History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume III

Thucydides of Athens, one of the greatest historians, was born about 471 BCE. He witnessed the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, during the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague, which he described so graphically.

Later, as a general in 423, Thucydides failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He mentions this not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. During this time, he likely lived on his property in Thrace but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, returning to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge of his own and others.

The war was actually three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when he died sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete, and he was still working on this when the war spread to Sicily, leading to a conflict (415–413) that is likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not integrated into the whole. His narrative of the final conflict (413–404) breaks off in the middle of a sentence during the year 411. Thus, his work was left unfinished and unrevised as a whole. Yet, in brilliance of description and depth of insight, his history has no superior.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume III by Thucydides is part of a four-volume set.