by the Boeotians, for the purpose of exchanging them against Pylus, and they had perhaps been instructed to suggest a new method of attaining the end which the preceding clandestine negotiations had failed to compass. The Boo of concerting an intrigue for that end. After the breaking up of the congress, which a long debate brought no nearer to an agreement, they drew the Baotian and Corinthian deputies into a private conference with some some other Spartans of their party, and counselled the Boo-tian government consented to deliver up the tians, if they wished to avoid being forced into an alliance with Athens, to make common cause with Corinth, and first to enter into the Argive confederacy themselves, and then to bring Sparta also into it. "The alliance with Argos was so desirable to Sparta that she would be willing to purchase it even at the cost of a rupture with Athens; as she would then be able to sustain a war with any power north of Peloponnesus. But before she could safely renew the contest with Athens, it was necessary that she should recover Pylus; and for this purpose the Bootians must consent to deliver up Panactum to be exchanged for it." fortress and the prisoners to Sparta, on condition that she should conclude a separate alliance with Boeotia, as she had with the Athenians. This was admitted to be a breach of the treaty with Athens, either in the spirit or the letter, and was, therefore, just what the party of Cleobulus and Xenares desired; and it had now become powerful enough to carry this point. In the spring of 420 the treaty was concluded; but when the Spartan commissioners came to receive the prisoners, and to take possession of Panactum, they found that it had been dismantled by order of the Baotian government, which pleaded an ancient compact between Boeotia and Athens, that the ground on which Panactum stood should not be exclusively occupied by either nation, but should be held by both in common. But the intelligence of these proceedings created great alarm at Argos, where their real nature and objects were not known, and it was As the envoys were returning home with this message, they fell in with two of the chief magistrates of Argos, who had been waiting for them to make a similar proposal. They urged the Boeotians to unite with Corinth, Elis, and Mantinea, in their league with Argos; and held out as an inducement the advantage which such a union would give them in their future trans-supposed that they had taken place with the actions, whether of war or peace, with Sparta consent of Athens, and that the Baotians had or any other state. The Boeotian envoys will been induced to enter into the Athenian alliingly listened to overtures which so nearly co- ance. Argos did not fear the power of Sparta, incided with the plan of their Spartan friends,* so long as she could reckon on support from and the Argive magistrates, finding them so Athens; but she felt that she must soon be well disposed, promised to send an embassy to overwhelmed by a confederacy which included Boeotia. The Bootarchs, when they heard the Sparta, Athens, and Bootia; and she therefore report of their ministers, gladly adopted the pro- hastened to make her peace with Sparta. Two posal of the Spartan ephors, which removed all envoys, recommended by their personal or potheir objections to the Argive alliance. They litical connexions, were despatched to Sparta welcomed the embassy which soon after came with pacific overtures. The chief obstacle still from Argos, and promised to send one thither lay in the little border district of Cynuria, which to conclude a treaty. The first step towards Argos wished to recover, and Sparta refused to the execution of their plan was to make an al- cede. It was a question in which the Argives liance offensive and defensive with Corinth, felt their national honour concerned; and their Megara, and the Chalcidian towns, and it was envoys did not venture altogether to drop their agreed that Boeotia and Megara should then be- claim; but as the Spartans peremptorily rejectcome confederates of Argos. It was, however, ed it, and would not even consent to refer it to necessary that the agreement privately made arbitration, they devised a somewhat singular by the Bootarchs with the Corinthian envoys expedient for reconciling it with the more should first be ratified by the four great coun-pressing object of their mission. They prevailcils of Boeotia; but the Bootarchs believed that they should there meet with passive acquiescence. They did not, therefore, think it necessary to disclose their secret understanding with their Spartan friends. But the councils were filled by men strongly averse to a breach with Sparta; and as they apprehended that this might be the consequences of the proposed union with Corinth, they rejected the measure. The government did not now venture to make any mention of the Argive alliance, or to send the promised embassy to Argos, and, without any settled design, waited for a more favourable turn of affairs. But in the course of the next winter envoys came from Sparta to obtain possession of Panactum and of the Athenian prisoners