[2] The events are developed in details by Thucydides in a famous passage of his History of the Peloponnesian War, where he invented a series of speeches summarising the position of each protagonist.
Thucydides wrote a long speech for Archidamus, implicitly compared to Pericles for his statesman's qualities, but makes Sthenelaidas pronounce a few laconic sentences insisting on the need for Sparta to rapidly support its allies against Athens.
The motion is likely authentic as Athenian ambassadors present in Sparta this day reported it to their city, from where Thucydides learnt about it, but it contradicts Sthenelaidas' invented speech, which called for immediate intervention.
[11] Badian adds that the motion did not make war inevitable, as several Spartan embassies to Athens are recorded the following year.
[12] Sthenelaidas is the first known Spartan outside the royal families to play a decisive role in shaping Sparta's foreign policy since Hetoimaridas, geronte in 475, and Chilon, ephor c. 556 BC.