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Many modern scholars simply omit this story, presumably for the same reasons that Busolt denies its historicity (GG, III: 1, 71, n. 1). For him, “Die ganze Beratung ist augenscheinlich nur ein Erzeugnis der Phantasie des Ephoros.” Grote (A History of Greece [4th ed.; London, 1872] IV, 348, n. 1) accepts the conference and considers the role played by an influential Spartan named Hetoemaridas “probable enough” but like Busolt, he considers the speech merely an Isocratean commonplace invented by Ephorus. With what I hope is the higher naiveté of this century, I believe in the conference, the decisive presence of Hetoemaridas, the general tenor of his remarks, and even in the accurate recollection of his words by the Spartan source of Ephorus. There is no doubt that Ephorus knew many true things that neither Herodotus nor Thucydides reports. In this period, which falls outside the main interest of both historians, the argument from silence is worthless. It is bad method to ignore the report of an ancient author that is not contradicted by another source, internally impossible, or self-contradictory. Thus, there is no reason to doubt the conference. It is impossible to imagine why Ephorus or his source should invent Hetoemaridas and attribute a leading role to him, for we know nothing else about him. So we should not doubt him or his important intervention in the discussion.
A. Andrewes (ASI, 4–5) accepts the historicity of the meeting and the role of Hetoemaridas without question. The speeches, of course, like all speeches reported by ancient historians, are more suspicious and probably are not completely accurate reports of what the speakers said. Nonetheless, in this case I think Ephorus is reporting the general idea of the discussion correctly and even passes on some of the more striking phrases used by the speakers. The young men of the war party urged in favor of their unwillingness to give up rule of the sea an ancient oracle in which the god had warned them against a “lame” hegemony (μὴ χωλὴν έχωσι τὴν ἡγεμονίαν). To abandon one of the two foundations of their leadership, they argued, would leave Sparta lame indeed. I believe this rare burst of eloquence became famous among the Spartans and was often repeated. Little more than a decade later, Cimon, the greatest philolaconian in Athens, who had named one of his sons Lacedaemonius, who admired Sparta and its way of life, and who had very close relations with Sparta, was called upon to argue in behalf of sending an Athenian expedition to help Sparta. He responded with unaccustomed eloquence, exhorting the Athenians “not to leave Hellas lame nor see their city deprived of its yokefellow” (μὴ γὴν ’Eλλάδα χωλὴν μὴτε τὴν πόλιν ἑτερόζνγα περμδεīν έγεγενημνην) (Plut. Cim. 16. 8). It appears that he put to good use in a different context a metaphor that he had heard from his Spartan friends. For an excellent discussion of the value of Ephorus-Diodorus as a source, see Mary Morse Fuqua, A Study of Character Portrayal in the History of Thucydides, unpublished doctoral dissertation Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1965, 10–18.