Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/337

 CHARACTER OF ALKIBIADES. 315 proportion to the for greater evil. Of the disastrous Sicilian expedition, he was more the cause than any other individual, though that enterprise cannot properly be said to have been caused by any individual, but rather to have emanated from a national impulse. Having first, as a counsellor, contributed more than any other man to plunge the Athenians into this imprudent adventure, he next, as an exile, contributed more than any other man, except Kikias, to turn that adventure into ruin, and the consequences of it into still greater ruin. Without him, Gylip- pus would not have been sent to Syracuse, Dekeleia would not have been fortified, Chios and Miletus would not have revolted, the oligarchical conspiracy of the Four Hundred would not have been originated. Nor can it be said that his first three years of political action as Athenian leader, in a speculation peculiarly his own, the alliance with Argos, and the campaigns in Pelo- ponnesus, proved in any way advantageous to his country. On the contrary, by playing an offensive game where he had hardly sufficient force for a defensive, he enabled the Lacedaemo- nians completely to recover their injured reputation and ascen- dency through the important victory of Mantineia. The period of his life really serviceable to his country, and really glorious to himself, was that of three years ending with his return to Athens in 407 B.C. The results of these three years of success were frustrated by the unexpected coming down of Cyrus as satrap : but, just at the moment when it behooved Alkibiades to put forth a higher measure of excellence, in order to realize his own promises in the face of this new obstacle, at that critical moment we find him spoiled by the unexpected welcome which had recently greeted him at Athens, and falling miserably short even of the former merit whereby that welcome had been earned. If from his achievements we turn to his dispositions, his ends, and his means, there are few characters in Grecian history who present so little to esteem, whether we look at him as a public or as a private man. His ends are those of exorbitant ambition and vanity, his means rapacious AS well as reckless, from his first dealing with Sparta and the Spartan envoys, down to the end of his career. The manoeuvres whereby his political enemies first procured his exile were indeed base and guilty in a high degree ; but, we must recollect that if his enemies were