Just as the fleet for Sicily was nearly ready, all the busts of Mercury which stood as mile-stones on the roads in Attica were found broken and defaced; and the enemies of Alkibiades declared that it was done in one of his drunken frolics.  Such a thing, done to the figure of a god was not mere mischief, but sacrilege, and there was to be a great inquiry into it.  Alkibiades wanted much to have the trial over before he sailed, that he might clear himself of the suspicion; and, indeed, it seems certain that whatever follies he might commit when he had nothing to do, he had then far too much to think of to be likely to bring himself into trouble by such a wanton outrage.  But the Athenians chose to put off the inquiry till he was gone, and the fleet set sail—the largest that had ever gone from the Piræus—with sound of trumpet, libations poured into the sea from gold and silver bowls, songs and solemn prayers, as the 100 war galleys rowed out of the harbour in one long column.  At Corcyra the fleet halted to meet their allies, who raised the number of ships to 154, containing 5000 heavily-armed men, with whom they made sail for Rhegium, the Italian foreland nearest to Sicily, whence they sent to make inquiries.  They found more of the Greek cities were against them than they had expected, and their friends were weaker.  Nikias wanted merely to sail round the island, and show the power of Athens, and then go home again.  Lamachus, another general, wanted to make a bold attack on Syracuse at once; and Alkibiades had a middle plan, namely, to try to gain the lesser towns by force or friendship, and to stir up the native Sicels to revolt.  This plan was accepted, and was going on well—for Alkibiades could always talk anyone over, especially strangers, to whom his gracefulness and brilliancy were new—when orders came from Athens that he and his friends were to be at once sent home from the army, to answer for the mischief done to the busts, and for many other crimes of sacrilege, which were supposed to be part of a deep plot for upsetting the laws of Solon, and making himself the tyrant of Athens.