ALKIBIADES. 33 a. combination of insolence and ostentation with occasional mean deceit when it suited tiis 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 preced- ing 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 Thucydides ] ascribes to Alkibiades before the discriminating than we commonly find in rhetorical compositions. T o v r G <5', 'A2,Ki/3iadTjv etpjjotlf tyvaei fj.lv Trpbf UTIETTIV Tro/^Ao %etpov dtaKci/j.^vov, /cat ra [lev inreprityavus, ra de raTravwf, ru <5' vrrfpnKpus, tflv Trporipri/j.EVOv u^b 6e rr/f ZuKpaTovf bpMag 7ro/),/lcJ //it> E^cvopOu&evra TOV [3iov, ra Je hoi-trH rf> [leys-del TUV uA/U>v epyuv iiriKpwftufievoi -, Of the three epithets, whereby the author describes the bad tendencies ol Alkibiades, full illustrations will be seen irx his proceedings, hereafter to be described. The improving influence here ascribed to Sokratcs is unfortu nately far less borne out. 1 Plutarch. Alkibiad. c. 4; Cornel. Nepo%, Alkibiad. r. 2; Plato, Protago- ras, c. 1. I do not know how far the memorable narrative aioribed to Alkibiades in the Symposium of Plato (c. 33, 34, pp. 216, 217) can be regarded as matter of actual fact and history, so far as Sokratcs is concerned ; but it is abundant proof in regard to the general relations of Alkibvules with others : compare Xenophon, Mcmorab. i, 2, 29, 30 ; iv, 1-2. Several of the dialogues of Plato present to us striking pictures of the palaestra, with the boys, the young men, the gj^mnastic tochers, engaged in their exercises or resting from them, and the philosophers and spectator who came there for amusement and conversation. Sec particularly tlu opening chapters of the Lysis and the Charm ides ; also the R J vales, whert the scene is laid in the house of a 7'p<z l ; u<moTf/f, or schoolma^r. In the Lysis, Sokrates professes to set his own conversation with these- interesting youths as an antidote to the corrupting flatteries of most of those wto sought to gain their good-will. Ovruxpr/, u 'J7r;r6i?a/le-f, roif -rratdiKotf dia Tcnruvovvra Kai avare^ovTa, u/.Tiii /z?}, uarrep ai), xavvoiivra Kal rovre. (Lysis, c. 7, p. 210). Sco, in illustration of what is here said about Alkibiades as a yo itl , Kmipid. Supplic. 906 (about Parthenopteus), and the beautiful Ime* i the Atys of Catullus, 60-6'J. There cannot be a doubt that the characters of all the Greek y>rfcl ol any pretensions were considerably affected by this society and conversa'-*"-.
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