History of the Peloponnesian War

The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated by Benjamin Jowett, 626 pages

In the years following the defeat of the Persians by the alliance of southern Greek city-states led by Sparta and Athens, the victorious alliance fell apart.  In a scenario repeated again and again down through the millennia since, the imperial ambitions of Athens inevitably conflicted with Sparta's defensive concerns, and eventually a local crisis resulted in full-scale war between the major powers and their allies.  The Peloponnesian War lasted, with significant breaks, for nearly thirty years, involving the entirety of the Hellenic world, and ending with an exhausted Sparta as the Pyrrhic victor.

The History of the Peloponnesian War is not only the standard history of the conflict, despite ending some seven years before the end of the war, or even one of the great histories, it is also a literary classic.  Amongst the history of the political and military maneuverings of the period are seeded reconstructions of speeches given by a wide variety of figures which represent some of the finest examples of rhetoric ever recorded - most famously the "Funeral Oration" of Pericles.  Although Thucydides was an ancient Greek writing for an ancient Greek audience, his keen eye and deep understanding of human nature make his work universal and immortal.