Note 252 — Chapter LVIII · FROM THE RESOLUTION OF THE ATHENIANS TO ATTACK SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE FIRST WINTER AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL IN SICILY.

Plutarch, Alkib. c. 18; Pseudo-Plutarch, Vit. X, Orator. p. 834, who professes to quote from Kratippus, an author nearly contemporary. The Pseudo-Plutarch, however, asserts, what cannot be true, that the Corinthians employed Leontine and Egestæan agents to destroy the Hermæ. The Leontines and Egestæans were exactly the parties who had greatest interest in getting the Sicilian expedition to start: they are the last persons whom the Corinthians would have chosen as instruments. The fact is, that no foreigners could well have done the deed: it required great familiarity with all the buildings, highways, and byways of Athens.

The Athenian Philochorus (writing about the date 310-280 B.C.) ascribed the mutilation of the Hermæ to the Corinthians; if we may believe the scholiast on Aristophanês; who, however, is not very careful, since he tells us that Thucydidês ascribed that act to Alkibiadês and his friends; which is not true (Philochor. Frag. 110, ed. Didot; Schol. Aristoph. Lysistr. 1094).