The Peloponnesian War, a head-on clash between the two great powers of Sparta and Athens, lasted almost thirty years and irrevocably changed ancient Greece. An impeccable historical work, but also a reflection on imperial ambitions and the nature of power struggles

Telling the story of a war means first of all investigating its origins. With this in mind, propagandists always have a clear idea of what they want to achieve, and are often ruthless in spreading lies and reasons. During the long and arduous Peloponnesian War, opposing propaganda was abundant. The Athenians claimed to be ‘exporting’ democracy by forcibly imposing it on their allies. The Spartans claimed to be ‘bringing freedom’ to the Greeks oppressed by Athens. Historians, on the other hand, have a duty to dig deep and go ‘as far back in time as possible’. In his immense work, the Athenian Thucydides defines the Peloponnesian War as the ‘enormous war’ that ‘involved the greatest number of men’. And as a brilliant historian, Tucydides went back to the years of the Persian defeat at Salamis and its aftermath to explain the origins of the Peloponnesian War. The thesis of this book is that that War was rather a stage in the clash, first at a distance and then at close quarters, between a young and aggressive empire (Athens) and one that was much older, much more structured and spread over two continents, Persia.