Overnight, an irruption has struck the city. At every doorway, at every sanctuary and crossroad, the herms have been disfigured and unmanned. No one claims responsibility; no one saw, no one heard. The polis, high-strung for its nascent imperial adventure, edges towards madness. Without message, without perpetrator, the act looms, mute and accomplished, filling the people with consternation. In time there will be accusations, in time there will be trials, in time the act will exile men and condemn others to death. But on this eternal morning, there is only a barely-sublimated sense of panic hanging over the great city, suddenly motionless in a dense, malevolent fog.

No one will prevail on the polis to check their momentum, to soften their certainties. The hubris that will soon consume their fortunes, their sons, their power will not be checked, by this impiety or by any reflection. The mind of the polis, jealous proud and restless, feels its fever mount, resenting the symptom without seeking a cause. No physician is heeded; perhaps none dared speak. The bloodletting that will quell this mania must come in its full measure.