Wordsworth, Christopher: Greece: pictorial, descriptive and historical (London, 1840)

* Alcibiades one day, as jElian says, was taken by
Socrates to a building in the city of Athens, in which
maps of different countries were collected. Among them
. chart of the habitable World, as far as it was
known to the geographers of Greece. To this the
philosopher directed the attention of his young friend. He
did so with the intention of diminishing the pride in which
the latter appeared to indulge in consequence of the extent
of his territorial possessions on the Athenian soil. He
';■ desired him to point out the position of Attica on the
map. Alcibiades did so. Now show me there, said
ss, the situation of your own estate. " How is it
e?" replied the other; "can you expect that my
domains should appear there, where even Attica itself occupies so
small a space?"

Whatever effect this comparison of the extent of his own possessions with
that of the country in which they were contained, might have produced
upon the mind of Alcibiades, a contemplation of Attica itself, and of its