detained If Thucydides did not so distinctly attribute the coincidence to chance (karà rúxm, v., 37), and if any reason could be assigned why the two Argives should have concealed their communication, if they had any, with Sparta, we might suppose that they acted in concert with Cleobulus and Xenares. But the concealment of that fact tended rather to thwart than to promote the plan. ed on the Spartan government to conclude a peace for fifty years, but to let a clause be inserted in the treaty making it lawful for either party, at any time, when the other was not engaged in war or suffering from any epidemic sickness, to demand a combat for the possession of Cynuria, like that which was celebrated in ancient legends for the exploit of Othryades; on the condition that the victorious champions should not pursue the vanquished beyond the border of the disputed territory. Absurd as the proposal now sounded to the Spartans, it served the purpose of a decent compromise; and the treaty drawn up on these terms was sent to * Thuc., v., 39, εἰρημένον ἄνευ ἀλλήλων μήτε σπένδεσθαί TμTE TONEμEIV. Yet here, again, no such clause occurs in either of the treaties, nor is there any which appears to require such a construction. But perhaps it was understood to be implied either in the concluding article of the treaty of alliance ( dé ti doký, k 7. A.), or in the provision made for the case in which the territory of either party should be invaded; when neither was to conclude a peace with the enemy without the other's consent. It may, however, have been the subject of a distinct subsequent decree, such as the one mentioned, v., 80, as following a treaty of alliance. . Argos for the sanction of the people, and, if approved, was to be ratified at the approaching festival of the Hyacinthia at Sparta. But in the mean while the Spartan commissioners appointed to deliver up Panactum and the prisoners, met with a very angry reception at Athens. They strove in vain to demonstrate that the destruction of the fortress was equivalent to its restitution; and the Athenians were no less indignant at the separate treaty which Sparta had concluded with the Baotians, whom not long before she had undertaken to force into their alliance. They now enumerated their other grounds of complaint, which they viewed as so many proofs of Spartan duplicity, and dismissed the envoys with a sharp answer. ple itself, shrank from no enterprise, and bent before no obstacle. Even in his childish sports and exercises he attracted notice by the signs which he gave of an inflexible energy of purpose. It was remembered that he once laid himself down before the wheels of a wagon which was passing through a narrow street, to prevent it from interrupting his boyish game.* His petulance did not even spare his masters;t and his authority decided the taste of his young companions. It may easily be believed that all the vigilance of his guardians was scarcely sufficient to keep him within the bounds of law and usage, though Plutarch could not report with confidence any of the numerous stories afterward told of his youthful excesses. The love of pleasure was always strong in him, but never predominant ; even in his earlier years it seems to have been subordinate to the desire of notoriety and applause, which gradually ripened into a more manly ambition. But his vanity was coupled with an overweening pride, which displayed itself in a contemptuous disregard for the rights and feelings of others, and often broke through all restraints both of justice and prudence. There was at Athens, as at Sparta, a party which aimed at severing the ties that bound the two states together; and the irritation now prevailing in the people encouraged it to redouble its exertions. It was headed by an extraordinary man, who henceforward becomes the most conspicuous person in the history of his age, Alcibiades, the son of Clinias. Though his name is mentioned for the first time on this occasion by Thucydides, and he was now but little past the age of thirty, which at Sparta and in other Greek states, as once, perhaps, at Athens, was the earliest at which a citizen could take part in public business, the eyes of his countrymen had for several years been turned towards him with anxious attention. Both by his father's and his mother's side he was connected with the noblest of the Eupatrids. He traced his paternal line, through Eurysaces, son of Ajax, to Eacus and the king of the gods; his mother, Dinomache, daughter of Megacles, belonged to the house of the Alemæonids, and he thus reckoned Cleisthenes, the friend of the commonalty, among his ancestors. His paternal ancestor, Alcibiades, had also distinguished himself as an enemy of the Pisistratids. His father, Clinias, had equipped a galley and manned it with 200 men at his own charge in the Persian war, and fell at the battle of Coronea,† leaving Alcibiades a child, perhaps seven or eight years old;‡ and Pericles and his brother Ariphron, as related to him by the female side, became his guardians. He inherited one of the largest fortunes in Athens, and it was no doubt husbanded, during his minority, with the same