Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/253

235 SYKAGUSAN ENVOYS TO SPARTA. 235 While such preparations were going on in Sicily, debates of" portentous promise took place at Sparta. Immediately after the battle near the Olympieion, and the retreat of Nikias into winter quarters, the Syracusans had despatched envoys to Peloponnesus to solicit reinforcements. Here, again, we are compelled to notice the lamentable consequences arising out of the inaction of Nikias. Had he commenced the siege of Syracuse on his first arrival, it may be doubted whether any such envoys would have been sent to Peloponnesus at all ; at any rate, they would not have arrived in time to produce decisive effects. 1 After exerting what influence they could upon the Italian Greeks in their voyage, the Syracusan envoys reached Corinth, where they found the warmest reception and obtained promises of speedy succor. The Corinthians fur- nished envoys of their own to accompany them to Sparta, and to back their request for Lacedemonian aid. They found at the congress at Sparta another advocate upon whom they could not reasonably have counted, Alkibiades. That exile had crossed over from Thurii to the Eleian port of Kyllene in Peloponnesus in a merchant-vessel, 2 and now appeared at 1 Thucyd. vi, 88 ; vii. 42. 2 Plutarch (Alkib. c. 23) says that he went to reside at Argos; but this seems difficult to reconcile with the assertion of Thucydides (vi, Cl) that his friends at Argos had incurred grave suspicions of treason. Cornelius Nepos (Alkib. c. 4) says, with greater probability of truth, that Alkibiades went from Thurii, first to Elis, next to Thebes. IsokratSs (Do Bigis, Orat. xvi, s. 10) says that the Athenians banished him out of all Greece, inscribed his name on a column, and sent envoys to demand his person from the Argcians ; so that Alkibiades was compelled to take refuge with the Lacedaemonians. This whole statement of Isokrates is exceedingly loose and untrustworthy, carrying back the commencement of the conspiracy of the Four Hundred to a time anterior to the banish- ment of Alkibiades. But among all the vague sentences, this allegation that the Athenians banished him out of all Greece stands prominent. They could only banish him from the territory of Athens and her allies. Whether lie wctf.t to Argos, as I have already said, seems to me very doubtful : perhaps Plutarch copied the statement from this passage of Isokrates. But under all circumstances, we are not to believe that Alkibiades turned against his country, or went to Sparta, upon compulsion. The first act of his hostility to Athens, the disappointing her of the acquisition of Messene, was committed before he left Sicily. Moreover, Thucydides represents him as unwilling indeed to go to Sparta, but only unwilling because he was afraid