Abstract
Abstract The avowed aim of the Spartans in 431 was to liberate the subjects of Athens (2.8.4; cf. 1.139.2);but, according to Thucydides, their truest motive for making war was the growth of Athenian power and the fear it inspired which forced them to fight (1.23.6), and the Spartans voted for war in 432 ‘not so much persuaded by the speeches of their allies as because they were afraid that the Athenians would acquire greater power, for they saw that the larger part of Greece was already subject to them’ (1.88). Thucydides indeed held that the Spartans were normally reluctant to enter on wars, ‘unless they were forced into them’, a condition that in his view was now fulfilled; they at last resolved to check the Athenians when ‘their power was patently growing and when they were striking at the Spartan confederacy’ (1.118).
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