Book · -411
History of the Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides
Thucydides writes the Sicilian Expedition as a slow-motion catastrophe and spends the first pages explaining exactly why you should trust him over every other historian.
What does Reddit think of History of the Peloponnesian War?
Ten mentions across seven years, split evenly between r/AskHistorians and r/history — five each — and the sentiment scores land at a flat neutral because Reddit isn't really reviewing Thucydides. It's using him. The r/history crowd reaches for the text when a specific decision needs explaining: the Sicilian Expedition comes up with an ↑147 comment calling it 'the most ridiculous decision,' Athens flush with cash and momentum choosing that moment to overextend. r/AskHistorians cites the book as the starting point for understanding helot status, plague diagnosis, and what Athenian names actually looked like. Nobody calls it a page-turner. One commenter (↑113) warns the first seventy pages are 'a LENGTHY meditation on the philosophy of writing about battle' — which is either a selling point or a dealbreaker depending on who's asking. Donald Kagan's four-volume counterargument surfaces once (↑95), a reminder that Thucydides is persuasive enough to need a rebuttal.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · The trap of hindsight in military and political decision-making
- · Thucydides as a methodologist — accuracy over narrative appeal
- · Athens overreaching at the height of its power
- · Sparta and Athens as structurally locked opponents, not just rival city-states
- · Ancient plague epidemiology and what contemporaneous sources can actually tell us
- · The helot system and how Spartan society was organized around controlling it
Common praise
- + The Sicilian Expedition chapters make the decision feel genuinely incomprehensible in real time, which is the point.
- + Thucydides announces his methodology upfront — 'accuracy over entertainment' — and Reddit readers in r/history treat that promise as a credential worth citing.
- + The ↑113 commenter recommends it as 'a lot more comprehensive' than battle-focused alternatives for understanding ancient warfare's actual texture.
- + r/AskHistorians uses it as a primary source on plague symptoms, helot status, and Athenian naming conventions — the data density holds up as a reference text.
Common criticism
- − The first seventy pages are a philosophy-of-historiography essay, and the ↑113 commenter flags this explicitly as a barrier before the actual war narrative begins.
- − Donald Kagan's four volumes exist specifically because Thucydides is persuasive enough to distort your read of Spartan-Athenian dynamics — the ↑95 comment recommends Kagan as a corrective.
- − Ten mentions over seven years suggests Reddit treats this as a citation source rather than a book people actually finish and discuss.
Who it's for
If you want to understand why Athens lost and need a primary source with receipts, this is the text. Political science readers who already know the outcome will find the Melian Dialogue and the Sicilian disaster more useful than any modern retelling. Skip the Kagan caveat until after you've read Thucydides once — you need to feel the persuasion before you can evaluate it. Classicists and ancient historians on r/AskHistorians treat it as a working reference on helots, plague, and Athenian institutions, not a narrative read.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for History of the Peloponnesian War?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“No. If anything it helped for the 1948 election, and it's also important to note Truman's own self education in the classics, which granted him a certain level of respect among many of his peers even if the public generally wasn't aware of it. Obtaining a college degree in 1947 firmly placed you i…
“Reading Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, it did seem like the most ridiculous decision. Like you just finished an inconclusive war with the Spartans but generally had the edge in terms of money and power. Peace with Sparta is just a shaky truce. But you decide that now is the time to lau…
“It’s not good for it’s actual account of those battles, the first 70 pages are a LENGTHY meditation on the philosophy of writing about battle which is really fascinating. Closest I can think of outside of that is actually just to read History of the Peloponnesian War. It’s a lot more comprehensive o…
“I’d recommend reading Donald Kagan’s four volumes on the History of the Peloponnesian War for an alternative viewpoint. We tend to be seduced by hindsight and the wonderful persuasiveness of Thucydides. From what I can recall, Kagan’s argument is that Athens and Sparta were basically locked in a st…
“Helots were nothing like indentured servants - helot status was hereditary and not bound to debts. In some cases helots were freed for military service but my understanding is this was the exception not the rule. The status of helots was somewhere between serfdom and chattel slavery. How helots di…
“The short answer is that most of the time, they don't. Generally, there are two sources of information about these plagues: contemporaneous descriptions of symptoms, and on occasion, archaeological finds such as bodies which can be examined for postmortem effects. However, most diseases don't leave …
“In The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (431 BEC), he explicitly states in the end of the second last paragraph of Chapter 1 that he's writing the text for future students of history to use as a source that favours accuracy over…
“The best I can offer you is a two big lists of Athenian names and Spartan names from Thucydides history of the Peloponnesian War. Athens: Lacedaemonius, son of Cimon Diotimus, Son of Strombichus Proteas, son of Epicles Glaucon, son of Leagrus Andocides, son of Leogoras Archestratus, s…
Convinced? Pick up History of the Peloponnesian War
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History of the Peloponnesian War — frequently asked
Is History of the Peloponnesian War actually readable, or is it an academic slog?+
Depends on where you start. A commenter on r/history (↑113) warns the opening seventy pages are a sustained meditation on historical methodology — interesting but slow. Once past that, the war narrative drives forward. The Sicilian Expedition sections read almost like watching a disaster unfold in slow motion. Not a slog exactly, but it asks for patience upfront.
What does Reddit actually use History of the Peloponnesian War for?+
Mostly citation and corroboration. r/AskHistorians reaches for it on helot status, ancient plague descriptions, and Athenian names. r/history uses it to interrogate specific decisions — the Sicilian Expedition in particular generates multiple threads. Across 10 total mentions in the tracked data, it functions less as a 'book I loved' recommendation and more as a primary-source reference.
Should I read History of the Peloponnesian War or Donald Kagan's four-volume history first?+
Thucydides first. A r/history commenter (↑95) recommends Kagan specifically because Thucydides is so persuasive that he can skew your interpretation of Spartan-Athenian dynamics. Kagan argues the two powers were structurally locked in conflict regardless of individual decisions — a useful corrective, but one that only lands after you've absorbed what Thucydides is selling.
Is History of the Peloponnesian War useful for understanding the Sicilian Expedition specifically?+
Yes. The r/history thread with ↑147 upvotes calls the expedition 'the most ridiculous decision' — Athens at the height of its power, Spartan peace still fragile, choosing to launch a massive western campaign. Thucydides was there, and the account makes the miscalculation feel almost inevitable in retrospect. It's the section most cited in the tracked Reddit data.