Demonstrates the Athenian statesman’s commitment to popular (democratic) governance in the face of monarchical and (uber)aristocratic tradition as well as the Peloponnesian War’s tribulations. As summarized by Thucydides, his leadership aspired ‘to know what must be done and to be able to explain it, to love one’s country, and to be incorruptible’. His successes are portrayed against the backdrop of the Athenian empire and regional conflagration, which broke both the city’s power and its experiment with representative government. As so often with Kagan, the bygone era’s realities are comprehensible to the modern reader.