Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/49

31 ALKIBIADES. 31 own at the seafight of Artemisium againsi the Persians. A Spar- tan nurse named Amykla was proviled for the young Alkibiades, and a slave named Zopyrus chosen by his distinguished guardian to watch oyer him ; but even his boyhood was utterly ungovern- able, and Athens was full of his frsaks and enormities, to the unavailing regret of Perikles and his brother Ariphron. 1 His violent passions, love of enjoyment, ambition of preeminence, and insolence towards others, 2 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 bt. much run after by women, 3 and even by women of generally reserved habits. Moreover, even before the age when such temp- tations 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 paltes- tras. These men not only endured his petulance, but were even nattered when he would condescend to bestow it upon them. Amidst such universal admiration and indulgence, amidst cor- rupting influences exercised from so many quarters and from so early an age, combined with great wealth and the highest posi- tion, it was not likely that either self-restraint or regard for the welfare of others would ever acquire development in the mind of Alkibiades. 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 doubt- less be made for scandal and exaggeration, yet the general type 1 Plato. Protagoras, c. 10, p. 320 ; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 2, 3, 4 ; Isokrates, De Bigis, Orat. xvi, p. 353, sect. 33, 34 ; Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 1. 2 H~UV&a 6s 7Tf)Of TOVTOV (2w/Cp('t77/) flOVOV aV&pUTiUV, O OVK U.V Tlf JL o t T o ev i /i OL Evslvai, TO aio%vvEG&ai bvTivovv. This is a part of the language which Plato puts into the mouth of Alki- biades, 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. TUTOV fyv K.a.1 Tb (pi/ioTrpuTov, (if 6f/7,6v iffTi Tolf TcuJi/coZf vTro/ivTi/nact (Plu- tarch, Alkib. c. 2). 3 I translate, with some diminution of the force of the words, the expres- sion of a contempoiary author, Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2. 24. 'AA/u/3tu(5>7< d' nv of, etc.
 * <kvcri 6e TTOAAUV OVTUV nal fj.syuA.uv TTU.-&UV iv avTu TO tyLAoveiKov iaxvpo-