persuade Alcibiades to study philosophy and the immutable laws of morality, in order to qualify himself for ruling the Athenians. But the pupil knew his countrymen even better than the philosopher, and felt that in practice the appeal to justice was less potent than the appeal to expediency. Nor can we doubt that, although he listened to Socrates with pleasure, he was also familiar with the reasonings of the Sophists, the influence of whose detestable maxims can be traced in all the great crimes and follies with which the Athenians as a nation were chargeable at this period—such as the slaughter of the Melians, and the Sicilian expedition—and whose sophistical arguments, as mirrored in the plays of Euripides, are satirized and exposed by the vigorous hand of Aristophanes.
The first mention of Alcibiades in the history of Thucydides, occurs in the fifth book, where he is described as having been mainly instrumental in inducing the Athenians to break the peace of Nicias, and re-open the war with Sparta. This was in the year 420. Five years afterwards, he was chosen, with Nicias and Lamachus, to command the great expedition against Syracuse. He had himself, Thucydides informs us, a large share in persuading the people to organize this expedition. But, in the immense plan of operations sketched out by his ambition, Sicily was but a stepping-stone. Had he been successful there, he would have attacked the Carthaginian colonies, and endeavoured to reduce Carthage itself; thence he would have passed over to Ilyat, and after giving the ascendancy to the democratic party in all the cities of the Italian Greeks, he would have directed the forces of the confederacy so formed, assisted by mercenaries whom he would have hired in Spain, against the power of Lacedæmon, in the hope of utterly demolishing it. Nor did his dreams of empire stop even here;—according to Plato, if he had succeeded in making himself the master of all Europe, he would not have been contented until he had humbled the Persian power in Asia.
These schemes, however, were nipped in the bud. Just before the expedition sailed, occurred the mysterious mutilation of the Hermæ, or statues of Mercury. Suspicion fell upon Alcibiades, not, only as a man of lawless and irregular habits, but also because he was said, some time before this, to have burlesqued in his own house the sacred mysteries of Eleusis. His friends, the Sophists, had probably taught him to disbelieve, and secretly to deride, the ancient superstitions and customs of his country. However, he was permitted to sail with the expedition. The fleet arrived in safety on the Sicilian coast, and its first operations were successful. But suddenly the Salaminian ship, one of the state triremes, arrived with orders for Alcibiades to return to Athens, and stand his trial. But he knew his excitable countrymen too well to trust himself in their hands. On the voyage home he contrived to escape, and shortly after crossed over to the Peloponnesus, and visited Sparta. He then began to devote all his energies to the task of crippling the power of Athens. It was in consequence of his advice that the Lacedaemonians sent the able general Gylippus to take the command of the Syracusan forces, and encourage them in their strenuous, and at last successful, struggle with the Athenian armament. At his instance, too, they fortified and permanently occupied Decelea, a town within the borders of Attica. He further induced them to send him with a small squadron to Ionia, where he succeeded in persuading the greater part of the allied cities and islands to revolt from Athens. But the leading men at Sparta were jealous of his commanding influence, and King Agis in particular, who had personal reasons for hating him, was determined upon his death. Orders were sent accordingly to Astyochus, the Spartan admiral, to have him put to death; but Alcibiades heard of it, and escaped to Tissaphernes, satrap of Caria, with whom he soon gained unbounded influence. This was in the year 412.
