Chapter LV (2)

The new ephors convened a special congress at Sparta for the settlement of the pending differences, at which among the rest Athenian, Bœotian, and Corinthian envoys were all present. But, after prolonged debates, no approach was made to agreement; so that the congress was on the point of breaking up, when Kleobûlus and Xenarês, together with many of their partisans,[37] originated, in concert with the Bœotian and Corinthian deputies, a series of private underhand manœuvres for the dissolution of the Athenian alliance. This was to be effected by bringing about a separate alliance between Argos and Sparta, which the Spartans sincerely desired, and would grasp at in preference, so these ephors affirmed, even if it cost them the breach of their new tie with Athens. The Bœotians were urged, first to become allies of Argos themselves, and then to bring Argos into alliance with Sparta. But it was farther essential that they should give up Panaktum to Sparta, so that it might be tendered to the Athenians in exchange for Pylos; for Sparta could not easily go to war with them while they remained masters of the latter.[38]

[37] Thucyd. v, 37. ἐπεσταλμένοι ἀπό τε τοῦ Κλεοβούλου καὶ
Ξενάρους καὶ ὅσοι φίλοι ἦσαν αὐτοῖς, etc.

[38] Thucyd. v, 36.

Such were the plans which Kleobûlus and Xenarês laid with the Corinthian and Bœotian deputies, and which the latter went home prepared to execute. Chance seemed to favor the purpose at once: for on their road home, they were accosted by two Argeians, senators in their own city, who expressed an earnest anxiety to bring about alliance between the Bœotians and Argos. The Bœotian deputies, warmly encouraging this idea, urged the Argeians to send envoys to Thebes as solicitors of the alliance; and communicated to the bœotarchs, on their arrival at home, both the plans laid by the Spartan ephors and the wishes of these Argeians. The bœotarchs also entered heartily into the entire scheme; receiving the Argeian envoys with marked favor, and promising, as soon as they should have obtained the requisite sanction, to send envoys of their own and ask for alliance with Argos.

That sanction was to be obtained from “the Four Senates of the Bœotians;” bodies, of the constitution of which nothing is known. But they were usually found so passive and acquiescent that the bœotarchs, reckoning upon their assent as a matter of course, even without any full exposition of reasons, laid all their plans accordingly.[39] They proposed to these four Senates a resolution in general terms, empowering themselves in the name of the Bœotian federation to exchange oaths of alliance with any Grecian city which might be willing to contract on terms mutually beneficial: their particular object being, as they stated, to form alliance with the Corinthians, Megarians, and Chalkidians of Thrace, for mutual defence, and for war as well as peace with others only by common consent. To this specific object they anticipated no resistance on the part of the Senates, inasmuch as their connection with Corinth had always been intimate, while the position of the four parties named was the same, all being recusants of the recent peace. But the resolution was advisedly couched in the most comprehensive terms, in order that it might authorize them to proceed farther afterwards, and conclude alliance on the part of the Bœotians and Megarians with Argos; that ulterior purpose being however for the present kept back, because alliance with Argos was a novelty which might surprise and alarm the Senates. The manœuvre, skilfully contrived for entrapping these bodies into an approval of measures which they never contemplated, illustrates the manner in which an oligarchical executive could elude the checks devised to control its proceedings. But the bœotarchs, to their astonishment, found themselves defeated at the outset: for the Senates would not even hear of alliance with Corinth, so much did they fear to offend Sparta by any special connection with a city which had revolted from her. Nor did the bœotarchs think it safe to divulge their communications with Kleobûlus and Xenarês, or to acquaint the Senates that the whole plan originated with a powerful party in Sparta herself. Accordingly, under this formal refusal on the part of the Senates, no farther proceedings could be taken. The Corinthian and Chalkidian envoys left Thebes, while the promise of sending Bœotian envoys to Argos remained unexecuted.[40]

[39] Thucyd. v, 38. οἰόμενοι τὴν βουλὴν, κἂν μὴ εἴπωσιν, οὐκ ἄλλα
ψηφιεῖσθαι ἢ ἃ σφίσι προδιαγνόντες παραινοῦσιν ... ταῖς τέσσαρσι
βουλαῖς τῶν Βοιωτῶν, αἵπερ ἅπαν τὸ κῦρος ἔχουσι.

[40] Thucyd. v, 38.

But the anti-Athenian ephors at Sparta, though baffled in their schemes for arriving at the Argeian alliance through the agency of the Bœotians, did not the less persist in their views upon Panaktum. That place—a frontier fortress in the mountainous range between Attica and Bœotia, apparently on the Bœotian side of Phylê, and on or near the direct road from Athens to Thebes which led through Phylê[41]—had been an Athenian possession, until six months before the peace, when it had been treacherously betrayed to the Bœotians.[42] A special provision of the treaty between Athens and Sparta, prescribed that it should be restored to Athens; and Lacedæmonian envoys were now sent on an express mission to Bœotia, to request from the Bœotians the delivery of Panaktum as well as of their Athenian captives, in order that by tendering these to Athens she might be induced to surrender Pylos. The Bœotians refused compliance with this request, except on condition that Sparta should enter into special alliance with them as she had done with the Athenians. Now the Spartans stood pledged by their covenant with the latter, either by its terms or by its recognized import, not to enter into any new alliance without their consent. But they were eagerly bent upon getting possession of Panaktum; while the prospect of breach with Athens, far from being a deterring motive, was exactly that which Kleobûlus and Xenarês desired. Under these feelings, the Lacedæmonians consented to and swore the special alliance with Bœotia. But the Bœotians, instead of handing over Panaktum for surrender, as they had promised, immediately razed the fortress to the ground; under pretence of some ancient oaths which had been exchanged between their ancestors and the Athenians, to the effect that the district round it should always remain without resident inhabitants, as a neutral strip of borderland, and under common pasture.

[41] See Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. ii, ch.
xvii, p. 370.

[42] Thucyd. v, 3.

