ABSTRACT
In these words Thucydides was attempting to single out an underlying cause of the Peloponnesian War beyond the publicly expressed grounds of complaint. His use of the words ‘prophasis’ and ‘aitiai’ has led to a dispute among historians about the actual meaning of this passage, since these words can have different meanings in different contexts – ‘prophasis’ can mean ‘false excuse’ and ‘aitiai’ ‘true explanations’. However, the use of the qualifying words ‘truest’ with ‘prophasis’ and ‘openly stated’ with ‘aitiai’ strongly suggests that Thucydides was giving his own judgement on the real reason why Sparta went to war in 431. The Spartans would never dare to make this reason public because this was not a valid ground for breaking the peace treaty, and because it would be a shameful admission from such a powerful military state. Therefore the Spartans concentrated on the grounds of complaint, which affected their allies rather than themselves, in order to press their claims that Athens had broken the Thirty Year Peace. This is further reinforced by Thucydides’ explanation of the Spartans’ motives for the despatch of three embassies in the months preceding the outbreak of the war:
However, it is important to review the events that led up to the outbreak of the war in the light of the terms of the Thirty Year Peace. In this way it will
be possible to assess the accuracy of Thucydides’ statement and to determine the degree of blame that each side should incur for infringing the terms of the peace treaty.
