Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/255

 88, 89] ALCIBIADES A T SPARTA 247 as many horse as possible. They further prepared bricks, tools, and whatever else was requisite for siege operations, intending, when the spring arrived, to prosecute the war with vigour. The envoys whom the Syracusans had sent to Corinth and Lacedaemon =' endeavoured on the j,,, Coriuthiaus ore voyage to persuade the Italian Greeks the first who promise that they were equally threatened by «''^ '" "' Syracusan 1 A t • 1 • .1111 envoys. They go ivith the Athenian designs, and should take //,^,„ to Sparta, where an interest in the war. When they they meet Aldbiades, arrived at Corinth they appealed to the '"" "'^ ^"'"^ "'"' „ ., , . f . , , , r under a safe conduct. Corinthians tor aid on the ground 01 relationship. The Corinthians, taking the lead of all the Hellenic states, voted that they would assist Syracuse with all possible energy. They sent with the Syracusan envoys ambassadors of their own to the Lacedaemonians, bearing a joint request that they would resume open hostilities at home, and unite with them in sending help to Sicily. At Lacedaemon the Corinthian ambassadors met Alci- biades and his fellow exiles. He had sailed at once from Thurii in a trading vessel to Cyllene in Elis, and thence proceeded to Lacedaemon on the invitation of the Lace- daemonians themselves, first obtaining a safe-conduct ; for he was afraid of them after his proceedings in the matter of the Mantinean leagued And so it came to pass that the Corinthians, the Syracusans, and Alci- biades appeared simultaneously in the Lacedaemonian assembly, and concurred in urging the same request. The ephors and the magistrates were already intending to send envoys to the Syracusans bidding them make no terms with the Athenians, although they were not dis- posed to assist them actively. But now Alcibiades came forward and stimulated the energies of the Lacedaemon- ians in the following words : — 'I must endeavour first of all to remove a prejudice 89 « Cp. vi, 73. »> Cp. V. 43 ff., 61 ff. VOL. II. s