12
In fact, if you hold that Aristeides was a good Athenian and a just one, you can only regard Alcibiades as a scoundrel, since his policy towards the subject-states is the exact opposite of that of Aristeides. Indeed, because of his behaviour, many are leaving their homes as exiles and going off to settle at ThuriiA colony founded in 453 B.C. on the site of Sybaris in S. Italy. The bulk of the settlers were Athenian, although numbers came from all parts of the Greek world.; while the bitter feeling of the allies will manifest itself directly there is a war at sea between Sparta and ourselves. In my own opinion, he is a worthless statesman who considers only the present without also giving thought to the future, who advocates the policy which will best please the people and says nothing of that which their true interests require.
13
I am astonished, furthermore, at those who are persuaded that Alcibiades is a lover of democracy, that form of government which more than any other would seem to make equality its end. They are not using his private life as evidence of his character, in spite of the fact that his greed and his arrogance are plain to them. On his marriage with the sister of Callias he received a dowry of ten talents; yet after HipponicusFor Hipponicus and Callius cf. Andoc. 1.115, 130. had lost his life as one of the generals at Delium,In 424 B.C. Demosthenes and Hippocrates planned a joint invasion of Boeotia. The scheme miscarried; and the Athenians were heavily defeated at Delium. he exacted another ten, on the ground that Hipponicus had agreed to add this further sum as soon as Alcibiades should have a child by his daughter.
