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The envoys are badly

received at angry feeling against

Athens

the Lace

But he soon found that the final term of Athenian compliance had been reached. It was probably on this occasion that the separate alliance concluded between Sparta and the Boeotians first became discovered at Athens; since not only were the pro- dæmonians. ceedings of these oligarchical governments habitually secret, but there was a peculiar motive for keeping such alliance concealed until the discussion about Panaktum and Pylus had been brought to a close. Both the alliance, and the demolition of Panaktum, excited among the Athenians the strongest marks of disgust and anger; aggravated probably rather than softened by the quibble of Andromedês-that demolition of the fort, being tantamount to restitution and precluding any farther tenancy by the enemy, was a substantial satisfaction of the treaty; and aggravated still farther by the recollection of all the other unperformed items in the treaty. A whole year had now elapsed, amidst frequent notes and protocols (to employ a modern phrase): nevertheless not one of the conditions favourable to Athens had yet been executed (except the restitution of her captives, seemingly not many in number)—while she on her side had made to Sparta the capital cession on which almost everything hinged. A long train of accumulated indignation, brought to a head by this mission of Andromedês, discharged itself in the harshest dismissal and rebuke of himself and his colleagues'.

Even Nikias, Lachês, and the other leading Athenians, to whose improvident facility and misjudge

1 Thucyd. v. 42.

Alkibiadês ward as a

stands for

leader. His

ter.

party- ment the embarrassment of the moment was owing, education were probably not much behind the general public and charac- in exclamation against Spartan perfidy-if it were only to divert attention from their own mistake. But there was one of them-Alkibiadês son of Kleinias -who took this opportunity of putting himself at the head of the vehement anti-Laconian sentiment which now agitated the Ekklesia, and giving to it a substantive aim.

The present is the first occasion on which we hear of this remarkable man as taking a prominent part in public life. He was now about thirty-one or thirtytwo years old, which in Greece was considered an early age for a man to exercise important command. But such was the splendour, wealth, and antiquity of his family, of Æakid lineage through the heroes Eurysakês and Ajax,-and such the effect of that lineage upon the democratical public of Athens'-that he stepped speedily and easily into a conspicuous station. Belonging also through his mother Deinomachê to the gens of the Alkmæonidæ, he was related to Periklês, who became his guardian when he was left an orphan at about five years old, along with his younger brother Kleinias. It was at that time that their father Kleinias was slain at the battle of Koroneia, having already served with honour in a trireme of his own at the

1 Thucyd. v. 43. ̓Αλκιβιάδης......ἀνὴρ ἡλικίᾳ μὲν ὢν ἔτι τότε νεὸς, ὡς ἐν ἄλλῃ πόλει, ἀξιώματι δὲ προγόνων τιμώμενος.

The expression of Plutarch, however, eτi μeipákov, seems an exaggeration (Alkibiad. c. 10).

Kritias and Chariklês, in reply to the question of Sokratês, whom they had forbidden to converse with or teach young men-defined a young man to be one under thirty years of age-the senatorial age at Athens (Xenophon. Memor. i. 2, 35).

seafight of Artemisium against the Persians. A Spartan nurse named Amykla was provided for the young Alkibiadês, and a slave named Zopyrus chosen by his distinguished guardian to watch over him. But even his boyhood was utterly ungovernable, and Athens was full of his freaks and enormities, to the unavailing regret of Periklês and his brother Ariphron'. His violent passions, love of enjoyment, ambition of pre-eminence, and insolence towards others, were manifested at an early age, and never deserted him throughout his life. His finished beauty of person both as boy, youth, and mature man, caused him to be much run after by women—and even by women of generally reserved habits. Moreover, even before the age when such temptations were usually presented, the beauty of his earlier youth, while going through the ordinary gymnastic training, procured for him assiduous caresses, compliments, and solicitations of every sort, from the leading Athenians who frequented the public palæstræ. These men not only endured his

1 Plato, Protagoras, c. 10. p. 320; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 2, 3, 4; Isokratês, De Bigis, Orat. xvi. p. 353, sect. 33, 34; Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 1.

* Πέπονθα δὲ πρὸς τοῦτον (Σωκράτη) μόνον ἀνθρώπων, ὃ οὐκ ἄν τις οἴοιτο ἐν ἐμοὶ ἐνεῖναι, τὸ αἰσχύνεσθαι ὁντινοῦν.

This is a part of the language which Plato puts into the mouth of Alkibiadês, in the Symposion, c. 32, p. 216; see also Plato, Alkibiad. i. c. 1, 2, 3.

