Nicias

For no signs could deter the people from the expedition, were they never so obvious and clear such as, for instance, the mutilation of the Hermae. These statues were all disfigured in a single night except one, called the Hermes of Andocides, a dedication of the Aegeid tribe, standing in front of what was at that time the house of Andocides. Then there was the a affair of the altar of the Twelve Gods. An unknown man leaped upon it all of a sudden, bestrode it, and then mutilated himself with a stone.

At Delphi, moreover, there stood a Palladium, made of gold and set upon a bronze palm tree, a dedication of the city of Athens from the spoils of her valor in the Persian wars. Ravens alighted on this image and pecked it for many days together; they also bit off the fruit of the palm-tree, which was of gold, and cast it to the ground.

The Athenians, it is true, said that this whole story was an invention of the Delphians, at the instigation of the Syracusans; but at any rate when a certain oracle bade them bring the priestess of Athena from Clazomenae, they sent and fetched the woman, and lo! her name was Peace. And this, as it seemed, was the advice which the divinity would give the city at that time, namely, to keep the peace.

It was either because he feared such signs as these, or because, from mere human calculation, he was alarmed about the expedition, that the astrologer Meton, who had been given a certain station of command, pretended to be mad and set his house on fire. Some, however, tell the story in this way: Meton made no pretence of madness, but burned his house down in the night, and then came forward publicly in great dejection and begged his fellow citizens, in view of the great calamity which had befallen him, to release from the expedition his son, who was about to sail for Sicily in command of a trireme.