If Aristophanês had stated the story ever so plainly, his authority could only have been taken as proving that it was a part of the talk of the time: but the lines just cited make him as much a contradicting as an affirming witness. All that we can make out, amidst these uncertified allegations, is, that in the year or two immediately preceding the Peloponnesian war, Periklês was hard pressed by the accusations of political enemies,—perhaps even in his own person, but certainly in the persons of those who were most in his confidence and affection.[181] And it was in this turn of his political position that the Lacedæmonians sent to Athens the above-mentioned requisition, that the ancient Kylonian sacrilege might be at length cleared out; in other words, that Periklês and his family might be banished. Doubtless, his enemies, as well as the partisans of Lacedæmon at Athens, would strenuously support this proposition: and the party of Lacedæmon at Athens was always strong, even during the middle of the war: to act as proxenus to the Lacedæmonians was accounted an honor even by the greatest Athenian families.[182] On this occasion, however, the manœuvre did not succeed, nor did the Athenians listen to the requisition for banishing the sacrilegious Alkmæônids. On the contrary, they replied that the Spartans, too, had an account of sacrilege to clear off; for they had violated the sanctuary of Poseidon, at Cape Tænarus, in dragging from it some helot suppliants to be put to death,—and the sanctuary of Athênê Chalkiœkus at Sparta, in blocking up and starving to death the guilty regent Pausanias. To require that Laconia might be cleared of these two acts of sacrilege, was the only answer which the Athenians made to the demand sent for the banishment of Periklês.[183] Probably, the actual effect of that demand was, to strengthen him in the public esteem:[184] very different from the effect of the same manœuvre when practised before by Kleomenês against Kleisthenês. [181] It would appear that not only Aspasia and Anaxagoras, but also the musician and philosopher Damon, the personal friend and instructor of Periklês, must have been banished at a time when Periklês was old,—perhaps somewhere near about this time. The passage in Plato, Alkibiadês, i, c. 30, p. 118, proves that Damon was in Athens, and intimate with Periklês, when the latter was of considerable age—καὶ νῦν ἔτι ~τηλικοῦτος~ ὢν Δάμωνι σύνεστιν αὐτοῦ τούτου ἕνεκα. Damon is said to have been ostracized,—perhaps he was tried and condemned to banishment: for the two are sometimes confounded. [182] See Thucyd. v, 43; vi, 89. [183] Thucyd. i, 128, 135, 139. [184] Plutarch, Perikl. c. 33.