Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/124

106 ]Q6 HISTORY OF GREECE near to rum by the defects of Nikias and Alkibiades combined for, by singular misfortune, she does not reap the benefit of the good qualities of either. It was in one of the three years between 420-416 B.C., though we do not know in which, that the vote of ostracism took place, arising out of the contention between Nikias and Alkibiades. 1 The political antipathy between the two having reached a point of great violence, it was proposed that a vote of ostracism should be taken, and this proposition probably made by the partisans of Nikias, since Alkibiades was the person most likely to be reputed dangerous was adopted by the people. Hyperbolus the lamp-maker, son of Cheremes, a speaker of considerable influence in the public assembly, strenuously supported it, hating Nikias not less than Alkibiades. Hyperbolus is named by Aris- tophanes as having succeeded Kleon in the mastership of the rostrum in the Pnyx : 2 if this were true, his supposed demagogic preeminence would commence about September 422 B.C., the period of the death of Kleon. Long before that time, however, be had been among the chief butts of the comic authors, who ascribe to him the same baseness, dishonesty, impudence, and malignity in accusation, as that which they fasten upon Kleon, though in language which seems to imply an inferior idea of his power. And it may be doubted whether Hyperbolus ever suc- ceeded to the same influence as had been enjoyed by Kleon, when we observe that Thucydides does not name him in any of the important debates which took place at and after the Peace of Nikias. Thucydides only mentions him once, in 411 B.C., while 1 Dr. Thirl wall (History of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 360) places this vote of ostracism in midwinter or early spring of 415 B.C., immediately before the Sicilian expedition. His grounds for this opinion are derived from the Oration called Andok- ides against Alkibiades, the genuineness of which he seems to accept (see his Appendix ii, on that subject, vol. iii, p. 494, seq.). The more frequently I read over this Oration, the more do I &el per- suaded that it is a spurious composition of one or ITFO generations after the time to which it professes to refer. My reasons for this opinion have been already statjd in previous notes, nor do I think that Dr. Thirlwall's Appen- dix is successful in removing the objections against the genuineness of thf ipeech. See my preceding vol. vi, ch. xlvii, p. 6. note.
 * Aristophan. Tac. 680.