Alcides

“ VII. This happiness of Alcibiades proved by no means lasting; for after all manner of honours had been decreed him, and the whole management of the state, both at home and in the field, had been committed to him, to be regulated at his sole pleasure, and he had requested that two colleagues, Thrasybulus and Adimantus, should be assigned him (a request which was not refused) , proceeding with the fleet to Asia, he fell again under the displeasure of his countrymen, because he did not manage affairs at Cyme [13] to their wish; for they thought that he could do every thing. ”

“ Alcestis?
Admetus, his composure a little shaken.
Ah; two answers share my thought,
Questioned of her.
Heracles:
Is she alive or dead?
Admetus:
She is, and is not; and my heart hath bled
Long years for her.
Heracles:
I understand no more.
Thy words are riddles.
Admetus:
Heard'st thou not of yore
The doom that she must meet?
Heracles:
I know thy wife
Has sworn to die for thee.
Admetus:
And is it life,
To live with such an oath hung o'er her head?
Heracles, relieved.
Ah,
Weep not too soon, friend. Wait till she be dead.
Admetus:
He dies who is doomed to die ”

“ For he had, as it was observed, this peculiar talent and artifice for gaining men's affections, that he could at once comply with and really embrace and enter into their habits and ways of life, and change faster than the chameleon. One color, indeed, they say the chameleon cannot assume; it cannot make itself appear white; but Alcibiades, whether with good men or with bad, could adapt himself to his company, and equally wear the appearance of virtue or vice. At Sparta, he was devoted to athletic exercises, was frugal and reserved; in Ionia, luxurious, gay, and indolent ”

“ Thus Alcibiades, quitting the interests of the Spartans, whom he could no longer trust, because he stood in fear of Agis, endeavored to do them ill offices, and render them odious to Tisaphernes, who, by his means, was hindered from assisting them vigorously, and from finally ruining the Athenians. For his advice was to furnish them but sparingly with money, and so wear them out, and consume them insensibly; when they had wasted their strength upon one another, they would both become ready to submit to the king. ”

“ Alcibiades, therefore, judged it would be a glorious action, which would do honor to the gods and gain him esteem with men, if he restored the ancient splendor to these rites, escorting the procession again by land, and protecting it with his army in the face of the enemy. For either, if Agis stood still and did not oppose, it would very much diminish and obscure his reputation, or, in the other alternative, Alcibiades would engage in a holy war, in the cause of the gods, and in defense of the most sacred and solemn ceremonies ”

“ The flowers, bark, wood, seeds, and the root have all caused serious symptoms. The active principle is an alkaloid, to which the name of Cytisine has been given. The best source is the seeds. The seeds are powdered and extracted with alcohol containing hydrochloric acid, the alcohol distilled off, the residue treated with water and filtered through a wet filter to remove any fatty oil, the filtrate treated with lead acetate; and, after separating the precipitated colouring matter, made alkaline with caustic potash, and shaken with amyl alcohol. ”

“ A second error of the uric acid advocates, flowing from their first error of naming the poison, is to pour their acids and alkalies into the blood with the childlike faith that, like good children, the acids and alkalies will go in there and do just what they were told to do, neutralize the uric acid, and get out. They assume that the chemistry of the acids and alkalies is as simple inside of the body as it is outside of it and that the blood is simply a passive mixture of chemicals. ”

“ Thereupon he set sail with a fleet of one hundred ships, and, arriving at Andros, he there fought with and defeated as well the inhabitants as the Lacedaemonians who assisted them. He did not, however, take the city; which gave the first occasion to his enemies for all their accusations against him. Certainly, if ever man was ruined by his own glory, it was Alcibiades. For his continual success had produced such an idea of his courage and conduct, that, if he failed in anything he undertook, it was imputed to his neglect, and no one would believe it was through want of power. ”

