The present is the first occasion on which we hear of this remarkable man as taking a prominent part in public life. He was now about thirty-one or thirty-two years old, which in Greece was considered an early age for a man to exercise important command. But such was the splendor, wealth, and antiquity of his family, of Æakid lineage through the heroes Eurysakês and Ajax, and such the effect of that lineage upon the democratical public of Athens,[46] that he stepped speedily and easily into a conspicuous station. Belonging also through his mother Deinomachê to the gens of the Alkmæonidæ, he was related to Periklês, who became his guardian when he was left an orphan at about five years old, along with his younger brother Kleinias. It was at that time that their father Kleinias was slain at the battle of Koroneia, having already served with honor in a trireme of his own at the sea-fight of Artemisium against the Persians. A Spartan nurse named Amykla was provided for the young Alkibiadês, and a slave named Zopyrus chosen by his distinguished guardian to watch over him; but even his boyhood was utterly ungovernable, and Athens was full of his freaks and enormities, to the unavailing regret of Periklês and his brother Ariphron.[47] His violent passions, love of enjoyment, ambition of preëminence, and insolence towards others,[48] were manifested at an early age, and never deserted him throughout his life. His finished beauty of person both as boy, youth, and mature man, caused him to be much run after by women,[49] and even by women of generally reserved habits. Moreover, even before the age when such temptations were usually presented, the beauty of his earlier youth, while going through the ordinary gymnastic training, procured for him assiduous caresses, compliments, and solicitations of every sort, from the leading Athenians who frequented the public palæstræ. These men not only endured his petulance, but were even flattered when he would condescend to bestow it upon them. Amidst such universal admiration and indulgence, amidst corrupting influences exercised from so many quarters and from so early an age, combined with great wealth and the highest position, it was not likely that either self-restraint or regard for the welfare of others would ever acquire development in the mind of Alkibiadês. The anecdotes which fill his biography reveal the utter absence of both these constituent elements of morality; and though, in regard to the particular stories, allowance must doubtless be made for scandal and exaggeration, yet the general type of character stands plainly marked and sufficiently established in all. [46] Thucyd. v. 43. Ἀλκιβιάδης ... ἀνὴρ ἡλικίᾳ μὲν ὢν ἔτι τότε νέος, ὡς ἐν ἄλλῃ πόλει, ἀξιώματι δὲ προγόνων τιμώμενος. The expression cf Plutarch, however, ἔτι μειράκιον, seems an exaggeration (Alkibiad. c. 10).