Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

As we've discussed, these are not subject allies.

They are allies, defensive allies only, and they're not paying tribute.

I think you'll find they're paying contributions.

to the joint defense, which happens to be Athenian organized.

So we're all in compliance with the terms of the King's Peace, which is explicitly in the treaty, in the alliance treaty.

It says, in accordance with the King's Peace, as a defense against Sparta violating it.

So that's very explicit, but the Athenians are forming a new tribute-paying empire, essentially.

which allows them to raise a new fleet and they defeat the Spartans at Naxos and they defeat the Spartans at Alizea.

And that is actually the end of Spartan naval anything.

They just don't do anything on the sea after that.

We have the Battle of Knidos earlier, which is like the major tipping point, but this is like the decisive end of any Spartan ambition to rule the sea.

So it's debated, right?

So the general perspective is that they were because Plutarch tells us, right?

That's the baseline.

But David Lightow has a really interesting argument that came out in 2002 where he specifically tries to deconstruct that a little bit.

The interesting thing is that even in Plutarch's account, the historical record of this unit is completely detached from this reputation it supposedly has as a unit that is composed entirely of pairs of lovers.

He presents this in a very hedgy way.

He keeps saying, you know, legatae, they say, you know, it is said, which is one of the ways in which he's kind of distancing himself from the claim.

He's trying to say like, oh, people tell me that this is true.

I'm not sure.