XXIII. These men, when they heard that the expedition was directed against Sicily and Dionysius, were at first scared and refused to go, declaring that only the frenzy excited by some personal quarrel, or the failure of all reasonable hopes of success, could have led Dion to embark upon such a desperate enterprise, and they were incensed with their own officers and those who had enlisted them for not having at the outset informed them of the object of the war. When, however, Dion addressed them, pointing out the rottenness of the monarchy, and informing them that he was taking them, not so much as soldiers as in order to use them as leaders for the Syracusans and other peoples of Sicily, who had long been ripe for revolt, and when, after Dion's speech, Alkimenes, one of the expedition, who was one of the most celebrated of the Achæans both by birth and merit, spoke to the same effect, they consented to go. The time was midsummer and the Etesian[484] winds were blowing over the sea. The moon was at the full. Dion prepared a magnificent sacrifice to Apollo and marched in solemn procession to the temple with his soldiers, all arrayed in complete armour. After the sacrifice he feasted them in the stadium or race-course of the people of Zakynthus, where they had an opportunity of admiring the splendour of his gold and silver plate, and reflected that a man past middle life, as he was, and possessed of such wealth, would never attempt an extravagant enterprise without reasonable expectation of success, or unless his friends upon the spot had promised to furnish him with abundant resources.