Compare his other contemporary, Xenophon, Memor. i. 2. 16-25.

Φύσει δὲ πολλῶν ὄντων καὶ μεγάλων πάθων ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ φιλόνεικον ἰσχυ ρότατον ἦν καὶ τὸ φιλόπρωτον, ὡς δῆλόν ἐστι τοῖς παιδικοῖς ὑπομνήμασι (Plutarch, Alkib. c. 2).

3 I translate, with some diminution of the force of the words, the expression of a contemporary author, Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2. 24. ̓Αλκιβιάδης δ ̓ αὖ διὰ μὲν κάλλος ὑπὸ πολλῶν καὶ σεμνῶν γυναικῶν θηρώς Hevos, &c.

Great ener

gy and capacity of Alkibiadês

fairs-his

reckless expenditure -lawless demeanour

unprinci

pled cha

racter, in

spiring sus

picion and

petulance, but were even flattered when he would condescend to bestow it upon them. Amidst such universal admiration and indulgence-amidst corrupting influences exercised from so many quarters and from so early an age, combined with great wealth and the highest position-it was not likely that either self-restraint or regard for the welfare of others would ever acquire development in the mind of Alkibiadês. The anecdotes which fill his biography reveal the utter absence of both these constituent elements of morality; and though, in regard to the particular stories, allowance must doubtless be made for scandal and exaggeration, yet the general type of character stands plainly marked and sufficiently established in all.

A dissolute life, and an immoderate love of pleasure in all its forms, is what we might naturally in public af- expect from a young man so circumstanced; and it appears that with him these tastes were indulged with an offensive publicity which destroyed the comfort of his wife Hipparetê, daughter of Hipponikus who was slain at the battle of Delium. She had brought him a large dowry of ten talents: when she sought a divorce, as the law of Athens permitted, Alkibiadês violently interposed to prevent her from obtaining the benefit of the law, and brought her back by force to his house even from the presence of the magistrate. It is this violence of selfish passion, and reckless disregard of social obligation towards every one, which forms the peculiar characteristic of Alkibiadês. He strikes the schoolmaster whose house he happens to find unprovided with a copy of Homer-he strikes Tau

alarmmilitary service.

reas', a rival chorêgus, in the public theatre, while the representation is going on-he strikes Hipponikus (who afterwards became his father-in-law), out of a wager of mere wantonness, afterwards appeasing him by an ample apology-he protects the Thasian poet Hêgêmon, against whom an indictment had been formally lodged before the archon, by effacing it with his own hand from the list put up in the public edifice, called Metrôon; defying both magistrate and accuser to press the cause on for trial2. Nor does it appear that any injured person ever dared to bring Alkibiadês to trial before the dikastery, though we read with amazement the tissue of lawlessness3 which marked his private life

-a combination of insolence and ostentation with occasional mean deceit when it suited his purpose. But amidst the perfect legal, judicial, and constitu

1 Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, c. 49; Thucyd. vi. 16; Antipho apud Athenæum, xii. p. 525.

2 Athenæus, ix. p. 407.

3 Thucyd. vi. 15. I translate the expression of Thucydidês, which is of great force and significance—φοβηθέντες γὰρ αὐτοῦ οἱ πολλοὶ τὸ μέγε θος τῆς τε κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα παρανομίας ἐς τὴν δίαιταν, &c. The same word is repeated by the historian, vi. 28. τὴν ἄλλην αὐτοῦ ἐς τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα οὐ δημοτικὴν παρανομίαν.

The same phrase is also found in the short extract from the λodopía of Antipho (Athenæus, xii. p. 525).

The description of Alkibiadês, given in that Discourse called the 'Epwτikos Aóyos, erroneously ascribed to Demosthenês (c. 12, p. 1414), is more discriminating than we commonly find in rhetorical compositions. Τοῦτο δ', ̓Αλκιβιάδην εὑρήσεις φύσει μὲν πρὸς ἀρετὴν πολλῷ χεῖρον διακείμενον, καὶ τὰ μὲν ὑπερηφανῶς, τὰ δὲ ταπεινῶς, τὰ δ ̓ ὑπεράκρως, ζῆν προῃρημένον· ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς Σωκράτους ὁμιλίας πολλὰ μὲν ἐπανορθωθέντα τοῦ βίου, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ τῷ μεγέθει τῶν ἄλλων ἔργων ἐπικρυψάμενον.

Of the three epithets, whereby the author describes the bad tendencies of Alkibiadês, full illustrations will be seen in his proceedings, hereafter to be described. The improving influence here ascribed to Sokratês is unfortunately far less borne out.

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