Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/171

 ALKIBIADES AND THE PEOPLE. l& piohibiJcon of censure on his past crimes, and provisional accept- ance of his subsequent good deeds, as justifying the hope of yet better deeds to come. The popular instinct felt this situation perfectly, and imposed absolute silence on his enemies. 1 Wo are not to infer from hence that the people had forgotten the past deeds of Alkibiades, or that they entertained for him nothing but unqualified confidence and admiration. In their present very justifiable sentiment of hopefulness, they determined that he should have full scope for prosecuting his new and better career, if he chose ; and that his enemies should be precluded from reviving the mention of an irreparable past, so as to shut the door against him. But what was thus interdicted to men's lips as unseasonable, was not effaced from their recollections ; nor were the enemies, though silenced for the moment, rendered powerless for the future. All this train of combustible matter lay quiescent, ready to be fired by any future misconduct or neg- ligence, perhaps even by blameless ill-success, on the part of Alkibiades. At a juncture when so much depended upon his future be- havior, he showed, as we shall see presently, that he completely misinterpreted the temper of the people. Intoxicated by the unexpected triumph of his reception, according to that fatal sus- ceptjbility so common among distinguished Greeks, he forgot his own past history, and fancied that the people had forgotten and forgiven it also ; construing their studied and well-advised silence into a proof of oblivion. He conceived himself in assured pos- session of public confidence, and looked upon his numerous ene- mies as if they no longer existed, because they were not allowed to speak at a most unseasonable hour. Without doubt, his exultation was shared by his friends, and this sense of false secu- rity proved his future ruin. Two colleagues, recommended by Alkibiades himself, Adei- mantus and Aristokrates, were named by the people as generals of the hoplites to go out with him, in case of operations ashore. 3 1 Xenopli. Ilellcn. i, 4, 20. 'Xe^&KVTuv Je not aKkuv TOIOVTUV, Kai o v 6 e- y.)f UVTE-.TTOVTOS, J i TU fii) uvaa io & ni uv TTJV t KH.^.T|- S iav, etc.
 * Xenojih Ilellcn. i, 4, 21. Both Diodorus (xiii, 69) and Cornelius Nerxx