“ Perceiving that no place was safe for him in Greece, on account of the power of the Lacedemonians, he went over into Asia to Pharnabazus, whom he so charmed, indeed, by his courtesy, that no man had a higher place in his favour; for he gave him Grunium, a strong-hold in Phrygia, from which he annually received fifty talents' revenue.
But with this good fortune Alcibiades was not content, not could endure that Athens, conquered as she was, should continue subject to the Lacedaemonians. ”

“ Among whom the greatest of all other was Alcibiades, who all the while he was at Athens used to scoff, and had a good grace in merry conceits and pleasant jests: he kept great horses, and lived in jollity, most gallantly, with the love and favour of all men: when he sojourned in Sparta, he went always shaven to the bare skin, in an overworn cloak, or else the same very coarse, and never washed his body but in cold water. ”

“ I. Alcibiades eminent both in his virtues and vices — II. His education — III. He commands in the expedition against Syracuse; is suspected of profaning the mysteries, and of conspiring against the government — IV. Is recalled home, but flees, and attaches himself to the Lacedaemonians — V. Falling under suspicion among them, he flees to the Persians, and is afterwards reconciled to his countrymen — VI. His enthusiastic reception at Athens — VII. He again becomes unpopular there ”

“ They cannot in the course of nature live much longer, and who can feel like them the call to rescue the life they gave from an untimely end?" But the parents, distressed though they were at the thought of losing him, shrunk from the call. Then Alcestis, with a generous self- devotion, proffered herself as the substitute. Admetus, fond as he was of life, would not have submitted to receive it at such a cost; but there was no remedy. The condition imposed by the Fates had been met, and the decree was irrevocable. Alcestis sickened as Admetus revived, and she was rapidly sinking to the grave. ”

“ They voted themselves to be the true Athens, and forgetting and forgiving the past, recalled Alcibiades, and gave him command of the army, thereby well illustrating what the poet Aristophanes said respecting the disposition of the Athenians towards the spoiled favorite,—"They love, they hate, but cannot live without him."
Alcibiades detached the Persians from the side of the Spartans, and gained some splendid victories for Athens. But he could not undo the evil he had done. He had ruined Athens beyond redemption by any human power. Constantly the struggle grew more and more hopeless. ”

“ Addressing the people, he represented that Alcibiades had ruined their affairs and lost their ships by mere self-conceited neglect of his duties, committing the government of the army, in his absence, to men who gained his favor by drinking and scurrilous talking, whilst he wandered up and down at pleasure to raise money, giving himself up to every sort of luxury and excess amongst the courtesans of Abydos and Ionia, at a time when the enemy's navy were on the watch close at hand. ”

“ From every quarter suspicion had gathered around Alcibiades, and the Athenian people were determined to have him tried and executed; so they sent a summons to him and to others against whom information had been given. He was ordered to follow the officers home and defend himself, but the latter were told not to arrest him; for the Athenians, having regard to their interests in Sicily, were anxious not to cause excitement in their own camp, or to attract the attention of the enemy. [11]
So Alcibiades and those who were accused with him left Sicily. ”

“ We have been long recognizing that the use of certain of the alkaline waters lessened the acidity of the urine and presumably of the blood, and the laity have been taught, partly by the profession but chiefly by the manufacturing chemists and the public press, that if ever the demon of uric acid can be laid, by the ingestion of enough of lithia salts or of some of the new and wonderful substances the special product of the great laboratories, their imperiled lives can be saved and most ills removed. ”

“ Formation of ascidia or pitchers.—In the preceding paragraphs, the formation of tubular or horn-like structures, from the union of the margins of one organ, or from the coalescence, or it may be from the want of separation of various organs, has been alluded to, so that it seems only necessary now, by way of summary, to mention the classification of ascidia proposed by Professor Charles Morren [29] , who divides the structures in question into two heads, according as they are formed from one or more leaves. ”

