![The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/4/4/2/4/the-historians-history-of-the-world-03-greece-to-the-peloponnesian-war-download.jpg)
The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]». Краткое содержание книги:
He had a superb dog which had cost him more than seven thousand drachmæ. When all the town had admired it he cut off its tail, its finest ornament, that it might be talked of still more. “Whilst the Athenians are interested in my dog,” he said, “they will say nothing worse concerning me.” One day he was passing in the public square; the assembly was tumultuous and he inquired the cause; he was told that a distribution of money was on hand; he advanced and threw some himself amid the applause of the crowd: but according to the fashion among the exquisites of the day he was carrying a pet quail under his mantle: the terrified bird escaped and all the people ran, shouting, after it, that they might bring it back to its master. Alcibiades and the people of Athens were made to understand one another. “They detest him,” said Aristophanes, “need him and cannot do without him.”
One day he laid a wager to give a blow in the open street to Hipponicus, one of the most eminent men in the town; he won his bet, but the next day he presented himself at the house of the man he had so grossly insulted, removed his garments and offered himself to receive the chastisement he had deserved. He had married Hipparete, a woman of much virtue, and responded to her eager affection only by outrageous conduct. After long endurance she determined to lay a petition for divorce before the archon. Alcibiades, hearing this, hurried to the magistrate’s house and under the eyes of a cheering crowd carried off his wife in his arms across the public square, she not daring to resist; and brought her back to his house where she remained, well-pleased with this tender violence.
Alcibiades treated Athens as he did Hipponicus and Hipparete, and Athens, like Hipparete and Hipponicus, often forgave this medley of faults and amiable qualities in which there was always something of that wit and audacity which the Athenians prized above everything. His audacity indeed made sport alike of justice and religion. He may be excused for beating a teacher in whose school he had not found the Iliad: but at the Dionysia he struck one of his adversaries, in the very middle of the spectacle, regardless of the solemnity; and at another time, in order the better to celebrate a festival, he carried off the sacred vessel which was required at that very moment for a public and religious service. A painter having refused to work for him he kept him prisoner until he had finished decorating his house, but dismissed him loaded with presents. On one occasion when a poet was pursued by justice, he tore the act of indictment from the public archives. In a republic these actions were not very republican. But all Greece had such a weakness for Alcibiades! At Olympia he had seven chariots competing at once, thus eclipsing the magnificence of the kings of Syracuse and Cyrene; and he carried off two prizes in the same race, while another of his chariots came in fourth. Euripides sang of his victory and cities joined together to celebrate it. The Ephesians erected him a magnificent pavilion; the men of Chios fed his horses and provided him with a great number of victims; the Lesbians gave him wine and the whole assembly of Olympia took their seats at festive tables to which a private individual had invited them. Posterity, less indulgent than contemporaries, whilst recognising the eminent qualities of the man, will condemn the bad policy which made the expedition to Sicily, and the bad citizen who so many times gave the scandalous example of violating the laws and who dared to arm against his own country, to raise his hand against his mother. Alcibiades will remain the type of the most brilliant, but the most immoral and consequently the most dangerous citizen of a republic.
[421-420 B.C.]
In spite of his birth which classed him among the Eupatrids, Alcibiades, like Pericles, went over to the side of the people, and made himself the adversary of a man very different from himself, the superstitious Nicias, who was also a noble, rich and tried by long services. But Alcibiades had the advantage of him in audacity, fascination, and eloquence. Demosthenes regards him as the first orator of his time; not that he had a great flow of language; on the contrary, as his phrases did not come quickly enough, he frequently repeated the last words of his sentences; but the force and elegance of his speech and a certain lisp which was not displeasing, rendered him irresistible. His first political act was an unwelcome measure. He suggested an increase of the tribute of the allies, an imprudence which Pericles would not have committed. But Alcibiades had different schemes and different doctrines. He believed in the right of might and he made use of it; he looked forward to gigantic enterprises and he prepared the necessary means in advance. His inaction began to weigh on him. He was thirty-one years old and had as yet done nothing; so he bestirred himself considerably on the occasion of the treaty of 421. He would have liked to supplant Nicias and win the honour of the peace for himself. His flatteries to the prisoners of Sphacteria met with no success; the Spartans relied more on the old general, and Alcibiades bore them a grudge in consequence.
Alcibiades
There was no lack of men opposed to this treaty. It was signed amidst the applause of the old, the rich, and the cultivators, but in it Athens, through Nicias’ fault, had allowed herself to be ignominiously tricked. The merchants who during the war had seen the sea closed to their rivals and open to their own vessels, the sailors, the soldiers, and all the people of the Piræus who lived on their pay or their booty, formed a numerous party. Alcibiades constituted himself its chief. The warlike spirit which was to disappear only with Greece itself soon gave him allies from outside.
What Sparta and Athens were doing on a large scale was being done by other towns on a small one. Strong or weak, obscure or illustrious, all had the same ambition: all desired subjects. The Eleans had subdued the Lepreatæ, Mantinea and the towns in her neighbourhood; Thebes had knocked down the walls of Thespiæ in order to keep that town at her mercy; and Argos had transferred within her own walls the inhabitants of several townships of Argos, though in doing so she granted them civil rights. Sparta watched with annoyance this movement for the concentration of lesser cities round more powerful ones. She proclaimed the independence of the Lepreatæ, and secretly encouraged the defection of the subjects of Mantinea and the hatred of Epidaurus against Argos. But since Sphacteria she had lost her prestige. At Corinth, at Megara, in Bœotia, it was openly said that she had basely sacrificed the interests of her allies; indignation was especially felt at her alliance with Athens. The Peloponnesian league was in fact dissolved; one people dreamed of reconstituting it for their own advantage.
The repose and prosperity of Argos in the midst of the general conflict had increased her resources and her liberal policy towards the towns of the district had augmented her strength. But the new-comers were a powerful reinforcement to the democratic party whose influence impelled Argos on a line of policy opposed to that of the Spartans. This town therefore might and wished to become the centre of an anti-Lacedæmonian league. Mantinea, where the democracy predominated; the Eleans, who had been offended by Lacedæmon; Corinth, which, by the treaty of Nicias, lost two important towns in Acarnania, were ready to join their grudges and their forces. The Argives skilfully seized the opportunity; twelve deputies were sent to all the Greek cities which desired to form a confederation from which the two cities which were equally menacing to the common liberty, namely Sparta and Athens, should be excluded. But an agreement could not be arrived at. A league of the northern states was thus rendered abortive; nothing could yet be done without Sparta or Athens.