Textus Originalis
Traduzione
English — scholarly
Bernadotte Perrinfully ignored him in their fond attachment to Nicias, promptly opposed and obstructed the general peace. At the outset he made no headway; but a little while after, seeing that the Athenians were not so well pleased as before with the Lacedaemonians, but thought they had wronged them in making a separate alliance with the Boeotians, and in not re- storing Panactum with its walls intact, nor Amphi- polis at all, he laid great stress on these grounds of complaint, and tried to incense the people over each one of them. Finally he managed to have an em- bassy sent from Argos to Athens, and tried to effect a separate alliance between these two cities. Am- bassadors came at once from Sparta with full powers to treat all issues, and at their preliminary audience with the council were declared by that body to come with nothing but just proposals. But Alcibiades was afraid they would bring the assembly over to their views with the same arguments which had won the council. He therefore circumvented them by deceit- fully swearing that he would coédperate with them fully in the assembly if they would only not claim nor even admit that they had come with full powers to treat all issues; for thus, he declared, they would most surely attain their desires. After they were persuaded by him, and had put themselves out of the guiding hands of Nicias and into his, he introduced them to the assembly, and asked them first whether they had come with full powers to treat all issues. On their saying “No” to this, he surprised them by changing front and calling on the members of the council who were present to bear witness to what they had said before that body. He then urged the