BONUS: Did Sparta and Athens Have to Fight? (Greece Occidens 2)

Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War is perhaps the greatest work of history the ancient world produced. It tells the story of the long and savage destruction that Greece wreaked upon itself, led by Sparta on the one side, and Athens on the other. In the opening to his history, Thucydides quickly reviews Greek history and origins, explaining the significance of Athens' agricultural poverty, who first started competing in the Games naked, what caused the Trojan War to drag on for so long, and most importantly, why the rising power of Athens made war with Sparta inevitable. It is from this last point that political scientists and international relations experts have developed the concept of "the Thucydides trap," the apparent phenomenon in which a rising power necessarily clashes with an incumbent power. 

In this New Humanists+ bonus episode, the second installment of the "Greece Occidens" megaseries, Jonathan and Ryan read and discuss Thucyudides' The Peloponnesian War I.1-23. 

Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780142004371

Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War (Landmark edition): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780684827902 

Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War (Thomas Hobbes translation): https://amzn.to/4cyGxSZ

New Humanists episode on Benjamin Constant: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/16302266-what-the-modern-world-lost-episode-lxxx

Music: Subway Cell by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com