Almost immediately after he left Athens a signal tribute was paid to his military genius and strength. Agis had been watching him from Dekeleia, fuming at the insult of the procession that dared to pass almost beneath his eyes to Eleusis, and challenged him, as it were, to come out and try to stop it. He had remained safely shut up behind his walls as long as the conqueror was there. No sooner was he gone than he made an attack upon the city with 28,000 foot and 12,000 horse. On a dark night he surprised the outposts near the Keramik gate, massacred the guard, and had it not been for the system of vigilance which had lately been established, as far as we can see, the city must have fallen to the Spartan. The alarm was given. Torches beckoned from the Akropolis, and were answered by torches on the other heights. Athens was up in arms. Every citizen ran to the post which had been assigned to him. And thus, though Alkibiades was far away, it was his care and watchfulness which saved the town. In the morning the people discovered Agis and his Lakedaimonians lying close to the walls. The cavalry rode right up to them, calling to the Athenians to come out and fight them. The Keramik gate suddenly opened, and as if still instinct with the life that Alkibiades had breathed into their souls, his horsemen charged the enemy, and drove them off. Next day the Athenian hoplites marched out, and took their stand before the walls. Agis attacked them in vain, and, covered by the archers and peltasts from the walls, the hoplites did some execution on the invading army. The Spartan Agis thought it wiser for the present to return to his fortress at Dekeleia. By the time Alkibiades arrived at Samos events had happened that utterly ruined the hopes and plans which he had formed, and changed the course of Grecian history. Two fresh characters appeared upon the scene. The Spartans, when their informal overtures for peace had been rejected, set themselves vigorously to work to repair the damage done them by the crushing defeat at Kyzikos, and the subsequent loss of the support of Pharnabazos. They appointed Lysandros, the ablest of their rising men, to the command of the fleet, for they had need of an able commander at this crisis, and they saw not the depth of his designs.