[150] Thucyd. v, 83. Diodorus inaccurately states that the Argeians _had already_ built their long walls down to the sea—πυθόμενοι τοὺς Ἀργείους ~ᾠκοδομηκέναι τὰ μακρὰ τείχη μέχρι τῆς θαλάσσης~ (xii, 81). Thucydidês uses the participle of the present tense—~τὰ οἰκοδομούμενα~ τείχη ἐλόντες καὶ κατασκάψαντες, etc. The close neighborhood of such exiles, together with the declared countenance of Sparta, and the continued schemes of the oligarchical party within the walls, kept the Argeian democracy in perpetual uneasiness and alarm throughout the winter, in spite of their recent victory and the suppression of the dangerous regiment of a Thousand. To relieve them in part from embarrassment, Alkibiadês was despatched thither early in the spring with an Athenian armament and twenty triremes. His friends and guests appear to have been now in the ascendency, as leaders of the democratical government; and in concert with them, he selected three hundred marked oligarchical persons, whom he carried away and deposited in various Athenian islands, as hostages for the quiescence of the party, B.C. 416. Another ravaging march was also undertaken by the Argeians into the territory of Phlius, wherein, however, they sustained nothing but loss. And again, about the end of September, the Lacedæmonians gave the word for a second expedition against Argos. But having marched as far as the borders, they found the sacrifices—always offered previous to leaving their own territory—so unfavorable, that they returned back and disbanded their forces. The Argeian oligarchical party, in spite of the hostages recently taken from them, had been on the watch for this Lacedæmonian force, and had projected a rising; or at least were suspected of doing so, to such a degree that some of them were seized and imprisoned by the government, while others made their escape.[151] Later in the same winter, however, the Lacedæmonians became more fortunate with their border sacrifices, entered the Argeian territory in conjunction with their allies (except the Corinthians, who refused to take part), and established the Argeian oligarchical exiles at Orneæ: from which town these latter were again speedily expelled, after the retirement of the Lacedæmonian army, by the Argeian democracy with the aid of an Athenian reinforcement.[152] [151] Thucyd. v, 116. Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ~μελλήσαντες~ ἐς τὴν Ἀργείαν στρατεύειν ... ἀνεχώρησαν. Καὶ Ἀργεῖοι διὰ τὴν ἐκείνων ~μέλλησιν~ τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει τινὰς ὑποτοπήσαντες, τοὺς μὲν ξυνέλαβον, οἱ δ’ αὐτοὺς καὶ διέφυγον. I presume μέλλησιν here is not used in its ordinary meaning of _loitering delay_, but is to be construed by the previous verb μελλήσαντες, and agreeably to the analogy of iv, 126—“prospect of action immediately impending:” compare Diodor. xii, 81. [152] Thucyd. vi, 7.