B.C. 420. Alkibiadês tries to renew the ancient, but flicting 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 behaviour'." 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 aggrandisement which dictated his own personal actions. Mentioning Alkibiadês now for the first time, I have somewhat anticipated on future chapters, in order to present a general idea of his character, interrupted hereafter to be illustrated. But at the moment which we have now reached (March, 420 в.C) the lion's whelp was yet young, and had neither acquired his entire strength, nor disclosed his fullgrown claws. connection of his an cestors with Lacedæmon, as proxeni. 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 com 1 Aristophan. Ranæ, 1445-1453; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 16; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 9. mencing 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 with 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 off1. tans reject vances-he themalters his alt politics, and be comes their 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 The Sparcalculated upon their gratitude, as well as upon the his adfavourable sympathies of their countrymen, when- turns ever they should be restored. He advocated both against the peace and the alliance with Sparta, and the restoration of her captives. Indeed he 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 such 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 1 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. enemy at Athens. He tries to bring 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 from the Spartans stung him so to the quick, that, making an entire revolution in his political course', he immediately threw himself into anti-Laconian politics with an energy and ability which he was not before known to possess. The moment was favourable, since the recent Athens into death of Kleon, for a new political leader to espouse with Argos. this side; and was rendered still more favourable alliance 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 favour of Athens had yet been accomplished. Alkibiadês had therefore ample pretext for altering his tone respecting the Spartansand for denouncing them as deceivers who had 1 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. Πανταχοθέν τε νομίζων ἐλασσοῦσθαι τό τε πρῶτον ἀντεῖπεν, &c. 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, disengaged by the expiration of the peace with Sparta, opened a possibility of connection with Athensa policy now 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 Boeotia, tendering to the Athenians the mere ruins of Panaktum in exchange for Pylus,-when it farther became known that the Spartans had already concluded a special alliance with the Boeotians 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 the discontent against Sparta, he at the same time despatched a private intimation to his the Arge He induces correspondents at Argos, exhorting them, under asians to send surances of success and promise of his own strenuous aid, to send without delay an embassy to Athens ians eagerly in conjunction with the Mantineians and Eleians, envoys to Athens the Arge embrace this opening, and drop their negotia tions with Sparta. 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, yet 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'. 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-though Corinth had refused all concern in the second 2. 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-Phi1 Thucyd. v. 43. Thucyd. v. 48. 2 3 Thucyd. v. 44. Αφίκοντο δὲ καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων πρέσβεις κατὰ τάχος, &c. |