The lede isn't just buried here, its almost unmentioned. At the end of this war the Athenian empire was no more and Athens was reduced to being a vassal state and didn't recover its prominence until the Greek revolution in the 19th century. Bad judgement, exceptionalism and overreaching driven by demagoguery lead to the end of an empire--not for the last time.
This isn’t an entirely accurate picture. In Hanink’s first book, she demonstrates how the classical Athens that we think of today was largely an invention of Athens in the fourth century BCE.
To oversimplify a bit, although Athens lost its military hegemony at the end of the Peloponnesian War, Athens and Athenianness maintained a powerful cultural influence for centuries.
I think the lede, then, is clear from the first paragraph: classical Athens (synechdochically represented through Thucydides here) is a construct that can be used for diverse ends, and we need to pay careful to attention to who uses it and how.
The article totally misses that he's important to epidemiologists because it's the earliest good description of a plague. He spends several pages on the Plague of Athens in 430BCE:
The Melian dialogue (basically might makes right) is probably the earliest and one of the most realistic descriptions of the rationale used by conquerors to justify their actions [0]. People haven't changed much in the nearly 2500 years since Thucydides' death, it's just been a constant stream of new excuses in the form of race, religion, and nationalism. That, in a period of history that we believe to be significantly less advanced than our own, he laid bare an essential truth is a credit to him. He deserves a place on the bookshelves of all, right beside Machiavelli's "The Prince".
The words there are perhaps the most chilling ever penned - "since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
Incidentally, the Venus of Milo statue was found in the island a couple of centuries ago. It used to be a major Louvre museum attraction.
Haven't read Thucydides yet, but some of the reasons listed for reading him, seems to fit as well to Plutarch also. I think there may be more variety in Plutarch though, because he wrote about a more wider variety of people and things.
There's a world of difference. Plutarch is - as an old friend of mine once said - "an old club bore telling rambling anecdotes about famous men". Thucydides work is incisive and focused.
1
In the book Fourth of the Peloponnese Wars
Thucydides tells the story of his unsuccessful expedition
Among the long talk of the chiefs,
Battles, sieges and plagues,
dense network of intrigues,
diplomatic procedures
This episode is like a pin
in the forest
Athenian colony Amfipolis
fell into the hands of Brazydas
Because Thucydides had been late for the rescue
He paid to his hometown
with a lifelong exile
Exiles of all times
Know what price it is
2
Generals of recent wars
if there is a similar affair
whine on the knees before posterity
Praise their heroism
and innocence
accuse subordinates
envious colleagues
Unfriendly winds
Thucydides says only
he had seven ships
it was winter
and he sailed swiftly
Czesław Miłosz [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz