Instantly upon that, Alcibiades, with a loud voice, as though he
had received and not done the wrong, began to call them dishonest
prevaricators, and to urge that such men could not possibly come
with a purpose to say or do anything that was sincere. The council
was incensed, the people were in a rage, and Nicias, who knew
nothing of the deceit and the imposture, was in the greatest
confusion, equally surprised and ashamed at such a change in the
men. so thus the Lacedaemonian ambassadors were utterly rejected,
and Alcibiades was declared general, who presently united the
Argives, the Eleans, and the people of Mantinea, into a
confederacy with the Athenians.
No man commended the method by which Alcibiades effected all this,
yet it was a great political feat thus to divide and shake almost
all Peloponnesus, and to combine so many men in arms against the
Lacedaemonians in one day before Mantinea; and, moreover, to
remove the war and the danger so far from the frontier of the
Athenians, that even success would profit the enemy but little,
should they be conquerors, whereas, if they were defeated, Sparta
itself was hardly safe.
But with all these words and deeds, and with all this sagacity and
eloquence, he intermingled exorbitant luxury and wantonness in his
eating and drinking and dissolute living; wore long purple robes
like a woman, which dragged after him as he went through the
market-place; caused the planks of his galley to be cut away, that
so he might lie the softer, his bed not being placed on the
boards, but hanging upon girths.
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