But we get ahead of ourselves because this post is about the events leading up to the Peloponnesean War and not its results. So we ask ourselves what it was that lead to this debacle? Was the war preventable? It seems not, because it was one of those times in history where men put themselves on a path to destruction seemingly without logic - when ego or fear puts emotion above reason.
According to Thucydides, the Peloponnesean War was inevitable because Sparta could never trust a strong Athens. Sparta saw Athenian policy as provocative, and couldn’t get past their own paranoia.