This is the second volume of a three-volume historical and literary commentary of the eight books of Thucydides, the great fifth-century BC historian of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Books IV-V. 24 cover the years 425-421 BC and contain the Pylos-Spakteria narrative, the Delion Campaign, and Brasidas' operations in the north of Greece. This volume ends with the Peace of Nikias and the alliance between Athens and Sparta.

A valuable feature of this volume is the full thematic introduction which discusses such topics as Thucydides and Herodotus, Thucydides' presentation of Brasidas, Thucydides and kinship, speech - direct and indirect - in IV-V. 24, Thucydides and epigraphy (including personal names), IV-V. 24 as a work of art: innovative or merely incomplete?

Thucydides intended his work to be `an everlasting possession' and the continuing importance of his work is undisputed. Simon Hornblower's commentary, by translating every passage of Greek commented on, for the
first time allows readers with little or no Greek to appreciate the detail of Thucydides' thought and subject-matter. A full index is provided at the end of the volume.