XII.  His success was rendered all the more conspicuous by the manner in which the various States vied with one another in showing him honour.  Ephesus pitched a magnificent tent for his accommodation, Chios furnished his horses with provender, and himself with animals for sacrifice; and Lesbos supplied him with wine, and every thing else necessary for giving great entertainments.  Yet even at this brilliant period of his life he incurred discredit, either by his own fault or through the spite of his enemies.  The story is that an Athenian named Diomedes, a respectable man and a friend of Alkibiades, was desirous of winning a victory at Olympia.  Hearing that there was a chariot and four which belonged to the city of Argos, and knowing that Alkibiades had great influence and many friends in that place, he persuaded him to buy the chariot for him.  Alkibiades, however, bought the chariot and entered it for the race as his own, leaving Diomedes to call upon heaven and earth to witness his ill-treatment.  It appears that a trial took place about this matter, and Isokrates wrote a speech about this chariot in defence of the son of Alkibiades, in which Tisias, not Diomedes, is mentioned as the prosecutor.

XIII.  When, as a mere boy, Alkibiades plunged into political life, he at once surpassed most of the statesmen of the age.  His chief rivals were Phaeax, the son of Erasistratus, and Nikias, the son of Nikeratus, the latter a man advanced in life, and bearing the reputation of being an excellent general, while the former, like Alkibiades himself, was a young man of good family, just rising into notice, but inferior to him in many respects, particularly in oratory.  Though affable and persuasive in private circles, he could not speak equally well in public, for he was, as Eupolis says,

    “At conversation best of men, at public speaking worst.”

In a certain attack on Alkibiades and Phaeax, we find, among other charges, Alkibiades accused of using the gold and silver plate of the city of Athens as his own for his daily use.

There was at Athens one Hyperbolus, of the township of Peirithois, whom Thucydides mentions as a worthless man, and one who was constantly ridiculed by the comic dramatists.  From his utter disregard of what was said of him, and his carelessness for his honour, which, though it was mere shameless impudence and apathy, was thought by some to show firmness and true courage, he was pleasing to no party, but frequently made use of by the people when they wished to have a scurrilous attack made upon those in power.  At this time he was about to resort to the proceeding called ostracism, by which from time to time the Athenians force into exile those citizens who are remarkable for influence and power, rather because they envy them than because they fear them.