ALCIBIADES

[c.45O–404 B.C.]

TRADITION has it that Alcibiades’ family was founded by Eurysaces, the son of Ajax. His mother was Deinomache, the daughter of Megacles, and on her side he was descended from the house of Alcmaeon. His father Cleinias fitted out a warship at his own expense and fought brilliantly in the sea battle at Artemisium. He was later killed at Coronea in Tolmides’ ill-fated campaign against the Boeotians, and Alcibiades was brought up as the ward of Xanthippus’s two sons, Pericles and Ariphron, who were closely related to him.

It has been justly remarked that Alcibiades’ fame owes a great deal to the kindness and friendship shown him by Socrates. For example Nicias, Demosthenes, Lamachus, Phormio, Thrasybulus, and Theramenes were all famous men in Alcibiades’ time, and yet we do not so much as know the name of the mother of any of them, while in Alcibiades’ case we even know that his nurse was a Spartan woman called Amycla and his tutor was Zopyrus. The first of these details has been recorded by Antisthenes and the second by Plato.⁴

As for Alcibiades’ physical beauty, we need say no more than that it flowered at each season of his growth in turn, and lent him an extraordinary grace and charm, alike as a boy, a youth, and a man. Euripides’ saying that even the autumn of beauty possesses a loveliness of its own is not universally true. But if it applies to few others, it was certainly true of Alcibiades on account of his natural gifts and his physical perfection. Even his lisp is said to have suited his voice well and to have made his talk persuasive and full of charm. Aristophanes refers to it in the passage where he mocks Theorus, whose name was a byword for cowardice:

Sosias: Then Alcibiades said to me with that lisp of his ‘

Look at Theowus, what a cwaven’s head he has.’

Xanthias: He never lisped a truer word than that.

And Archippus, when he makes fun of Alcibiades’ son, says, ‘He goes mincing along, trailing his long robe behind him, trying to look the image of his father’, and again, ‘He tilts his head to one side and overdoes his lisp.’

2. In later life Alcibiades’ character was to reveal many changes and inconsistencies, as one might expect in a career such as his, which was spent in the midst of great enterprises and shifts of fortune. He was a man of many strong passions, but none of them was stronger than the desire to challenge others and gain the upper hand over his rivals. This is illustrated well enough by the stories which are told of his boyhood.

Once, when he was hard pressed in wrestling, rather than allow himself to be thrown, he set his teeth in his opponent’s arms as they gripped him and held on so hard he would have bitten through them. The other let go his hold and cried out, ‘Alcibiades, you bite like a woman!’ ‘No, like a lion,’ was his reply.

On another occasion, while he was still a small boy, he was playing knucklebones in the narrow street, and just when his turn came to throw, a loaded waggon was passing. First of all he ordered the driver to stop, as his dice had fallen right in the path of the dray, but the driver stolidly took no notice and urged on his horses. The other boys then scattered out of the way, but Alcibiades flung himself down on his face directly in front of the team, stretched out at full length and told the man to drive on if he wanted to. Upon this the driver took fright and reined in his horses, and the spectators were seized with panic, too, and ran up shouting to help the boy.

When he came to study, he was fairly obedient to most of his teachers, but refused to learn the flute, which he regarded as an ignoble accomplishment and quite unsuitable for a free citizen. He argued that to use a plectrum and play the lyre does not disfigure a gentleman’s bearing or appearance, but once a man starts blowing into a flute, his own friends can scarcely recognize his features. Besides, the lyre accompanies and creates a harmony for the words or the song of its performer, but the flute seals and barricades his mouth and deprives him both of voice and of speech. ‘Leave the flute to the sons of Thebes,’ he concluded, ‘for they have no idea of conversation. We Athenians, as our fathers say, have Athena for our foundress and Apollo for our patron, one of whom threw away the flute in disgust, while the other stripped the skin off the man who played it!’¹ In this way, half in jest and half in earnest, he not only avoided learning the instrument himself, but induced the other boys to do the same. The word soon went round that Alcibiades detested flute-playing and made fun of everybody who learned it, and with good reason, too. In consequence the flute disappeared from the number of so-called liberal accomplishments and came to be utterly despised.

