unlucky omen of an eclipse of the sun, prognosticated defeat and mis- B.C 429. fortune. The chief, perceiving this dismay spreading, suddenly pulled off his cloak, and muffling the pilot's face with it, asked him if that "What difwere terrible and disastrous? "No," said the seaman.

ference then," said Pericles "do you make betwixt one darkness and
the other? they both proceed from a like cause; only that which
shades the sun, is a larger body than the cloak which covers your eyes.'
and
This plain remark aroused the spirits of the pilot and of the crew,
the expedition proceeded without interruption. As the friend and
patron of Phidias, he won the title of Olympius from his magnificence
and splendour in the fine arts. But these great and shining qualities
were sullied by prominent vices. Pericles was sensual and dissolute
in his pleasures, vainglorious, envious, and devoid of integrity in his
politics, and frequently mean and selfish in his domestic life. In his
prosperity he is said to have abandoned Anaxagoras, his tutor, until that
philosopher, in despair, took the resolution of starving himself to death.
It must, however, be confessed, that although he wanted the firmer
virtues of Aristides, and the nobler soul of Cimon, Pericles yet threw
a splendour and meretricious greatness about his very vices, and exer-
cised the power with which he was invested with moderation and with
great dignity.

Family and THIS celebrated Athenian, among the numerous advantages showered infancy of Alcibiades. upon him by nature and fortune, enjoyed the estimation arising from an illustrious ancestry. He was the son of Clinias, who, after gaining high honour by fitting out a galley at his private cost, in which he fought at the battle of Artemisium, was slain in the contest at Coronea, where the Athenians were opposed to the Boeotians. Pericles was his near relative, and one of his guardians. He is said, indeed, by Corne lius Nepos, to have passed his childhood in the house of that powerful and magnificent statesman. Amyclas, a woman of Sparta, was his nurse, and Zopynes his early instructor. For the information we have of these minute circumstances of his childhood we are indebted, according to Plutarch, to the friendship of Socrates, which rendered Alcibiades an object of interest to the admirers of that philosopher, who, therefore, recorded them in their writings.

Early

character of

The haughty spirit of impetuosity and disdain, which so strongly Alcibiades. marked his character when fully developed, was manifested in his youth. As a cart was driven along the public road in which he was playing at quoits with his companions, and approached the spot just as he was about to throw, he required the driver to stop till his turn was past; and when he found that the man paid no attention to his demand, he threw himself on his face in the way of the horses, and defied the party to drive over him. The driver was so terrified at this daring conduct, that he stopped the horses and quietly waited until Alcibiades had thrown. When he feared that he should have been overcome in wrestling, he vehemently bit the hand of his antagonist,

to whose reproach that he bit like a woman, he replied, " No-like a lion." He pertinaciously resisted all efforts to instruct him in the art of playing on the flute, and ridiculed those who submitted to learn it. For he alleged that the exercise distorted the features and prevented the use of speech; and, therefore, was fit only for the Thebans who had no power of conversation, and ought to be rejected by Athenians, who revered Minerva and Apollo as tutelary deities; the first of whom threw away the flute, and the latter stripped off the skin of one of its professors. By this raillery, the young Alcibiadēs brought the knowledge of that instrument, before fashionable, into contempt, and caused it to be excluded from the arts which gentlemen could honourably cultivate. It is reported by Antiphon, that he slew one of his own servants in the place of public exercises, by a blow inflicted with a staff; but Plutarch thinks that the authority of one, writing professedly to defame him, ought not to be received as satisfactory evidence of an instance of passion so fatal.

Friendship of

Alcibiades.

Amidst the irregularities of Alcibiades in his early years, there were indications of no common genius. These drew the attention of Socrates for Socrates, and caused him to take a great interest in the welfare of one, whose future life must, he foresaw, prove a course of splendid good, or of daring evil. It shows him, indeed, not to have been destitute of a love for virtue, that while surrounded by flatterers, he felt the value of the philosopher's regard, and repaid it with becoming reverence. The discourse of his great adviser would even affect him to tears, and appear for a time to soften him into goodness, and charm him into wisdom. But he was not born, long to endure even the gentlest control. His spirits were too elastic, and his sense of luxurious pleasure too intense, to suffer him to persevere in listening to the still voice of truth and of virtue. He perpetually broke from the instructions of Socrates into excesses of insolence which no monitor was able to control. Thus, having haughtily refused the invitation of Amytus to a banquet, and indulged at his own house in copious draughts of wine with his young companions, he sallied forth to the place where his presence had been requested, and commanded his servants to seize half the vessels of gold and silver which covered the tables, and to bear them away in triumph. The guests naturally expressed great indignation at this proceeding: but their host excused the intruder, and even said that he ought rather to thank him for what he had left, than blame him for that which he had taken. His generosity had sometimes as little of reason or of justice as his outrages. He invited to supper an Athenian who had sold his little estate, and presented him with the money derived from the sale; and after the repast, returning to him the gold, desired him to appear on the following day, when the public revenue should be offered to farm, and offer a higher sum than any other bidder. In the morning the man appeared, and according to directions given him, offered a talent more than the usual price, which

