Alcibiades

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. IV. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1916.

His breeds of horses were famous the world over, and so was the number of his racing-chariots. No one else ever entered seven of these at the Olympic games—neither commoner nor king—but he alone. And his coming off first, second, and fourth victor (as Thucydides says;[*](In a speech of Alcibiades, Thuc. 6.16.2.) third, according to Euripides), transcends in the splendor of its renown all that ambition can aspire to in this field.

The ode of Euripides[*](An Epinikion, or hymn of victory, like the extant odes of Pindar.) to which I refer runs thus:—

  1. Thee will I sing, O child of Cleinias;
  2. A fair thing is victory, but fairest is what no other Hellene has achieved,
  3. To run first, and second, and third in the contest of racing-chariots,
  4. And to come off unwearied, and, wreathed with the olive of Zeus,
  5. To furnish theme for herald’s proclamation.