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 classic features of the youths who often followed him. Yet under that Silenus mask (as Alcibiades described it) was concealed the image of a god. None who had ever heard him speak could easily forget the steady gaze, the earnest manner, and, above all, the impassioned words which made their hearts burn within them as they listened. Many youths would approach the circle which always formed whenever Socrates talked or argued, from mere curiosity or as a resource to pass away an hour; and at first they would look with indifference or contempt on the mean and poorly-dressed figure in the centre; but gradually their interest was aroused, their attention grow fixed, and then their hearts beat faster, their eyes swam with tears, and their very souls were touched and thrilled by the voice of the charmer. They came again and again to listen; and so by degrees that company of friends was formed, whose devotion and affection to their master is the best testimony to the magic power of his words.

Among these followers might be found men of every shade of character—the reckless and ambitious Critias, the sceptic Pyrrho, the pleasure-secking Aristippus, "the madman" Apollodorus, and Euclid, who came constantly twenty miles from Megara, although a decree at that time existed that any Megarian found in Athens should be put to death. Above all, Alcibiades was a constant companion of Socrates; and men wondered at the friendship between this strangely-assorted pair—literally "Hyperion to a Satyr,"—the ugly barefooted philosopher, and the graceful youth, the idol of the rising generation, whose brilliant sayings were quoted, whose