Page:The Children's Plutarch, Greeks.djvu/74

 falling when he bit the hands of his rival, and made him let go his hold.

"Ho!" cried the other wrestler, "you are biting like a woman!"

"No," he replied, "I bite like a lion."

Well, lions may bite if they please; but it does not appear to me to be manly for lads to bite, even in sport.

The boy who bit had a long Greek name Alcibiades (Al-ki-by-a-deez). He lived from about 450 B.C. to 404 B.C.

One day he was playing at dice with other Athenian lads in the street. Just as he was about to throw the little square blocks of bone a wagon rumbled along, and Alcibiades called out to the driver to stop. The man took no notice of the boy's call, and came on. Thereupon Alcibiades laid himself across the narrow road, and dared the driver to run over him. This, of course, the driver would not do, and he was obliged to come to a halt, and the boy laughed at having got his own way.

When he grew to be a young man he was the talk of the city. He was rich, his house was splendid, his clothes costly; and many persons followed him and courted him in the hope of getting favors and gifts. As a man, he did strange freaks just the same as in his earlier years, and the Athenian folk would tell each other, with smiles, stories of