Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng3
43.1
43.1
Alcibiades, while still a boy, was caught in a fast hold in a wrestling-school, and, not being able to get away, he bit the arm of the boy who had him down. The other boy said,
43.1
You bite like a woman.
43.1
No indeed,
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said Alcibiades,
43.1
but like a lion.
43.1
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43.2
43.2
He owned a very beautiful dog, for which he had paid two hundred and seventy-five pounds, and he cut off its tail,
43.2
so that,
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as he said,
43.2
the Athenians may tell this about me, and may not concern themselves too much with anything else.
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43.3
43.3
Coming upon a schoolroom, he asked for a book of the Iliad, and when the teacher said that
43.3
he had nothing of Homer’s, Alcibiades hit him a blow with his fist and passed on.
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43.4
43.4
He came to Pericles’ door, and upon learning that Pericles was not at liberty, but was considering how to render his accounting to the Athenians, he said,
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Were it not better that he should consider how not to render it ?
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43.5
43.5
Summoned from Sicily by the Athenians to be tried for his life, he went into hiding, saying that it is silly for a man under indictment to seek a way to get off when he can get away.
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43.6
43.6
When somebody said,
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Don’t you trust your fatherland to decide about you ?
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he replied,
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Not I; nor would I trust even my mother, lest in a moment of thoughtlessness she unwittingly cast a black ballot instead of a white one.
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43.7
43.7
Hearing that sentence of death had been passed upon him and his companions, he said,
43.7
Let us show them, then, that we are alive,
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and turning to the Spartan side he started the Decelean war against the Athenians.
43.7
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