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The traditional position of Sparta made the Greeks (especially the Peloponnesians who formed the kernel of the league, though only furnishing 113 ships) willing to accept her leadership, when they would follow no other state. That Athens made some claim to naval leadership and withdrew in face of the opposition of the allies, is highly probable. Yet the assumption that it was natural that Athens should lead at sea and Sparta on land (vii. 157 n., 161 n.) belongs to the years after 478 B. C. The magnanimity of Athens in yielding up the command is lauded by Isocrates (Paneg. 72), Lycurgus (in Leoc. 70), Aristides (Panath. i. 217, Dind.); it is ascribed to the wise advice of Themistocles (Plut. Them. 7). The claims of Athens were asserted later by her orators, especially in the funeral orations in the Ceramicus, of which we have echoes in vii. 161; ix. 27 (Meyer, Forsch. ii. 219 f.). But at the time it must have been clear that to divide the command would be dangerous from a military point of view.

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