These negotiations, after having been in progress throughout the winter, ended in the accomplishment of the alliance and the destruction of Panaktum at the beginning of spring or about the middle of March. And while the Lacedæmonian ephors thus seemed to be carrying their point on the side of Bœotia, they were agreeably surprised by an unexpected encouragement to their views from another quarter. An embassy arrived at Sparta from Argos, to solicit renewal of the peace just expiring. The Argeians found that they made no progress in the enlargement of their newly-formed confederacy, while their recent disappointment with the Bœotians made them despair of realizing their ambitious projects of Peloponnesian headship. But when they learned that the Lacedæmonians had concluded a separate alliance with the Bœotians, and that Panaktum had been razed, their disappointment was converted into positive alarm for the future. Naturally inferring that this new alliance would not have been concluded except in concert with Athens, they interpreted the whole proceeding as indicating that Sparta had prevailed upon the Bœotians to accept the peace with Athens, the destruction of Panaktum being conceived as a compromise to obviate disputes respecting possession. Under such a persuasion,—noway unreasonable in itself, when the two contracting governments, both oligarchical and both secret, furnished no collateral evidence to explain their real intent,—the Argeians saw themselves excluded from alliance not merely with Bœotia, Sparta, and Tegea, but also with Athens; which latter city they had hitherto regarded as a sure resort in case of hostility with Sparta. Without a moment’s delay, they despatched Eustrophus and Æson, two Argeians much esteemed at Sparta, and perhaps proxeni of that city, to press for a renewal of their expiring truce with the Spartans, and to obtain the best terms they could.

To the Lacedæmonian ephors this application was eminently acceptable, the very event which they had been manœuvring underhand to bring about: and negotiations were opened, in which the Argeian envoys at first proposed that the disputed possession of Thyrea should be referred to arbitration. But they found their demand met by a peremptory negative, the Lacedæmonians refusing to enter upon such a discussion, and insisting upon simple renewal of the peace now at an end. At last the Argeian envoys, eagerly bent upon keeping the question respecting Thyrea open, in some way or other, prevailed upon the Lacedæmonians to assent to the following singular agreement. Peace was concluded between Athens and Sparta for fifty years; but if at any moment within that interval, excluding either periods of epidemic or periods of war, it should suit the views of either party to provoke a combat by chosen champions of equal number for the purpose of determining the right to Thyrea, there was to be full liberty of doing so; the combat to take place within the territory of Thyrea itself, and the victors to be interdicted from pursuing the vanquished beyond the undisputed border of either territory. It will be recollected, that about one hundred and twenty years before this date, there had been a combat of this sort by three hundred champions on each side, in which, after desperate valor on both sides, the victory as well as the disputed right still remained undetermined. The proposition made by the Argeians was a revival of this old practice of judicial combat: nevertheless, such was the alteration which the Greek mind had undergone during the interval, that it now appeared a perfect absurdity, even in the eyes of the Lacedæmonians, the most old-fashioned people in Greece.[43] Yet since they hazarded nothing, practically, by so vague a concession, and were supremely anxious to make their relations smooth with Argos, in contemplation of a breach with Athens, they at last agreed to the condition, drew up the treaty, and placed it in the hands of the envoys to carry back to Argos. Formal acceptance and ratification, by the Argeian public assembly, was necessary to give it validity: should this be granted, the envoys were invited to return to Sparta at the festival of the Hyakinthia, and there go through the solemnity of the oaths.

Amidst such strange crossing of purposes and interests, the Spartan ephors seemed now to have carried all their points; friendship with Argos, breach with Athens, and yet the means—through the possession of Panaktum—of procuring from Athens the cession of Pylos. But they were not yet on firm ground. For when their deputies, Andromedês and two colleagues, arrived in Bœotia for the purpose of going on to Athens and prosecuting the negotiation about Panaktum, at the time when Eustrophus and Æson were carrying on their negotiation at Sparta, they discovered for the first time that the Bœotians, instead of performing their promise to hand over Panaktum, had razed it to the ground. This was a serious blow to their chance of success at Athens: nevertheless, Andromedês proceeded thither, taking with him all the Athenian captives in Bœotia. These he restored at Athens, at the same time announcing the demolition of Panaktum as a fact: Panaktum as well as the prisoners was thus _restored_, he pretended; for the Athenians would not now find a single enemy in the place: and he claimed the cession of Pylos in exchange.[44]

[43] Thucyd. v, 41. Τοῖς δὲ Λακεδαιμονίοις τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἐδόκει
μωρία εἶναι ταῦτα· ἔπειτα (ἐπεθύμουν γὰρ τὸ Ἄργος πάντως φίλιον
ἔχειν) ξυνεχώρησαν ἐφ’ οἷς ἠξίουν, καὶ ξυνεγράψαντο.

By the forms of treaty which remain, we are led to infer that
the treaty was not subscribed by any signatures, but drawn up by
the secretary or authorized officer, and ultimately engraved on
a column. The names of those who take the oath are recorded, but
seemingly no official signature.

[44] Thucyd. v. 42.

But he soon found that the final term of Athenian compliance had been reached. It was probably on this occasion that the separate alliance concluded between Sparta and the Bœotians first became discovered at Athens; since not only were the proceedings of these oligarchical governments habitually secret, but there was a peculiar motive for keeping this alliance concealed until the discussion about Panaktum and Pylos had been brought to a close. Both this alliance, and the demolition of Panaktum, excited among the Athenians the strongest marks of disgust and anger; aggravated probably rather than softened by the quibble of Andromedês, that demolition of the fort, being tantamount to restitution, and precluding any farther tenancy by the enemy, was a substantial satisfaction of the treaty; and aggravated still farther by the recollection of all the other unperformed items in the treaty. A whole year had now elapsed, amidst frequent notes and protocols, to employ a modern phrase; yet not one of the conditions favorable to Athens had yet been executed, except the restitution of her captives, seemingly not many in number; while she on her side had made to Sparta the capital cession on which almost everything hinged. A long train of accumulated indignation, brought to a head by this mission of Andromedês, discharged itself in the harshest dismissal and rebuke of himself and his colleagues.[45]

[45] Thucyd. v. 42.

Even Nikias, Lachês, and the other leading men, to whose improvident facility and misjudgment the embarrassment of the moment was owing, were probably not much behind the general public in exclamation against Spartan perfidy, if it were only to divert attention from their own mistake. But there was one of them—Alkibiadês son of Kleinias—who took this opportunity of putting himself at the head of the vehement anti-Laconian sentiment which now agitated the ekklesia, and giving to it a substantive aim.

