I believe, then, that Thucydides wr

I believe, then, that Thucydides wrotes imultaneously about the particular grievances and the truest reason, in order to show that the truest reason was the truest and counted for more than the grievances; that in writing about the grievances he stressed the unconcealable episodes in which Athens had nothing to hide; that Corinthis prominent in the narrative partly because she did take the lead in making representations to Sparta but partly also because she happened to be involved in the episodes which Thucydides wished to stress; and that Thucydides can reasonably have believed that although Sparta responded to pressure she responded not merely because of the pressure but because she was ready to respond. It remains to ask whether that is all that there is to be said, whether Thucydides' account is the final account which he wished it to be or we can improve on it.I have already stressed that Thucydides was an Athenian, explaining why the Peloponnesians made war on Athens. Strictly, as I have said, it is correct that it was the Peloponnesians who made war on Athens: the Peloponnesians voted that Athens was in breach of the thirty years' peace and declared war on her. However, they did this in circumstances where Athens was better prepared for a major war(cf. Archidamus in 80-1, Periclesin 141.ii-143.ii) and could claim to be technically in the right (because she did not admit to any breach of the treaty, and offered to go to arbitration:78.iv,85.ii, 140.ii,144.ii; cf. VII.18.ii-iii); and I am among those who believe that Athens deliberately provoked an outbreak of war in circumstances which favoured her.