[45]
You may
infer this to be true on many other grounds and especially by scanning the
careers of those who have become eminent before your time. You will hear first
that Pericles, who is thought to have far surpassed all men of his age in
intellectual grasp, addressed himself to Anaxagoras of Clazomenae and only after
being his pupil1 acquired this power of
judgement. You will next discover that Alcibiades, though his natural
disposition was far inferior in respect to virtue and it was his pleasure to
behave himself now arrogantly, now obsequiously,2 now licentiously, yet, as a
fruit of his association with Socrates, he made correction of many errors of his
life and over the rest drew a veil of oblivion by the greatness of his later
achievements.
1 Blass notes the same information in Isoc. 15.235.
2 Isocrates employs the same words of Persian satraps, Isoc. 4.152, as Blass notes.
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