ABSTRACT
Control of Boiotia, and the central Greek land empire generally, was lost to Athens in 446 as part of Pericles’ deal with Pleistoanax. But the Athenians’ command of the eastern seas was unimpaired, as is proved by the free hand they enjoyed in suppressing revolt on Samos in 440/39. ucydides narrates the events of the next decade not as part of the ‘Fifty Years’ to which they strictly belong, but as part of the sequence of events which immediately caused the great Peloponnesian War. e Fifty Years, in the historian’s causal scheme, were the underlying cause of the war, a cause which ucydides saw as the process of Athenian aggrandizement which struck fear into Sparta. is is the ‘truest cause’ of ucydides’ famous statement (1. 23), which is the rst explicit and conscious attempt to develop a theory of historical causation: ‘the truest cause’, he says, ‘was one not much admitted at the time: it was the growth of Athenian power, which frightened the Spartans and forced them to war. But the publicly alleged reasons were as follows …’ and ucydides goes on to give them: quarrels between the Athenians and Corinthians over Kerkyra (modern Corfu) and Potidaia. (is contrast between true and publicly alleged causes was a favourite with ucydides, who not only repeats it exactly at the beginning of his account of the Athenian expedition to Sicily in 415, but also implies it when analysing Corinth’s motives for making trouble in 421: 6. 6; 5. 30.) Later in Book 1 (Chapter 118) ucydides closes the ‘Fifty Years’ by speaking of Athens’ power ‘rising to a peak plain for all to see’, and of the Athenians (or Athens) ‘encroaching on the Spartans’ allies’.
