(M528) It was in this unsettled state of things, when all the late contending States were insincere and vacillating, that Alcibiades stood forth as a party leader. He was thirty-one years of age, belonged to an ancient and powerful family, possessed vast wealth, had great personal beauty and attractive manners, but above all, was unboundedly ambitious, and grossly immoral—the most insolent, unprincipled, licentious, and selfish man that had thus far scandalized and adorned Athenian society. The only redeeming feature in his character was his friendship for Socrates, who, it seems, fascinated him by his talk, and sought to improve his morals. He had those brilliant qualities, and luxurious habits, and ostentatious prodigality, which so often dazzle superficial people, especially young men of fashion and wealth, but more even than they, the idolatrous rabble. So great was his popularity and social prestige, that no injured person ever dared to bring him to trial, and he even rescued his own wife from the hands of the law when she sought to procure a divorce—a proof that even in democratic Athens all bowed down to the insolence of wealth and high social position. (M529) Alcibiades, though luxurious and profligate, saw that a severe intellectual training was necessary to him if he would take rank as a politician, for a politician who can not make a speech stands a poor chance of popular favor. So he sought the instructions of Socrates, Prodicus, Protagoras, and others—not for love of learning, but as means of success, although it may be supposed that the intellectual excitement, which the discourse, cross-examination, and ironical sallies of Socrates produced, was not without its force on so bright a mind. (M530) Alcibiades commenced his public life with a sullied reputation, and with numerous enemies created by his unbearable insolence, but with a flexibility of character which enabled him to adapt himself to whatever habits circumstances required. He inspired no confidence, and his extravagant mode of life was sure to end in ruin, unless he reimbursed himself out of the public funds; and yet he fascinated the people who mistrusted and hated him. The great comic poet, Aristophanes, said of him to the Athenians: “You ought not to keep a lion’s whelp in your city at all, but if you choose to keep him, you must submit to his behavior.”