HKB

← back

The History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides · Composed beginning at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (traditionally 431 BCE); continued thereafter (Book I–VIII survive; work unfinished). primary

passage 7 of 394 · BOOK I > CHAPTER I (6/10)

in brief
After the Trojan War, Greeks were still resettling, leading to revolutions and exiles founding cities; later waves like Boeotians moving to present Boeotia and Dorians/Heraclids taking Peloponnese delayed lasting peace.

be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to have been inferior to its renown and to the current opinion about it formed under the tuition of the poets.

Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in removing and settling, and thus could not attain to the quiet which must precede growth. The late return of the Hellenes from Ilium caused many revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere; and it was the citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities. Sixty years after the capture of Ilium, the modern Boeotians were driven out of Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the former Cadmeis; though there was a division of them there before, some of whom joined the expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later, the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese; so that much had to be done and many years had to elapse before Hellas could attain to a durable tranquillity undisturbed by removals, and could begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily and some places in the rest of Hellas. All these places were founded subsequently to the war with Troy.

← previous passage read in the full work → next passage →

topics: cities and their founding · conquest, plunder, and captives · fate, destiny, and necessity

The History of the Peloponnesian War · Thucydides · 431–404 BCE