Written four hundred years before the birth of Christ, this detailed contemporary account of the struggle between Athens and Sparta stands an excellent chance of fulfilling the author's ambitious claim that the work 'was done to last ...

The entire Greek world plunged into three decades of bloodshed in 431 B.C., when the ongoing friction between Athens and Sparta exploded into war. Ten years into the struggle, the Athenian general Thucydides was dismissed for a milita...