The Delay of the Spartan Expedition to Chios

10 of the 40 were to sail immediately under their admiral, Melon Kritos. The other 30 would join the following spring, 412 BC. An earthquake rocked Laconia, which frightened the superstitious Spartans into reducing the original 10 down to 5. But even then, the equipping of these 5 vessels moved slowly, so that by the spring, they still had not launched from Laconia. A Peloponnesian League meeting at Corinth in the summer of 412 BC decided that they would adopt the Spartan plan to send Haulkidius to Chios with five Corinthian vessels but also dispatch a second fleet under alchemy to Lesbos as Aegis had desired.