Note 507 — Chapter LXVI · FROM THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY TO THE DEATH OF ALKIBIADES.

Cornelius Nepos says (Alcib. c. 11) of Alkibiadês: “Hunc infamatum a plerisque tres gravissimi historici summis laudibus extulerunt: Thucydides, qui ejusdem ætatis fuit; Theopompus, qui fuit post aliquando natus, et Timæus: qui quidem duo maledicentissimi, nescio quo modo, in illo uno laudando conscierunt.”

We have no means of appreciating what was said by Theopompus and Timæus. But as to Thucydidês, it is to be recollected that he extols only the capacity and warlike enterprise of Alkibiadês, nothing beyond; and he had good reason for doing so. His picture of the dispositions and conduct of Alkibiadês is the reverse of eulogy.

The Oration xvi, of Isokratês, De Bigis, spoken by the son of Alkibiadês, goes into a labored panegyric of his father’s character, but is prodigiously inaccurate, if we compare it with the facts stated in Thucydidês and Xenophon. But he is justified in saying: οὐδέποτε τοῦ πατρὸς ἡγουμένου τρόπαιον ὑμῶν ἔστησαν οἱ πολέμιοι (s. 23).