When they said that they did not, he unexpectedly turned round upon
them, and calling both the Senate and the people to witness their
words, urged them to pay no attention to men who were such evident
liars, and who said one thing in one+ assembly and the opposite in
another. The ambassadors, as Alkibiades expected, were thunderstruck,
and Nikias could say nothing on their behalf. The people at once
called for the ambassadors from Argos to be brought before them, in
order to contract an alliance with that city, but an earthquake which
was felt at this moment greatly served Nikias's purpose by causing
the assembly to break up. With great difficulty, when the debate was
resumed on the following day, he prevailed upon the people to break
off the negotiations with Argos, and to send him as ambassador to
Sparta, promising that he would bring matters to a prosperous issue.
Accordingly he proceeded to Sparta, where he was treated with great
respect as a man of eminence and a friend of the Lacedæmonians, but
could effect nothing because of the preponderance of the party which
inclined to the Bœotian alliance. He was therefore forced to return
ingloriously, in great fear of the anger of the Athenians, who had
been persuaded by him to deliver up so many and such important
prisoners to the Lacedæmonians without receiving any equivalent. For
the prisoners taken at Pylos were men of the first families in Sparta,
and related to the most powerful statesmen there. The Athenians,
however, did not show their dissatisfaction with Nikias by any harsh
measures, but they elected Alkibiades general, and they entered into a
treaty of alliance with the Argives, and also with the states of Elis
and Mantinea, which had revolted from the Lacedæmonians, while they
sent out privateers to Pylos to plunder the Lacedæmonian coasts in the
neighbourhood of that fortress. These measures soon produced a renewal
of the war.