Book 5 Summary and Analysis

Book Five is fairly short and, among other events, relates the treaty of alliance between Sparta and Athens during the winter of 422 to 421 BC, scholastically referred to as the 'peace of Nicias'. In modern review this event marks the culmination of the first phase of the Peloponnesian war, often referred to scholastically as the 'Archidamian war'; such a historically sterile review was impossible for Thucydides, however, and he relates the events as part of, but a lull within, a continuous military struggle. Although the modern scholastic division is fairly arbitrary, Thucydides presents the truce as a more-or-less military event devoid of any political chance of long-term success. However, the 423 BC one-year truce is formalized in 422 BC and the procedure, from historic distance, appears to be a gradual cessation of hostilities. Indeed, the next years through 413 BC are marked by a generally...