The Athenian Philochorus (writing about the date 310-280 B.C.) ascribed the mutilation of the Hermæ to the Corinthians; if we may believe the scholiast on Aristophanês; who, however, is not very careful, since he tells us that _Thucydidês_ ascribed that act to Alkibiadês and his friends; which is not true (Philochor. Frag. 110, ed. Didot; Schol. Aristoph. Lysistr. 1094). [253] Thucyd. vi, 34. [254] See Thucyd. v, 45; v, 50; viii, 5. Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 7, 4. But though the chance of setting aside the expedition altogether might reasonably enter into the plans of the conspirators, as a likely consequence of the intense shock inflicted on the religious mind of Athens, and especially of Nikias, this calculation was not realized. Probably matters had already proceeded too far even for Nikias to recede. Notice had been sent round to all the allies; forces were already on their way to the rendezvous at Korkyra; the Argeian and Mantineian allies were arriving at Peiræus to embark. So much the more eagerly did the conspirators proceed in the other part of their plan, to work that exaggerated religious terror, which they had themselves artificially brought about, for the ruin of Alkibiadês. Few men in Athens either had or deserved to have a greater number of enemies, political as well as private, than Alkibiades; many of them being among the highest citizens, whom he offended by his insolence, and whose liturgies and other customary exhibitions he outshone by his reckless expenditure. His importance had been already so much increased, and threatened to be so much more increased, by the Sicilian enterprise, that they no longer observed any measures in compassing his ruin. That which the mutilators of the Hermæ seem to have deliberately planned, his other enemies were ready to turn to profit.