we could imagine the excitement of a Spanish or Italian town, on finding that all the images of the Virgin had been defaced during the same night, we should have a parallel, though a very inadequate parallel, to what was now felt at Athenswhere religious associations and persons were far more intimately allied with all civil acts and with all the proceedings of every-day life-where, too, the god and his efficiency were more forcibly localised, as well as identified with the presence and keeping of the statue. To the Athenians, when they went forth on the following morning, each man seeing the divine guardian at his doorway dishonoured and defaced, and each man gradually coming to know that the devastation was general,it would seem that the town had become as it were godless-that the streets, the market-place, the porticos, were robbed of their divine protectors; and what was worse still, that these protectors, having been grossly insulted, carried away with them alienated sentiments,-wrathful and vindictive instead of tutelary and sympathising. It was on the protection of the gods that all their political constitution as well as the blessings of civil life depended; insomuch that the curses of the gods were habitually invoked as sanction and punishment for grave offences, political as well as others': an extension and generalization of the feeling still attached to the judicial oath. This was, in the minds of the people of Athens, a sincere and literal

1 Thucyd. viii. 97; Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 871 b, 881 d. ý roû vóμov apa, &c. Demosthen. Fals. Legat. p. 363. c. 24. p. 404. c. 60: Plutarch, Solon, c. 24.

conviction, not simply a form of speech to be pronounced in prayers and public harangues, without being ever construed as a reality in calculating consequences and determining practical measures. Accordingly they drew from the mutilation of the Hermæ the inference, not less natural than terrifying, that heavy public misfortune was impending over the city, and that the political constitution to which they were attached was in imminent danger of being subverted'.

Such was the mysterious incident which broke in upon the eager and bustling movement of Athens, a few days before the Sicilian expedition was in condition for starting. In reference to that expedition, it was taken to heart as a most depressing omen2. It would doubtless have been so interpreted, had it been a mere undesigned accident happening to

1 Dr. Thirlwall observes in reference to the feeling at Athens after the mutilation of the Hermæ

"We indeed see so little connection between acts of daring impiety and designs against the state, that we can hardly understand how they could have been associated together, as they were in the minds of the Athenians. But perhaps the difficulty may not without reason have appeared much less to the contemporaries of Alcibiadês, who were rather disposed by their views of religion to regard them as inseparable." (Hist. Gr. ch. xxv. vol. iii. p. 394.)

This remark, like so many others in Dr. Thirlwall's history, indicates a tone of liberality forming a striking contrast with Wachsmuth; and rare indeed among the learned men who have undertaken to depict the democracy of Athens. It might however have been stated far more strongly, for an Athenian citizen would have had quite as much difficulty in comprehending our disjunction of the two ideas, as we have in comprehending his association of the two.

2 Thucyd. vi. 27. Καὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα μειζόνως ἐλάμβανον· τοῦ τε γὰρ ἐκπλοῦ οἰωνὸς ἐδόκει εἶναι, καὶ ἐπὶ ξυνωμοσίᾳ ἅμα νεωτέρων πραγμάτων καὶ δήμου καταλύσεως γεγενῆσθαι.

Cornelius Nepos, Alcibiad. c. 3. "Hoc quum appareret non sine magnâ multorum consensione esse factum," &c.

of the act

but it was

sign and

any venerated religious object,—just as we are told The authors that similar misgivings were occasioned by the oc- unknowncurrence, about this same time, of the melancholy certainly festival of the Adonia, wherein the women loudly done by debewailed the untimely death of Adonis'. The mu- conspiracy. tilation of the Hermæ, however, was something much more ominous than the worst accident. It proclaimed itself as the deliberate act of organised conspirators, not inconsiderable in number, whose names and final purpose were indeed unknown, but who had begun by committing sacrilege of a character flagrant and unheard of. For intentional mutilation of a public and sacred statue, where the material afforded no temptation to plunder, is a case to which we know no parallel: much more, mutilation by wholesale-spread by one band and in one night throughout an entire city. Though neither the parties concerned, nor their purposes, were ever more than partially made out, the concert and conspiracy itself is unquestionable.

