The History of the Peloponnesian War

Written four hundred years before the birth of Christ, this detailed contemporary account of the long life-and-death struggle between Athens an Sparta stands an excellent chance of fulfilling its author's ambitious claim that his writing was designed to last forever. Thucydides himself (c-460-400 B.C.) was an Athenian and achieved the rank of general in the earlier stages of the war. He applied thereafter a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth and romance in compiling this factual record of a disastrous conflict. A translation of Thucydides' history of the wars between Athens and Sparta with introduction, notes, bibliography, and maps.