nly then met with their allies . Further Thucydides dismissed the idea of plague as an object of Divine intervention , yet if this was believed to be the case by the Spartans then it would have been of great encouragement and would have had the opposite effect on the Athenians. He also leaves economic and financial concerns out of his history, yet the build up of Greece contained in the brief pre history of the introduction and the growth of Athenian Power (the "Truest cause" for the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war) are both borne out of economic expansion. His concentrations on inter Greek conflict as the cause of the war excludes the Persia from the picture. There was, in accordance to Thucydides, no conflict or entente with Persia from either side for forty years and then suddenly the Persians and Spartans are in alliance putting the Spartans in a much stronger position to go on and defeat Athens. Thucydides unwillingness to widen his focus forces him to ignore events that had immense consequences within his focus. His style of historical interpretation leads him to suppress the degrees of Megara. "All non-Thucydidean accounts of the outbreak of the war make the negotiations turn solely on the Megarian decrees. Thucydides records none of these decrees and keeps Megarian affairs in the background, suppressing Pericle's connection to them." There is a suggestion here that Thucydides suppresses this factor in the outbreak of the war in order that he doesn't conflict with his approach to the History. Thucydides has chosen to ignore economics, yet a link can be seen between the commercial interests of Athens and Pericilian policy on this occasion, especially the establishment of a free trade route excluding Corinth. The degrees (from other sources we can see there were three) are alluded to in Thucydides:"War could be avoided if Athens would revoke the Megarian degree which excluded Megara from all the ports in the Athenian empire." ...
