Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/59

41 ALKIFJADES 4 largest measure of private fortune, satisfied discerning men that he would reimburse himself by plundering the public, and even, it* opportunity offered, by overthrowing 1 the constitution to make himself master of the persons and properties of his fellow- citizens. He never inspired confidence or esteem in any one ; and sooner or later, among a public like that of Athens, so much accumulated odium and suspicion was sure to bring a public man to ruin, in spite of the strongest admiration for his capacity. lie was always the object of very conflicting sentiments : " The Athenians desired him, hated him, but still wished to have him," was said in the latter years of his life by a contemporary poet ; while we find also another pithy precept delivered in regard to him : " You ought not to keep a lion's whelp in your city at all ; but, if you choose to keep him, you must submit yourself to his behavior."- Athens had to feel the force of his energy, as an exile and enemy, but the great harm which he did to her was in his capacity of adviser ; awakening in his countrymen the same thirst for showy, rapacious, uncertain, perilous aggrandize- ment which dictated his own personal actions. Mentioning Alkibiades now for the first time, I have somewhat anticipated on future chapters, in order to present a general idea of his character, hereafter to be illustrated. But at the moment which r n have now reached (March, 420 B.C.) the lion's whelp was yet young, and had neither acquired his entire strength nor disclosed his full-grown claws. He began to put himself forward as a party leader, seemingly not long before the Peace of Nikias. The political traditions hereditary in his family, as in that of his relation Perikles, were democratical : his grandfather Alkibiades had been vehement in his opposition to the Peisistratids, and had even afterwards pub- licly renounced an established connection of hospitality with the 1 Thucyd. vi, 15. Compare Plutarch, Reip. Gcr. Prrcc. c. 4, p. 800. The sketch which Plato draws in the first three chapters of the ninth Book of the Republic, oi the citizen who erects himself into a despot and enslaves his fellow-citizens, exactly suits the character of Alkibiades. See also the same treatise, vi, 6-8, pp. 491 -494, and the preface of Schleiermacher to hi* translation of the Platonic dialogue called Alkibiades the first. 2 Aristophan. Ranoe, 1445-1453 ; Plutarch, Alkibiades, c. IS; Plafr"''.U Nikias, c. 9.