of all this display of political ability, eloquence,
and statesmanlike prudence, he lived a life of great luxury, debauchery,
and profuse expenditure, swaggering through the market-place with his
long effeminate mantle trailing on the ground. He had the deck of his
trireme cut away, that he might sleep more comfortably, having his bed
slung on girths instead of resting on the planks; and he carried a
shield not emblazoned with the ancestral bearings of his family, but
with a Cupid wielding a thunderbolt. The leading men of Athens viewed
his conduct with disgust and apprehension, fearing his scornful and
overbearing manner, as being nearly allied to the demeanour of a despot,
while Aristophanes has expressed the feeling of the people towards him
in the line,

"They love, they hate, they cannot live without him."

And again he alludes to him in a bitterer spirit in the verse:

"A lion's cub 'tis best you should not rear,
For if you do, your master he'll appear."

His voluntary contributions of money to the State, his public
exhibitions and services, and displays of munificence, which could not
be equalled in splendour, his noble birth, his persuasive speech, his
strength, beauty, and bravery, and all his other shining qualities,
combined to make the Athenians endure him, and always give his errors
the mildest names, calling them youthful escapades and honourable
emulation. For example, he locked up Agatharchus the painter, and when
he had painted his house let him go with a present. He boxed Taurea's
ears because he was exhibiting shows in rivalry with him, and
contending with him for the prize. And he even took one of the captive
Melian women for his mistress, and brought up a child which he had by
her. This was thought to show his good nature; but this term cannot be
applied to the slaughter of all the males above puberty in the island of
Melos, which was done in accordance with a decree promoted by
Alkibiades.

When Aristophon painted the courtesan Nemea embracing Alkibiades, all
men eagerly crowded to see it; but older men were vexed at these things
too, thinking them only fit for despots, and considering them to be open
violations of the laws. Indeed Archestratus spoke very much to the
purpose when he said that Greece could not bear more than one
Alkibiades. Once, when Alkibiades had made a successful speech in the
public assembly, and was being conducted home in triumph by his friends,
Timon the m