They were afraid of an outbreak, or even of a mutiny in the army in Sicily, which Alkibiades could have raised with the greatest ease, if he had wished to do so.  Indeed, the soldiers became disheartened when he left them, and looked forward to long delays and periods of dull inaction under Nikias’s command, now that he who used to spur matters on was gone.  Lamachus, indeed, was a brave and skilful 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 reinforcements for that city, to destroy the Athenian army in Sicily.  Next, he brought them to declare