Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, InspiringIn 432 BCE the powerful city-state of Sparta on the peninsula of the Peloponnesus in southwestern Greece declared war on Athens, head of a mighty naval coalition. The war would last until Sparta finally brough Athens to its knees in 404. The Athenian aristocrat Thucydides, suspecting the magnitude of the conflict that was unfolding before his eyes, at once undertook to record its history, exploring the causes and course of the war in the conte...