In this opener of the Peloponnesian War, Athens is the drama king. Sparta the gym bro. Two city-states with the personalities of a toxic divorced couple, dragging the entire Greek world into a decades-long bar fight with spears.
In this opening episode of Time Machine Diaries: The Peloponnesian War, Cullen takes you into the aftermath of the Persian Wars, the birth of the Delian League (aka Athens’ protection racket), and the petty beefs — like the infamous Megarian Decree — that pushed Greece into the war that nobody won. Expect hubris, sanctions, starvation, and a whole lot of historical déjà vu, because the playbook they wrote in 431 BCE still runs today.
Source List
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Translated by Richard Crawley. Audible edition.
Donald Kagan. The Peloponnesian War. Penguin Books, 2003. Audiobook available.
Victor Davis Hanson. A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. Random House, 2005. Audiobook available.
The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization. PBS, 2000.
Athens: The Dawn of Democracy. PBS/NOVA, 2008.
The Spartans. BBC Documentary Series, 2002.
Hornblower, Simon. A Commentary on Thucydides. Oxford University Press, 1991.
Rhodes, P. J. “The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 106, 1986, pp. 103–124.
