97.
At first the allies were independent and deliberated in a common assembly under the
leadership1 of Athens. But in the interval between the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars, by their military
success and by policy in dealing with the Barbarian, with their own rebellious allies
and with the Peloponnesians who came across their path from time to time, the Athenians
made immense strides in power.
[2]
I have gone out of my way to speak of this period because the writers who have preceded
me treat either of Hellenic affairs previous to the Persian invasion or of that
invasion itself;
the intervening portion of history has been omitted by all of them,
with the exception of Hellanicus; and he, where he has touched upon it in his Attic
history, is very brief; and inaccurate in his chronology.
The narrative will also serve to explain how the Athenian empire grew up.
1 The interval between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars omitted in most histories.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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