Alcibiades

Alcibiades by Plutarch

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Alcibiades had one of those energetic, charmed, overstuffed lives, like Theodore Roosevelt, who dispatched Dewey to Manilla Bay and still had time to ride up San Juan Hill. Alcibiades was everywhere in the latter stages of the Peloponnesian War, always being the great hope, always switching sides, and always letting his personal vices undermine his grabs for glory.

For heaven's sake, the man gets a write-up in Plato, Thucydides, and Plutarch.

I read this book as part of the Online Great Books program. I was surprised at the fairly even-handed treatment that Alcibiades gets, but then, I'm probably pro-Athens and I can't forgive Alcibiades for selling out to Sparta and Persian, and, then, trying to end Athenian democracy. To be fair, it was not like his enemies weren't going to have him judicially murdered for cutting off the “noses” (as Plutarch delicately puts it) of the statues of Hermes. Athens definitely was rough on generals who fell out of favor.

There was something about Alcibiades. Plutarch describes him as having an attractive pedigree, good looks, and a lisp to die for. We know Socrates fell under his sway. He was able to charm the Athenian people, Athenian oligarchs, Spartans and Persians equally. Of course, he had a propensity for self-destruction, sleeping with that Spartan's wife, telling that Persian one too many whoppers, that inevitably did him in.

Plutarch's text, as always, is turgid and overstuffed. If you are writing a biography of Alcibiades, and the next such biography might have to wait 1,800 years, go big or go home.

Plutarch normally is not one to project feelings or motivations onto his subjects, but he does occasionally. This one struck me as apt:

“The truth is, his liberalities, his public shows, and other munificence to the people, which were such as nothing could exceed, the glory of his ancestors, the force of his eloquence, the grace of his person, his strength of body, joined with his great courage and knowledge in military affairs, prevailed upon the Athenians to endure patiently his excesses, to indulge many things to him, and, according to their habit, to give the softest names to his faults, attributing them to youth and good nature.

Clough, Arthur Hugh. Plutarch's Lives (Volumes I and II) (p. 406). Digireads.com. Kindle Edition.

Do we have such people today? Classicist Victor Davis Hanson was inclined during the Clinton administration to refer to that president as “our Alcibiades.” The reference undoubtedly went over the heads of anyone who had not read their Plutarch.