Excerpt from Thucydides: Book Vi 1. Athenian Intervention in Sicily. -it is usual to classify the states of antiquity according to the character of their government, and for Greek history down to the Peloponnesian W'ar (431-404) this classification, derived from the teaching of Aristotle, is essential. But during the war the essential dis tinction is not between oligarchy and democracy: it is much more between Ionian and Dorian. What is held to draw states into united action is the natural bond of common origin. In practice the artificial bond of common interest may prove as strong or stronger than the natural bond, and may lead to alliance between aliens or enmity between kinsmen. In order to understand the transactions between the independent states, we have to banish from our minds the elaborate rules that constitute modern Inter national Law. The right of intervention in disputes between independent states is now hemmed round with many restrictions. But in the Greek world the right to intervene on behalf of kinsmen was never called in question 1 and intervention on behalf of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.