The effect of this second speech of Nikias on the assembly, coming as it did after a long and contentious debate, was much greater than that which had been produced by his first. But it was an effect totally opposite to that which he himself had anticipated and intended. Far from being discouraged or alienated from the expedition by those impediments which he had studiously magnified, the people only attached themselves to it with yet greater obstinacy. The difficulties which stood in the way of Sicilian conquest served but to endear it to them the more, calling forth increased ardor and eagerness for personal exertion in the cause. The people not only accepted, without hesitation or deduction, the estimate which Nikias had laid before them of risk and cost, but warmly extolled his frankness not less than his sagacity, as the only means of making success certain. They were ready to grant without reserve everything which he asked, with an enthusiasm and unanimity such as was rarely seen to reign in an Athenian assembly. In fact, the second speech of Nikias had brought the two dissentient veins of the assembly into a confluence and harmony, all the more welcome because unexpected. While his partisans seconded it as the best way of neutralizing the popular madness, his opponents—Alkibiadês, the Egestæans, and the Leontines—caught at it with acclamation, as realizing more than they had hoped for, and more than they could ever have ventured to propose. If Alkibiadês had demanded an armament on so vast a scale, the people would have turned a deaf ear. But such was their respect for Nikias—on the united grounds of prudence, good fortune, piety, and favor with the gods—that his opposition to their favorite scheme had really made them uneasy; and when he made the same demand, they were delighted to purchase his concurrence by adopting all such conditions as he imposed.[230] [230] Plutarch. Compare Nikias and Crassus, c. 3.