Alcibiades was charged with this offense by the public assemblies, at the same time that the war urged his departure; but as he was aware of the conduct of his fellow-citizens, he availed himself of that very circumstance, and desired that if they thought any thing was intended against him, they should inquire into the matter while he was present, to obviate the accusation of the envy to which he might be exposed during his absence. His enemies finding they could not now injure him, thought proper to remain quiet for the moment, and wait for his departure, in order to asperse him when absent. This was the case; for as soon as they judged he had reached Sicily, they called him to trial as a person guilty of sacrilegious acts. Wherefore, he was now arraigned by a decree before the magistrates, to appear again at the city and defend himself from the charges brought against him. Alcibiades, though he had entertained the strongest hopes of succeeding in the expedition, would not disobey, but mounted the galley sent to convey him back. When he arrived at Thurium, a port in Italy, after having duly considered the immoderate licentiousness of his fellow-citizens and their severe proceedings with the nobles, he thought the properest thing to be done, in order to free himself from the impending storm, was to elope; for which purpose, by eluding the vigilance of his guards, he fled to Elis, and after to Thebes.

On learning, therefore, he had been condemned to death; that his property had been sequestered and that the Eumolpides, constrained by the people, had curst him, as customary then, and, in fine, by way of perpetuating the memory of their malediction, a copy thereof had been engraved on a stone-pillar raised to public view; he sought refuge in Lacedemonia. There, as he himself used to say, he made war not on his country, but on his own and his country’s enemies, who had driven him out from a knowledge of the important services he was likely to render it; whilst they had only sought the gratification of private animosities, and not the object of public good. The Lacedemonians, by the advice of Alcibiades, entered into a league with the king of Persia; fortified Decelea, a town in Attica, and, by placing a garrison there on a permanent footing, kept Athens at bay. It was by his endeavours, too, that the alliance subsisting between the Ionians and Athenians, was broken off which circumstance proved highly advantageous to the Lacedemonians in their wars.