The Best Translation of History of the Peloponnesian War
History of the Peloponnesian War was written in Ancient Greek. 2 recommended editions, ranked — with Gröblé’s verdict on which to read first.
Robert B. Strassler (editor), Richard Crawley (translator)
Free Press · 1996
The Landmark Thucydides. Strassler's maps, headers, and appendices turn a famously hard book into something you can actually navigate, and Crawley's 19th-century prose still reads as well as any translation on offer.
Every recommended edition, compared
Warner reads Thucydides like literature, which he is. Less apparatus than the Landmark but a tauter English prose, plus M.I. Finley's introduction, which is one of the better short essays on what Thucydides was actually doing.
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Reading History of the Peloponnesian War in translation
History of the Peloponnesian War was written in Ancient Greek, so unless you read Ancient Greek, the translator decides the book you actually experience — its register, its pace, how it sounds read aloud. Two editions of the same work can feel like different books.
The ranking above is Gröblé’s: one reader’s verdict on which English gets you closest, not a publisher’s blurb. Start with the top pick; reach for the others when you want a different angle on the original.