His open adversaries, as well as his secret enemies, were frightened by his boldness. They knew his power with the people, who were more than ever devoted to him since the part he had taken in the Sicilian campaign. Those who were ordered out of the Assembly before Andromachos gave his evidence carried the news of the horrible charge into the city. It rang through the town. The Argive and the Mantineian contingents that had come to fight for Athens said it was mainly for their love of Alkibiades they had been induced to come, and if any wrong were done to him they would go back again.
The people vowed vengeance upon his enemies. The excitement rose. Their zeal against the Syrakusans was for a moment turned against Pythonikos and his associates. Pythonikos knew this, and the impossibility of hitting the object of his hatred while he was there in Athens. So he prayed that the further hearing of his charges might be postponed for the present.
No one could say of him that he had not made them in the presence of the accused. ‘Let him go forth,’ he said, with assumed generosity—‘let him go forth and lead the fleet, and when he returns, as we all hope, triumphantly, he shall present himself before the proper judges, and be tried according to the law.’
Alkibiades saw through the scheme.
‘No,’ said he; ‘let me not go on such a long and arduous enterprise with a charge like this hanging over me, filling my thoughts, embittering my days, weakening my arm while I am fighting for you. This, indeed, were too unjust. If guilty, I am not worthy to go; if innocent, ought I to bear so great a punishment?’
His prayer prevailed not. The people would on no account allow the conquest of Sicily to be put off. Without knowing it, they drove their ablest citizen, their strongest bulwark, from them, placed him in the power of unscrupulous assailants, drove him into the arms of their inveterate enemies, and took the first step towards their own destruction.
CHAPTER XII
Γλυκὺ δ’ ἀπείροιοι πόλεμος.—Pindar.
‘Sweet seemeth war to those who know naught of it.’