3. When Alcibiades was a boy, according to one of the malicious stories which Antiphon has circulated, he ran away from home to Democrates, one of his admirers, whereupon his guardian Ariphron wanted to have it proclaimed by the town-crier that he had disappeared. But Pericles refused. ‘If he is dead,’ he said, ‘we shall only know the news a day sooner, and if he is alive it will be a reproach to him for the rest of his life.’ Antiphon also alleges that Alcibiades killed one of his attendants by striking him with a club at Sibyrtius’s wrestling school. However we need not give any credit to these stories, coming as they do from a man who has openly admitted that he abuses Alcibiades out of personal dislike.

4. It was not long before Alcibiades was surrounded and pursued by many admirers of high rank. Most of them were plainly captivated by the brilliance of his youthful beauty and courted him on this account. But it was the love which Socrates bore him which gave the strongest proof of the boy’s natural virtue and goodness of disposition. He saw that these qualities were innate in Alcibiades, as well as being radiantly embodied in his physical appearance. At the same time he feared the influence upon him, not merely of wealth and rank, but of the crowd of Athenians, foreigners, and men from the allied cities, who vied for his affections with flatteries and favours, and he therefore took it upon himself to protect Alcibiades and ensure that the fruit of such a fine plant should not be spoiled and wasted while it was still in flower. No man is so surrounded and lapped about by fortune with the so-called good things of life that he is completely out of reach of philosophy, or cannot be stung by its mordant and outspoken questions, and so it proved with Alcibiades. Even though he was pampered from the very beginning by companions who would say nothing but what they thought would please him, and hindered from listening to anybody who would advise or discipline him, yet because of his innate virtues, he recognized Socrates’ worth, attached himself to him, and rejected his rich and famous lovers. Soon, as he came to know Socrates and listened to the words of a lover who neither pursued unmanly pleasures nor asked for kisses and embraces, but constantly sought to point out his weaknesses and put down his empty and foolish conceit:

The cock crouched down like a slave
And let its feathers droop.

And he came to the conclusion that the role Socrates played was really part of a divine dispensation to watch over and rescue the young. In this way by disparaging himself, admiring his friend, loving that friend’s kindness towards him and revering his virtues, he unconsciously formed what Plato calls¹ ‘an image of love to match love’. Everyone was amazed to see him taking his meals and his exercise with Socrates and sharing his tent,² while he remained harsh and unaccommodating towards the rest of his lovers. Some of them, in fact, he treated with the greatest insolence, as happened in the case of Anytus, the son of Anthemion.

This man, who was one of Alcibiades’ admirers, was entertaining some guests to dinner and invited Alcibiades among them. Alcibiades refused the invitation, but that night he got drunk at home with a number of his friends and led a riotous procession to Anytus’s house. He stood at the door of the room in which the guests were being entertained, and there he noticed a great many gold and silver cups on the tables. He told his slaves to take half of these and carry them home for him; then he went off to his own house, without even deigning to enter the room. The guests were furious and declared that he had insulted Anytus outrageously. ‘On the contrary, I think he has behaved quite reasonably, you might even say considerately,’ was Anytus’s comment. ‘He could have taken everything; but at least he has left us half.’

