Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/491

 KRITIAS. -ALKTBIADES. 469 That Sokrates had educated both Kritias and Alkibiades, was affirmed by the accusers, and seemingly believed by the general public, both at the time and afterwards. 1 That both of them had been among those who conversed with him, when young men, is an unquestionable fact ; to what extent, or down to what period, the conversation was carried, we cannot distinctly ascer- tain. Xenophon a Hiring that both of them frequented his society when young, to catch from him an argumentative facility which might be serviceable to their political ambition ; that he curbed their violent and licentious propensities, so long as they continued to come to him ; that both of them manifested a respectful obedience to him, which seemed in little consonance with their natural tempers ; but that they soon quitted him, weary of such restraint, after having acquired as much as they thought convenient of his peculiar accomplishment. The writ- ings of Plato, on the contrary, impress us with the idea that the association of both of them with Sokrates must have been more continued and intimate ; for both of them are made to take great part in the Platonic dialogues, while the attachment of Sokrates to Alkibiades is represented as stronger than that which he ever felt towards any other man ; a fact not difficult to explain, since the latter, notwithstanding his ungovernable dis- positions, was distinguished in his youth not less for capacity and forward impulse, than for beauty; and since youthful beauty (ired the imagination of the Greeks, especially that of Sokrates, more than the charms of the other sex. 2 From the year 420 B.C., in which the activity of Alkibiades as a political leader commenced, it seems unlikely that he could have seen much of Sokrates, and after the year 415 B.C. the fact is impossible ; since in that year he became a permanent exile, with the excep- tion of three or four months in the year 407 B.C. At the moment of the trial of Sokrates, therefore, his connection with Alkibiades must at least have been a fact long past and gone. Respecting Kritias, we make out less ; and as he was a kinsman cont. Timnrch. c. 34, p. 74. ripely Suvpdr?/ rov crod.on/v e, <5rt Kpmav tyuvij Ke-rraidevKuf, etc. Xcnoph. Mem. i, 2, 12 1 See Plato (CharmidSs, c. 3, p. 154, C- Lys:s, c. 2, p. 20t, B ; Protag* rag, c l,p. 309, A), etc.