Overview

• Grade Level: AP World History, AP European History, general social studies (grades 9-12)

• Time Required: Single class (45 minutes); bell-ringer option (7 minutes) using audio

• Historical Period: The middle phase of the Peloponnesian War, 421 to 415 BC

• Modern Connection: The collapse of Colombia's Total Peace policy and the wave of pre-election violence of late April 2026

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

1. Identify the key terms, signatories, and disputes of the Peace of Nicias and explain why it failed within eighteen months.

1. Analyze how the breathing room afforded by an unenforced peace can transform the strategic calculus of both sides.

1. Evaluate the structural similarities and differences between the Peace of Nicias and the Colombian Total Peace policy of 2022 to 2026.

1. Construct an argument, supported by evidence, about whether peace agreements that do not enforce their own terms are net stabilising or net destabilising.

Before Reading

Anticipation Questions

1. What does it mean to "enforce" a peace treaty? Who enforces a peace between two states, or between a state and an internal armed group?

1. What might a state or an armed group do during a ceasefire, other than refrain from fighting?

1. What do you already know about the Peloponnesian War or about Colombia's recent peace processes? Where would you go to confirm what you think you know?

Key Vocabulary

• Peloponnesian War: the 27-year war (431 to 404 BC) between Athens and its Delian League allies and Sparta and its Peloponnesian League allies.

• Trireme: a fast oared warship with three banks of rowers, the principal warship of the classical Mediterranean.

• Hoplite: a citizen-soldier of an ancient Greek city-state, fighting in heavy bronze armour with a shield and spear.

• FARC: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group that fought the Colombian state from 1964; signed a peace accord in 2016 from which dissident factions later splintered.

• ELN: the National Liberation Army, a Colombian Marxist guerrilla group founded in 1964 that has not signed a comprehensive peace accord with the state.

• Estado Mayor Central (EMC): a faction of FARC dissidents who refused or rejected the 2016 peace accord and continue armed activity.

• Total Peace (paz total): the policy of Colombian president Gustavo Petro since August 2022 to negotiate simultaneously with all of the country's armed groups instead of pursuing military defeat.

During Reading

Guided Questions

1. Who specifically broke the Peace of Nicias? Was it one side, both sides, or third parties (Sparta's allies)?

1. What did Athens do during the period of the Peace of Nicias, and how did it shape the second half of the Peloponnesian War?

1. Who is Iván Cepeda, and what is his relationship to the Total Peace policy?

1. What does the ACLED figure of an 85 per cent increase in combatant numbers tell us about how the Total Peace ceasefires have actually been used?

After Reading

Discussion Questions

1. (Comprehension) What were the principal disputes left unresolved by the Peace of Nicias?

1. (Comprehension) How does the story characterise the difference between the Peace of Nicias and the Total Peace policy?

1. (Analysis) The story argues a peace that does not enforce its own terms is "a clock." Whose clock? What is each side's incentive structure?

1. (Analysis) The story closes with the claim that "the side that uses it better will write the second war." Is that consistent with what happened in Greece between 421 and 404 BC? Defend your answer.

1. (Evaluation, debatable) The Petro government's Total Peace was launched in 2022 with widespread international support. Should the policy continue under a future Colombian president, or is the failure now visible enough that a different approach is warranted? Cite evidence on both sides.

The Parallel

1. Identify three structural parallels between the Peace of Nicias and the Total Peace. Identify three meaningful differences.

1. The story is careful to note that "Colombia in 2026 is not Athens in 421 BC." What might be lost in the comparison? What might be gained?

1. Both Thucydides and modern conflict analysts (ACLED, Crisis Group) describe an unenforced peace as a stage of the war rather than a pause. What evidence does each draw on for that conclusion?

Activities

Bell-Ringer (7 minutes)

Play the first three minutes of the audio narration (through "Sparta used it to consolidate its Peloponnesian alliance"). Students respond in writing to one prompt: "What is the difference between a peace and a pause? How do you tell them apart?" Pair-share for two minutes; cold-call two pairs.

