The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

36 THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
The ships Agis was collecting for the expedition he had planned,
as well as other Peloponnesian warships, were gathered off the western
side of the Isthmus in the Gulf of Corinth, presumably at the Corinthian
port of Lechaeum. The Spartans sent three envoys to ask that
the entire fleet (there were thirty-nine ships at the time) be hauled
across the Isthmus and sent to Chios at once. Most, if not all, of the
ships belonged to the allies, so a meeting of the Peloponnesian League
was a practical necessity before any action could be taken. 48
Thucydides' account of its deliberations is far from complete, but
he shows clearly enough that the meeting was not a mere formality
and a ratification of orders from Sparta. The assembly at Sparta had
decided simply to accept the proposal of the Chians and Tissaphernes,
and the orders conveyed by the envoys were meant to carry out that
decision, nothing more. What came out of the meeting of the Peloponnesian
League was something different and more complicated, a
compromise plan that clearly revealed the continuing division of opinion
among the Spartans. When the news came to Agis that his own
strategy had been rejected in favor of the Chian project, he must have
been disappointed, but experience had made him more cautious and
politically clever. The decision of the Spartan assembly could not be
overthrown, but the meeting of the Peloponnesian League provided
an opportunity to salvage something of his own policy. Outwardly,
he did not object to the change of strategy, but what came out of that
meeting was a decision not only to send a fleet at once to Chios under
the command of Chalcideus but also to send ships to Lesbos, as Agis
had planned, under the command of Alcamenes, "the same man whom
Agis had in mind. " 49 There can be no doubt that this supplementary
mission was voted because of the influence of the Spartan king.
A third and more surprising mission was added to complicate further
the originally simple plan. After the campaign at Lesbos, still a third
suggests that the Chian pressure and the Spartan response took place immediately at
the beginning of spring, in March, and that reading is accepted by both Steup and
Weil-Romilly. But the other MSS read TOU 8' E'TIV'(L''(VOJJ-EVOU eepou