How Did The Peloponnesian War Be Unbiased

Thucydides is the author of Peloponnesian War. The Peloponnesian War was a direct and indirect conflict between Sparta and Athens that lasted from 460-404 BCE. Thucydides fought for Athens during the Peloponnesian War and was later exiled by Athens. Thucydides was writing about something that he participated in and the Peloponnesian War became the first contemporary history. Thucydides also made use of eyewitness reports from people who were participants in the war. The Peloponnesian War in unbiased in the way that it doesn’t favor one side being right and the other side being wrong. It does; however, tell the war from strictly the Athenian point of view. The result of this is that Peloponnesian War is usually regarded as relatively accurate and unbiased. It would seem that an Athenian would want to present a pro-Athenian history, but this isn’t really the case. Maybe being exiled helped Thucydides to be unbiased, or maybe he really cared about preserving an accurate historical record of the Peloponnesian War.

Histories can be tricky sources to evaluate. They can be slanted to one side which can make it hard for historians to figure out what really happened. Having said that histories are still among the most reliable sources. I would say that this is even more so with Thucydides’ work. The audience aspect is multi-faceted. On one hand, Thucydides is an Athenian and was probably intending to write for an Athenian audience. On the other hand, Thucydides also had the goal of this history surviving through the ages. A goal that was achieved as it is the only surviving account of the events in the Peloponnesian War. I think that this caused him to make a more unbiased summary of events that happened. I think if he could have he may have tried to get some eyewitness reports from the Spartan side of