Nepos, Alcibiades 1

1Alcibiades, son of Clinias, an Athenian. 1In him nature seems to have tested what she could achieve. 1For all who have recorded his history agree that no one was more outstanding than he, whether in vices or in virtues. 2Born in a most distinguished state, of the noblest family, by far the most handsome of all men of his age, rich; 2fit for any undertaking and full of resource (for he was a supreme commander on both sea and land); 2eloquent, so that he was among the most powerful speakers, because the appeal of his delivery and his language was so great that no one could resist him; 3when occasion demanded, hard-working and enduring; 3generous, magnificent no less in his way of life than in his table; 3affable, charming, most cleverly suiting himself to circumstances: yet the same man, as soon as he had relaxed and there was no reason why he should endure mental effort, was found to be luxurious, dissolute, lustful and intemperate, so that all marvelled that there was such dissimilarity and so contradictory a nature in one man.