Single Class (45 minutes)

• 0-5 min: Hook. Project a map of the Peloponnese in 421 BC, alongside a map of southwestern Colombia in 2026 with the Cali-Popayán highway marked. Ask students to identify the geographic and political features each map is trying to communicate.

• 5-15 min: Read or listen. Students read the full story silently or listen to the ~7 minute narration. They annotate three claims about Greece they want to verify and three about Colombia.

• 15-25 min: Source check. In pairs, students pick one historical claim and one modern claim from the evidence manifest URLs and confirm them. They report which source they found most credible and why.

• 25-40 min: Structured debate. Two groups argue: "An unenforced peace is better than open war" versus "An unenforced peace is worse than open war because it lets both sides prepare a worse one." Both sides cite at least one piece of evidence from the story and one from outside research.

• 40-45 min: Exit ticket. One paragraph: "If you advised the next Colombian president on whether to keep, abandon, or modify the Total Peace policy, what would you propose, and what historical example (other than the Peace of Nicias) would you cite as the precedent for your advice?"

Extension Activity

Students choose one historical example of an unenforced or partially enforced peace agreement (the Treaty of Versailles 1919, the Munich Agreement 1938, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty 1918, the Twelve Years' Truce 1609, the Korean Armistice 1953, the Camp David Accords 1978, the Oslo Accords 1993, the Dayton Accords 1995) and produce a one-page brief modelled on this Time Rhymes story.

Primary Source Connections

1. Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 5 (5th century BC). Thucydides is the principal contemporary source for the Peace of Nicias and his treatment of the period between 421 and 415 BC as a "suspicious truce" is the original framing the story uses. Available in English translation through Penguin Classics or the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts. Useful for: Thucydides' own argument that the period was not really a peace at all.

1. Plutarch, Lives, "Nicias" and "Alcibiades" (1st century AD). Plutarch's parallel biographies provide the personalities and political manoeuvres around the Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Available through Loeb Classical Library and Perseus Digital Library. Useful for: the human and political dimension of the breakdown.

1. The Final Agreement to End the Armed Conflict and Build a Stable and Lasting Peace (Colombia, 2016). The 297-page peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC, signed in November 2016. Available at the Colombian government's cancilleria.gov.co and at the United Nations Verification Mission's site. Useful for: the legal architecture from which the Total Peace policy departs.

1. ACLED Report, "Total Peace Paradox in Colombia" (2025). The principal data-driven analysis of the Total Peace policy's effects on combatant numbers and territorial control. Available at acleddata.com. Useful for: contemporary, citation-grade evidence on the policy's outcomes.

Standards Alignment

C3 Framework

• Dimension 1 (Developing Questions): Supports a compelling-question arc such as "When is a peace really a peace?" with supporting questions on enforcement, incentives, and political constraint.

• Dimension 2 (Applying Concepts): History (the Peloponnesian War, Colombian conflict), civics (sovereignty, internal armed conflict, electoral politics), economics (the costs of war and the costs of negotiated settlements), geography (Greece and the Andes as theatres of war).

• Dimension 3 (Evaluating Sources): The evidence manifest provides students with explicit source URLs to triangulate every major historical and modern claim.

• Dimension 4 (Communicating Conclusions): The structured debate and exit ticket require students to construct evidence-based arguments and propose policy.

AP Alignment

• AP World History, Unit 1 (The Global Tapestry, c. 1200) and Unit 2 (Networks of Exchange): while the Peace of Nicias falls outside the AP World History period, its dynamics are addressed under the broader theme of state and empire.

• AP European History, Unit 1 (Renaissance and Exploration) and Unit 7 (20th-Century Global Conflicts): the long history of unenforced peace agreements as preludes to renewed war is directly relevant.

• AP US Government and Politics: treaty enforcement, executive war powers, and the politics of negotiated settlements with non-state armed groups.