Thucydides offered a political language that is not necessarily available in our lexicons of politics.Often his history is characterized as a realist or strictly empirical description of the Peloponnesian War.Yet it also provides a tragic account of the wages of hubris.This essay advances that reading, contending that Thucydides enhanced his telling of the tragedy by attending to moods of the Athenian polis.Political moods are the changeable temper of a polity: a vital factor to be harnessed or counteracted by political leaders.The collective moods of citizens in the Athenian assembly loom large in Thucydides' tale of the war.Moods, notably hubris and demoralization, also grip Athenian leaders of the war effort.