There was a youth growing up, however, of great ability.  His name was Alkibiades.  He was of high and noble family, but he had lost his parents very young, and Pericles had been his guardian, taking great care of his property, so that he was exceedingly rich.  He was very beautiful in person, and that was thought of greatly at Athens, though he was laughed at for the pains he took to show off his beauty, and for carrying out to battle a shield inlaid with gold and ivory, representing Cupid hurling Jupiter’s thunderbolts.  His will was so determined, that, when he was a little boy at play in the street, and saw a waggon coming which would have spoiled his arrangements, he laid himself down before the wheels to stop it.  He learnt easily, and, when he was with Socrates, would talk as well and wisely as any philosopher of them all; and Socrates really seems to have loved the bright, beautiful youth even more than his two graver and worthier pupils, Plato and Xenophon, perhaps because in one of Alkibiades’ first battles, at Delium, he had been very badly wounded, and Socrates had carried him safely out of the battle on his broad shoulders. Socrates was very strong, but one of the ugliest of men, and the Athenians were amused at the contrast between master and pupil.