Six years elapsed after the conclusion of the Peace of Nicias, before war was again openly declared; but it was a peace only in name, and was broken by many acts of hostility on both sides. During this period the principal states of Greece were involved in a network of political intrigue, treaty following treaty, and alliance succeeding to alliance, for the most part with no result. To this statement, there is, however, one important exception. A year after the signing of the second treaty between Athens and Sparta, a coalition was formed, including Athens, Elis, and Mantinea, under the leadership of Argos; and in mentioning this event we have to usher on to the stage one of the most extraordinary characters in history. This was Alcibiades, a young Athenian noble, endowed with every advantage of mind, person, and fortune, whose fatal gifts, and lawless ambition, made him the evil genius of his country. His high birth, his wealth, his wit, and his wonderful beauty, attracted to him a host of flatterers, who fed his vanity with soft adulation, and led him to believe that nothing was too great for such powers as his. Like most of the brilliant young men of his day, he attached himself for a time to the philosopher Socrates, for whom he seems to have felt a warm admiration. But his connexion with that great teacher and thinker, though it served to sharpen his understanding, could not eradicate the effects of evil habit and example. His wilful, selfish, and despotic temper soon broke loose from that salutary restraint, and henceforth we find him pursuing a course of action which brought ruin on his people, and on himself a traitor's death and a dishonoured name.