THE DAYS OF ALCIBIADES.*
PROFESSOR OMAN in his " Foreword " to Mr. Robinson's book traces the " pernicious attitude of mind " which prompts boys or men to label history as dull mainly to the influence of " smaller manuals." " The shorter the history-book, the loss human dons it become." So he regards it as " absolutely necessary to rouse in the beginner an interest in the human and personal aspect of the historical figures with whom he comes in contact " :- " I would pardon a reader who had never heard of the Code Napolgon, if ho could tell me that the great emperor carried his snuff loose in his pockets, ate his meals too fast, and was accustomed to pinch the ears of his generals. There is some hope for that reader—nono for the unhappy being to whom Napoleon means a string of battle-names and constitutional enactments. Whether illustrative anecdotes are absolutely accurate is a thing of almost secondary importance, for the ' legend' of a groat man is sometimes quite as worthy of memory as his biography in the Smaller Historical Dictionary.'
The difficulty is enhanced with ancient history by the lack of interesting books which " all but the most perverse can read with pleasure." There is nothing corresponding to Esmond or Westward Ho .1 to throw light on the life or mermen, of the classic world. But there is plenty of material to enable us to " make for ourselves a detailed and lively picture of the daily life of one of the great men whose names are familiar tons" in history in the two periods of the Fall of the Roman Republic and the short age of the Athenian Empire, and Professor Oman applauds the decision of Mr. Robinson to hang his series of sketches—founded on ahucydides, Aristophanes, the Dialogues of Plato, and the Lives of Plutarch—round the career of Alcibiades, " the most freakish and fascinating of all the personalities " of tho latter period. For boys Professor Oman is probably right in insisting on the dearth of really interesting books on the daily life and personality of the famous ancients. Sir Samuel Dill's two great books on Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire and Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, though intensely interesting, are perhaps on too massive a scale, too closely packed with information, to appeal to the ingenuous youth. The effort to combine instruction with romance was made seventy or eighty years ago by Becker in his Gallus and Charities, works familiar to the present writer in his schoolboy days. But though monuments of Teutonic industry, and deserving of all respect, they were singu_ larly lacking in the quality of charm. We read them—if we did read them—because we were told to, not because we enjoyed them. But perhaps a word of acknowledgment was due to Professor Tucker's Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul and Life in Ancient Athens, Mr. Robinson is not breaking 'refill ground, though there is an element of freshness and novelty in his method. In taking Alcibiades as his central figure he is certainly making a bold and essentially modern bid for the suffrages of his readers. Not that he attempts in any way to whitewash him or elevate him to an heroic) level. He merely recognizes the fact that eminent people of mixed character are far more interesting and promising subjects for artistic treatment than men of solid worth. Aristotle, whom, by the way, Mr. Robinson denounces for his snobbishness, expresses this very well by quoting the line which says that the good are simple and the bad multiform. Becky Sharp, from the point of view of interestingness, is worth a wilderness of Amelia's. A hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, if any schoolmaster had conceived a similar plan for rendering Athenian life real and attractive, he would probably have chosen Aris- tides as his central figure, and the results may easily be imagined. Moreover, Alcibiades, though the most signal example of the bad • The Days of AIL-We:dee. By C. E. Robinson, B.A., Assistant-Master at Win- chester College. With a Foreword C. W. Oman. Illustrated. London ; Edward Arnold. 163. net.] Prince Charming, represents a type which has emerged again and again- et critical periods of the world's history. Parallels can be found in our own annals-, perhaps the most notable being Lord Goring, the Royalist soldier, on whom Clarendon passed the damning verdict that " he wanted nothing but industry (for he had wit, and courage, and understanding. and ambition, uncontrolled by any fear of God or man) to have been- as eminent and suocessful in the highest attempt of wickedness as any man in the age he lived in or before." The meteoric career of Lord Peterborough, again, as soldier, sailor, and intriguer, offers many points of contact, though Peterborough was redeemed by a strain of Quixotry and a capacity for disinterested friendship reflected in Popes couplet :- " And he whose lightnings pierced the Iberian lines Now forms my quincunx and now ranks my vines." There was a good deal of the Alcibiades in Lord Byron ; and at the present day it would not be impossible for a modern Plutarch to find a parallel Life for the most dangerous, the most brilliant, and the most self-centred of political opportunists, the advocate of a disastrous naval expedition, and, finally, not unacquainted with the Hellespont. Mr. Robinson's sketches take the form of scenes or episodes depicting the manners, customs, and general atmosphere of the times. When they have a plot, it is based upon actual events or anecdotes related in Plutarch or elsewhere, and, though many of the characters chosen stand for types rather than individuals, the names of nearly all are on record. Alcibiades figures in most of the chapters, but not in all. We have stories of his boyhood, of his relations with his guardians, his training at the wrestling school, his prowess at the great games, his friendship with Socrates, his convivial habits, his magnetic influence on the Athenians as illustrated by a scene in the Ekklesia, his residence in Sparta, his start with the great fleet for Sicily, his life with Pharna- bozos. Of the episodes in which he does not appear, perhaps the. most vividly done is the visit of his guardian Ariphron to Delphi to consult the oracle as to the choice of a profession for his ward, the account of the pilgrimage to Eleusis, and the spirited description of a naval battle, put into the mouth of an oarsman on an Athenian trireme. Mr. Robinson has evidently visited "the isles of Greece" and beheld the " eternal sunshine " that " gilds them yet " ; for his landscape- painting gives the impression of first-hand observation. Our only serious criticism of his book is that, while unconventional in his scheme, he is almost too conscientious in the use of his material. We cannot help thinking that he would have done better if he had taken his courage boldly in both hands and essayed an historical romance, with Alcibiades as central figure, on the lines of one of Meroj- kovski's novels, instead of a series of detached sketches, for the details of which chapter and verse can be given down to the minutest particular.
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