This text is part of:
τις—Alcibiades, as eager to accept the command as Nieias was reluctant. ἄρχειν—sc. στρατιᾶς, chosen from the board of ten strategi to command the army. Nicias does not mean, as is generally assumed, elected strategus. Alcibiades had held that office, (1) July 420-419, (2) July 419-418, (3) July 416-415, and had at this time been elected to hold office a fourth time, 415-414. Jokes had been made, especially by the comic poet Eupolis, about Alc.'s youth in 419. He was now about thirtysix, but was ‘young for his age.’ For ἐς sec Index. μόνον—instead of the interests of the state. This, says N., is what Alc. is doing, and one reason is that he is too young for so responsible a post. θαυμασθῇ μέν—from the rather strange expression we must assume N. to mean that Alc. wanted the command in order to increase his establishment and to get means to pay for it. There is nothing ‘disordeily’ in this sentence, as is sometimes said. ἱπποτροφίας—‘so expensive was the keeping of horses in most parts of Greece (see Pind. Isth. iv. 49, Aesch. Pr. V. 475, Aristot. Pol. VI. 7), that such was regarded as an evidence of ample fortune, and, when attached to any one's ancestors, of high gentility. In Hdt. vi. 35 it is mentioned as a proof of Miltiades' gentility, that he was descended οἰκίης ἀπὸ τεθριπποτρόφου’ (Bloomfield). Cf. Isocr. 16, 33 of Alc., ἱπποτροφεῖν ἐπιχειρήσας ὃ τῶν εὐδαιμονεστάτων ἔργον ἐστίν: and the νόσος ἱππική of Aristoph. Nub. μηδὲ τούτῳ—‘do not allow him either,’ any more than Segesta. ἐλλαμπρύνεσθαι—i.e. λαμπρύνεσθαι ἐν τῷ . . κινδύνῳ. μὴ οἷον νεωτέρους β—‘not one for young men to decide and to carry out in a hurry.’ οἷος=τοιοῦτος ὥστε, as often.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.