In 419, a year after what was the crowning glory of his early life, and perhaps its zenith, he was chosen as one of the strategi, who were ministers of state and generals of the Athenian army. Before he could receive that dignity, one of the highest in Athens, and before, indeed, he could have been made one of the mission at the Olympic games, he, like everyone else elected to either of those offices, was called upon to show that there was no stain upon his public or his private character. This is an answer to those enemies of his who charge his earlier years with acts of serious lawlessness. In his capacity of general, with a picked force of men, he had been sent across the Peloponnesos, more for the sake of encouraging allies than to engage an enemy. He visited Argos, and there the prop and stay of Argos, the author of the treaty with them, and the victor at the recent games, was hailed by almost all as a hero and a deliverer. The treaty strengthened and enlarged, he went to Patrai, on the west coast, taking with him a contingent from Argos, not so much to increase his force as to show how real was the alliance between Athens and the Argives. A glance at the map of Greece will show how useful Patrai would become to Athens in her struggle with Peloponnesian enemies. He convinced the citizens that if the city were fortified by long walls stretching to the sea, they might defend themselves against any enemy by land, while Athens would be able to bring them aid by sea. His mission finished, he returned to Athens. Soon it was known that the Lakedaimonians were on the march for Argos. He was immediately placed at the head of a larger force than he had before commanded, and sent to Argos; but the enemy retired, so, after harrying some of the Lakedaimonian allies, he went back to Athens. On his return, enraged at this fresh proof of Spartan perfidy—for they were still allies of Athens, and bound by their treaty not to make war upon Athenian allies—he so roused the people in the Ekklesia that they decreed there should be written at the bottom of the brass pillar, where the treaty between them and Sparta was engraved, these shameful words for Sparta: ‘The Spartans broke their oaths.’