He had great advantages for entering public life; his noble birth,
his riches, the personal courage he had shown in divers battles,
and the multitude of his friends and dependents, threw open, so to
say, folding doors for his admittance. But he did not consent to
let his power with the people rest on any thing, rather than on
his own gift of eloquence. That he was a master in the art of
speaking, the comic poets bear him witness; and the most eloquent
of public speakers, in his oration against Midias, allows that
Alcibiades, among other perfections, was a most accomplished
orator.
His expenses in horses kept for the public games, and in the
number of his chariots, were matters of great observation; never
did any one but he, either private person king, send seven
chariots to the Olympic games. And to have carried away at once
the first, the second, and the fourth prize, as Thucydides says,
or the third, as Euripides relates it, outdoes every distinction
that was ever thought of in that kind.
The emulation displayed by the deputations of various states, in
the presents which they made to him, rendered this success yet
more illustrious. The Ephesians erected a tent for him, adorned
magnificently; the city of Chios furnished him with provender for
his horses and with great numbers of beasts for sacrifice; and the
Lesbians sent him wine and other provisions for the many
entertainments which he made.
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