In the year 431 BC Pericles stood before the popular assembly and urged them to make a momentous decision:

'If we go to war, as I think we must, be determined that we are not going to climb down. For it is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glories are to be won.'

The assembly responded by declaring war on Sparta.

Pericles insisted that Athens would win the war by superior planning. To be successful the Athenians must abandon the surrounding land and retreat behind their impenetrable city walls. Supplied by a fleet of ships that could bring provisions from as far afield as Egypt and the Black Sea, they should avoid all land battles with Sparta. Instead their navy would launch surprise attacks from the coast.

The war began slowly and appeared to follow the pattern Pericles had predicted. It was during a commemoration speech for those who had already died that he made one of the most famous speeches of Ancient Greek history, called the Funeral Oration.

Tragically, for all his meticulous planning, not even Pericles could have foreseen the cataclysm that was about to strike the city he so loved...