The present is the first occasion on which we hear of this remarkable man as taking a prominent part in public life. He was now about thirty-one or thirty-two years old, which in Greece was considered an early age for a man to exercise important command. But such was the splendor, wealth, and antiquity of his family, of Æakid lineage through the heroes Eurysakês and Ajax, and such the effect of that lineage upon the democratical public of Athens,[46] that he stepped speedily and easily into a conspicuous station. Belonging also through his mother Deinomachê to the gens of the Alkmæonidæ, he was related to Periklês, who became his guardian when he was left an orphan at about five years old, along with his younger brother Kleinias. It was at that time that their father Kleinias was slain at the battle of Koroneia, having already served with honor in a trireme of his own at the sea-fight of Artemisium against the Persians. A Spartan nurse named Amykla was provided for the young Alkibiadês, and a slave named Zopyrus chosen by his distinguished guardian to watch over him; but even his boyhood was utterly ungovernable, and Athens was full of his freaks and enormities, to the unavailing regret of Periklês and his brother Ariphron.[47] His violent passions, love of enjoyment, ambition of preëminence, and insolence towards others,[48] were manifested at an early age, and never deserted him throughout his life. His finished beauty of person both as boy, youth, and mature man, caused him to be much run after by women,[49] and even by women of generally reserved habits. Moreover, even before the age when such temptations were usually presented, the beauty of his earlier youth, while going through the ordinary gymnastic training, procured for him assiduous caresses, compliments, and solicitations of every sort, from the leading Athenians who frequented the public palæstræ. These men not only endured his petulance, but were even flattered when he would condescend to bestow it upon them. Amidst such universal admiration and indulgence, amidst corrupting influences exercised from so many quarters and from so early an age, combined with great wealth and the highest position, it was not likely that either self-restraint or regard for the welfare of others would ever acquire development in the mind of Alkibiadês. The anecdotes which fill his biography reveal the utter absence of both these constituent elements of morality; and though, in regard to the particular stories, allowance must doubtless be made for scandal and exaggeration, yet the general type of character stands plainly marked and sufficiently established in all.

[46] Thucyd. v. 43. Ἀλκιβιάδης ... ἀνὴρ ἡλικίᾳ μὲν ὢν ἔτι τότε
νέος, ὡς ἐν ἄλλῃ πόλει, ἀξιώματι δὲ προγόνων τιμώμενος.

The expression cf Plutarch, however, ἔτι μειράκιον, seems an
exaggeration (Alkibiad. c. 10).

Kritias and Chariklês, in reply to the question of Sokratês, whom
they had forbidden to converse with or teach young men, defined a
_young man_ to be one under thirty years of age, the senatorial
age at Athens (Xenophon, Memor. i. 2. 35).

[47] Plato, Protagoras, c. 10, p. 320; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c.
2, 3, 4; Isokratês, De Bigis, Orat. xvi, p. 353, sect. 33, 34;
Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 1.

[48] Πέπονθα δὲ πρὸς τοῦτον (Σωκράτη) μόνον ἀνθρώπων, ~ὃ οὐκ ἄν
τις οἴοιτο ἐν ἐμοὶ ἐνεῖναι, τὸ αἰσχύνεσθαι ὁντινοῦν~.

This is a part of the language which Plato puts into the mouth
of Alkibiadês, in the Symposion, c. 32, p. 216; see also Plato,
Alkibiad. i, c. 1, 2, 3.

Compare his other contemporary, Xenophon, Memor. i, 2, 16-25.

Φύσει δὲ πολλῶν ὄντων καὶ μεγάλων πάθων ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ φιλόνεικον
ἰσχυρότατον ἦν καὶ τὸ φιλόπρωτον, ὡς δῆλόν ἐστι τοῖς παιδικοῖς
ὑπομνήμασι (Plutarch, Alkib. c. 2).

[49] I translate, with some diminution of the force of the words,
the expression of a contemporary author, Xenophon, Memorab. i,
2. 24. Ἀλκιβιάδης δ’ αὖ διὰ μὲν κάλλος ὑπὸ πολλῶν καὶ σεμνῶν
γυναικῶν ~θηρώμενος~, etc.

A dissolute life, and an immoderate love of pleasure in all its forms, is what we might naturally expect from a young man so circumstanced; and it appears that with him these tastes were indulged with an offensive publicity which destroyed the comfort of his wife Hipparetê, daughter of Hipponikus who was slain at the battle of Delium. She had brought him a large dowry of ten talents: when she sought a divorce, as the law of Athens permitted, Alkibiadês violently interposed to prevent her from obtaining the benefit of the law, and brought her back by force to his house even from the presence of the magistrate. It is this violence of selfish passion, and reckless disregard of social obligation towards every one, which forms the peculiar characteristic of Alkibiadês. He strikes the schoolmaster whose house he happens to find unprovided with a copy of Homer; he strikes Taureas,[50] a rival chorêgus, in the public theatre, while the representation is going on; he strikes Hipponikus, who afterwards became his father-in-law, out of a wager of mere wantonness, afterwards appeasing him by an ample apology; he protects the Thasian poet Hêgêmon, against whom an indictment had been formally lodged before the archon, by effacing it with his own hand from the published list in the public edifice, called Metrôon; defying both magistrate and accuser to press the cause on for trial.[51] Nor does it appear that any injured person ever dared to bring Alkibiadês to trial before the dikastery, though we read with amazement the tissue of lawlessness[52] which marked his private life; a combination of insolence and ostentation with occasional mean deceit when it suited his purpose. But amidst the perfect legal, judicial, and constitutional equality, which reigned among the citizens of Athens, there still remained great social inequalities between one man and another, handed down from the times preceding the democracy: inequalities which the democratical institutions limited in their practical mischiefs, but never either effaced or discredited, and which were recognized as modifying elements in the current, unconscious vein of sentiment and criticism, by those whom they injured as well as by those whom they favored. In the speech which Thucydidês[53] ascribes to Alkibiadês before the Athenian public assembly, we find the insolence of wealth and high social position not only admitted as a fact, but vindicated as a just morality; and the history of his life, as well as many other facts in Athenian society, show that if not approved, it was at least tolerated in practice to a serious extent, in spite of the restraints of the democracy.

[50] Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, c. 49; Thucyd. vi, 16; Antipho
apud Athenæum, xii, p. 525.

[51] Athenæus, ix, p. 407.

