Alkibiades, a tale of the Great Athenian War

by Charles Hamilton Bromby

So Kleinias, honoured of all men, went to fight for Athens, and his son saw him again no more. He died by his general’s side at Koroneia, and oftentimes in after-years the fervent words of his last prayer came vividly before the mind of Alkibiades.

His mother Deinomaché at first took charge of him. She loved to tell him of the great men through whom she was descended; how Amphiaraos, who went with Jason on board the Argo to seek the fleece of gold, was her ancestor; of his son Alkmeon, who was married to the lovely nymph; and of the great ruler Megakles and his grandson, who, years ago, was crowned conqueror at the Pythian games.

Then of that Kleisthenes who raised the great temple at Delphi from its ruins, turned out the tyrant race of the Peisistratidai, and made Athens free for ever. How Megakles’ brother, Hippokrates, had two children: one of them, also called Megakles, was her father; the other, wife of the general Xanthippos, who beat the Persians at Mykale, was mother of the splendid Perikles.

Perikles was by the will of Kleinias appointed tutor to his son. So Alkibiades, when he was thirteen, was taken by his paidagogos, Zopyros, from his mother’s house to live in the bustle and excitement of the great establishment of Perikles.

The brave Deinomaché tried hard to shed no tear as her son went off. ‘Better,’ she said, ‘for you, my child, to learn to lead the people, or to be a soldier like your father, with such a one as my kinsman Perikles, than to waste your boyhood here amongst old women.’ And indeed it did seem time some stronger will than his fond mother’s should rule the ardent, sometimes overbearing, boy. If he was gentle to her at home, he was impatient at the stupidity of other boys and of the guidance of his feeble paidagogos, and apt to show a proud contempt for those he held to be the meaner sort.

Yet he felt somewhat shy and sad at first when he found himself alone in the great house of Perikles. His father’s house was large and strong, and somewhat gloomy, but it was his home. The days and nights were quiet there. Besides his mother’s female friends, and the slave women, and Zopyros, he had seen little of the world. One day had passed in the big empty house much in the same way as the day before it, and as he supposed the next would do. Here, in the home of the chief man in Athens—here was a change indeed. Hurry and bustle all day long. Busy politicians coming at all hours with their cumbrous suggestions. Troops of poor petitioners in want of something, and the important Generals and Ministers of State, followed by their slaves, as at the appointed time they came to take counsel with the chief on the affairs of Athens. Hurry and scurry all day long, scarce a moment to himself, except on holidays, could the great man get.

But when the busy day was done, and the boy was taken by Zopyros to the chambers set apart for him, he heard the sound of the long revelry deep into the night, the echo of the songs, the murmur of the merry arguments, the coming and going of the well-dressed slaves as they bore the costly viands, the garnished dishes, the golden vases of the old Greek wine, to the table of their lord. And when the sound of revelry, which often roused him from his sleep, was done, and the lights in his part of the court were all gone out, the boy saw others twinkling in that other part where Aspasia lived with all her women.

Aspasia! He had heard that name muttered in his mother’s house in such a way he thought it must be something bad—a name his mother’s women hardly dared to speak aloud. But here Aspasia, he found, when she deigned to grace the board of Perikles, was treated as a queen. A queen to him, indeed, she seemed to be—so fair, so tender, so generous; and as she looked with kind affection on the growing boy, son of the worthy Kleinias, who had left him the orphan pupil of her friend, he fell in love with her at once, and thought he had never seen so beautiful a lady.

‘What dost thou gaze at now, oh son of Kleinias?’ a strong voice said, as a firm hand was placed upon his shoulder, ‘and what art thou thinking of this bright holiday? Shall not thy paidagogos take thee to the palaistra, or wilt thou rather stay and talk with me a while? It is seldom I can see thee, child, or hear how thy books agree with thee.’

‘I was thinking, Perikles, of all the men and women there below. Art thou indeed their governor, and canst thou do whate’er thou wilt with them?’