History of the Peloponnesian War

The Lacedaemonians first received the news of the fleet having put out from the Isthmus, Alcamenes having been ordered by the Ephors to send off a horseman when this took place, and immediately resolved to despatch their own five vessels under Chalcideus, and Alcibiades with him. But while they were full of this resolution came the second news of the fleet having taken refuge in Spiraeum; and disheartened at their first step in the Ionian war proving a failure, they laid aside the idea of sending the ships from their own country, and even wished to recall some that had already sailed.