Brendan’s Reviews > The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War > Status Update
Brendan
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“The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur as long as the nature of mankind remains the same… In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants and so proves a rough master that
— Mar 16, 2026 09:01PM
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Brendan
is on page 233 of 713
“Indeed sensible men are prudent enough to treat their gains as precarious, just as they would also keep a clear head in adversity, and think that war, so far from staying within the limit to which a combatant may wish to confine it, will run the course that its chances prescribe; and thus, not being puffed up by confidence in military success, they are less likely to come to grief and most ready to make peace, if
— Mar 22, 2026 12:19PM
Brendan
is on page 193 of 713
“Good deeds can be shortly stated, but where wrong is done a wealth of language is needed to veil its deformity.”
— Mar 16, 2026 08:35PM
Brendan
is on page 178 of 713
Cleon again:
“Great good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent: in most cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity.”
— Mar 15, 2026 10:14AM
“Great good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent: in most cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity.”
Brendan
is on page 176 of 713
From the speech of the demagogue Cleon:
“Bad laws which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have no authority; unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than quick-witted insubordination; ordinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that
— Mar 15, 2026 09:59AM
“Bad laws which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have no authority; unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than quick-witted insubordination; ordinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that
Brendan
is on page 165 of 713
Words of the Mytilenian ambassador to Sparta seem apropos right now:
“It is not in Attica that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by which Attica is supported; and the Athenian revenue is drawn from the allies, and will become still larger if they reduce us; as not only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to theirs”
— Mar 12, 2026 08:34PM
“It is not in Attica that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by which Attica is supported; and the Athenian revenue is drawn from the allies, and will become still larger if they reduce us; as not only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to theirs”
Brendan
is on page 111 of 713
From Pericles’ funeral oration for the war dead:
“He who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.”
— Mar 08, 2026 11:59AM
“He who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.”
Brendan
is on page 44 of 713
Athens warns Sparta against joining the brewing conflict:
“Consider the vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it. As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances from which neither of us is exempt and whose event we must risk in the dark. It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end; to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter.”
— Mar 02, 2026 08:44PM
“Consider the vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it. As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances from which neither of us is exempt and whose event we must risk in the dark. It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end; to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter.”
Brendan
is on page 44 of 713
“Men’s indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.”
— Mar 02, 2026 08:39PM
Brendan
is on page 27 of 713
I inadvertently picked one hell of a weekend to start Thucydides…
Early chapters are about an isolated conflict spiraling out of control. The words of the Corinthian ambassador to Athens seem apropos right now:
“Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquility for an apparent temporary advantage.”
— Mar 01, 2026 04:19PM
Early chapters are about an isolated conflict spiraling out of control. The words of the Corinthian ambassador to Athens seem apropos right now:
“Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquility for an apparent temporary advantage.”
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Mar 16, 2026 09:04PM
that brings most men’s characters to a level with their fortunes. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions…
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Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal supporter; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question incapacity to act on any…. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.
The leaders in the cities made the fairest professions: on the one side with the cry of political equality of The People, on the other of a moderate aristocracy; but they sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish and, stopping at nothing in their struggles for ascendancy, engaged in direct excesses. In their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not limiting them to what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard… The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow.”
