to the sea, and to trust entirely to the Athenian naval forces for support.  He even sent them carpenters and stonemasons from Athens, and showed great zeal on their behalf, which tended to increase his personal interest and power no less than that of his country.  He advised the people of Patrae also to join their city to the sea by long walls; and when some one said to the people of Patrae, that the Athenians would swallow them up, he answered, “Perhaps they may, but it will be by degrees and beginning with the feet, whereas the Lacedaemonians will seize them by the head and do it at once.”

However, Alkibiades ever pressed the Athenians to establish their empire by land as well as by sea, reminding them of the oath which the young men take in the Temple of Agraulos, and which it was their duty to confirm by their deeds.  This oath is, that they will regard wheat, barley, vines and olives as the boundaries of Attica, by which it is hinted that they ought to make all cultivated and fruitful lands their own.

XVI.  In the midst 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.