“ Here Hermippus interrupted the discourse, by saying, "The son of Clinias does not inform us what he thinks of the gods. While others have talked, he has eaten."
"I am a citizen and a soldier—neither priest nor philosopher," replied Alcibiades: "With a strong arm and a willing heart to fight for my country, I leave others to settle the attributes of her gods. Enough for me, that I regularly offer sacrifices in their temples, and pour libations upon their altars. ”

“ I. Alcibiades, the son of Clinias, was a native of Athens. In him nature seems to have tried what she could do; for it is agreed among all who have written concerning him, that no one was ever more remarkable than he, either for vices or virtues. Born in a most distinguished city, of a very high family, and by far the most handsome of all the men. of his age, he was qualified for any occupation, and abounded in practical intelligence. He was eminent as a commander by sea and land ”

“ Alcidonis has a fairy protectress, if not exactly godmother, who gives him the flasks in question to use in amatory adventures. One, with purple liquor in it, sets the drinker in full tide of passion; the second (rose-coloured) causes a sort of flirtation; the third (blue) leads to sentimental and moderate affection; and the last (pure white) recovers the experimenter from the effects of any of the others. He tries all, and all but the last are unsatisfactory, though, much as in the case of Alcibiades and Glicerie, the blue has a second chance, the results of which are not revealed. ”

“ You, who are able to amend Homer, may well undertake to instruct men." Being once desirous to speak with Pericles, he went to his house and was told there that he was not at leisure, but busied in considering how to give up his accounts to the Athenians; Alcibiades, as he went away, said, "It were better for him to consider how he might avoid giving up his accounts at all." ”

“ So, requiring silence by sound of a trumpet, he commanded one of his men to make proclamation that the Selymbrians should not take arms against the Athenians. This cooled such of the inhabitants as were fiercest for the fight, for they supposed that all their enemies were within the walls, and it raised the hopes of others who were disposed to an accommodation. Whilst they were parleying, and propositions making on one side and the other, Alcibiades's whole army came up to the town. ”

“ Boyle has long since proved by Experiments, that there is nothing of Acid in human Blood; and Dr. Pitcarn (14) has demonstrated, that the Acid Substances of Vegetables taken into the Stomach, are by the Action of this Part, the Lungs and Heart, when they come into the Blood-Vessels, turn’d to Alcalious; so that the Arterial Fluid must necessarily be considered as an Alcali; and therefore according to the known Principles of Chymistry, its mixture with such a Liquor as we have discovered the Viperine Sanies to be, will always exhibit some such appearance as this now related. ”

“ Annelids.—If arsenious acid is applied to the external surface of worms or leeches, the part which it touches perishes first, and life is extinguished successively in the others. If a wound is made first, and the arsenious acid then applied to it, the effects are only intensified and hastened. There is always noticed an augmentation of the excretions; the vermicular movements are at first made more lively, they then become languid, and death is very gradual. ”

“ Alcibiades, on taking leave of him, said, "As you hinder your country's success, I advise you to keep your sailors' camp near the enemy; for there is danger that, through the insubordination of our men, an opportunity may be afforded to Lysander of cutting off our army." ”

“ After Paracelsus we have Van Helmont, a true chemical discoverer who sought in chemistry a theory of disease of which his doctrine of fermentation in the body holds an important place. Next we have Sylvius, with his doctrine of the opposition of acid and alkali. Digestion he considered a process of fermentation or effervescence of the acid of the saliva and pancreatic juice with the alkali of the gall. When either the acid or the alkali predominated, disease was supposed to follow. The human body was regarded as a laboratory, the stomach as a sort of test tube. ”

“ By what Mechanism this comes to pass, They will easily understand, when they have learn’d what Alteration such things as these are do make in the humane Body; nor will it then be a difficult Matter to convince Them, That He is equally a fond Slave to an Hypothesis, who because Acids are sometimes of great Service in Fevers, concludes that their Origine is Alcalious; as He who knowing that Stagnating and Fermenting Juices do easily turn to Acidity, from thence Argues that Alcalies are the only Cure of this Stagnation and Ferment. ”