entered in his own name no fewer
than the unheard-of number of seven four-horsed chariots, of which one
gained the first, and another the second prize. Alcibiades was
consequently twice crowned with the olive, and twice proclaimed victor
by the herald.

The growing ambition and success of Alcibiades prompted him to carry
his schemes against Sparta into the very heart of Peloponnesus,
without, however, openly violating the peace.

The Lacedaemonians now found it necessary to act with more vigour; and
accordingly in B.C. 418 they assembled a very large army, under the
command of the Spartan king, Agis. A decisive battle was fought near
Mantinea, in which Agis gained a brilliant victory over the Argives and
their allies. This battle and that of Delium were the two most
important engagements that had yet been fought in the Peloponnesian
war. Although the Athenians had fought on the side of the Argives at
Mantinea, the peace between Sparta and Athens continued to be nominally
observed.

In B.C. 416 the Athenians attacked and conquered Melos, which island
and Thera were the only islands in the AEgean not subject to the
Athenian supremacy. The Melians having rejected all the Athenian
overtures for a voluntary submission, their capital was blockaded by
sea and land, and after a siege of some months surrendered. On the
proposal, as it appears, of Alcibiades, all the adult males were put to
death, the women and children sold into slavery, and the island
colonized afresh by 500 Athenians. This horrible proceeding was the
more indefensible, as the Athenians, having attacked the Melians in
full peace, could not pretend that they were justified by the custom of
war in slaying the prisoners. It was the crowning act of insolence and
cruelty displayed during their empire, which from this period began
rapidly to decline.

The event destined to produce that catastrophe--the intervention of the
Athenians in the affairs of Sicily--was already in progress. A quarrel
had broken out between Egesta and Selinus, both which cities were
seated near the western extremity of Sicily; and Selinus, having
obtained the aid of Syracuse, was pressing very hard upon the
Egestaeans. The latter appealed to the interests of the Athenians
rather than to their sympathies. They represented how great a blow it
would be to Athens if the Dorians became predominant in Sicily, and
joined the Peloponnesian confederacy; and they undertook, if the
Athenia