102 HISTORY OF GREECE. The close neighborhood of such exiles, together with the declared countenance of Sparta, and the continued schemes of the oligarchical party within the walls, kept the Argeian democ- racy in perpetual uneasiness and alarm throughout the winter, in spite of their recent victory and the suppression of the dan gerous regiment of a Thousand. To relieve them in part from embarrassment, Alkibiades was despatched thither early in the spring with an Athenian armament and twenty triremes. His friends and guests appear to have been now in the ascendency, as leaders of the democratical government ; and in concert with them, he selected three hundred marked oligarchical persons, whom he carried away and deposited in various Athenian islands, as hostages for the quiescence of the party, B.C. 416. Another ravaging march was also undertaken by the Argeians into the territory of Phlius, wherein, however, they sustained nothing but loss. And again, about the end of September, the Lacedemo- nians gave the word for a second expedition against Argos. But having marched as far as the borders, they found the sacrifices always offered previous to leaving their own territory so unfa- vorable, that they returned back and disbanded their forces. The Argeian oligarchical party, in spite of the hostages recently taken from them, had been on the watch for this Lacedaemonian force, and had projected a rising ; or at least were suspected of doing so, to such a degree that some of them were seized and imprisoned by the government, while others made their escape. 2 Later in the same winter, however, the Lacedaemonians became more fortunate with their border sacrifices, entered the Argeian territory in conjunction with their allies (except the Corinthians, who refused to take part), and established the Argeian oligarchi- i KEV a i ru (lanpu reign f^^XP 1 T ^f & a"ku.aar]f (xii, 81 ). Thucydides uses the participle of the present tense ra olKodopov- (icva reixn ebovref Kal KaraaKui^iavref, etc. 1 Thucyd. v, 116. AaKsdaifioviot, ft e /I A 17 a a v r E f elf r>;v 'Apyti'av arpa- reveiv. . . .uvexwprjaav. Kat 'hpyeloi 6tu rtjv eneivuv [LeT^^ri a iv ruv h Ty irofei rivaf VTroroTrr/oavref, roijf ftev %WE?Mj3ov, ol <5' avrovf Kal dii&vyov, 1 presume /u'A/l^cw here is not used in its ordinary meaning of loitering dfJay, but is to be construed by the previous verb /xeXTiriaavref, and agreea bly to die analogy of iv, 126 "prospect of act : on immediately impend
fag:" compare Diodor xii. 81
