A History of My Times

Thucydides' magisterial history told of the unhappy conflict of Greeks against the Greeks in the Peloponnesian War, but his narrative broke off in 411 B.C., seven years before the end, and Greeks were to continue fighting one another for many more years. Xenophon continues the account to 362 B.C. These years saw Athens humbled by Sparta; Sparta humbled by Athens and her former ally, Thebes; Athens ground down again by the military genius of the Theban Epaminondas, taking on both Athens and Sparta; and behind the scenes the might of Persia, intervening now on one side, now on another.

Xenophon himself knew many of the protagonists and his writing is personal history as well as a chronicle of events; he vividly portrays individuals, heroic and treacherous, influencing politics and battles and leading Greece inevitably towards impotence.