[52] Thucyd. vi, 15. I translate the expression of Thucydidês,
which is of great force and significance—φοβηθέντες γὰρ αὐτοῦ οἱ
πολλοὶ τὸ μέγεθος τῆς τε κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα ~παρανομίας~ ἐς τὴν
δίαιταν, etc. The same word is repeated by the historian, vi, 28.
τὴν ἄλλην αὐτοῦ ἐς τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα οὐ δημοτικὴν ~παρανομίαν~.

The same phrase is also found in the short extract from the
λοιδορία of Antipho (Athenæus, xii, p. 525).

The description of Alkibiadês, given in that Discourse called the
Ἐρωτικὸς Λόγος, erroneously ascribed to Demosthenês (c. 12, p.
1414), is more discriminating than we commonly find in rhetorical
compositions. Τοῦτο δ’, Ἀλκιβιάδην εὑρήσεις φύσει μὲν πρὸς ἀρετὴν
πολλῷ χεῖρον διακείμενον, καὶ τὰ μὲν ὑπερηφάνως, τὰ δὲ ταπεινῶς,
τὰ δ’ ὑπεράκρως, ζῆν προῃρημένον· ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς Σωκράτους ὁμιλίας
πολλὰ μὲν ἐπανορθωθέντα τοῦ βίου, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ τῷ μεγέθει τῶν
ἄλλων ἔργων ἐπικρυψάμενον.

Of the three epithets, whereby the author describes the bad
tendencies of Alkibiadês, full illustrations will be seen in his
proceedings, hereafter to be described. The improving influence
here ascribed to Sokratês is unfortunately far less borne out.

[53] Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 4; Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 2;
Plato, Protagoras, c. 1.

I do not know how far the memorable narrative ascribed to
Alkibiadês in the Symposium of Plato (c. 33, 34, pp. 216, 217)
can be regarded as matter of actual fact and history, so far as
Sokratês is concerned; but it is abundant proof in regard to the
general relations of Alkibiadês with others: compare Xenophon,
Memorab. i, 2, 29, 30; iv. 1-2.

Several of the dialogues of Plato present to us striking pictures
of the palæstra, with the boys, the young men, the gymnastic
teachers, engaged in their exercises or resting from them, and
the philosophers and spectators who came there for amusement
and conversation. See particularly the opening chapters of the
Lysis and the Charmidês; also the Rivales, where the scene is
laid in the house of a γραμματιστὴς, or schoolmaster. In the
Lysis, Sokratês professes to set his own conversation with
these interesting youths as an antidote to the corrupting
flatteries of most of those who sought to gain their good-will.
Οὕτω χρὴ, ὦ Ἱππόθαλες, τοῖς παιδικοῖς διαλέγεσθαι, ταπεινοῦντα
καὶ συστέλλοντα, ἀλλὰ μὴ, ὥσπερ σὺ, χαυνοῦντα καὶ διαθρύπτοντα
(Lysis, c. 7, p. 210).

See, in illustration of what is here said about Alkibiadês as
a youth, Euripid. Supplic. 906 (about Parthenopæus), and the
beautiful lines in the Atys of Catullus, 60-69.

There cannot be a doubt that the characters of all the Greek
youth of any pretensions were considerably affected by this
society and conversation of their boyish years; though the
subject is one upon which the full evidence cannot well be
produced and discussed.

Amidst such unprincipled exorbitances of behavior, Alkibiadês stood distinguished for personal bravery. He served as a hoplite in the army under Phormion at the siege of Potidæa in 432 B.C. Though then hardly twenty years of age, he was among the most forward soldiers in the battle, received a severe wound, and was in great danger; owing his life only to the exertions of Sokratês, who served in the ranks along with him. Eight years afterwards, Alkibiadês also served with credit in the cavalry at the battle of Delium, and had the opportunity of requiting his obligation to Sokratês, by protecting him against the Bœotian pursuers. As a rich young man, also, choregy and trierarchy became incumbent upon him; expensive duties, which, as we might expect, he discharged not merely with sufficiency, but with ostentation. In fact, expenditure of this sort, though compulsory up to a certain point upon all rich men, was so fully repaid, to all those who had the least ambition, in the shape of popularity and influence, that most of them spontaneously went beyond the requisite minimum for the purpose of showing themselves off. The first appearance of Alkibiadês in public life is said to have been as a donor, for some special purpose, in the ekklesia, when various citizens were handing in their contributions: and the loud applause which his subscription provoked was at that time so novel and exciting to him, that he suffered a tame quail which he carried in his bosom to escape. This incident excited mirth and sympathy among the citizens present: the bird was caught and restored to him by Antiochus, who from that time forward acquired his favor, and in after days became his pilot and confidential lieutenant.[54]

[54] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 10.

To a young man like Alkibiadês, thirsting for power and preëminence, a certain measure of rhetorical facility and persuasive power was indispensable. With a view to this acquisition, he frequented the society of various sophistical and rhetorical teachers,[55] Prodikus, Protagoras, and others; but most of all that of Sokratês. His intimacy with Sokratês has become celebrated on many grounds, and is commemorated both by Plato and Xenophon, though unfortunately with less instruction than we could desire. We may readily believe Xenophon, when he tells us that Alkibiadês—like the oligarchical Kritias, of whom we shall have much to say hereafter—was attracted to Sokratês by his unrivalled skill of dialectical conversation, his suggestive influence over the minds of his hearers, in eliciting new thoughts and combinations, his mastery of apposite and homely illustrations, his power of seeing far beforehand the end of a long cross-examination, his ironical affectation of ignorance, whereby the humiliation of opponents was rendered only the more complete, when they were convicted of inconsistency and contradiction out of their own answers. The exhibitions of such ingenuity were in themselves highly interesting, and stimulating to the mental activity of listeners, while the faculty itself was one of peculiar value to those who proposed to take the lead in public debate; with which view both these ambitious young men tried to catch the knack from Sokratês,[56] and to copy his formidable string of interrogations. Both of them doubtless involuntarily respected the poor, self-sufficing, honest, temperate, and brave citizen, in whom this eminent talent resided; especially Alkibiadês, who not only owed his life to the generous valor of Sokratês at Potidæa, but had also learned in that service to admire the iron physical frame of the philosopher in his armor, enduring hunger, cold, and hardship.[57] But we are not to suppose that either of them came to Sokratês with the purpose of hearing and obeying his precepts on matters of duty, or receiving from him a new plan of life. They came partly to gratify an intellectual appetite, partly to acquire a stock of words and ideas, with facility of argumentative handling, suitable for their after-purpose as public speakers. Subjects moral, political, and intellectual, served as the theme sometimes of discourse, sometimes of discussion, in the society of all these sophists, Prodikus and Protagoras not less than Sokratês; for in the Athenian sense of the word, Sokratês was a sophist as well as the others: and to the rich youths of Athens, like Alkibiadês and Kritias, such society was highly useful.[58] It imparted a nobler aim to their ambition, including mental accomplishments as well as political success: it enlarged the range of their understandings, and opened to them as ample a vein of literature and criticism as the age afforded: it accustomed them to canvass human conduct, with the causes and obstructions of human well-being, both public and private: it even suggested to them indirectly lessons of duty and prudence, from which their social position tended to estrange them, and which they would hardly have submitted to hear except from the lips of one whom they intellectually admired. In learning to talk, they were forced to learn more or less to think, and familiarized with the difference between truth and error: nor would an eloquent lecturer fail to enlist their feelings in the great topics of morals and politics. Their thirst for mental stimulus and rhetorical accomplishments had thus, as far as it went, a moralizing effect, though this was rarely their purpose in the pursuit.[59]