5. This was how he treated the rest of his lovers. But there was one exception, a man who was a resident alien, as they were called. He was by no means rich, but he sold everything he possessed, brought the hundred staters he had got for his property to Alcibiades and begged him to accept them. Alcibiades was delighted at this, burst out laughing, and invited him to dinner. After entertaining him and showing him every hospitality, he gave him back the money and told him that the next day he must go to the market, where the public revenues were put up for auction, and outbid the speculators. The man protested, because a bid required a capital sum of many talents, but Alcibiades threatened to have him beaten if he did not agree, for he evidently had some private grudge against the tax-farmers. So next morning the alien went to the public auction and bid a talent higher than the usual figure for the public revenues. Upon this, the tax-farmers crowded around him angrily and demanded that he should name his guarantor, expecting that he would be unable to find one. The man was thrown into confusion and was on the point of backing out, when Alcibiades, standing in the distance, called out to the magistrates, ‘You can put my name down, he is a friend of mine: I guarantee him.’ When the contractors heard this, they were at their wits’ end, as their usual practice was to pay the amount due for the current year out of the profits of the preceding one. They could see no way out, and so they began to press the man to withdraw his bid and offered him money to do so, but Alcibiades would not allow him to accept less than a talent. As soon as they offered that amount he told him to take it and withdraw. This was the service that Alcibiades did him.

6. Socrates’ love for him had many powerful rivals, and yet because of Alcibiades’ innate good qualities it somehow prevailed over all other attachments, so that his teacher’s words took hold of him, wrung his heart, and moved him to tears. But there were times when he would surrender himself to his flatterers, who promised him all kinds of pleasures, and he would give Socrates the slip and then allow himself actually to be hunted down by him like a runaway slave. It was Socrates alone whom he feared and respected; all the rest of his lovers he despised.

Cleanthes the philosopher once remarked that anybody whom he loved must be ‘thrown’, as a wrestler would say, by means of words alone, though rival lovers might be allowed other holds, which he himself would scorn to use, meaning by this the various lusts of the body. Certainly Alcibiades was carefree and easily led into pleasure; that lawless self-indulgence in his daily life, which Thucydides mentions,¹ gives reason to suspect this. But the weakness which his tempters played upon most of all was his love of distinction and his desire for fame, and in this way they pressed him into embarking on ambitious projects before he was ready for them; they assured him that once he entered public life he would not merely eclipse the other generals and politicians, but even surpass the power and prestige which Pericles had enjoyed in the eyes of the Greeks. But just as iron that has been softened in the fire is hardened again by cold water and its particles forced closely together, so whenever Socrates found his pupil puffed up with vanity and the life of pleasure, he deflated him and rendered him humble and submissive, and Alcibiades was compelled to learn how many his defects were and how far he fell short of perfection.

7. Once, when he was past his boyhood, he went to a schoolmaster and asked him for a volume of Homer. When the teacher said that he had none of Homer’s works, Alcibiades struck him with his fist and went off. Another teacher said that he had a copy of Homer which he had corrected himself. ‘What,’ Alcibiades exclaimed, ‘are you teaching boys to read when you know how to edit Homer? Why aren’t you teaching young men?’

On another occasion when he wished to speak to Pericles he went to his house, but was told Pericles could not receive him, as he was considering how to present his accounts to the people. ‘Would it not be better,’ asked Alcibiades as he came away, ‘if he considered how to avoid presenting accounts to the people at all?’

While he was still in his teens he served in the Potidaean campaign,¹in which he shared a tent with Socrates and took his place next to him in the ranks. There was a fierce battle, in which they both fought with great courage, but when Alcibiades was wounded and fell, it was Socrates who stood over his body and defended him with the most conspicuous bravery and saved his life and his arms from the enemy. The prize for valour was certainly due in all justice to Socrates, but because of the distinction of Alcibiades’ name, the generals were evidently anxious to award it to him. Accordingly, Socrates, who wanted to encourage his friend’s honourable ambitions, took the lead in testifying to Alcibiades’ bravery and in pressing for the crown and the suit of armour to be given to him.

On another occasion, when the battle of Delium had been lost² and the Athenian army routed, Alcibiades, who was then on horseback, caught sight of Socrates with a few other soldiers retreating on foot. He would not ride on, but stayed to escort him, although the enemy were pressing hard and killing many of the Athenians. These events, of course, all belong to a later date.