economy which Pericles exercised in his own domestic affairs. To these advantages of birth and fortune, na-losophy, which it balanced against each other ture added some still rarer endowments; a person, which in every stage of his life was, even at Athens, remarked with admiration for its extraordinary comeliness; a mind of singular versatility; a spirit which, like that of the peo Isocr., De Big., 10. + Herod., vii., 17. Plut., Alc., 1. He must have been past twenty when he served under Phormio at Potidea in 432, and therefore could not have been less than five years old at the death of his father in 447, but probably was a few years older. Mr. Clinton (Tables, B.C. 423, 2) seems not to acknowledge the force of this inference. vain. Of which he seems to have been always extremely Even as general he is said to have worn a shield inlard with gold and ivory with the device of Love hurling the thunderbolt (Satyrus in Athenæus, xii., p. 534). In Agiaophon's picture he was represented kaλXiwv Twv yvναικείων προσώπων. The description of his son, who aped him, quoted from Archippus by Plutarch, Alc., 1., shows that the father was likewise affected in his carriage, and perhaps in his limp : κλασαυχενεύεται τε καὶ τραυλίζεται. At the age-not later than eighteen-when the Athenian laws permitted him to take possession of his inheritance, Alcibiades found himself his own master, with an ample fortune at his command, in the city which, beyond every other in Greece, abounded in fuel for his passions, and opened the widest field for his ambi tion, then at the height of its prosperity, in the security of peace, enriched and adorned with the fruits of conquest, commerce, and art, under the government of his kinsman, Pericles. Such a person, in such a place, could not fail to be soon surrounded by a large circle of admiring companions, of needy parasites, and aspiring adventurers, drawn to him by various motives, but all conspiring to deceive and corrupt him by their flattery and their counsels. It was also the time when the controversies which had long been carried on in the ancient schools of philosophy had been succeeded by an interval of general lassitude, despondence, and indifference to philosophical truth, which afforded room for a new class of pretenders to wisdom, who, in a sense which they first attached to the word, were called Sophists. They professed a science, superior to all the elder forms of phi with the imperfect impartiality of universal skepticism, and an art, which treated them all as instruments, useless, indeed, for the discovery of truth, but equally capable of exhibiting a fallacious appearance of it. They offered their instructions to all who, possessing a sufficient capacity, regarded the pursuit of fame, wealth, and power as the great business of life, and undertook to furnish them with the means of acquiring that ascendency over the minds of men which is readily yielded to superior wisdom and virtue by the simple force of words. As, according to their view, there was no real difference between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, the proper learning of a statesman consisted in the arts of argument and persua Plut., Alc., 2. + Ibid., 7. + Ibid., 2. But the homicide in the palestra was probably quite justifiable. Plut., Alc., 3. HISTORY OF GREECE. sion, by which he might sway the opinions of others on every subject at his pleasure, and these were the arts which they practised and taught. The democratical states, and Athens in particular, presented the most frequent opportunities for the application of these doctrines, and the highest rewards for the successful cultivation of such studies; and the Athenian youth eagerly crowded round the most eminent masters of the new school. darling objects of his ambitious hopes. He feared to grow old at the feet of Socrates, charmed into a fine vision of ideal greatness, while the substance of power, honours, and pleasure slipped from his grasp. himself away from the siren philosophy, which would have beguiled him into the thraldom of He forced reason and conscience, that he might listen to the plainer counsels of those who exhorted him give his desires their widest range, to cultivate to seize the good which lay within his reach, to the arts by which they might be most surely and easily gratified, and to place unbounded confidence in his own genius and energy. Before he entirely withdrew from the society of Socrates he had probably begun to seek it chiefly for the sake of that dialectic subtilty which Socrates possessed in an unequalled degree, and which was an instrument of the highest value for his own purposes. from his teacher's train of thinking and feeling manifested itself not so much in the objects of His estrangement his ambition as in the methods by which he pursued them. It became more and more evident that he had lost, not only all true loftiness of aim, but all the sincerity and openness of an upright soul; and the quality which in the end stamped his character was the singular flexibility with which he adapted himself to tastes and habits most foreign to his own, and assumed the exterior of those whose good-will he desired to gain.