to be
sent by sea. All the customary sacrifices, dances, and other rites which
used to be practised on the road, when Iacchus is carried along in
solemn procession, were of necessity omitted. It seemed therefore to
Alkibiades that it would both honour the gods and increase his own
reputation among men, if he restored the ancient form of this ceremony,
escorting the procession with his troops and protecting it from the
enemy; for he argued that Agis would lose prestige if he did not attack,
but allowed the procession to pass unmolested, whereas if he did attack,
Alkibiades would be able to fight in a holy cause, in defence of the
most sacred institutions of his country, with all his countrymen present
as witnesses of his own valour. When he determined to do this, after
concerting measures with the Eumolpidae and Kerykes, he placed vedettes
on the mountains and sent an advanced guard off at day-break, following
with the priests, novices, and initiators marching in the midst of his
army, in great good order and perfect silence. It was an august and
solemn procession, and all who did not envy him said that he had
performed the office of a high priest in addition of that of a general.
The enemy made no attack, and he led his troops safely back to Athens,
full of pride himself, and making his army proud to think itself
invincible while under his command. He had so won the affections of the
poor and the lower orders, that they were strangely desirous of living
under his rule. Many even besought him to put down the malignity of his
personal enemies, sweep away laws, decrees, and other pernicious
nonsense, and carry on the government without fear of a factious
opposition.

XXXV. What his own views about making himself despot of Athens may have
been we cannot tell; but the leading citizens took alarm at this, and
hurried him away as quickly as possible to sea, voting whatever measures
he pleased, and allowing him to choose his own colleagues. He set sail
with his hundred ships, reached Andros, and defeated the inhabitants of
that island, and the Lacedaemonian garrison there. He did not, however,
capture the city, and this afterwards became one of the points urged
against him by his enemies. Indeed, if there ever was a man destroyed by
his reputation, it was Alkibiades. Being supposed to be such a prodigy
of daring and subtlety, his failures were regarded with suspicion, as if
he could have succeeded had he been in earnest; for h