Payment for the crime would wait.
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The politics of Sicily were complicated. The Carthaginians, an aggressive mercantile city-state based in North Africa, were well established in the west of the island, Greek settlements populated the eastern end (as well as the Italian boot), and indigenous peoples, the Sicels, occupied the interior. The Athenians had long had an on-off interest in Sicily and agreed on bilateral treaties with individual city-states from time to time. Between 427 and 424 in the early stages of the Peloponnesian War they had sent out expeditions to Sicily with a view to gaining allies; they were a little afraid that pro-Spartan poleis, such as the great city of Syracuse, founded by Corinth, might aid and abet their enemies in mainland Greece.
But these interventions led nowhere and the fears of Athens were allayed. More pressing matters called for their attention in mainland Greece. Then in 416 the polis of Segesta in western Sicily asked the Athenians, with whom it had agreed to an alliance not long before, for assistance in a war they were losing against their neighbor Selinus, which was supported by Syracuse. The ecclesia was not especially interested in the details, but was minded to respond favorably to the appeal. According to Thucydides, their unstated idea was “to conquer the whole of the island while at the same time making it look as if their purpose was simply to help…their newly acquired allies there.”
Pericles’ advice not to expand the empire while fighting a war was forgotten. However, there was peace (of a sort) and no immediate threats faced the Athenians from Sparta or its allies. The situation at home was more complicated, but eventually a political consensus was reached.
A war faction led by Alcibiades wanted to continue meddling in the Peloponnese despite the setback at Mantinea; and the less aggressive Nicias made his priority the recapture of Amphipolis. The ecclesia could not agree on a consistent policy.
About 416, a radical fixer called Hyperbolus (so like an exaggerated version of Cleon that someone nicknamed him “Cleon in hyperbole”) thought he saw a way forward. He would resolve the standoff by proposing an ostracism, which (he calculated) would remove either the chief advocate of the peace faction, Nicias, or (preferably) Alcibiades. Although sworn opponents, the two candidates for ostracism joined forces to ward off the threat. Their combined supporters scratched the name of Hyperbolus on their potsherds and much to his dismay the author of the ostracism found himself in exile. (In retrospect, although this was an amusing outcome, everyone thought he had been the victim of a dirty trick and it seems that the constitutional mechanism of ostracism was never used again.)
So the problem of two opposing policies—one for peace and the other for war—that were more or less equally supported remained unresolved. However, the plan to invade Sicily was so glamorously ambitious that unity was achieved. The demos had no hesitation in voting for it and ordering a fleet of sixty triremes. Nicias did his best to dissuade them. He tried to frighten people by exaggerating the expense and said that sixty ships would be too few. Pressed to name his own figure, he hazarded at least one hundred triremes. The ecclesia immediately agreed to the increase and voted full powers to the three generals whom it chose to lead the expedition.
In an obvious attempt to encompass the complete range of opinion, it appointed Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus. The first two were brave on the battlefield and had extensive military experience, but they were first and foremost leaders of political factions that disagreed with one another; the third was a nonpolitical “career” commander. In principle this was a good team, although running a military campaign by committee would risk delay and compromise when immediate decisions were needed. Still, the auguries for a successful campaign were good.
One man stood out in opposition, Socrates, who said he had “no great expectation that any good would come to the city from the expedition.”
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Scattered throughout Athens stood Herms. These curious sculptures offered protection from harm (see this page). They were venerated and at festival times were rubbed down with olive oil and garlanded. Every neighborhood of the city had them; they stood at boundaries and street corners, in front of temples, gymnasia, porticoes, and in the porches of private houses. There was a row of them beside the Royal Stoa (or Colonnade) in the agora.
One May morning not long before the planned departure of the fleet for Sicily, Athenians woke up to news of sacrilege. The faces of many of these statues had been disfigured and knocked about during the night. The identity of the vandals was unknown.
There was worse to come. An instant investigation drew out testimony from personal servants and metics of even worse offenses. Although they had nothing to say specifically about the Herms, they reported that young men worse for wear from drink had defaced statues and had conducted a mock celebration of the Mysteries at Eleusis; these were highly secret initiation ceremonies that involved “visions” and the promise of an afterlife. Witnesses claimed that the blasphemous parody had been staged in the house of Alcibiades.
According to Thucydides, those who disliked Alcibiades “exaggerated the whole thing and made as much noise as they could about it. They claimed that the business with the Mysteries and the profanation of the Herms were all part and parcel of a plot to overthrow the democracy and that Alcibiades was behind it all.”
As a disciple of the supposedly irreligious Socrates, Alcibiades was convicted in the court of public opinion, despite his furious denials. So far as the Herms were concerned his involvement is, in truth, most unlikely. To commit such a public outrage on the eve of his departure for Sicily would have been the height of stupidity—and whatever else he was, Alcibiades was not stupid. The timing strongly suggests that the perpetrators’ aim was to hold up or disrupt the Sicilian Expedition. The vandals could have been paid agents of Syracuse or possibly some of the wilder activists in Nicias’s peace camp.
It is not clear when the mock-Mysteries were supposed to have taken place, but if they occurred a good while in the past, one could imagine the teenaged Alcibiades happily joining in a bit of blasphemous fun. In the case of an adult seriously building a political reputation the verdict must be at worst not proven.
Alcibiades protested his innocence and demanded an immediate trial to establish the truth. His enemies declined to take the bait. They wanted to pursue their investigations in the absence of the army, which thought highly of its young general. He was ordered to sail out with the fleet alongside his two colleagues, Nicias and Lamachus. He had no choice but to obey.
Even if we clear Alcibiades of involvement, what the scandal did do was raise fundamental questions about his political beliefs. Was he a true democrat? Was he aiming at establishing a tyranny, as some feared? A contemporary who later admitted to having played a part in the mutilation of the Herms said of Alcibiades that he talked “as though he were a friend of the people” and “a guardian of the constitution,” while really favoring an oligarchy. Socrates was no friend of the Athenian democracy, so Alcibiades’ association with him did neither of them any good in the popular mind.
Perhaps Alcibiades was happy to play the political game according to the rules laid down by Cleisthenes, but privately reserved judgment and waited on events. Suspicions about his real motives may have been well founded. But for the time being he was a man of the people. It is highly unlikely that he had any active plans for fomenting revolution.
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The grand armada sailed via Corcyra to Sicily. The generals were not entirely sure what to do when they arrived. Nicias, whose heart was not in the campaign, wanted merely to press the two opposing poleis to come to an agreement, sail about for a while in a show of strength, and then go home. Alcibiades argued that the expedition should first of all recruit allies among the city-states of Sicily. Lamachus, an elderly man but a soldier’s soldier and willing to take risks, was all for marching on Syracuse at once, their real object, while they were not yet ready to defend themselves. Even if they could not storm the city they would be able to cut it off by land and sea, and so compel a capitulation. He reluctantly agreed to back Alcibiades’ plan in order to outvote Nicias, whose opinion he liked least. But, as it turned out, the recruitment drive failed, for it transpired that the Sicilians were cautious and preferred neutrality. A wasted summer passed with nothing achieved.