his arguments was that the Athenians chose
to join him in the command of it with Alkibiades, much against his will,
for he was elderly, and out of health, and, of all men in Athens, he most
disliked and distrusted Alkibiades.

Just as the fleet for Sicily was nearly ready, all the busts of Mercury
which stood as mile-stones on the roads in Attica were found broken and
defaced; and the enemies of Alkibiades declared that it was done in one
of his drunken frolics. Such a thing, done to the figure of a god was
not mere mischief, but sacrilege, and there was to be a great inquiry
into it. Alkibiades wanted much to have the trial over before he sailed,
that he might clear himself of the suspicion; and, indeed, it seems
certain that whatever follies he might commit when he had nothing to do,
he had then far too much to think of to be likely to bring himself into
trouble by such a wanton outrage. But the Athenians chose to put off the
inquiry till he was gone, and the fleet set sail--the largest that had
ever gone from the Piraeus--with sound of trumpet, libations poured into
the sea from gold and silver bowls, songs and solemn prayers, as the 100
war galleys rowed out of the harbour in one long column. At Corcyra the
fleet halted to meet their allies, who raised the number of ships to 154,
containing 5000 heavily-armed men, with whom they made sail for Rhegium,
the Italian foreland nearest to Sicily, whence they sent to make
inquiries. They found more of the Greek cities were against them than
they had expected, and their friends were weaker. Nikias wanted merely
to sail round the island, and show the power of Athens, and then go home
again. Lamachus, another general, wanted to make a bold attack on
Syracuse at once; and Alkibiades had a middle plan, namely, to try to
gain the lesser towns by force or friendship, and to stir up the native
Sicels to revolt. This plan was accepted, and was going on well--for
Alkibiades could always talk anyone over, especially strangers, to whom
his gracefulness and brilliancy were new--when orders came from Athens
that he and his friends were to be at once sent home from the army, to
answer for the mischief done to the busts, and for many other crimes of
sacrilege, which were supposed to be part of a deep plot for upsetting
the laws of Solon, and making himself the tyrant of Athens.

This was, of course, the work of his enemies, and the very thing he had
feared. His friends wrote to