The war’s closing years saw Athens rally in a series of battles only to have its remaining fleet ravaged by the Spartans under Lysander at Aegospotami. The final section of the “History of the Peloponnesian Wars” is an incomplete description of revolts, revolutions and Spartan gains that cuts off in midsentence. Thucydides writes, “they were destroyed, as the saying is, with a total destruction, their fleet, their army-everything was destroyed, and few out of many returned home.” This proved disastrous, and the Athenians were driven from the island in 413 by the combined Sicilian and Spartan forces. An uneasy peace followed, but six years later Athens launched a seaborne expedition against Syracuse, an ally of Sparta in distant Sicily. Both Cleon and the Spartan general Brasidas died in the battle, pushing the war-weary sides to negotiate a treaty. In 422, the Athenians under their leader Cleon made an unsuccessful attempt to retake Amphipolis. The initial 10 years of the conflict saw annual Spartan land raids countered by Athenian sea attacks. How Civil War Medicine Led to America's First Opioid Crisis He wrote of his exile: “It was…my fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis and being present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs more closely.” In 424, he was given command of a fleet, but was then exiled for failing to reach the city of Amphipolis in time to prevent its capture by the Spartans. He was born in the Athenian suburb of Halimos and was in Athens during the plague of c.430 B.C., a year after the war began. His father’s name was Olorus, and his family was from Thrace in northeastern Greece, where Thucydides owned gold mines that likely financed his historical work. Little is known about Thucydides’ life apart from the few biographical references in his masterwork. Though specific in detail, the questions he addressed were timeless: What makes nations go to war? How can politics elevate or poison a society? What is the measure of a great leader or a great democracy? Thucydides' Life He relied on the testimony of eyewitnesses and his own experiences as a general during the war. Unlike his near-contemporary Herodotus (author of the other great ancient Greek history), Thucydides’ topic was his own time. His “History of the Peloponnesian War” set a standard for scope, concision and accuracy that makes it a defining text of the historical genre. One of the greatest ancient historians, Thucydides (c.460 B.C.–c.400 B.C.) chronicled nearly 30 years of war and tension between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides and the History of the Peloponnesian War.