The Corinthians did not rest. In the late summer or early autumn of 432 they called members of the Peloponnesian league to a meeting in Sparta to denounce Athens ‘for breaking the treaty and wronging the Peloponnesians’ (1.67.1). The Spartans, keen no doubt to assert their authority over any such gathering, quickly convened an assembly and invited the allies who believed themselves to have been wronged by Athens to attend and explain their grievances. Thucydides does not suggest that any Spartan spoke. Among those who did, he mentions ‘especially’ Megarians voicing their resentment at being excluded from ports in Athens’ dominion and markets in the city itself. The Corinthians allowed the Megarians and others to ‘work the Spartans up’ and shrewdly spoke last (1.67.5). When they had, an Athenian delegation which ‘happened to be already present in Sparta on other business…thought it advisable to come before the Spartans…to point out just how powerful their city was’ and explain the Athenian position (1.72.1). The Spartans then dismissed all the visitors, talked to each other in a closed assembly, came to a view, invited their allies back to hear it and announced that there would be a full and formal meeting of the league at which the members could decide what action, if any, to take. It is clear from what Thucydides writes that it was the cumulative effect of what they heard on these occasions and the response of the Athenians, not any other kind of ‘thing done’, that gave the Spartans what was to them a ‘true reason’ to act. And it was the speed of the subsequent exchanges that caused them to do so when they did.