The Athenian attack on Syracuse was one of the great strategic blunders in history, IMHO.
I wholeheartedly agree. It shows to go ya how easily led into stupidity the Athenians were. After years of suffering from the Spartan siege (they just didn’t dare go beyond their walls), plague, the death of Pericles and his whore by that very plague, and an unexpected tactical victory over the Spartans at Sphacteria, the “Athenian republic” didn’t bother to expand its walled-in territory, didn’t work to win over the goodwill of other cities, didn’t even try to liberate Greek brethren living under Persian rule. Nope, let’s send a huge force a quarter of the length of the Mediterranean to attack a neutral town which had very little going for it.