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]
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]
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.
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]
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.
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]
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.