History of the Peloponnesian War

This they that most envied Alcibiades, because he stood in the way that they could not constantly bear chief sway with the people, making account to have the primacy if they could thrust him out, took hold of and exceedingly aggravated, exclaiming that both the mockery of the mysteries and the paring of the Mercuries tended to the deposing of the people, and that nothing therein was done without him, alleging for argument his other excess in the ordinary course of his life, not convenient in a popular estate.

He at that present made his apology and was there ready, if he had done any such thing, to answer it before he went the voyage (for by this time all their preparation was in readiness) and to suffer justice if he were guilty and if absolved to resume his charge,