Plutarch, Lives: Caius Martius Coriolanus: Julius Caesar: Marcus Brutus: Marcus Antonius: Octavius Caesar Augustus: Theseus: Alcibiades (ed. Thomas North)

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[p. 291]

Extracts from the Life of Alcibiades

• 1.Description of ALCIBIADES, and anecdotes of his early days. (ALCIBIADES saves the life of SOCRATES in battle, who requites him by saving his life in return.)
• 2. Anecdotes of the dog and quail. (HYPERBOLUS endeavours to banish ALCIBIADES by ostracism, but is banished himself. Peace is concluded by NICIAS between Athens and Sparta. ALCI BIADES is chosen general of the Athenians.)
• 3. Wanton behaviour of ALCIBIADES.
• 4 Interview between ALCIBIADES and TIMON the misanthrope. (ALCIBIADES is accused of mangling the images of HERMES, and of profaning the holy Mysteries. His expedition to Sicily.)
• 5. He is sent for to answer to the charge of mutilating the images, and condemned. He flies to Sparta. Description of his extreme versatility. (He flies from Sparta to the court of TISAPHERNES.)
• 6. The Athenians, being afraid of TISAPHERNES, begin to desire the return of ALCIBIADES.
• 7. He is recalled from exile (His victories at Abydos Cyzicus, and Byzantium.)
• 8. His honourable return to Athens.
• 9. Some of his failures were due to lack of money. (ALCIBIADES is accused by THRASYBULUS, and his authority as general is taken from him. Athens is taken by LYSANDER, who appoints thirty tyrants.)
• 10. Death of ALCIBIADES at a village in Phrygia. His burial by TIMANDRA.

I.

Alcibiades' stock. Alcibiades' beauty. Alcibiades' lisped by nature.

ALCIBIADES, by his father's side, was anciently descended of Eurysaces that was the son of Ajax, and, by his mother's side of Alcmaeon: for his mother Dinomacha was the daughter of Megacles....Now for Alcibiades' beauty, it made no matter if we spake not of it, yet I will a little touch it by the way: for he was wonderful fair, being a child, a boy, and a man, and that at all times, which made him marvellous amiable, and beloved of every man. For where Euripides saith that, of all the fair times of the year, the autumn or latter season is the fairest: that commonly falleth not out true. And yet it proved true in Alcibiades, though in few other: for he was passing fair even to his latter time, and of good temperature of body. They write of him also, that his tongue was somewhat fat, and it did not become him ill, but gave a certain natural pleasant grace in his talk: which Aristophanes mentioneth, mocking one Theorus that did counterfeit a lisping grace with his tongue: [p. 292]

'This Alcibiades, with his fat lisping tongue
Into mine ears, this trusty tale and song full often sung:
Look upon Theolus (quoth he) lo there he bows
Behold his comely crow-bright face with fat and flatling¹ blows.
The son of Clinias would lisp it thus somewhiles,
And sure he lisped never a lie, but rightly hit his wiles.'

'Because he would be like his father every way,
In his long trailing gown he would go jetting day by day,
And counterfeit his speech, his countenance and face:
As though Dame Nature had him given therein a perfect grace
To lisp and look aside, and hold his head awry
Even as his father looked and lisped, so would he prate and pry.'

¹ The equivocation of these two Greek words kolax and korach is hard to be expressed in English, instead whereof I have set flatling blows, for flattering brows, observing the grace of lisping as near as I could, like to the Latin and French translations; likewise Theolus for Theorus.

Cross references from W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus:
8, 17 [BOOK VIII]
8, 17 [BOOK VIII]: idiostolôi triêrei

This text is based on the following book(s):
Plutarch. Rev. Walter W. Skeat. Shakespeare's Plutarch: being a selection from the lives in North's Plutarch which illustrate Shakespeare's plays. Macmillan and Co. 1875. London.