The problems multiply as soon as on

The problems multiply as soon as one begins to consider the effect on his mind and work of the Peace of Nikias and subsequent events. The immediate effect of the Peace must have been discouraging, to see the greatest war in history end tamely in compromise, and he would be predisposed to expect its breakdown, of which symptoms appeared soon enough. It is to be presumed that he went on taking notes of diplomatic and military movements, even before he certainly knew to what use he would put them; that the Sicilian expedition early appealed to him as an irresistible subject; while the resumption of the war showed how the whole period could be treated as one connected theme.