THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION.--From this time, _Alcibiades_, a relative of Pericles, but lacking his sobriety and disinterested spirit, plays an active part. Beautiful in person, rich, a graceful and effective orator, but restless and ambitious, he quickly acquired great influence. Three years after the peace of Nicias, he persuaded Athens to join a league of disaffected Peloponnesian allies of Sparta; but in the battle of _Mantinea_ (418 B.C.) the Spartans regained their supremacy. It was at the suggestion of Alcibiades that the Athenians undertook the great _Sicilian Expedition_, which resulted in the worst disasters they ever suffered. This expedition was aimed at the Dorian city of _Syracuse_, and the hope was that all Sicily might be conquered. It consisted of about forty thousand men, besides the sailors. The commanders were _Alcibiades_, _Nicias_, and _Lamachus_. Alcibiades was recalled to answer a charge of sacrilege. At Thurii he managed to escape and went over to the side of Sparta. _Gylippus_ went with a small Spartan fleet to aid Syracuse. The Athenians were repulsed in their attack on the city. Although re-inforced by land and naval forces under a gallant and worthy general, _Demosthenes_, they fought under great disadvantages, so that their fleet was destroyed in the Syracusan harbor. Their retreating forces on land were cut to pieces or captured. _Nicias_ and _Demosthenes_ died either at the hands of the executioner or by a self-inflicted death. NAVAL CONTESTS.--No such calamity had ever overtaken a Grecian army. The news of it brought anguish into almost every family in Athens. The Spartans had fortified the village of _Decelea_ in Attica, and sought on the sea, with Persian help, to annihilate the Athenian navy. The allies of Athens, _Chios_, _Miletus_, etc., revolted. The oligarchs at Athens overthrew the democratic constitution, and placed the Government in the hands of a _Council of Four Hundred_. The popular assembly was limited to five thousand members, and was never called together. The object was to make peace with Sparta. But the army before Samos, of which _Thrasybulus_, a patriotic man, was the leader, refused to accept this change of government. _Alcibiades_, who had left the Spartans out of anger on account of their treatment of him, was recalled, and assumed command. The oligarchical rule was overturned in four months after its establishment, and the democracy restored,--the assembly being still limited, however, to five thousand citizens. Three brilliant naval victories, the last at _Cyzicus_ (410 B.C.), were won over the Spartans by Alcibiades who came back to Athens in triumph (408 B.C.). _Lysander_ was the commander of the Spartan fleet on the coast of Asia Minor, and (407 B.C.) gained a victory over the Athenian ships during a temporary absence of Alcibiades. Alcibiades was not reëlected general. He now withdrew, and, three years later, died. The new Spartan admiral, _Callicratidas_, surrounded the Athenian