Graham Allison and Thucydides both suggest that war becomes inevitable due to the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta. Identify some elements of Athenian and Spartan strategy to show how war does or does not become inevitable.

The purpose of this thesis is to suggest why Athenian oligarchs reacted against the democratic agenda of Panhellenism in 413–411. Panhellenism was a gradual process of Greek cultural unification, which took on a politicized connotation after the Persian Wars calling for the accession of a hegemon to oppose the Persian Empire. This thesis examines the differences in political ideology between oligarchs and democrats, the increasing economic burdens on oligarchs to finance the Peloponnesian War, and the rift between oligarchic restraint (sophrosyne) and democratic courage (andreia) as the reasons for the oligarchs’ opposition to Panhellenism after the failed Sicilian Expedition. By examining Thucydides’ History, various speeches of the Attic orators and Athenian plays, as well as incorporating inscriptionary evidence, this thesis shows that Panhellenism was indeed not a universally held notion in Athens, and that further study must be done on the fragmentary nature of Athenian Panhellenism in the Classical Period.

Despite the rich scholarly studies about Greek warfare, not much has been written about what could be defined Greek “unconventional warfare”, especially regarding the period between the 8th and the 5th century BC. Most of the modern scholars, in fact, have been focusing on the reconstruction of the various phases of a typical battle, or have considered the strategies and tactics used at the expense of a deeper study of the actual fighting dynamics. Ultimately, this means that almost nobody has tried to relate battle patterns and their theoretical aspects, as if they were completely unrelated to each other, and investigate why some parts of Greece were more receptive to military innovation than others. This dissertation aims to solve this issue, and includes: a few considerations about unconventional warfare, as it has been defined in modern times, and an adaptation of its definition that may be applied to Greek warfare; a brief description of the various troops that composed a typical 5th century BC polis’ army, and of their role in battle; the analysis of some significant episodes of the Peloponnesian War, where the strategies and tactics applied by the commanders stand out for their innovative approach. Lastly, some considerations on how in reality these unconventional strategies and tactics are not relegated to the Peloponnesian War only: in fact, they can be found in other past conflicts. This may lead to the supposition that they are part of a diachronic military evolution, whose roots date back at least to the Homeric Poems, and whose evidence is sometimes hidden by predominant tradition of hoplite warfare.

Detailed account of the Confederacy of Delos, including its nature, scope, origins, and history from inception down to the Thirty Years Peace between Athens and Sparta. As with my other general articles on this site, I wrote this for the Encyclopedia of Ancient History, because I find most encyclopedia entries inadequate.

How, are we to explain documented cases in which a democracy, for example Athens in the era of the Archidamian War, does well in fierce and sustained competition? Following a recent article by Kenneth Schultz and Barry Weingast (2003), we may call this the puzzle of democratic advantage.3 This chapter argues that Thucydides addressed a version of the democratic-advantage puzzle, and did so in a way that anticipates some important modern developments in social science.