Chapters three and four deal with the first years of the war, bringing the reader to the Spartan disaster at Sphacteria in chapter five. He pays especial attention to notions of arbitration in the classical world at that time.

Chapter two discusses specifically the causes and outbreak of the Second Peloponnesian war and gives fuller details of the politics involved. He concludes this chapter with the relationship between Athens and Corinth at the end of the Samian War. He then swiftly moves on to his first chapter, which deals with the Pentecontaetia and the First Peloponnesian war in greater detail. Tritle prefaces his first chapter with a brief overview of the change in relationship between Athens and Sparta, after the Persian invasion. Tritle approaches his investigation of the war largely by discussing the impact it had on society rather than simply providing a sequence of battles and events. Beginning with a brief narrative of the Persian invasion and concluding with the expedition of Cyrus the Younger, Tritle aims to make his reader understand the causes of the war, actions of the participants and consequences for the Greek states. Tritle’s A New History of the Peloponnesian War gives a comprehensive overview of the conflict between the Athenian Empire and the Peleponnesian League during the fifth century BC.

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A history of the peloponnesian war