Idiot Solvant — Gordon R. Dickson

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, he believed that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without merit. The preparations of both the combatants were in every department in the last state of perfection; and he could see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel. Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes, but of a large part of the world.