Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition

Donald Kagan is Sterling Professor of Classics and History at Yale University.

A profound analysis of the relation of strategy to politics, a sympathetic but searching critique of Thucydides' masterpiece, and a trenchant assessment of the voluminous modern literature on the war.- Bernard Knox (The Atlantic Monthly) "The temptation to acclaim Kagan's four volumes as the foremost work of history produced in North America in the twentieth century is vivid.... Here is an achievement that not only honors the criteria of dispassion and of unstinting scruple which mark the best of modern historicism but honors its readers. To read Kagan's 'History of the Peloponnesian War' at the present hour is to be almost unbearably tested."-George Steiner, The New YorkerThis is a solid piece of scholarship, a readable, consistent, and understandable account of a difficult period in Greek history, and rife with astute and provocative observations on Thucydides.(The Historian)

• Part One: The Unraveling of the Peace1. A Troubled Peace2. The Separate League3. The Alliance of Athens and Argos4. The Challenge of the Separate League5. The Battle of Mantinea6. After Mantinea: Politics and Policy at Sparta and AthensPart Two: The Sicilian Expedition7. The Decision to Attack Sicily8. Sacrilege and Departure9. Athenian Strategy and the Summer Campaign of 41510. The First Attack on Syracuse11. The Siege of Syracuse12. Athens on the Defensive13. Defeat on Land and Sea14. Retreat and DestructionConclusionsBibliographyGeneral IndexIndex of Modem AuthorsIndex of Ancient Authors and Inscriptions