44 MEETING OF ALLIES AT SPARTA [l the Athenian guard-ships. He did not leave the country, but assisted the Chalcidians in carrying on the war. He succeeded in cutting off a large force of Serm34ians by an ambuscade which he laid near their city ; he also exerted himself to obtain aid from Peloponnesus, Phormio with his sixteen hundred hoplites, now that Potidaea was invested, ravaged Chalcidice and Bottice, and captured several places. 66 Such were the causes of ill-feeling which at this time existed between the Athenians and Peloponnesians : the Corinthians complaining that the Athenians were block- ading their colony of Potidaea, and a Corinthian and Peloponnesian garrison in it; the Athenians rejoining that a member of the Peloponnesian confederacy had excited to revolt a state which was an ally and tributary of theirs, and that they had now openly joined the Potidaeans, and were fighting on their side. The Peloponnesian war, however, had not yet broken out ; the peace still con- tinued ; for thus far the Corinthians had acted alone. 67 But now, seeing Potidaea besieged, they bestirred them- Excitement of the selves in earnest. Corinthian troops Connlhians. Assembly ^^^^^ gj^^^^ ^j^j^j^ ^j^^ ^^^H ^^^ at Sparta. Grtevances . , ^ , . of the Aeginetans and tliej were afraid of losing the town ; Megarians. so without delay they invited the allies to meet at Sparta. There they inveighed against the Athenians, whom they affirmed to have broken the treaty and to be wronging the Peloponnese. The Aeginetans did not venture to send envoys openly, but secretly the}' acted with the Corinthians, and were among the chief instigators of the war, declaring that they had been robbed of the independence which the treaty guaranteed them. The Lacedaemonians themselves then ^proceeded to summon any of the allies who had similar charges^ " Or, adopting the inferior reading tou' ^vni^ay^cov re kuI d ti? : ' pro- ceeded to summon any of tlieir own allies, and any one else, who had similar charges,' etc.
