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evidence of all sorts of confidence in human capacities
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and the hope of what will be in the future.
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All of that, I think, suffered a considerable reversal
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because of the Peloponnesian War,
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and began a darker time.
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It was a war of unprecedented brutality in Greek life,
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violating even the already rugged code
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that had previously governed Greek fighting
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and breaking through that thin veneer
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that separates civilization from savagery.
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It is actually to Thucydides that
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that way of thinking about things is old.