Note 53 — Chapter LV · FROM THE PEACE OF NIKIAS TO THE OLYMPIC FESTIVAL OF OLYMPIAD NINETY.

Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 4; Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 2; Plato, Protagoras, c. 1.

I do not know how far the memorable narrative ascribed to Alkibiadês in the Symposium of Plato (c. 33, 34, pp. 216, 217) can be regarded as matter of actual fact and history, so far as Sokratês is concerned; but it is abundant proof in regard to the general relations of Alkibiadês with others: compare Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 29, 30; iv. 1-2.

Several of the dialogues of Plato present to us striking pictures of the palæstra, with the boys, the young men, the gymnastic teachers, engaged in their exercises or resting from them, and the philosophers and spectators who came there for amusement and conversation. See particularly the opening chapters of the Lysis and the Charmidês; also the Rivales, where the scene is laid in the house of a γραμματιστὴς, or schoolmaster. In the Lysis, Sokratês professes to set his own conversation with these interesting youths as an antidote to the corrupting flatteries of most of those who sought to gain their good-will. Οὕτω χρὴ, ὦ Ἱππόθαλες, τοῖς παιδικοῖς διαλέγεσθαι, ταπεινοῦντα καὶ συστέλλοντα, ἀλλὰ μὴ, ὥσπερ σὺ, χαυνοῦντα καὶ διαθρύπτοντα (Lysis, c. 7, p. 210).

See, in illustration of what is here said about Alkibiadês as a youth, Euripid. Supplic. 906 (about Parthenopæus), and the beautiful lines in the Atys of Catullus, 60-69.

There cannot be a doubt that the characters of all the Greek youth of any pretensions were considerably affected by this society and conversation of their boyish years; though the subject is one upon which the full evidence cannot well be produced and discussed.