Latin

Lines 1.6-1.9

Greek and Roman Historians, The Peloponnesian War 1.6-9

Not analysed yet

Then at Potidaea, a Corinthian colony, the Athenians demanded that the Corinthian magistrates be sent home. Potidaea revolted, and an unofficial Corinthian force went out to help. Potidaea was laid under siege by Athens. None of this yet amounted to war with the Peloponnesian League as a whole, but the temperature was as high as it could be, short of that. A congress of Spartan allies was convoked to discuss grievances against Athens, and the decision was taken for war.
The other Spartan ally seeking to involve Sparta in a private feud with an enemy was Thebes, whose attack on its neighbour Plataea (an Athenian ally) in time of peace was retrospectively recognized by Sparta as an act of war guilt. Sparta should not have condoned it, nor should it have invaded Attica (despite the fact that Athens had placed a garrison in Plataea) so long as Athens was offering arbitration, as it seems it was. Thucydides vacillates between two events for the beginning of the war, the invasion of Plataea and the Spartan invasion of Attica. Both occurred in 431, separated by a mere 80 days.
The initial phase, 431-25 
Athenian war strategy and the initial conduct of the war are presented by Thucydides very much in personal terms: the focus is on what Pericles, the dominant figure of this time, did or wanted. This method, like the Homeric emphasis on heroes, is to some extent literary spotlighting, for at no time was Pericles immune from criticism. In the 440s he had to deal with a major rival, Thucydides, son of Melesias (not the historian), who was ostracized in 443. Even after that, in the poorly documented 430s (before Aristophanes and Thucydides provide information about individual figures of second- or third-rate significance), there are suggestions of tension, such as a partial ban on comedy (with its potential for exposure) and indications in the sources that Cleon was really not a successor of Pericles at all but a highly critical contemporary. The reasons for Pericles' ascendancy remain a secret, and this in itself makes it necessary to allow for a large element of "charismatic" leadership.

Latin

Lines 1.6-1.9

Greek and Roman Historians, The Peloponnesian War 1.6-9

Not analysed yet

Then at Potidaea, a Corinthian colony, the Athenians demanded that the Corinthian magistrates be sent home. Potidaea revolted, and an unofficial Corinthian force went out to help. Potidaea was laid under siege by Athens. None of this yet amounted to war with the Peloponnesian League as a whole, but the temperature was as high as it could be, short of that. A congress of Spartan allies was convoked to discuss grievances against Athens, and the decision was taken for war.
The other Spartan ally seeking to involve Sparta in a private feud with an enemy was Thebes, whose attack on its neighbour Plataea (an Athenian ally) in time of peace was retrospectively recognized by Sparta as an act of war guilt. Sparta should not have condoned it, nor should it have invaded Attica (despite the fact that Athens had placed a garrison in Plataea) so long as Athens was offering arbitration, as it seems it was. Thucydides vacillates between two events for the beginning of the war, the invasion of Plataea and the Spartan invasion of Attica. Both occurred in 431, separated by a mere 80 days.
The initial phase, 431-25 
Athenian war strategy and the initial conduct of the war are presented by Thucydides very much in personal terms: the focus is on what Pericles, the dominant figure of this time, did or wanted. This method, like the Homeric emphasis on heroes, is to some extent literary spotlighting, for at no time was Pericles immune from criticism. In the 440s he had to deal with a major rival, Thucydides, son of Melesias (not the historian), who was ostracized in 443. Even after that, in the poorly documented 430s (before Aristophanes and Thucydides provide information about individual figures of second- or third-rate significance), there are suggestions of tension, such as a partial ban on comedy (with its potential for exposure) and indications in the sources that Cleon was really not a successor of Pericles at all but a highly critical contemporary. The reasons for Pericles' ascendancy remain a secret, and this in itself makes it necessary to allow for a large element of "charismatic" leadership.