* The growing boldness and influence of the Sophists roused the opposition of Socrates, the founder of the Attic philosophy. Victorious in dispute, he was seldom able to counteract the allurements which they held out to the indolence and presumption of their disciples. Alcibiades was one of the young men whom he endeavoured to save from their snares; and this contest was one of the utmost moment for the destiny of Athens and of Greece. Socrates saw in him many elements of a noble character, which might be easily perverted; abilities which might greatly serve, or fatally injure his country; a strength of will capable of the most arduous enterprises, and the more dangerous if it took a wrong direction; an ardent love of glory, which needed to be purified and enlightened; and he endeavoured to win all these advantages for truth, virtue, and the public good. It was one of the best tokens of a generous nature in Alcibiades, that he could strongly relish the conversation of Socrates, and deeply admire his exalted character, notwithstanding his repulsive exterior, and the wide difference of urged Pericles to kindle the Peloponnesian war The advice with which he is said to have station and habits by which they were parted. may at least be considered as a genuine exThey not only lived for a time in a very inti- pression of his own recklessness in the choice mate intercourse at Athens, but were thrown of means for his ends. Popular favour was the together in situations which tended to strength- step by which he hoped to mount to power; en the hold that the sage had taken on the af- and, to ingratiate himself with the people, he fection of his young friend. They served to- stooped to flattery such as Pericles would have gether, under Phormio, at Potidæa, and in one disdained to use ; but Alcibiades reconciled of the engagements which took place during himself to the sacrifice of dignity by the conthe siege, Alcibiades, severely wounded, was sciousness of superior ingenuity and address. rescued from the enemy by Socrates.* The He would seem to have taken Themistocles for crown and panoply, the reward of valour, ap- his model, and, like him, to have found pleaspear to have been due to Socrates; but, through ure in artifices and intrigues, so as to prefer a the partiality which, under all political institu- crooked path, even when a straight one might tions, is commonly shown for birth and wealth, have led to the same end. Nevertheless, though they were awarded to the young Eupatrid, artful and dexterous, he was far from being cirthough he proclaimed the superior merit of his cumspect in his conduct, and as lightly provopreserver, who, on the other hand, attested the ked the enmity of individuals by wanton injuprowess of Alcibiades. They were again com-ries and affronts as he was sedulous in paying rades at the battle of Delium; and Alcibiades, who was mounted, had an opportunity of protecting his friend from their pursuers. But this intimacy produced no lasting fruits. was the immediate object of Socrates to modIt erate the confidence and self-complacency of Alcibiades, to raise his standard of excellence, to open his eyes to his own defects, and to convince him that he needed a long course of inward discipline before he could engage safely and usefully in the conduct of public affairs. But Alcibiades was impatient to enter on the brilliant career which lay before him; the mark towards which his wise monitor directed his aims, though he felt it to be the most truly glorious, was not only distant and hard to reach, but would probably have diverted him from the The impertinent skepticism of Demochares, in Athenæus, v., c. 55, is well refuted by Casaubon. t Plato., Conviv., p. 221. court to the people; and hence the feeling of of the chameleon; though that, it is said, cannot turn its ὑμᾶς κολακεύων, ἕνα δ ̓ ἕκαστον προπηλακίζων. divitissimum. So Isocr., De Big., 13. Hour APATOS TWE received a portion of ten talents with his wife, the largest INTRIGUES OF ALCIBIADES. sion in the legal and customary contributions, of the young Athenians, he carried about with with which at Athens the affluent charged him, to escape from under his cloak; and the themselves, as well to provide for certain parts business of the assembly was interrupted until of the naval service as to defray the expense the bird was caught, and restored to Alcibiades, of the public spectacles, but aspired to dazzle by the same Antiochus who, first recommendall (ireece at the national games by magnifi- ed to him by this trivial service, afterward incence such as had never been displayed there volved him in one of his greatest misfortunes.* even by the kings of Macedonia, or by the op- This, indeed, was not quite so extravagant a ulent princes of Syracuse or Cyrene. He con- condescension as was once shown to Cleon, tended at Olympia with seven chariots in the who, one day, after he had kept the assembly a same race, and won the first, second, and third long while waiting for him, entered it with a or fourth crown-success unexampled as the garland on his head, and begged that it might competition. He afterward feasted all the be adjourned to the morrow, because he had spectators; and the entertainment was not just sacrificed to the gods, and had to entermore remarkable for its profusion and for the tain some strangers at home; and obtained his multitude of its guests, than for the new kind request.