As to the great public works, the
construction of the temples, and of the public buildings with which
Perikles adorned Athens, the whole of the edifices in Rome together,
before the time of the emperors, are not worthy to be compared to them,
for they far surpassed them both in largeness of scale and in beauty of
design.
LIFE OF ALKIBIADES.
I. The pedigree of Alkibiades is said to begin with Eurysakes the son of
Ajax, while on the mother's side he descended from Alkmaeon, being the
son of Deinomache, the daughter of Megakles. His father Kleinias fought
bravely at Artemisium in a trireme fitted out at his own expense, and
subsequently fell fighting the Boeotians, in the battle of Koronea.
Alkibiades after this was entrusted to Perikles and Ariphron, the two
sons of Xanthippus, who acted as his guardians because they were the
next of kin. It has been well remarked that the friendship of Sokrates
for him did not a little to increase his fame, seeing that Nikias,
Demosthenes, Lamakus, Phormio, Thrasybulus, and Theramenes, were all men
of mark in his lifetime, and yet we do not know the name of the mother
of any one of them, while we know the name even of the nurse of
Alkibiades, who was a Laconian, named Amykla, and that of Zopyrus, his
_paedagogus_, one of which pieces of information we owe to Antisthenes,
and the other to Plato. As to the beauty of Alkibiades, it is not
necessary to say anything except that it was equally fascinating when he
was a boy, a youth, and a man.
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