Marriage of
Alcibiades.

greatly disconcerted those who were accustomed to farm the taxes, because their custom was to pay out of the profits of one year the rent of the preceding. They demanded whom he would bring forward as his sureties, hoping that, by this means, they should prevent his design. But Alcibiadēs, who, from a distance, observed the success of his plan, deprived them of this resource by exclaiming that the bidder was his friend, and that he would answer for the fulfilment of the engagement with his fortune. They then entreated their opponent to retract, and offered him a talent, which, at length, at the advice of his prompter, he accepted, and thus obtained an ample sum for the relief of his distresses. Even the feelings of admiration which Alcibiadēs cherished for the works of genius were not expressed without manifesting the arrogant disposition of his mind. Thus, when he had entered the school of a teacher, and asked him for one of Homer's poems, and received for answer that no work of that poet was taught there, he struck the master on the face, and abruptly departed. He made a fitter retort on another occasion, when a reply scarcely less provoking was given to the same question. The tutor had asserted that he had Homer corrected by himself, and Alcibiadēs retorted, that one able to improve Homer, might well aspire to teach men, instead of condescending to instruct children in the first rudiments of learning. His love of singularity was evident in his minutest actions. Having bought a dog of great beauty, for seventy minæ, he ordered his tail, which was his chief ornament, to be cut off; and on being told that all Athens laughed at the absurdity of his conduct, replied, that he had then gained his desired object, for he was desirous that the citizens should find matter of discourse and censure in this affair, lest they should talk of worse things respecting him.

It is singular that one of the most wanton of his excesses ended in his marriage; an event, however, which had no power to make him adhere to virtue. From mere insolence, and to fulfil a boast made to his companions in riot, he struck Hipponicus, the father of Callias, a person of great wealth and importance, who had never offered him the slightest injury. The next morning he became sensible of the greatness of his offence; and, in anxiety to make atonement, went to the house of the party to whom the insult had been offered, and told him that he was ready to receive any chastisement by way of retribution which he might think fit to inflict. Moved by this conduct, Hipponicus not only forgave him, but shortly after permitted him to receive the hand of his daughter Hipparete, who was affectionately devoted to him, and deserved his love. His irregularities, however, soon provoked her to leave him, and retire to the house of her brother. Of this measure he appeared regardless, and lived in the same course of dissipated pleasure; but when his wife appeared, according to the laws, before the archon, to deliver in person the instrument by which she sought for a divorce, he seized her with his characteristic impetuosity, and carried

her by force home, no one daring to attempt her rescue.

After this,

she did not offer to leave him, but remained in his house till her death, which occurred shortly after, during his journey to Ephesus.

of Alcibiades in the field.

Alcibiades, like all the nobles of Athens, became early in life a Early service soldier. In the field, Socrates was no less ready to defend him from personal danger, than he had been in the city to secure him from the perils of vice and corruption. They lived in the same tent, and fought side by side in the expedition against Potidæa, where they both exerted themselves with great bravery. In one skirmish, when Alcibiadēs was wounded, Socrates saved him from being made prisoner, and instead of claiming the prize of valour for himself to which he was entitled, gave testimony in favour of him whom he had rescued, and persuaded the judges to bestow on him an honour which he trusted would animate his youth to the pursuit of honourable fame. At a subsequent period, Alcibiades had an opportunity of repaying a part of this obligation; for, in the retreat after the battle of Delium, as he was mounted on horseback, while Socrates was on foot, he refused to retire, until he had, with the hazard of his life, brought into a place of safety his philosopher, friend, and preserver.

Alcibiades

games.

The magnificent disposition of Alcibiades was not to be restrained Success of within moderate boundaries by the councils of his great adviser. He at the kept a most splendid retinue, and in the number and beauty of his Olympic horses and chariots, far surpassed all rivals. At one time he sent seven chariots to contend at the Olympic games, which no one had ever done before him, and obtained the first, second, and also either the third or fourth of the prizes. On occasion of this brilliant success, not only individuals, but cities in their collective character, made him congratulatory offerings. The Ephesians erected him a splendid tent; the Chians furnished him with provender and cattle for sacrifice; and the Lesbians provided him with wine, for the service of rich banquets, which he gave with his characteristic profusion. In the midst of these triumphant revellings, however, he was charged with an act of meanness, in having claimed a chariot as his own, which he had purchased for another; and legal proceedings were consequently instituted against him. We are informed that Socrates was his advocate; but we do not know either the result of the cause, or the justice of the accusation on which it was founded.

career as a

Addicted as Alcibiades was to pleasure, he soon found a restless Commencedesire to share in the administration of public affairs. Of the daring cast ment of his of his politics, his youthful advice to Periclēs, his guardian, afforded a statesman. clear indication. When he understood that statesman to be perplexed how he should make up his accounts to present to the Athenians, he observed that it would be better for him to consider how he could altogether avoid accounting. He was endowed with an eloquence, the most insinuating and persuasive, one of the first endowments a politician could possess in a state like Athens. He was cautious in the selection of his words and phrases, that he might gratify the nice ears of his