Thucydides writes what has come to be called ‘the Archidamian war’ in years that start at the beginning of spring and close at the end of the following winter. By the end of the seventh year, in the late winter of 424–423, the Spartans, as he says, were in despair. Some 292 men, 120 Spartiates and 172 perioicoi who had been with them at Pylos were in custody in Athens, and the Spartan fleet had been confiscated. The Athenians by contrast, in ‘their current run of good luck…felt the right to expect that nothing could go wrong for them, but that they could accomplish the possible and the impracticable alike, no matter whether with a large force or a weaker one. The reason for this attitude was the success of most of their undertakings, which defied rational analysis and so added to the strength of their hopes’ (4.65.4, my emphasis). And hope, as Thucydides writes Pericles, Archidamos and Diodotos all to have observed, was dangerous – as dangerous, indeed, as despair. It is not therefore surprising that one notable reading of the text has detected ‘recurring structural elements of event sequences’ of confidence, reversal and remorse and concluded that in Thucydides’ story man in general ‘defines himself as incapable of grasping himself within the limits of his own current situation’.