[55] See the description in the Protagoras of Plato, c. 8, p. 317.

[56] See Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 12-24, 39-47.

Κριτίας μὲν καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδης, οὐκ ἀρέσκοντος αὐτοῖς Σωκράτους
ὡμιλησάτην, ὃν χρόνον ὡμιλείτην αὐτῷ, ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς
ὡρμηκότε προεστάναι τῆς πόλεως. Ἔτι γὰρ Σωκράτει ξυνόντες
οὐκ ἄλλοις τισὶ μᾶλλον ἐπεχείρουν διαλέγεσθαι ἢ τοῖς μάλιστα
πράττουσι τὰ πολιτικά.... Ἐπεὶ τοίνυν τάχιστα τῶν πολιτευομένων
ὑπέλαβον κρείττονες εἶναι, Σωκράτει μὲν οὐκ ἔτι προσῄεσαν, οὐδὲ
γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἄλλως ἤρεσκεν· εἴτε προσέλθοιεν, ὑπὲρ ὧν, ἡμάρτανον
ἐλεγχόμενοι ἤχθοντο· τὰ δὲ τῆς πóλεως ἔπραττον, ὧνπερ ἕνεκεν καὶ
Σωκράτει προσῆλθον. Compare Plato, Apolog. Sokrat. c. 10, p. 23;
c. 22, p. 33.

Xenophon represents Alkibiadês and Kritias as frequenting the
society of Sokratês, for the same reason and with the same
objects as Plato affirms that young men generally went to the
Sophists: see Plato, Sophist. c. 20, p. 232 D.

“Nam et Socrati (observes Quintilian, Inst. Or. ii, 16) objiciunt
comici, docere cum, quomodo pejorem causam meliorem reddat; et
contra Tisiam et Gorgiam similia dicit polliceri Plato.”

The representation given by Plato of the great influence acquired
by Sokratês over Alkibiadês, and of the deference and submission
of the latter, is plainly not to be taken as historical, even if
we had not the more simple and trustworthy picture of Xenophon.
Isokratês goes so far as to say that Sokratês was never known by
any one as teacher of Alkibiadês: which is an exaggeration in the
other direction. Isokratês, Busiris, Or. xi. sect. 6, p. 222.

[57] Plato, Symposium, c. 35-36, p. 220, etc.

[58] See the representation, given in the Protagoras of Plato,
of the temper in which the young and wealthy Hippokratês goes
to seek instruction from Protagoras, and of the objects which
Protagoras proposes to himself in imparting the instruction.
Plato, Protagoras, c. 2, p. 310 D.; c. 8, p. 316 C.; c. 9, p.
318, etc.: compare also Plato, Meno. p. 91, and Gorgias, c. 4. p.
449 E., asserting the connection, in the mind of Gorgias, between
teaching to speak and teaching to think—λέγειν καὶ φρονεῖν, etc.

It would not be reasonable to repeat, as true and just, all the
polemical charges against those who are called Sophists, even as
we find them in Plato, without scrutiny and consideration. But
modern writers on Grecian affairs run down the Sophists even more
than Plato did, and take no notice of the admissions in their
favor which he, though their opponent, is perpetually making.

This is a very extensive subject, to which I hope to revert.

[59] I dissent entirely from the judgment of Dr. Thirlwall, who
repeats what is the usual representation of Sokratês and the
Sophists, depicting Alkibiadês as “ensnared by the Sophists,”
while Sokratês is described as a good genius preserving him from
their corruptions (Hist. of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, pp.
312, 313, 314). I think him also mistaken when he distinguishes
so pointedly Sokratês from the Sophists; when he describes
the Sophists as “pretenders to wisdom;” as “a new school;” as
“teaching that there was no real difference between truth and
falsehood, right and wrong,” etc.

All the plausibility that there is in this representation, arises
from a confusion between the original sense and the modern sense
of the word Sophist; the latter seemingly first bestowed upon the
word by Plato and Aristotle. In the common ancient acceptation
of the word at Athens, it meant not a _school_ of persons
professing common doctrines, but a _class_ of men bearing the
same name, because they derived their celebrity from analogous
objects of study and common intellectual occupation. The Sophists
were men of similar calling and pursuits, partly speculative,
partly professional; but they differed widely from each other,
both in method and doctrine. (See for example Isokratês, cont.
Sophistas, Orat. xiii; Plato, Meno. p. 87 B.) Whoever made
himself eminent in speculative pursuits, and communicated his
opinions by public lecture, discussion, or conversation, was
called a Sophist, whatever might be the conclusions which he
sought to expound or defend. The difference between taking money,
and expounding gratuitously, on which Sokratês himself was so
fond of dwelling (Xenoph. Memor. i, 6, 12), has plainly no
essential bearing on the case. When Æschinês the orator reminds
the dikasts, “Recollect that you Athenians put to death _the
Sophist Sokratês_, because he was shown to have been the teacher
of Kritias,” (Æschin. cont. Timarch. c. 34, p. 74,) he uses the
word in its natural and true Athenian sense. He had no point to
make against Sokratês, who had then been dead more than forty
years; but he describes him by his profession or occupation, just
as he would have said, _Hippokratês the physician_, _Pheidias
the sculptor_, etc. Dionysius of Halikarn. calls both Plato and
Isokratês sophists (Ars Rhetor. De Compos. Verborum, p. 208 R.).
The Nubes of Aristophanês, and the defences put forth by Plato
and Xenophon, show that Sokratês was not only called by the name
Sophist, but regarded just in the same light as that in which
Dr. Thirlwall presents to us what he calls “the new School of
the Sophists;” as “a corruptor of youth, indifferent to truth or
falsehood, right or wrong,” etc. See a striking passage in the
Politicus of Plato, c. 38, p. 299 B. Whoever thinks, as I think,
that these accusations were falsely advanced against Sokratês,
will be careful how he advances them against the general
profession to which Sokratês belonged.

