ublic and
sacred statue, where the material afforded no temptation to plunder,
is a case to which we know no parallel: much more, mutilation by
wholesale--spread by one band and in one night throughout an entire
city. Tho neither the parties concerned, nor their purposes, were ever
more than partially made out, the concert and conspiracy itself is
unquestionable.

It seems probable, as far as we can form an opinion, that the
conspirators had two objects, perhaps some of them one and some the
other:--to ruin Alcibiades[42]--to frustrate or delay the expedition.
How they pursued the former purpose, will be presently seen: toward
the latter, nothing was ostensibly done, but the position of Teukrus
and other metics implicated renders it more likely that they were
influenced by sympathies with Corinth and Megara, prompting them to
intercept an expedition which was supposed to promise great triumphs
to Athens--rather than corrupted by the violent antipathies of
intestine politics. Indeed the two objects were intimately connected
with each other; for the prosecution of the enterprise, while full of
prospective conquest to Athens, was yet more pregnant with future
power and wealth to Alcibiades himself. Such chances would disappear
if the expedition could be prevented; nor was it at all impossible
that the Athenians, under the intense impression of religious terror
consequent on the mutilation of the Hermae, might throw up the scheme
altogether. Especially Nicias, exquisitely sensitive in his own
religious conscience, and never hearty in his wish for going (a fact
perfectly known to the enemy), would hasten to consult his prophets,
and might reasonably be expected to renew his opposition on the fresh
ground offered to him, or at least to claim delay until the offended
gods should have been appeased. We may judge how much such a
proceeding was in the line of his character and of the Athenian
character, when we find him, two years afterward, with the full
concurrence of his soldiers, actually sacrificing the last opportunity
of safe retreat for the half-ruined Athenian army in Sicily, and
refusing even to allow the proposition to be debated, in consequence
of an eclipse of the moon; and when we reflect that Greeks frequently
renounced public designs if an earthquake happened before the
execution.

But tho the chance of setting aside the expedition altogether might
reasonably enter into the plans of the conspirators, as a likel