It is to be recollected that the Lacedæmonians had been always opposed to τύραννοι, or despots, and had been particularly opposed to the Peisistratid τύραννοι, whom they in fact put down. In tracing his democratical tendencies, therefore, to this source, Alkibiadês took the best means of excusing them before a Lacedæmonian audience. [353] Thucyd. vi, 89. ἡμεῖς δὲ τοῦ ξύμπαντος προέστημεν, δικαιοῦντες ἐν ᾧ σχήματι μεγίστη ἡ πόλις ἔτυχε καὶ ἐλευθερωτάτη οὖσα, καὶ ὅπερ ἐδέξατό τις, τοῦτο ξυνδιασῴζειν· ἐπεὶ δημοκρατίαν γε καὶ ἐγιγνώσκομεν οἱ φρονοῦντές τι, καὶ αὐτὸς οὐδενὸς ἂν χεῖρον, ὅσῳ καὶ λοιδορήσαιμι· ἀλλὰ περὶ ὁμολογουμένης ἀνοίας οὐδὲν ἂν καινὸν λέγοιτο· καὶ τὸ μεθιστάναι αὐτὴν οὐκ ἐδόκει ἡμῖν ἀσφαλὲς εἶναι, ὑμῶν πολεμίων προσκαθημένων. “So much as to myself personally: I shall now talk to you about the business of the meeting, and tell you something more than you yet know. Our purpose in sailing from Athens, was, first to conquer the Sicilian Greeks; next, the Italian Greeks; afterwards, to make an attempt on the Carthaginian empire and on Carthage herself. If all or most of this succeeded, we were then to attack Peloponnesus. We intended to bring to this enterprise the entire power of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks, besides large numbers of Iberian and other warlike barbaric mercenaries, together with many new triremes built from the abundant forests of Italy, and large supplies both of treasure and provision. We could thus blockade Peloponnesus all round with our fleet, and at the same time assail it with our land-force; and we calculated, by taking some towns by storm and occupying others as permanent fortified positions, that we should easily conquer the whole peninsula, and then become undisputed masters of Greece. You thus hear the whole scheme of our expedition from the man who knows it best; and you may depend on it that the remaining generals will execute all this, if they can. Nothing but your intervention can hinder them. If, indeed, the Sicilian Greeks were all united, they might hold out; but the Syracusans standing alone cannot, beaten as they already have been in a general action, and blocked up as they are by sea. If Syracuse falls into the hands of the Athenians, all Sicily and all Italy will share the same fate; and the danger which I have described will be soon upon you.