That there were unprincipled and immoral men among the class of
Sophists—as there are and always have been among schoolmasters,
professors, lawyers, etc., and all bodies of men—I do not
doubt; in what proportion, we cannot determine. But the extreme
hardship of passing a sweeping condemnation on the great body
of intellectual teachers at Athens, and canonizing exclusively
Sokratês and his followers, will be felt, when we recollect that
the well-known Apologue, called the _Choice of Hercules_, was the
work of the Sophist Prodikus, and his favorite theme of lecture
(Xenophon, Memor. ii, 1, 21-34). To this day, that Apologue
remains without a superior, for the impressive simplicity with
which it presents one of the most important points of view of
moral obligation: and it has been embodied in a greater number of
books of elementary morality than anything of Sokratês, Plato,
or Xenophon. To treat the author of that Apologue, and the
class to which he belonged, as teaching “that there was no real
difference between right and wrong, truth and falsehood,” etc.,
is a criticism not in harmony with the just and liberal tone of
Dr. Thirlwall’s history.

I will add that Plato himself, in a very important passage of
the Republic (vi, c. 6, 7, pp. 492-493), refutes the imputation
against the Sophists of being specially the corruptors of youth.
He represents them as inculcating upon their youthful pupils that
morality which was received as true and just in their age and
society; nothing better, nothing worse. The grand corruptor, he
says, is society itself; the Sophists merely repeat the voice
and judgment of society. Without inquiring at present how far
Plato or Sokratês were right in condemning the received morality
of their countrymen, I most fully accept his assertion that the
great body of the contemporary professional teachers taught what
was considered good morality among the Athenian public: there
were doubtless some who taught a better morality, others who
taught a worse. And this may be said with equal truth of the
great body of professional teachers in every age and nation.

Xenophon enumerates various causes to which he ascribes the
corruption of the character of Alkibiadês; wealth, rank, personal
beauty, flatterers, etc.; but he does not name the Sophists among
them (Memorab. i, 2. 24, 25).

Alkibiadês, full of impulse and ambition of every kind, enjoyed the conversation of all the eminent talkers and lecturers to be found in Athens, that of Sokratês most of all and most frequently. The philosopher became greatly attached to him, and doubtless lost no opportunity of inculcating on him salutary lessons, as far as could be done, without disgusting the pride of a haughty and spoiled youth who was looking forward to the celebrity of public life. But unhappily his lessons never produced any serious effect, and ultimately became even distasteful to the pupil. The whole life of Alkibiadês attests how faintly the sentiment of obligation, public or private, ever got footing in his mind; how much the ends which he pursued were dictated by overbearing vanity and love of aggrandizement. In the later part of life, Sokratês was marked out to public hatred by his enemies, as having been the teacher of Alkibiadês and Kritias. And if we could be so unjust as to judge of the morality of the teacher by that of these two pupils, we should certainly rank him among the worst of the Athenian sophists.

At the age of thirty-one or thirty-two, the earliest at which it was permitted to look forward to an ascendent position in public life, Alkibiadês came forward with a reputation stained by private enormities, and with a number of enemies created by his insolent demeanor. But this did not hinder him from stepping into that position to which his rank, connections, and club-partisans, afforded him introduction; nor was he slow in displaying his extraordinary energy, decision, and capacity of command. From the beginning to the end of his eventful political life, he showed a combination of boldness in design, resource in contrivance, and vigor in execution, not surpassed by any one of his contemporary Greeks: and what distinguished him from all was his extraordinary flexibility of character[60] and consummate power of adapting himself to new habits, new necessities, and new persons, whenever circumstances required. Like Themistoklês, whom he resembled as well in ability and vigor as in want of public principle and in recklessness about means, Alkibiadês was essentially a man of action. Eloquence was in him a secondary quality, subordinate to action; and though he possessed enough of it for his purposes, his speeches were distinguished only for pertinence of matter, often imperfectly expressed, at least according to the high standard of Athens.[61] But his career affords a memorable example of splendid qualities, both for action and command, ruined and turned into instruments of mischief by the utter want of morality, public and private. A strong tide of individual hatred was thus roused against him, as well from middling citizens whom he had insulted, as from rich men whom his ruinous ostentation outshone. For his exorbitant voluntary expenditure in the public festivals, transcending the largest measure of private fortune, satisfied discerning men that he would reimburse himself by plundering the public, and even, if opportunity offered, by overthrowing[62] the constitution to make himself master of the persons and properties of his fellow-citizens. He never inspired confidence or esteem in any one; and sooner or later, among a public like that of Athens, so much accumulated odium and suspicion was sure to bring a public man to ruin, in spite of the strongest admiration for his capacity. He was always the object of very conflicting sentiments: “The Athenians desired him, hated him, but still wished to have him,” was said in the latter years of his life by a contemporary poet; while we find also another pithy precept delivered in regard to him: “You ought not to keep a lion’s whelp in your city at all; but, if you choose to keep him, you must submit yourself to his behavior.”[63] Athens had to feel the force of his energy, as an exile and enemy, but the great harm which he did to her was in his capacity of adviser; awakening in his countrymen the same thirst for showy, rapacious, uncertain, perilous aggrandizement which dictated his own personal actions.

[60] Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 1; Satyrus apud Athenæum, xii,
p. 534; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 23.

