And yet the priesthood also is said to have offered much opposition to the expedition. But Alcibiades had other diviners in his private service, and from sundry oracles reputed ancient he cited one saying that great fame would be won by the Athenians in Sicily. To his delight also certain envoys who had been sent to the shrine of Ammon1 came back with an oracle declaring that the Athenians would capture all the Syracusans; but utterances of opposite import the envoys concealed, for fear of using words of ill omen.
1 In an oasis of the Libyan desert. Cf. Plut. Cim. 18.6 f.
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