Bobbitt traces this perspective of military history via Thomas Hobbes and Niccolò Machiavelli to Thucydides.

Similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a ' logos-writer ' or story-teller.

As the preeminent Athenian historian, Thucydides, wrote in his influential History of the Peloponnesian War, " The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable.

What then ensued was a period, referred to as the Pentecontaetia ( the name given by Thucydides ), in which Athens increasingly came to be recognized as an Athenian Empire, carrying out an aggressive war against Persia.

These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree, were largely ignored by Thucydides, but some modern economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with the prosperous Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans, and have accordingly considered the decree to be a contributing factor in bringing about the war.

Thucydides identifies himself as an Athenian, telling us that his father's name was Olorus and that he was from the Athenian deme of Halimous.

Eucles, the Athenian commander at Amphipolis, sent to Thucydides for help.

Thucydides was probably connected through family to the Athenian statesman and general Miltiades, and his son Cimon, leaders of the old aristocracy supplanted by the Radical Democrats.

Leo Strauss ( in The City and Man ) locates the problem in the nature of Athenian democracy itself, about which, he argued, Thucydides had a deeply ambivalent view: on one hand, Thucydides ' own " wisdom was made possible " by the Periclean democracy, which had the effect of liberating individual daring, enterprise and questioning spirit, but this same liberation, by permitting the growth of limitless political ambition, led to imperialism and, eventually, civic strife.

After World War II, Classical scholar Jacqueline de Romilly pointed out that the problem of Athenian imperialism was one of Thucydides ' central preoccupations and situated his history in the context of Greek thinking about international politics.

Bury, however, have noted parallels between them: If, instead of a history, Thucydides had written an analytical treatise on politics, with particular reference to the Athenian empire, it is probable that.

" Justice, Power, and Athenian Imperialism: An Ideological Moment in Thucydides ’ History ", History of Political Thought.

* Romilly, Jacqueline de, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism.

Thucydides is held responsible for the Athenian failure and is ostracised.

The second word was Lacedaemon ( Λακεδαίμων ); this is the name commonly used in the works of Homer and the Athenian historians Herodotus and Thucydides.

Pericles had such a profound influence on Athenian society that Thucydides, his contemporary historian, acclaimed him as " the first citizen of Athens ".

The 5th century BC Athenian historian Thucydides describes them as " barbarians " in his History of the Peloponnesian War, as does Strabo in his Geography.

Thucydides speaks of Selinunte just before the Athenian expedition as a powerful and wealthy city, possessing great resources for war both by land and sea, and having large stores of wealth accumulated in its temples.

* 424 Pagondas of Thebes crushes Athenian army at the Battle of Delium, Brasidas a Spartan general makes a successful campaign, Cleon exiles Thucydides for 20 years for arriving late

An attack on Eion is foiled by the arrival of Thucydides at the head of an Athenian squadron.

* Brasidas ' capture of the city of Amphipolis is a major reverse for Athens, for which the Athenian general ( and future historian ) Thucydides is held responsible and banished.

* As a result of his failure to effectively challenge Pericles, the Athenian citizens ostracise Thucydides for 10 years and Pericles is once again unchallenged in Athenian politics.

p. 455 ) that he was an Athenian writer, intermediate in date between Thucydides and Xenophon, and that his work continued the narrative of Thucydides, from the point at which the latter historian stopped ( 410 BC ) down to the Battle of Cnidus.

Some scholars note the similarity between Machiavellian and the Greek historian Thucydides, since both emphasized power politics.

... contemporary readers are reminded by Machiavelli's teaching of Thucydides ; they find in both authors the same “ realism ,” i. e., the same denial of the power of the gods or of justice and the same sensitivity to harsh necessity and elusive chance.

Thucydides admired Pericles, approving of his power over the people and showing a marked distaste for the demagogues who followed him.

There is not much trace of Thucydides ' influence in Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince ( 1513 ), which held that the chief aim of a new prince must be to " maintain his state " his power and that in so doing he is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion.

Thucydides, Hobbes and Machiavelli are together considered the founding fathers of political realism, according to which state policy must primarily or solely focus on the need to maintain military and economic power rather than on ideals or ethics.

Thucydides wrote: Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame.

His stance is supported by the ecclesia, so Thucydides ' efforts to dislodge Pericles from power are defeated.

Thucydides only mentions this period in a digression on the growth of Athenian power in the run up to the Peloponnesian War, and the account is brief, probably selective and lacks any dates.

Lewis declares that, " Thucydides, with his strong feeling for the power and glory of Athens, may have seen this differently and regarded the Melians ' heroics as foolish and unrealistic ; and the fact that they had been offered a relatively painless alternative might affect his view of the massacre.

In his emphasis on sea power, Thucydides resembles the modern naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose influential work The Influence of Sea Power upon History helped set in motion the naval arms race prior to World War I.

Thucydides famously wrote " The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable.

The idea, though not the wording, has been attributed to the History of the Peloponnesian War by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who stated that " since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

* Volume 24 Thucydides on the nature of power, A. G. ( Arthur Geoffrey ) Woodhead ( 1970 )

One of the paramount reasons that contributes to the Peloponnesian War, according to Thucydides, is “ the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta .” President Hu clearly learned from the Peloponnesian War and tried to reduce the deadly psychological feeling in the nature of humans as well as nations.

In the second year of the Peloponnesian War ( 430 BC ), Thucydides described an epidemic disease which was said to have begun in Ethiopia, passed through Egypt and Libya, then come to the Greek world.

At the same time, Thucydides ' influence was increasingly important in the area of international relations during the Cold War, through the work of Hans Morgenthau, Leo Strauss and Edward Carr.

Historians Arnold W. Gomme and Raphael Sealey believe, and Thucydides reports, that Alcibiades was offended that the Spartans had negotiated that treaty through Nicias and Laches, overlooking him on account of his youth.

Historians Arnold W. Gomme and Raphael Sealey believe, and Thucydides reports, that Alcibiades was offended that the Spartans had negotiated that treaty through Nicias and Laches, overlooking him on account of his youth.

The character of Cleon is represented by Aristophanes and Thucydides in a very unfavourable light, justifiable considering he instilled a feeling of mistrust within Athens through a kind of Athenian " McCarthyism " caused by the excessive number of informants he employed to keep a watchful eye on the city.

Thucydides reports that the request met with some success, and the helots got supplies through to the besieged island.

Sparta took the island from Argos early in the sixth century, and ruled it under a kytherodíkes ( kυθηροδίκης, " judge on Cythera "), in Thucydides ' time ; Athens occupied it three times when at war with Sparta ( in 456 during her first war with Sparta and the Peloponnesians ; from 426 to 410, through most of the great Peloponnesian War ; and from 393 to 387 / 386, during the Corinthian War against Spartan dominance ) and used it both to support her trade and to raid Laconia.

According to Thucydides it included as many as 150, 000 men, but was obliged to retire through failure of provisions, and the coming winter.

The first mention of Dion in history comes from Thucydides, who reports that it was the first city reached by the Spartan general Brasidas after crossing from Thessaly into Macedon on his way through the realm of his ally Perdiccas II during his expedition against the Athenian colonies of Thrace in 424 BC.

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, the contemporary historian Thucydides described the coming of an epidemic disease which began in Ethiopia, passed through Egypt and Libya, and then to the Greek world.

In addition, as the disease is most commonly transmitted through poor hygiene habits and public sanitation conditions, it is an unlikely cause of a widespread plague, emerging in Africa and moving into the Greek city states, as reported by Thucydides.