ul soldier, but his
poverty prevented his opinions from carrying their due weight.

XXII. Alkibiades the moment he sailed away lost Messina for the
Athenians. There was a party in that city ready to deliver it up, which
he knew well, and by disclosing their intentions to the Syracusan party
he effectually ruined the plot. At Thurii he landed, and concealed
himself so that he could not be found. When one of his friends said to
him, "Alkibiades, do you not trust your native country?" He answered,
"Yes, in other matters; but when my life is at stake I would not trust
my own mother, for fear that she might mistake a black bean for a white
one." Afterwards hearing that the Athenians had condemned him to death,
he said, "I will show them that I am still alive."

The indictment against him is framed thus:

"Thessalus, the son of Kimon, of the township of Lakia, accuses
Alkibiades, the son of Kleinias, of the township of the Skambonidae, of
sacrilege against the two goddesses, Demeter and Kora, by parodying the
sacred mysteries and giving a representation of them in his own house,
wearing himself such a robe as the Hierophant does when he shows the
holy things, and calling himself the Hierophant, Poulytion, the
Torch-bearer, Theodorus, of the township of Phegaea, the Herald, and
addressing the rest of the company as Mysts and Epopts (Initiates and
Novices), contrary to the rules and ceremonies established by the
Eumolpidae, and Kerykes, and the priests of Eleusis." As he did not
appear, they condemned him, forfeited his goods, and even caused all the
priests and priestesses to curse him publicly. It is said that Theano,
the daughter of Menon, the priestess of the temple of Agraulos, was the
only one who refused to carry out this decree, alleging that it was to
pray and not to curse that she had become a priestess.

XXIII. While these terrible decrees and sentences were being passed
against Alkibiades, he was living at Argos; for as soon as he left
Thurii, he fled to the Peloponnesus, where, terrified at the violence of
his enemies, he determined to abandon his country, and sent to Sparta
demanding a safe asylum, on the strength of a promise that he would do
the Spartans more good than he had in time past done them harm. The
Spartans agreed to his request, and invited him to come. On his arrival,
he at once effected one important matter, by stirring up the dilatory
Spartans to send Gylippus at once to Syracuse with reinforcem