Can we wonder if, in the graphic language of the Greek historian, ‘he was hunted by good women, as the hunter hunts his prey’? Ought we to be hard in our judgment on him if, living before the world had yet been taught a higher law, his life was not what we call virtuous? If we do not pardon him, we can make excuses. We cannot but remember the circumstances of his youth and bringing up in the house of Perikles and Aspasia; the licence of affection unsanctioned by the marriage tie, which even severe critics like Sokrates did not condemn. Of all this liberty he took his fill. None so sought after as he, none sooner weary of ordinary easy love. He astonished Athens by his erratic escapades. He had all there at his command. That was not enough. Hearing of renowned beauties far away, the difficulties of the pursuit lent enchantment to the search. At one time we hear of him, in disguise, at Korinth, at another at Abydos in the Hellespont, drawn thither only by rumour of the beauty of Medontis. So three years went by as in a wanton dream. As Perikles had for his friend the learned and beautiful Aspasia, whose salon was frequented by the wit and genius of Greece, so his pupil formed a strong attachment to Timandra, and felt perhaps the truest love he ever felt for the fair Athenian. She, like Aspasia, was of the class which society at that time something more than tolerated. Doubtless she was fitter to become companion of the life and work of such a man, the confidante of his hopes and aspirations, than were the most part of the high-born Grecian ladies. We shall see how faithfully, through all his ills, she followed him unto the end. But the offspring of such alliances could not become their fathers’ heirs, except by special legislation, so Alkibiades must marry, and marry one of his own caste. The rich and famous general Hipponikos, whose ancestors were among the most famous mythic heroes of the Greeks, whose family were the hereditary torch-bearers at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, had an only daughter, Hippareté, whom he loved devotedly, and who was to share his wealth. Her hand was eagerly sought for by most of the young men of old descent. The fact that she was coveted by many enhanced her value in the eyes of Alkibiades. She whom so many were anxious to possess was worth pursuing. He found in that pursuit an opportunity to show how he could excel the other youthful heroes of the day in love as well as war. Her mother had been separated from Hipponikos by the odious law which allowed a wife for little cause to change her husband for another—the bane and fruitful source of evil in the old societies. Released from her first husband, she had married Perikles, and became the mother of some of his children; but growing jealous of Aspasia, she was divorced from Perikles, and joined herself in wedlock to a third. It was the daughter of this woman and Hipponikos that Alkibiades wooed and won—perhaps too easily.