece, Greece would have fallen under Persian rule.
If that had happened, the subsequent fifty years of flourishing of Greek science, literature, and art would never have occurred.
Greek civilization would never have had such a profound influence on Roman culture, and later on European culture.
The Persian Wars (492–448 BC) are important in world history because they prevented the extinction of Greek civilization (Herodotus wrote his Histories to ensure that this war would not be forgotten).

Athens and Sparta, who achieved a joint victory in the Persian Wars through a joint response, emerged as the two most powerful nations in the Greek world. However, breaking the rule that beasts do not fight each other, they fought another long war for the hegemony of Greece.
The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), the greatest disaster in Greek history that was a civil war but was no different from a world war for the Greeks, is important in world history because it led to the collapse of Greek civilization (Thucydides wrote “History of the Peloponnesian War” to prove that the same thing will happen again as long as human nature does not change).
Ironically, the golden age of Greek civilization ended due to internal conflict rather than foreign invasion.

Analyzing human behavior in politics and war

The clash between Athens and Sparta, which dominated Greece, dramatically ended the golden age of Greece.
This war is vividly told through the insightful historian Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War.
As Thucydides (460-400 BC) himself stated, he left this record to prove that as long as human nature does not change, the same things will happen again.
Because a person who correctly understands the past can easily understand the present and future.
He did not allow the intervention of religion or morality, but explained all aspects of war as interactions between human relationships, and he testified to the fate and tragedy suffered by the Greek city-states in the most rigorous and objective manner, and readers of all times have found wisdom and lessons in this extraordinary tragedy.
In Korea, the first translation of the original Greek text, “History of the Peloponnesian War,” was published by Professor Cheon Byeong-hee, a classical translator (published by Soop).

The tragedy brought about by Athens' prosperity and Sparta's jealousy

Athens was a time when there was no other comparable era in human history, producing a legacy that would remain in history in the fields of politics, culture, and art.
It was a time when many buildings, including the Parthenon, were being built, and when Socrates, Hippocrates, and Herodotus gave birth to various fields of study.
(Even during the Peloponnesian War, playwrights such as Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes raised tragedy and comedy to a level they never surpassed.)
Athens emerged as a major power based on the 'Delian League' formed to fight the Great Persian War, and as half of the 200 or so city-states came under Athens' sphere of influence, Sparta and major countries located in the Peloponnese Peninsula formed the 'Peloponnesian League' to check Athens' prosperity and excessive expansionist policies.
Corinth, which had prospered through commercial trade, felt threatened by Athens's maritime expansion, and Megara and others were also dissatisfied with Athens.
Corinth, Megara, and others held a meeting of the Peloponnesian League and decided to go to war with Athens, inciting Sparta to start a war.
Sparta claimed to be the spokesperson for Greek freedom and called for the 'liberation of Greece'.
Because Athens excessively restricted the autonomy of the Delian League and increasingly threatened the autonomy of the League.
Athens's growth and Sparta's jealousy eventually led to the great tragedy of the Peloponnesian War.

These two alliances included most of the Greek city-states.
Thus, the Greek city-states divided themselves into a land-based sphere of influence led by Sparta and a sea-based sphere of influence led by Athens, according to their own interests, and waged war for 27 years.
The fighting took place in almost every part of the Greek world, and Athens was left in a state of exhaustion due to the prolonged slaughter and the plague, which was unprecedented in its brutality.
In 404 BC, Sparta, with Persian help, disarmed Athens.
Athens handed over its fleet to Sparta, tore down its long walls, and dissolved the Delian League.
The experience of this war shattered the Athenians from within, so that they could never rise again.

Come down from the top to the bottom in one breath

Athens, once an ally, became an enemy, and Persia, once an enemy, became an ally for victory, taking away sea control from Athens, but Sparta also fell prey to Persia's intention to divide the power of the Greek world.
Sparta failed to bring freedom and liberation to the Greeks, and stood on its ashes with only scars of glory before being conquered again by Persia and then by Macedonia.
The war failed to create a new order that would bring about a general peace that could last a generation or more.

Contains a timeless and terrifying truth

The History of the Peloponnesian War became a classic as soon as it was published.
Thucydides, with his concise style and sharp analysis, has been considered one of the most profound historians of the ancient Greek and Roman era. His passion for seeking truth, his insight into events rationally, his ability to weave together a plain yet lively technique and his ability to speak with penetrating insight into human nature remain objects of admiration across time and space, and have become an immortal asset to mankind.
Above all, the most interesting part of his writings are the more than 100 speeches (this war was also a fight between a democratic state and an oligarchy, and Athens conducted a series of battles through speeches and resolutions in the assembly).
Among them, the most outstanding work, 'The Dialogue with the Melians', vividly depicts the political logic of a powerful nation's power over a weak nation, and this dialogue alone is enough to make 'The History of the Peloponnesian War' an immortal masterpiece.
Because this kind of dialogue wasn't just between the Athenians and Melians 2,500 years ago.

Athens and Sparta still hold a place in the human heart, and the History of the Peloponnesian War is still widely read today as a cornerstone of historical methodology and political philosophy, a realist history book, and a text on foreign policy.