Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.6, 2017

 

Exploring Thucydides’ View of the Causes of Peloponnesian War (Abstract)

 

He Yuanguo

 

Due to the limitations of the historical sources, we only have Thucydides’ version of the causes of Peloponnesian War. It is generally held that the view in Book I 23.6 (“The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable.”) represents Thucydides’ main judgment. Although this judgment is the product of deep thought, it is not a comprehensive summary. Even if one interprets the text as saying the war was “inevitable,” this is just one party’s subjective judgment rather than an objective law. Thucydides simply emphasized what he thought to be the most important reason.