There is little interest in establishing fact. There is almost no connection with the original occasion for the digression, that is, the curses. In particular the Themistocles episode is totally unrelated to this occasion, which is really not an occasion but an excuse. All of Thucydides' attention is devoted to providing historical analogy. The reader is furnished with two typoi, a powerful but inept and misguided Spartan, a brilliant and able Athenian. The narratives are artificially manipulated to furnish point-by-point comparison and contrast.