It seems probable, as far as we can form an opinion, that the conspirators had two objects, perhaps some of them one and some the other :to ruin Alkibiadês-to frustrate or delay the expedition. How they pursued the former purpose, will be presently seen towards the latter, nothing was ostensibly done, but the position of Teukrus and other metics implicated, renders it more likely that they were influenced by sympathies with Corinth and Megara, prompting them to intercept an

1 Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 18; Pherekratês, Fr. Inc. 84, ed. Meineke ; Fragment. Comic. Græc. vol. ii. p. 358, also p. 1164; Aristoph. Frag. Inc. 120.

* Plutarch, Alkib. c. 18; Pseudo-Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator. p. 834,

Various

parties

suspected

-great

probability

beforehand that it

expedition which was supposed to promise great triumphs to Athens-rather than corrupted by the violent antipathies of intestine politics. Indeed the two objects were intimately connected with each other; for the prosecution of the enterprise, while full of prospective conquest to Athens, was yet or postpone more pregnant with future power and wealth to the expedi- Alkibiadês himself. Such chances would disappear

would induce the Athenians

to abandon

tion.

if the expedition could be prevented; nor was it at all impossible that the Athenians, under the intense impression of religious terror consequent on the mutilation of the Hermæ, might throw up the scheme altogether. Especially Nikias, exquisitely sensitive in his own religious conscience, and never hearty in his wish for going, (a fact perfectly known to the enemy') would hasten to consult his prophets, and might reasonably be expected to renew his opposition on the fresh ground offered to him, or at least to claim delay until the offended gods should have been appeased. We may judge how much such a proceeding was in the line of his character and of the Athenian character, when we find him, who professes to quote from Kratippus, an author nearly contemporary, The Pseudo-Plutarch however asserts-what cannot be true-that the Corinthians employed Leontine and Egestæan agents to destroy the Hermæ. The Leontines and Egestaans were exactly the parties who had greatest interest in getting the Sicilian expedition to start: they are the last persons whom the Corinthians would have chosen as instruments. The fact is, that no foreigners could well have done the deed: it required great familiarity with all the buildings, highways, and byways of Athens.

The Athenian Philochorus (writing about the date 310-280 B.C.) ascribed the mutilation of the Hermæ to the Corinthians; if we may believe the scholiast on Aristophanês-who however is not very careful, since he tells us that Thucydides ascribed that act to Alkibiadês and his friends; which is not true (Philochor. Fragm. 110, ed. Didot; Schol. Aristoph. Lysistr. 1094). Thucyd, vi. 34.

1

two years afterwards, with the full concurrence of his soldiers, actually sacrificing the last opportunity of safe retreat for the half-ruined Athenian army in Sicily, and refusing even to allow the proposition to be debated, in consequence of an eclipse of the moon; and when we reflect that Spartans and other Greeks frequently renounced public designs if an earthquake happened before the execution'.

But though the chance of setting aside the expedition altogether might reasonably enter into the plans of the conspirators, as a likely consequence of the intense shock inflicted on the religious mind of Athens, and especially of Nikias--this calculation was not realised. Probably matters had already proceeded too far even for Nikias to recede. Notice had been sent round to all the allies; forces were already on their way to the rendezvous at Korkyra; the Argeian and Mantineian allies were arriving at Peiræus to embark. So much the more eagerly did the conspirators proceed in that which I have stated as the other part of their probable plan; to work that exaggerated religious terror, which they had themselves artificially brought about, for the ruin of Alkibiades.

The politi

cal enemies

of Alkibia

dês take ad

the reign

Few men in Athens either had, or deserved to have, a greater number of enemies, political as well as private, than Alkibiadês; many of them being vantage of among the highest citizens, whom he offended by ing excitehis insolence, and whose liturgies and other cus- ment to try tomary exhibitions he outshone by his reckless ex- him. penditure. His importance had been already so much increased, and threatened to be so much 1 See Thucyd. v. 45; v. 50; viii. 5. Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 7, 4.

and ruin