In this opener of the Peloponnesian War, Athens is the drama king. Sparta the gym bro. Two city-states with the personalities of a toxic divorced couple, dragging the entire Greek world into a decades-long bar fight with spears.

In this opening episode of Time Machine Diaries: The Peloponnesian War, Cullen takes you into the aftermath of the Persian Wars, the birth of the Delian League (aka Athens’ protection racket), and the petty beefs — like the infamous Megarian Decree — that pushed Greece into the war that nobody won. Expect hubris, sanctions, starvation, and a whole lot of historical déjà vu, because the playbook they wrote in 431 BCE still runs today.

Source List

• Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Translated by Richard Crawley. Audible edition.

• Donald Kagan. The Peloponnesian War. Penguin Books, 2003. Audiobook available.

• Victor Davis Hanson. A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. Random House, 2005. Audiobook available.

• The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization. PBS, 2000.

• Athens: The Dawn of Democracy. PBS/NOVA, 2008.

• The Spartans. BBC Documentary Series, 2002.

• Hornblower, Simon. A Commentary on Thucydides. Oxford University Press, 1991.

• Rhodes, P. J. “The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 106, 1986, pp. 103–124.