‘Minesias says the people are in such bewilderment they will do anything. Athens, when they left, was under arms by night and day. “The Boiotians are coming on us!” say some. “The Spartans are at the isthmus,” say others. “The Argives and the Spartans are both coming. Alkibiades has sent them, and has told them how they may take the city”; so many of them run up and down crying. And then the priests of Demeter have cursed you openly, and say the earth will refuse to yield her fruits, and the gods have abandoned Athens, and will not come back till you have been recalled. And Pythonikos and Thessalos, and many others of the oligarchs, and some of the democrats, too, are going about telling the people no good will ever come of this expedition, and that the fleet and all the army will be destroyed unless your command is taken from you. They tell them that for years you have been the most arrogant of men; that in secret and amongst your friends you used to laugh at the demos, and declared you would soon upset the Constitution and make yourself tyrant in Athens. A lot of lies like these and all the other charges so exasperated the people against you, Alkibiades, that the Assembly decreed that the office of strategos should be taken from you, and that you should be recalled to Athens to be tried at once upon the charge made by Thessalos. But Kryptos was especially ordered to say nothing of your deposition while he was with the fleet, for fear of causing a revolt among the sailors.’ When he had heard all this, which was told him in scraps, first by one, and then another, as each remembered something of what he had heard the night before, Alkibiades spoke as though thinking to himself: ‘Oh, so they have revoked my office, have they? And they think I shall come back to let them try me before this dikasterion, do they?’ His mind was made up. The _Salaminia_ made for Thurii, on the south coast of Italy. The _Eros_ followed close behind. As they neared the land, Alkibiades called his friends round him, some of whom had been ordered to return with him. ‘Are you all anxious to yield yourselves up patiently to the good demos, who one day crown and cheer their leader, and the next day would deliver him to death?’ ‘Not I, nor I, nor I,’ cried they. ‘And this is what we have been thinking of since we left Katané.’ ‘Will Alkibiades give himself up to a people who are unworthy of him?’ asked Kolyphôn. ‘And be led away to death when he could overthrow them all?’ rough Agrestides said. ‘Or make a name for vengeance gratified, which would astonish all the world, and live in men’s memories for ever, as warning to an ungrateful country?’ said Kolyphôn.