+ But the impunity with which Alcibof homage paid to him by the subjects of Ath-iades was permitted to commit offences, which ens. The Ephesians pitched a splendid Per-would have been severely punished in any other sian tent for him; the Chians furnished prov- citizen, was both unseemly and dangerous. ender for his horses; the Cyzicenes, victims The violence with which he detained the paintfor the sacrifice; the Lesbians, wine, and other er Agatharchus for three or four months in his requisites for the banquet. His interest was house, and forced him to adorn it with his pensupposed to be powerful enough to induce the cil;t the blow with which, in sheer wantonElean judges to give a partial sentence in his ness, for a sportive wager, he insulted Hipponifavour. On his return to Athens, he engaged cus, whose daughter he afterward married ;§ Euripides, the favourite poet of the day, to com- the threats, or the plot of assassination with pose a panegyric ode, and dedicated two pic- which he terrified his brother-in-law Callias ;|| tures, works of Aglaophon, to commemorate the outrages with which he revenged himself his victory; one representing him as crowned on his enemies, or tried the patience of his by the powers of the Olympic and the Pythian friends,** might be thought frolics which diu festival, the other, as an exquisitely beautiful not concern the public; but the majesty of the commonwealth was violated when he disturbed youth, reclining on the knees of Nemea.** Reflecting men could not but ask, whether any the Dionysiac festival by an assault on a com private fortune could support such an expendi-petitor in the midst of the spectacle ;†† wher ture, and whether such honours were in har- he used the sacred vessels belonging to the mony with a spirit of civil equality. This anx-state, while they were required for a public pro iety was the more reasonable, as Alcibiades cession at Olympia, to adorn that with which seemed to love to show that he considered him- he celebrated his victory ;‡‡ when, to protect self as a privileged person, raised above the the Thasian poet Hegemon from a lawsuit, he laws; and, as he is said once to have disfigured went openly to the public archives, and destroya valuable animal, merely that his caprice mighted the record ;§§ when, after having compelled become the topic of general conversation,†† so his wife Hipparete, by his ill-treatment, to leave it was evident that in his most illegal acts he his house, and to sue for a divorce, he seized her There were also rumours, which rather sought to attract public attention than in the presence of the archon, and dragged her hoped to escape it. The people cherished this home. wilful humour by the partial indulgence with formed the groundwork of a comedy of Eupolis, which they repaid his flattery. His first ap- of secret orgies, in which Alcibiades acted a pearance in the assembly was marked by a sig-principal part, and which outraged not only nificant specimen of popular levity and goodnature. He was passing by, when several citizens were offering donations to the treasury. He followed their example, and was greeted In the delight which he with loud applause. felt at this first taste of popularity, he suffered a tame quail, which, according to the fashion So Plut., Ale, ii. Alcibiades himself in Thucyd., vi., 16, speaks more moderately (öra obdas widens #рóreρov), probably to avoid an invidious comparison. We are not aware that the Olympiad can be certainly Athenæus, l., p. 3. Plut., Alc., 12, moλλous. Plut., Alc., 11. ** Satyrus in Athen., u. s. ++ Plat, Alc., 9; where a different turn is given to the story. good manners, but religion.¶¶ Yet it would Andoc., p. 31. Demosthenes, Mid., p. 562, seems to tt Andoc., p. 31. Demosth., Mid., p. 562. 1) only as an illustration. See Dissen's Pindar, Excurs. i., p. 264. TT See Buttmann, Mytholog., ii., p. 164. What Thucydi- come still more dangerous if provoked by re- | to have had impudence and malignity sufficient sistance and punishment. to make him infamous and hateful. He was During the first ten years of the war Alcibia-eminent enough among the public men of his des had served, as we have seen, with honour day to be a mark for the comic poets, to whom in several campaigns; but he had acquired his birth, condition, and character afforded inmuch more celebrity by his private adventures exhaustible materials for satire. But his imthan by his exploits in the field, or by his ap- portance is not to be measured by his notoriety. pearance in the popular assembly. Though To Thucydides he appeared so contemptible, his youth did not disqualify him for taking part that he is only induced to mention him by the in the public counsels, as it did for military extraordinary circumstances of his death; command, he seems to have come forward but though the