In the last chapter we met Alcibiades at the party celebrating Agathon’s victory at the Lenaea, which happened around February of 416. Around the same time a politician named Hyperbolus called for a vote of ostracism. The two leading figures this vote threatened were Nicias and Alcibiades. Currently the Athenian factions were deadlocked. The doves. led by Nicias, and the hawks, led by Alcibiades, were almost evenly balanced in power, and the city could not pursue any consistent foreign policy. A decisive vote would exile one of the leaders and break the deadlock. Alcibiades met with Nicias to forestall the threat. They would join together to present a united front against Hyperbolus. When the vote was held, Hyperbolus was shocked to find that he was the victim of his own initiative: he would be exiled from Athens for ten years.[18] Soon afterwards the annual election for generals took place, and both Nicias and Alcibiades were again elected, the dove and the hawk, unable to agree on policy but each unable to survive without the other.
That same year Alcibiades trained an unprecedented seven chariot teams to enter the Olympic games held in August. His teams came in first, second, and fourth—a dazzling performance that made Alcibiades a superstar in the sports world, bringing glory to his city and inevitably to himself.[19] He saw himself, and wanted others to see him, as a winner, a star, a hero.
At the end of the year an embassy came from Sicily to Athens to ask for military assistance. Egesta, a city in western Sicily, needed help against neighboring Selinus concerning a border dispute. They brought with them sixty talents in silver to help defray the expenses of a fleet and pretended that they had much more.[20] This embassy raised an issue that revealed the polarized leadership of Athens. To the doves, the prospect of a military expedition to Sicily seemed like a wild-goose chase to the ends of the earth. To the hawks, it offered the prospect of easy victories, glorious deeds, rich spoils, and expanded influence in the west. In a series of sessions in the Assembly, the conservative Nicias spoke against the campaign, the aggressive Alcibiades in favor. Ultimately, the borders of Egesta were of little interest to Athens. What was at stake was a chance to teach Syracuse, the ally of Selinus, a lesson and perhaps to gain power over part of the great island. The hawks were at heart imperialists who thought that the cities of the Delian League should be just the beginning of Athens’ dominions. The doves were content with the status quo and wished not to jeopardize it. Finally, after a good deal of lobbying by the hawks, the Assembly voted to send a fleet of sixty ships to aid their new ally Egesta.
The Athenians chose Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus as leaders of the expedition. Clearly the campaign was the brainchild of Alcibiades. But he was young and untried. Nicias was the senior commander with many years’ experience. Presumably Lamachus was chosen to mediate between the two polar opposites. But a few days after the meeting of the assembly which authorized the expedition, Nicias stood up in a second meeting to urge the people to reconsider and cancel the expedition.[21] “And if a certain person,” he said, “delighted in the prospect of being in command, advises you to set sail, with a view only to his own advantage—for he is still too young for the command, but thinks only about how to win glory from training horses, and because that costs so much, he needs to make money from campaigning—don’t authorize him to put the city at risk for his personal aggrandizement.”[22] To this Alcibiades responded by bragging about his Olympic victories and other public expenditures, and taking credit for the Battle of Mantinea, which, even if it was a loss, allowed the Athenians and their allies to threaten Sparta with little risk to Athens. He argued for the weakness of Sicily and the need to advance the power of Athens.[23]
Realizing that members of the Assembly were more eager than ever to pursue the expedition, Nicias raised the stakes by saying that if they were to accomplish anything, they must increase the armament they were sending—more ships, more soldiers, more supplies. And if anyone thought otherwise, he would resign his command to that man.[24] But his ploy backfired. The Assembly called his bluff; they asked, what did he think was really required? He declared that the Athenians would need at least one hundred galleys, at least five thousand infantry, and troop transports adequate for the infantry. The assemblymen voted to give their commanders carte blanche to requisition everything they needed.[25] Suddenly Alcibiades had a command beyond his wildest dreams while Nicias was living his worst nightmare.
[18].Plutarch Alcibiades 13.3-5. See Kagan 1981: 144-146.
[19].Thucydides 6.16.2-3; Plutarch Alcibiades 11.
[20].Thucydides 6.6, 6.8.1, 6.46.
[21].Thucydides 6.8-14.
[22].Thucydides 6.12.2.
[23].Thucydides 6.16-18.
[24i].Thucydides 6.19-23.
[25].Thucydides 6.24-26.