Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/338

 31 6 HISTORY OF GREECE. more numerous and violent than those of any other politician ic Athens, the generating seed was sown by his own overweening insolence, and contempt of restraints, legal as well as social. On the other hand, he was never once defeated either by land or sea. In courage, in ability, in enterprise, in power of dealing with new men and new situations, he was never wanting ; quali- ties, which, combined with his high birth, wealth, and personal accomplishments, sufficed to render him for the time the first man in every successive party which he espoused ; Athenian, Spartan, or Persian ; oligarchical or democratical. But to none of them did he ever inspire any lasting confidence ; all succes- sively threw him off". On the whole, we shall find few men in whom eminent capacities for action and command are so thoroughly marred by an assemblage of bad moral qualities, as Alkibiades. 1 1 Cornelius Nepos says (Alcib. c. 11) of Alkibiades: " Hunc infamatum a plerisque tres gravissimi historic! summis laudibus extulerunt: Thucy dides, qui ejusdem aetatis fuit ; Theopompus, qui fuit post aliquando natus , et Timseus: qui quidem duo maledicentissimi, nescio quo modo, in illo uno laudando conscierunt." We have no means of appreciating what was said by Theopompus and Timaeus. But as to Thncydides, it is to be recollected that he extols only the capacity and warlike enterprise of Alkibiades, nothing beyond ; and he had good reason for doing so. His picture of the dispositions and conduct of Alkibiades is the reverse of eulogy. The Oration xvi, of Isokrates, De Bigis, spoken by the son of Alk>- biades, goes into a labored panegyric of his father's character, but L; pro- digiously inaccurate, if we compare it with the facts stated iu Threyuidc.1 andXenophon. But he is justified in saying: ovdeitore TOV Tarp>f n uevov Tpo~atov i>/*v icrijaav oi iro^efuoi (a. 23).