Alcibiades

When they were convened he said to them: What is the matter with you, men of Sparta? Why are you blind to the fact that the council is always moderate and courteous towards those who have dealings with it, while the people’s assembly is haughty and has great ambitions? If you say to them that you are come with unlimited powers, they will lay their commands and compulsions upon you without any feeling. Come now, put away such simplicity as this, and if you wish to get moderate terms from the Athenians, and to suffer no compulsion at their hands which you cannot yourselves approve, then discuss with them what would be a just settlement of your case, assuring them that you have not full powers to act. I will cooperate with you, out of my regard for the Lacedaemonians.

After this speech he gave them his oath, and so seduced them wholly away from the influence of Nicias. They trusted him implicitly, admired his cleverness and sagacity, and thought him no ordinary man. On the following day the people convened in assembly, and the embassy was introduced to them. On being asked by Alcibiades, in the most courteous tone, with what powers they had come, they replied that they were not come with full and independent powers.

At once, then, Alcibiades assailed them with angry shouts, as though he were the injured party, not they, calling them faithless and fickle men, who were come on no sound errand whatever. The council was indignant, the assembly was enraged, and Nicias was filled with consternation and shame at the men’s change of front. He was unaware of the deceitful trick which had been played upon him.[*](This parliamentary trick of Alcibiades is related also in Plut. Nic. 10.)

After this fiasco on the part of the Lacedaemonians Alcibiades was appointed general, and straightway brought the Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans into alliance with Athens.[*](420 B.C.) The manner of this achievement of his no one approved, but the effect of it was great. It divided and agitated almost all Peloponnesus; it arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea[*](418 B.C.) so many warlike shields upon a single day; it set at farthest remove from Athens the struggle, with all its risks, in which, when the Lacedaemonians conquered, their victory brought them no great advantage, whereas, had they been defeated, the very existence of Sparta would have been at stake.

After this battle of Mantinea, the oligarchs of Argos, The Thousand, set out at once to depose the popular party and make the city subject to themselves; and the Lacedaemonians came and deposed the democracy. But the populace took up arms again and got the upper hand.[*](417 B.C.) Then Alcibiades came and made the people’s victory secure. He also persuaded them to run long walls down to the sea, and so to attach their city completely to the naval dominion of Athens.