book. His sardonic sense of humor is evident throughout, as when, during his description of the Athenian plague, he remarks that old Athenians seemed to remember a rhyme which said that with the Dorian War would come a "great death". Some claimed that the rhyme originally mentioned a [death by] "famine" or "starvation" (, ) and was remembered only later as [death by] "pestilence" (, ) due to the current plague. Thucydides then remarks that should another Dorian War come, this time attended with a great famine (λιμός), the rhyme will be remembered as "famine", and any mention of "plague" (λοιμός) forgotten. Thucydides admired Pericles, approving of his power over the people and showing a marked distaste for the demagogues who followed him. He did not approve of the democratic commoners nor of the radical democracy that Pericles ushered in, but considered democracy acceptable when guided by a good leader. Thucydides' presentation of events is generally even-handed; for example, he does not minimize the negative effect of his own failure at Amphipolis. Occasionally, however, strong passions break through, as in his scathing appraisals of the democratic leaders Cleon and Hyperbolus. Sometimes, Cleon has been connected with Thucydides' exile. It has been argued that Thucydides was moved by the suffering inherent in war and concerned about the excesses to which human nature is prone in such circumstances, as in his analysis of the atrocities committed during the civil conflict on Corcyra, which includes the phrase "war is a violent teacher" (). The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides believed that the Peloponnesian War represented an event of unmatched importance. As such, he began to write the History at the onset of the war in 431 BC. He declared his intention was to write an account which would serve as "a possession for all time". The History breaks off near the end of the twenty-first year of the war (411 BC), in the wake of the Athenian defeat at Syracuse, and so does not elaborate on the final seven years of the conflict. The History of the Peloponnesian War continued to be modified well beyond the end of the war in 404 BC, as exemplified by a reference at Book I.1.13 to the conclusion of the war. After his death, Thucydides's History was subdivided into eight books: its modern title is the History of the Peloponnesian War. This subdivision was most likely