This structural polarity of emotion

This structural polarity of emotional types also informs Thucydides’ implied contrast between the war as a whole and its most significant episode in Sicily. Thus, both the Peloponnesian War as a whole and the Sicilian expedition are introduced by “archaeologies” of primitive times that serve several similar purposes: they describe the confusion of ancient times, they indirectly demonstrate the momentous nature of the wars being started and together illustrate the widespread ignorance of which Thucydides accuses mankind in general and Alcibiades’ Athenians in particular. Furthermore, Thucydides analyzes both wars with the same deliberate distinction between immediate precedents and a deeper prophasis. The aitiai of Book 1 (Corcyra, Potidaea, and so on) are matched by the aitiai involving Egesta and Selinus (6.6); so too, the diplomatic speeches in Books 1 and 6 have some striking thematic parallels. Moreover, Thucydides himself seems to compare the two wars when he focuses on their respective “true causes.”