28 From Mantinea To Sicily, 418-415 B.C.

In 418 B.C., Alcibiades achieved his aggressive objective in the Peloponnesus by orchestrating the alliance that fought Sparta at the First Battle of Mantinea, the second major hoplite battle during the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides, who must have consulted with King Agis II, gives an accurate report of hoplite fighting based on eyewitness testimony. Despite intense fighting on the Spartan left wing, the battle proved inconclusive. The Spartans claimed victory, but this hardly restored their reputation in the Greek world. At Athens, the assembly was politically deadlocked, and an ostracism in 417 or 416 B.C. failed to resolve the issue of leadership between Nicias and Alcibiades. In the winter of 416 B.C., Alcibiades championed the envoys of Segesta, an Athenian ally in Sicily, to intervene against Selinus, a Corinthian colony and friend of Sparta. Thucydides presents this appeal as an isolated event seized upon by Alcibiades and the assembly to launch an ill-advised western adventure. With the Peloponnesian theater closed, though, the Athenians turned to Sicily in 415 B.C. in the hopes of gaining a decisive advantage over Sparta.