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.
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