If time and energy permit, it is well worth while, instead of crossing by boat to Akte, to return to the starting-point and to saunter along the whole margin of the Great Harbour. Particularly picturesque are the great sloops, laden with lemons and oranges, moored in behind the Karaiskakis square, which only the pedestrian would be likely to discover. As one lingers along the quays, however, modern warships and all the craft for commerce and travel will give place to the memories evoked from the greater past. This harbour of commerce will, in imagination, be once more crowded with triremes, brought around from the two war-harbours on the other side, to be inspected one after the other by the Council of the Five Hundred. As official inspectors of the triremes, when made ready to set out for conquest or defeat, this Council held its sittings on the Choma, probably a little promontory that juts southward from the Karaiskakis Place. One may recall, with the help of Thucydides, the setting out of the ill-starred Sicilian expedition. No such vast array had ever left the harbour for so distant and protracted a warfare. All the citizens of Athens as well as of Piræus are here to witness the departure of sons and friends. High hopes of imperial expansion feed the imagination of the multitude. Some rest their confidence on divine favour sure to accompany the pious, though reluctant, Nicias; others put faith in the warrior Lamachus; more in the brilliant Alcibiades, still idolized though accused of sharing in the mutilation of the Hermæ. The great fleet of swift triremes is ready, together with the transports for heavy-armed soldiers, equipments, and supplies. Now the men are all on board and a hush falls upon the throng at a sudden blast of the trumpet. The prayers, according to established ritual, are offered by the united squadron. At a concerted sign, the mixing-bowls are crowned throughout the whole host and the men and generals pour libations from gold and silver cups. The throngs upon the land, both citizens and foreign well-wishers, join in the service. The hymn of triumph sung, the libations poured, the ships weigh anchor and put to sea. But before the last trireme has passed through the moles, and while the ear still catches the notes of the flute and the voice of the _Keleustæ_, giving the time to the crews, a revulsion of grim presentiment overmasters many of the watchers on the shore. The expedition now no longer seems what they so lightly voted in the assembly. The ever-recurrent Greek feeling that “high things annoy the god” calls up the warning words of Æschylus, uttered a generation before, in the year of the unlucky Egyptian expedition sent out on a similar venture:— “Grown Insolence is wont to breed Young Insolence midst mortals’ sorrow, Then, then, when to th’ implanted seed There comes the birth-light’s destined morrow.”