The Spartans knew that when they crossed the borders of Athens,

that nothing would happen to them.

And so when they went in ravaged the countryside for 40 days,

they didn't do a lot of damage,

but psychologically, they were essentially saying to Perik,

what are you going to do about it?

You asked, we delivered this is the Victor Davis Hansen episode.

We have heard again and again that you would like to hear

from the great Victor Davis Hansen on this episode.

I thought that was an excellent idea as well,

so I've reached out to Professor Hansen and he is here to talk with us about the Peloponnesian

War, which is the bloodiest conflict in Greek history up to the point that it erupted,

that there had been nothing quite so protracted and violent and brutal in Greek history

before the Peloponnesian War. It effectively ended Athenian dominance in the Aegean

and in the Mediterranean, and it is in many ways kind of the sequel to the episode in which we

talked all about the Persian Wars and Athens worries that it would grow overproud and over

confident and would become beaten down by a power that resisted its attempts to go beyond its

means. We are going to talk all about the outbreak of the war with Professor Hansen.

We're going to ask him about some of the relevance of the developments described by

Thucydides, the historian of the war, to today, especially to relations between the US and China.

We're going to cover all of that, but before we get into it, I am going to just bring us up to speed

because last time we were with the ancient Greeks, we were dealing with their victory,

...