8. Callias’s father Hipponicus was a man who enjoyed great prestige in Athens, on account both of his family and of his wealth, and Alcibiades once struck him a blow with his fist, not because of any quarrel with him or even out of anger, but simply because he had agreed with some friends to do it as a joke. Very soon the whole of Athens had heard of the outrage and naturally enough it aroused great indignation. Early the next morning Alcibiades went to Hipponicus’s house and knocked at the door. When he was shown in, he took off his cloak and offered his body to Hipponicus to beat and punish as he chose. But Hipponicus put aside his anger and forgave him, and afterwards gave Alcibiades his daughter Hipparete to marry.

There is another story that it was not Hipponicus, but Callias his son, who betrothed Hipparete to Alcibiades and gave her a dowry of ten talents, and that later, when she had a child, Alcibiades extorted a further ten talents from him, making out that this had been the agreement if children were born to them. After this Callias became so afraid that Alcibiades would intrigue against him to get his money, that he gave public notice that in the event of his dying without heirs of his own, his house and his property would be bequeathed to the State.

Hipparete was a virtuous and affectionate wife, but she was outraged by the liaisons her husband continually carried on with Athenian and foreign courtesans, and finally she left his house and went to live with her brother. Alcibiades paid no attention to this and continued his debaucheries, so that she was obliged to lodge her petition for divorce with the magistrate, which she did, not by proxy but in person. When she appeared in public for this purpose, as the law demanded, Alcibiades came up, seized her and carried her home with him through the market-place, and not a soul dared to oppose him or take her from him. In fact she continued to live with him until her death, for she died not long after this, while Alcibiades was on a voyage to Ephesus. I should explain that this violence of his was not regarded as being either inhuman or contrary to the law. Indeed, it would appear that the law, in laying it down that the wife who wishes to separate from her husband must attend the court in person, is actually designed to give the husband the opportunity to meet her and recover her.

9. Alcibiades owned an exceptionally large and handsome dog, which he had bought for seventy minae, and it possessed an extremely fine tail, which he had cut off. His friends scolded him and told him that everyone was angry for the dog’s sake. Alcibiades only laughed and retorted, ‘That is exactly what I wanted. I am quite content for the whole of Athens to chatter about this; it will stop them saying anything worse about me.’

10. His first appearance in public life, it is said, was not an occasion he had planned, but it was connected quite by chance with a voluntary subscription to the state. Alcibiades was passing the Assembly at a moment when there was a sudden burst of loud applause, and he asked what was the cause of the excitement. When he heard that a public subscription was in progress, he went up to the platform and offered a contribution himself. The crowd clapped their hands and cheered with delight, so much so that Alcibiades forgot about a quail which he happened to be carrying under his clock, and the bird took fright and flew away. At this the people shouted all the louder and many of them jumped up to help chase the bird. The man who finally caught it and returned it to him was Antiochus,the pilot, who as a result of this episode later became a close friend of Alcibiades.

Because of Alcibiades’ birth, his wealth, and his personal courage in battle, every door to a public career stood open to him. But although he attracted many friends and followers, he counted above all else on his charm as a speaker to give him a hold over the people. And in fact not only do the comic poets testify that he was a most effective speaker, but the greatest orator Athens ever knew, Demosthenes, refers to Alcibiades in his speech Against Meidias, as a man who spoke with extraordinary power, in addition to his other gifts. If we can believe Theophrastus, who is the most diligent in research and the best informed in historical matters of all the philosophers, Alcibiades possessed in a higher degree than any of his contemporaries the faculty of discerning and grasping what was required in a given situation. However, as he strove to find not merely the right thing to say, but also the proper words and phrases in which to clothe his thoughts, and as he did not have a large command of vocabulary, he would often hesitate in the middle of his speech, and even stop dead and pause while the necessary phrase eluded him, and then he would start again with great caution.