“TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”Delian League, but it is remarkable that the text omits many of the details of
this growth. The only alliance noted is with Corcyra.
- Thucydides, in his characterizations of these two, notes especially Ar-
chidamus’ e[mpeiro~, or wisdom derived from ample experience (1.80), and the
constancy of Pericles’ gnwvmh, his opinions and judgments (1.140). See Connor,
Thucydides, 50. Plato also frequently completes the balancing of logoi between
interlocutors through discussion with other interlocutors, or with characters
Socrates seems to invent precisely for that purpose. - The appeal to Athenian character and disposition is only part of the
account developed in this section, however. The narrative also emphasizes the
role of luck and of the intrigues of other states in bringing Athens to her place
upon the Hellenic stage, for which, therefore, she cannot take sole credit or
blame. Ironically, there is very little in book 1 that depicts Sparta’s historical
importance. Were the reader not familiar with the growth of the Peloponnesian
League and Sparta’s formidable and famous land forces, he might be quite sur-
prised at the suggestion of 1.18 that Sparta stood alongside Athens as the two
preeminent powers at the time of the Persian War. - Athens was the winner of what is called the Archidamian War, the fi rst
phase of the war before the peace of Nicias. However, Thucydides portrays that
peace as badly needed by both sides. Furthermore, the peace is related near the
beginning of book 5, after the dark investigation of book 3, which includes the
detailed analysis of the moral failure connected to the civil dispute at Corcyra,
and book 4’s telling depiction of Athenian folly (fl irting with disaster in its
rejection of peace) and the puzzling decline of Spartan military power. Ath-
ens’ eventual defeat is mentioned as early as book 2. Such early success throws
her later defeat into sharper relief, even without Thucydides’ depiction of the
largely fortuitous and puzzling character of the early victory. - The common wisdom at the time of the outbreak of the war was that
Athens would not be able to last long against Sparta, which Thucydides ac-
knowledges at 7.28. - In book 1, Corinth speaks approximately as much as the rest of the
speakers combined. - On several occasions the Athenians’ second-guessing, as in the case of
who to send to Syracuse to lead the war effort there, causes them a great deal
of trouble. Of course, some of the Corinthian description is so hyperbolic as
hardly to be credited. - See Mitchell Miller, Plato’s Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul (Univer-
sity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986), 4– 5. - Not all of book 1 invokes Athenian victory so straightforwardly. An al-
ternative, if equivocal, prediction is offered by the Oracle at Delphi who, when
consulted (1.118), pronounces Sparta the ultimate victor if she will “fi ght with
all her might,” a fact to which Corinth later calls attention at the vote for war. - That war is unpredictable is put forward by the participants themselves
upon no less than four major occasions in book 1: Athens, in her address to
Sparta in response to the grievances presented against her (1.78); Archidamus,
in his speech to the Spartans following (1.82); Corinth, in her fi nal address to