Compare Antiphon, De Cæde Herodis, sect. 83 and Sophoklês, Œdip. Tyrann. 26, 96, 170, as to the miseries which befell a country, so long as the person guilty of homicide remained to pollute the soil and until he was slain or expelled. See also Xenophon, Hiero. iv, 4, and Plato, Legg. x, p. 885-910, at the beginning and the end of the tenth book. Plato ranks (ὕβρις) outrage against sacred objects as the highest and most guilty species of ὕβρις; deserving the severest punishment. He considers that the person committing such impiety, unless he be punished or banished, brings evil and the anger of the gods upon the whole population. [256] Thucyd. vi, 27. [257] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sect. 20. The Senate of Five Hundred were invested with full powers of action; while Diognêtus, Peisander, Chariklês, and others, were named commissioners for receiving and prosecuting inquiries, and public assemblies were held nearly every day to receive reports.[258] The first informations received, however, did not relate to the grave and recent mutilation of the Hermæ, but to analogous incidents of older date; to certain defacements of other statues, accomplished in drunken frolic; and above all, to ludicrous ceremonies celebrated in various houses,[259] by parties of revellers caricaturing and divulging the Eleusinian mysteries. It was under this latter head that the first impeachment was preferred against Alkibiadês. [258] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 14, 15, 36; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 18. [259] Those who are disposed to imagine that the violent feelings and proceedings at Athens by the mutilation of the Hermæ were the consequence of her democratical government, may be reminded of an analogous event of modern times from which we are not yet separated by a century.