An Athenian could not be permanently happy anywhere but at Athens, and Alcibiades, although with his usual versatility he had for three years conformed to the rigid and simple manners of the Spartans, was now thoroughly disgusted with them, and thought of nothing but how to repair the injury done to his country, and pave the way for his own recall. He made overtures for that purpose to an oligarchical faction in the Athenian army at Samos, of which the leaders were Pisander, Antiphon, and Theramenes. But after this faction had succeeded in changing the government at Athens, and had established the council of the Four Hundred, they would do nothing for Alcibiades. In a few months, however, the Four Hundred were expelled, and the people then unanimously passed a decree for his recall, 411 b.c. But he resolved that he would not return before he had rendered his country some signal service. For the next four years, therefore, he carried on military operations in the Ægean, the Hellespont, and the Propontis, in which he proved himself to possess all the qualifications of an able general. He defeated the Lacedaemonians wherever he met them, and brought back most of the revolted cities of Ionia to the allegiance of Athens. The details of these campaigns are to be found in Xenophon and Plutarch. In 407 he returned to Athens, and was welcomed by the people with acclamations. He was again sent out to Ionia in command of the forces, but a disaster which occurred to the fleet soon after, while he was unavoidably absent, furnished his enemies with a pretext for fresh accusations against him, and the foolish Athenians sent out new generals to supersede him in the command. The consequence of this step was the defeat of Ægospotami in 405, occasioned by the rashness and incapacity of the new generals, in spite of the repeated warnings of Alcibiades, in which the Athenian fleet was totally destroyed. The capture of Athens, the destruction of the long walls, and the establishment of the Thirty Tyrants followed. But the people did not lose all hope, nor could the oligarchs feel secure, so long as Alcibiades lived. At the instigation of Critias, one of the Thirty, Lysander, the Spartan general, persuaded Pharnabazus, the satrap of Phrygia, to give orders for his being dispatched. Alcibiades was now living in Phrygia with his mistress Timandra. The barbarians sent by Pharnabazus, not daring to face the noble Greek, set fire to the house. Alcibiades, seizing his sword, and wrapping his cloak round his left arm, rushed through the flames into the open air. His cowardly assailants were afraid to close with him, but, standing at a distance, dispatched him with their darts and arrows. His death occurred in the year 404, in the forty-ninth year of his age. (Plutarch in vitâ; Thucyd., lib. v.—viii.; Xenoph., Hellen.; Plato, Alcibiades.)—T. A.
ALCIMACHOS, a Greek painter, flourishing 340 b.c. Pliny records a picture by this artist representing Dioxippus, the Athenian boxer, defeating a Macedonian soldier.
ALCIMUS, high priest of the Jews, during the reign of Antiochus Eupator (163 b.c.), was expelled from Jerusalem for idolatry, but retook the city with, the aid of Demetrius.
ALCIMUS or ALETHIUS of Gaul, a poet, orator, and historian, who lived in the fourth century, and is believed to have written a life of the Emperor Julian.
ALCIONIUS or ALCYONIUS, a grammarian of Venice, born in 1487, and died in 1527. He taught the Greek language at Florence, and was engaged in the printing-office of Aldus Manutius at Venice.
ALCIPHRON, a Greek rhetorician and litterateur, appears to have flourished in the second century, and to have been a contemporary of Lucian. His only remaining work is a collection of letters, which are valuable from the light they throw upon the social life, manners, and colloquial language of ancient Greece, especially as relating to the lower classes.
ALCMAN, a Greek lyric poet. He was born a slave, most probably in Sardis. At an early age he was emancipated, and we find him in Sparta, making songs for the warlike Spartans. He lived to a good old age, and is said to have died of a disgusting disease. Alcman confesses to a voracious appetite. He probably fell in love with Megalostrata, a richly-gifted poetess, and he appears to have formed a high opinion of woman, and to have been much beloved by the Spartan maidens. The subjects of his muse are various, love-songs predominating. One of his pieces, descriptive of night, has been frequently translated and lauded. Flourished in the seventh century b.c.—J. D.
ALCMEON, a Pythagorean philosopher, who lived in the sixth century b.c. He studied the sciences in the school of the Asclepiades at Crotona, and applied himself with great diligence to anatomy. He studied particularly the structure of the eye and the ear, and is by some supposed to have discovered the Eustachian canal. He placed the soul in the brain, ascribed sleep to temporary stagnation of the blood in the larger vessels, and maintained that health depended on a due proportioning of four antagonistic principles—heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. He was probably the father of philosophic dualism—the antithesis of good and evil, finite and infinite.—J. W. S.
ALCMEON, the son of Megacles, of the illustrious family of the Alcmeonides, lived at Athens about the end of the sixth