Οὗ γὰρ τοιούτων δεῖ, τοιοῦτος εἰμ’ ἐγώ, says Odysseus, in the
Philoktêtês of Sophoklês.

[61] I follow the criticism which Plutarch cites from
Theophrastus, seemingly discriminating and measured: much
more trustworthy than the vague eulogy of Nepos, or even of
Demosthenês (of course not from his own knowledge), upon the
eloquence of Alkibiadês (Plutarch, Alkib. c. 10); Plutarch,
Reipubl. Gerend. Præcept. c. 8, p. 804.

Antisthenês, companion and pupil of Sokratês, and originator of
what is called the Cynic philosophy, contemporary and personally
acquainted with Alkibiadês, was full of admiration for his
extreme personal beauty, and pronounced him to be strong, manly,
and audacious, but unschooled, ~ἀπαίδευτον~. His scandals about
the lawless life of Alkibiadês, however, exceed what we can
reasonably admit, even from a contemporary (Antisthenês ap.
Athenæum, v, p. 220, xii, p. 534). Antisthenês had composed a
dialogue called Alkibiadês (Diog. Laërt. vi, 15).

See the collection of the Fragmenta Antisthenis (by A. G.
Winckelmann, Zurich, 1842, pp. 17-19).

The comic writers of the day—Eupolis, Aristophanês, Pherekratês,
and others—seem to have been abundant in their jests and libels
against the excesses of Alkibiadês, real or supposed. There was
a tale, untrue, but current in comic tradition, that Alkibiadês,
who was not a man to suffer himself to be insulted with impunity,
had drowned Eupolis in the sea, in revenge, for his comedy of the
Baptæ. See Meineke, Fragm. Com. Græ. Eupolidis Βάπται and Κόλακες
(vol. ii, pp. 447-494), and Aristophanês Τριφαλῆς, p. 1166:
also Meineke’s first volume, Historia Critica Comic. Græc. pp.
124-136; and the Dissertat. xix, in Buttmann’s _Mythologus_, on
the Baptæ and the Cotyttia.

[62] Thucyd. vi, 15. Compare Plutarch, Reip. Ger. Præc. c. 4, p.
800. The sketch which Plato draws in the first three chapters of
the ninth Book of the Republic, of the citizen who erects himself
into a despot and enslaves his fellow-citizens, exactly suits the
character of Alkibiadês. See also the same treatise, vi, 6-8, pp.
491-494, and the preface of Schleiermacher to his translation of
the Platonic dialogue called Alkibiadês the first.

[63] Aristophan. Ranæ, 1445-1453; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 16;
Plutarch, Nikias, c. 9.

Mentioning Alkibiadês now for the first time, I have somewhat anticipated on future chapters, in order to present a general idea of his character, hereafter to be illustrated. But at the moment which we have now reached (March, 420 B.C.) the lion’s whelp was yet young, and had neither acquired his entire strength nor disclosed his full-grown claws.

He began to put himself forward as a party leader, seemingly not long before the Peace of Nikias. The political traditions hereditary in his family, as in that of his relation Periklês, were democratical: his grandfather Alkibiadês had been vehement in his opposition to the Peisistratids, and had even afterwards publicly renounced an established connection of hospitality with the Lacedæmonian government, from strong antipathy to them on political grounds. But Alkibiadês himself, in commencing political life, departed from this family tradition, and presented himself as a partisan of oligarchical and philo-Laconian sentiment, doubtless far more consonant to his natural temper than the democratical. He thus started in the same general party with Nikias and Thessalus son of Kimôn, who afterwards became his bitter opponents; and it was in part probably to put himself on a par with them, that he took the marked step of trying to revive the ancient family tie of hospitality with Sparta, which his grandfather had broken off.[64]

[64] Thucyd. v, 43, vi, 90; Isokratês, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 352,
sect. 27-30.

Plutarch (Alkibiad. c. 14) carelessly represents Alkibiadês as
being actually proxenus of Sparta at Athens.

To promote this object, he displayed peculiar solicitude for the good treatment of the Spartan captives, during their detention at Athens. Many of them being of high family at Sparta, he naturally calculated upon their gratitude, as well as upon the favorable sympathies of their countrymen, whenever they should be restored. He advocated both the peace and the alliance with Sparta, and the restoration of her captives; and indeed not only advocated these measures, but tendered his services, and was eager to be employed, as the agent of Sparta for carrying them through at Athens. From these selfish hopes in regard to Sparta, and especially from the expectation of acquiring, through the agency of the restored captives, the title of Proxenus of Sparta, Alkibiadês thus became a partisan of the blind and gratuitous philo-Laconian concessions of Nikias. But the captives on their return were either unable, or unwilling, to carry the point which he wished; while the authorities at Sparta rejected all his advances, not without a contemptuous sneer at the idea of confiding important political interests to the care of a youth chiefly known for ostentation, profligacy, and insolence. That the Spartans should thus judge, is noway astonishing, considering their extreme reverence both for old age and for strict discipline. They naturally preferred Nikias and Lachês, whose prudence would commend, if it did not originally suggest, their mistrust of the new claimant. Nor had Alkibiadês yet shown the mighty movement of which he was capable. But this contemptuous refusal of the Spartans stung him so to the quick, that, making an entire revolution in his political course,[65] he immediately threw himself into anti-Laconian politics with an energy and ability which he was not before known to possess.

[65] Thucyd. v, 43. Οὐ μέντοι ἀλλὰ καὶ φρονήματι φιλονεικῶν
ἠναντιοῦτο, ὅτι Λακεδαιμόνιοι διὰ Νικίου καὶ Λάχητος ἔπραξαν τὰς
σπονδὰς, αὐτὸν διὰ τὴν νεότητα ὑπεριδόντες καὶ κατὰ τὴν παλαιὰν
προξενίαν ποτὲ οὖσαν οὐ τιμήσαντες, ἣν τοῦ πάππου ἀπειπόντος
αὐτὸς τοὺς ἐκ τῆς νήσου αὐτῶν αἰχμαλώτους θεραπεύων διενοεῖτο
ἀνανεώσασθαι. ~Πανταχόθεν τε νομίζων ἐλασσοῦσθαι~ τό τε πρῶτον
ἀντεῖπεν, etc.

