Imposing an artificial simplicity on Thucydides’s work makes it harder to understand the full range of warnings that his history gives.

Great works of human pathos rarely distill to simplicity. Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War* (431 to 404 B.C.E.) defies simple summarizing in one cautionary lesson or trap. The account’s great virtue is the complexity conveyed about one of humanity’s most profound challenges: war.