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people ‘not to follow, much less trust, men who were so manifestly liars, and who said now “ Yes” and now “No” to the same question. The ambassadors were overwhelmed with confusion, naturally, and Nicias was unable to say a word,—struck dumb with amazement and anguish. Therefore the people were at once eager to call in the Argive embassy and make the alliance it desired, but there came a slight earthquake shock just then, luckily for Nicias, and the assembly was dissolved. On the following day, when the people had assembled again, by dint of great effort and much talking Nicias succeeded, with difficulty, in persuading them to refrain from the proposed arrangement with Argos, and to send hin on an embassy to the Lacedacmonians, assuring them that everything would thus turn out well. But when he came to Sparta, though in other ways he was honoured by them as a true man and one who had been zealous in their behalf, still, he ac- complished nothing that he purposed, but was beaten by the party there which had Boeotian sympathies, and so came back home, not merely with loss of reputation and under harsh abuse, but actually in bodily fear of the Athenians. They were vexed and indignant because they had been persuaded by him to restore so many eminent prisoners of war; for the men who had been brought to the city from Pylos belonged to the leading families of Sparta, and the most influential men there were their friends and kinsmen. However, the Athenians took no very harsh measures in their anger against Nicias, but elected Alcibiades general, made an alliance with the Mantineans and Eleans, who had seceded from the Lacedaemonians, as well as with the Argives, sent