The moment was favorable, since the recent death of Kleon, for a new political leader to espouse this side; and was rendered still more favorable by the conduct of the Lacedæmonians. Month after month passed, remonstrance after remonstrance was addressed, yet not one of the restitutions prescribed by the treaty in favor of Athens had yet been accomplished. Alkibiadês had therefore ample pretext for altering his tone respecting the Spartans, and for denouncing them as deceivers who had broken their solemn oaths, abusing the generous confidence of Athens. Under his present antipathies, his attention naturally turned to Argos, in which city he possessed some powerful friends and family guests. The condition of that city, now free by the expiration of the peace with Sparta, opened a possibility of connection with Athens, and this policy was strongly recommended by Alkibiadês, who insisted that Sparta was playing false with the Athenians, merely in order to keep their hands tied until she had attacked and put down Argos separately. This particular argument had less force when it was seen that Argos acquired new and powerful allies, Mantineia, Elis, and Corinth; but on the other hand, such acquisitions rendered Argos positively more valuable as an ally to the Athenians.

It was not so much, however, the inclination towards Argos, but the growing wrath against Sparta, which furthered the philo-Argeian plans of Alkibiadês; and when the Lacedæmonian envoy Andromedês arrived at Athens from Bœotia, tendering to the Athenians the mere ruins of Panaktum in exchange for Pylos; when it farther became known that the Spartans had already concluded a special alliance with the Bœotians without consulting Athens, the unmeasured expression of displeasure in the Athenian ekklesia showed Alkibiadês that the time was now come for bringing on a substantive decision. While he lent his own voice to strengthen this discontent against Sparta, he at the same time despatched a private intimation to his correspondents at Argos, exhorting them, under assurances of success and promise of his own strenuous aid, to send without delay an embassy to Athens in conjunction with the Mantineians and Eleians, requesting to be admitted as Athenian allies. The Argeians received this intimation at the very moment when their citizens Eustrophus and Æson were negotiating at Sparta for the renewal of the peace, having been sent thither under great uneasiness lest Argos should be left without allies to contend single-handed against the Lacedæmonians. But no sooner was the unexpected chance held out to them of alliance with Athens, a former friend, a democracy like their own, an imperial state at sea, but not interfering with their own primacy in Peloponnesus,—than they became careless of Eustrophus and Æson, and despatched forthwith to Athens the embassy advised. It was a joint embassy, Argeian, Eleian, and Mantineian:[66] the alliance between these three cities had already been rendered more intimate by a second treaty concluded since that treaty to which Corinth was a party; but Corinth had refused all concern in the second.[67]

[66] Thucyd. v, 43.

[67] Thucyd. v, 48.

But the Spartans had been already alarmed by the harsh repulse of their envoy Andromedês, and probably warned by reports from Nikias and their other Athenian friends of the crisis impending respecting alliance between Athens and Argos. Accordingly they sent off without a moment’s delay three citizens extremely popular at Athens,[68] Philocharidas, Leon, and Endius; with full powers to settle all matters of difference. The envoys were instructed to deprecate all alliance of Athens with Argos, to explain that the alliance of Sparta with Bœotia had been concluded without any purpose or possibility of evil to Athens, and at the same time to renew the demand that Pylos should be restored to them in exchange for the demolished Panaktum. Such was still the confidence of the Lacedæmonians in the strength of assent at Athens, that they did not yet despair of obtaining an affirmative, even to this very unequal proposition: and when the three envoys, under the introduction and advice of Nikias, had their first interview with the Athenian senate, preparatory to an audience before the public assembly, the impression which they made, on stating that they came with full powers of settlement, was highly favorable. It was indeed so favorable, that Alkibiadês became alarmed lest, if they made the same statement in the public assembly, holding out the prospect of some trifling concessions, the philo-Laconian party might determine public feeling to accept a compromise, and thus preclude all idea of alliance with Argos.

[68] Thucyd. v, 44. Ἀφίκοντο δὲ καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων πρέσβεις ~κατὰ
τάχος~, etc.

To obviate such a defeat of his plans, he resorted to a singular manœuvre. One of the Lacedæmonian envoys, Endius, was his private guest, by an ancient and particular intimacy subsisting between their two families.[69] This probably assisted in procuring for him a secret interview with the envoys, and enabled him to address them with greater effect, on the day before the meeting of the public assembly, and without the knowledge of Nikias. He accosted them in the tone of a friend of Sparta, anxious that their proposition should succeed; but he intimated that they would find the public assembly turbulent and angry, very different from the tranquil demeanor of the senate: so that if they proclaimed themselves to have come with full powers of settlement, the people would burst out with fury, to act upon their fears and bully them into extravagant concessions. He therefore strongly urged them to declare that they had come, not with any full powers of settlement, but merely to explain, discuss, and report: the people would then find that they could gain nothing by intimidation, explanations would be heard, and disputed points be discussed with temper, and he (Alkibiadês) would speak emphatically in their favor. He would advise, and felt confident that he could persuade, the Athenians to restore Pylos, a step which his opposition had hitherto been the chief means of preventing. He gave them his solemn pledge—confirmed by an oath, according to Plutarch—that he would adopt this conduct, if they would act upon his counsel.[70] The envoys were much struck with the apparent sagacity of these suggestions,[71] and still more delighted to find that the man from whom they anticipated the most formidable opposition was prepared to speak in their favor. His language obtained with them, probably, the more ready admission and confidence, inasmuch as he had volunteered his services to become the political agent of Sparta only a few months before; and he appeared now to be simply resuming that policy. They were sure of the support of Nikias and his party, under all circumstances; if, by complying with the recommendation of Alkibiadês, they could gain _his_ strenuous advocacy and influence also, they fancied that their cause was sure of success. Accordingly, they agreed to act upon his suggestion, not only without consulting but without even warning Nikias, which was exactly what Alkibiadês desired, and had probably required them to promise.

[69] Thucyd. viii, 6. Ἐνδίῳ τῷ ἐφορεύοντι πατρικὸς ἐς τὰ μάλιστα
φίλος—ὅθεν καὶ τοὔνομα Λακωνικὸν ἡ οἰκία αὐτῶν κατὰ τὴν ξενίαν
ἔσχεν· Ἔνδιος γὰρ Ἀλκιβιάδου ἐκαλεῖτο.