Thucydides' work reflects the highly turbulent atmosphere of the times and it presents the war to others as a case study in human interactions and reactions during the great challenge to Athenian rule. The greatest legacies of Thucydides are arguably his bold invention of a new prose language, his sharp focus on the human psyche, and his pressing determination to bring to light the truth behind the hypocrisy or the muddled reasoning of words and deeds that eroded Greek states from within. Belief in divine manipulation or fate is replaced by a clear concept of human nature as the grand motivator in history. Eternal glory is implied in Thucydides’ admiration of the power of Pericles’ Athens, but a more ordinary and lasting shame is described in the self‐serving impulses of those in civil strife at Corcyra and in Athens after the Sicilian disaster.