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In "Why the Classics," Herbert impresses on the reader the importance of modern military leaders to learn accountability and honor from historical military leaders. Thucydides was a general and historian who initially participated in the lengthy war between Athens and Sparta and who later wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War. In the fourth book on the war, Thucydides relates stories of the battles and sieges in which he fought, and he also tells of his own efforts to survive the plague, a disease that decimated the Athenian population. According to Herbert, in his history, Thucydides includes the speeches that were made before battles, and he also relates the diplomatic side of the war, the spying and intrigue that are rarely included in histories written about great warfare. Herbert mentions these details because they establish the thoroughness of Thucydides's work. Then Herbert moves to the important...