By the age with which Thucydides is concerned: the age of Pericles, Cleon, and Alcibiades, Athenians may still have reviewed Tellus’ worldview with rose-colored glasses, but despite this lived in conditions that had changed that world in fundamental ways. As the executive midpoint of an Aegean empire and a trading system spanning the Mediterranean, Athens had become more prosperous and powerful than even Solon’s wildest dreams. Tellus’ final combat was a border clash with Eleusis, who lived in the next valley over from the Athenian plain. Contrarily, in the new age of empire, war was not limited to land battles with neighbors: Wars were fought in many places, by naval forces in close relationship with land armies, and according to complex strategic