occasion by which he was driven, seldom, or with little effect, so long as Cleon as we shall see, from the political stage, might retained his ascendency. His eloquence is de- have been thought memorable enough to described as almost irresistibly powerful;* and serve notice. Among the other competitors of its efficacy, which was undoubtedly much Alcibiades, Andocides, son of Leogoras, and heightened by the graces of his person and Phæax, son of Erasistratus, were the most manner, is said to have been rather increased prominent. Andocides was of noble family, than impaired by a slight defect in his voice.t and a pleasing, though not a powerful orator: But it would appear to have been slowly ma- but his character inspired as little confidence tured. He was fastidious in the choice of his as that of Alcibiades, whom he resembled only expressions, and did not always possess a flu- in his vices. Phæax was likewise of good ency of language equal to the quickness of his birth and engaging manners, but was deficient conceptions, so that when he spoke without as a public speaker. The time, therefore, had preparation, he was often obliged to pause, hes- come when Alcibiades might reasonably hope itate, and recommence an unfinished period.‡ to reach the highest place in the commonThis was an impediment which must have been wealth, which was itself only the first step in painful to his vanity, and, contrasted with Cle- the scale of his ambition. on's volubility, placed him under a disadvan- Neither Cleon nor Nicias could properly be tage, which may have retarded the beginning said to be heads of a party. Cleon's strength of his political career. Yet, at the time which lay in the lowest class of the people, to whose our narrative has now reached, he seems al- passions he ministered: Nicias was supported ready to have distinguished himself as the au- by all who dreaded or hated Cleon. The perthor of one important measure; for it appears sonal motives which led him to desire peace to have been before the peace of Nicias that he were, indeed, shared by many among them, but carried a decree for raising the tribute of the did not form the bond of their union. The turn allies, and having himself been appointed one which the war had taken had created a general of ten commissioners for that purpose, he wish for a cessation of hostilities with Sparta. doubled the amount at which it had been fixed Alcibiades, on the other hand, restless and sanby Aristides. There was, perhaps, no ground guine, had much more to hope than to fear from for the charge afterward brought against him, war, and he exercised an extensive influence of having enriched himself on this occasion by over the Athenian youth of the higher orders. the abuse of his authority; but the measure it-But he himself saw the necessity of yielding to self indicated that he had adopted the policy the universal call for peace, and would willingwhich had founded the dominion of Athens only have taken the lead in the negotiations which force and terror, and that he intended to carry were opened with Sparta, that the treaty might it to a still greater length. Cleon's death open-be considered as his work. His family had of ed a broader avenue for him, and he saw no rival but Nicias standing in his way, whose opposition he had reason to fear. Cleon, indeed, had left behind him a man of similar character, who pushed himself into a temporary celebrity by similar arts, and is therefore commonly represented as his successor, and as having obtained the same kind of political ascendency. This was the lamp-maker, Hyperbolus, a man of so base extraction, that, if we may believe the assertion of a contemporary orator,|| his father was a branded slave, and was employed as a workman in the public mint at the same time that the son was taking a conspicuous part in the deliberations of the popular assembly. But Cleon possessed talents enough to be extremely mischievous; Hyperbolus seems only old been connected with Sparta by ties of hospitality, but his grandfather had broken off this relation. Alcibiades would have renewed it, and signified his wish to conciliate the Spartans by good offices towards the prisoners of Sphacteria, in which he vied with Nicias. But the Spartan government did not meet those advances, and preferred the alliance of Nicias to that of a young man who had not yet given any proofs that he could be either formidable or useful to them. Alcibiades, disappointed and provoked by the advantage given to his rival and the slight shown to himself, endeavoured from the first to impede the negotiations for peace, by attributing perfidious intentions to the Spartans, who, he contended, only wanted to gain time for concluding a treaty with Argos, and as soon as they had secured themselves on that side, would renew the war with Athens. He had since industriously fanned the jealousy which had been excited in the people through the improvident selfishness of Sparta, and the machinations of the Spartan party, which was labouring for the same end with himself, now afforded him an opportunity of taking a great step towards the execution of his designs. |