A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

226 Sicilian Expedition to End of War
all his other admirers with harshness and some even with
His marriage.
Plut., Ale. 8.
His dog.
lb. g.
A mina was
about $20.
Other peculiarities.
lb. 16.
insolence. . . .
He once struck Hipponicus, the father of Callias, a man
of great wealth and noble birth, a blow with his fist, not
being moved to it by anger or any dispute, but having
agreed previously with his friends to do so for a joke.
When every one in the city cried out at his indecent and
arrogant conduct, Alcibiades next morning at daybreak
came to the house of Hipponicus, knocked and entered.
Here he threw off his cloak, and offered him his body, bidding
him flog him and punish him for what he had done.
Hipponicus, however, pardoned him, and they became
friends, so much so that Hipponicus chose him for the
husband of his daughter Hipparete. Some writers say
that not Hipponicus but Callias, his son, gave Hipparete
to Alcibiades to wife, with a dowry of ten talents, and that
when her first child was born, Alcibiades demanded and
received ten more talents, as if he had made a previous
agreement to that effect. Thereupon Callias, fearing that
Alcibiades might plot against his life, gave public notice
in the assembly that if he died childless, he would leave
his house and all his property to the state. . . .
He had a dog of remarkable size and beauty, for which
he paid seventy minae. It had a very fine tail, which he
cut off. When his friends blamed him, and said that
every one was sorry for the dog and angry with him for
what he had done, he laughed and said, "Then I have
succeeded; for I wish the Athenians to gossip about this,
for fear they should say something worse about me. . .
."
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