The story of Socrates, as well as the story of Athens, is inextricably bound up with the fate of Alcibiades, the golden boy of the Golden Age. Alcibiades’ rise and fall, and his second rise and fall, propelled Athens ever on like some sort of tragic destiny.[1] In 420 Athens was basking in a time of peace after ten years of unremitting war. Nicias had brokered a peace, which, if it did not win any significant advantages for Athens, did not entail any significant disadvantages either. And Sparta could say the same. But if the doves were ascendant, there were still hawks circling in both cities. And now, after the death of Cleon, the hawks in Athens found another leader who could appeal to an even broader political spectrum than Cleon: unlike Cleon the new leader came from an aristocratic family with old-boy connections; like Cleon, he was a strong advocate of democracy. The new leader was Alcibiades.
Handsome and dashing, he cut the perfect public figure. “Because of his good looks,” says Xenophon, “he was stalked by many noble ladies, and because of his influence in the city and among Athens’ allies, he was wooed by many powerful men.”[2] Furthermore, he learned oratory from the best rhetoricians, so that he could hold the assembly spellbound with his words.[3] He was not the perfect speaker because of a lisp; but his audiences found the lisp adorable, and it seemed to make him sound less aristocratic and more popular.[4] Finally, he was imaginative and bold, full of big ideas and grand plans for Athens, which he saw himself as uniquely fitted to carry out.
Alcibiades was notoriously an associate of Socrates, and, one might think, a protégé of the philosopher. We have met him briefly as a supporter of Socrates in the gathering of sophists in the Protagoras (ch. 5*)—where he is already recognized as a dissolute young man[5]—and seen him in action at Agathon’s celebration in the previous chapter. Xenophon recognizes him as a close associate of Socrates and defends Socrates against the charge of corrupting the boy.[6] For better or worse, the life and reputation of Socrates was inextricably bound up with those of Alcibiades.
Alcibiades was the son of Clinias, a wealthy landowner, and Dinomache, a member of the prominent Alcmaeonid family (which included the great democratic reformer Cleisthenes). Born around 452, Alcibiades became an orphan in 447 when his father was killed fighting in the battle of Coronea.[7] He thereupon became a ward of Pericles, a kinsman of his mother. Anecdotes suggest he was a headstrong boy, spoiled and coddled because of his beauty and talents.[8] He served with Socrates in the campaigns of Potidaea and Delium, where he received valuable battlefield experience in the cavalry.
Alcibiades married Hipparete, daughter of the wealthy Hippponicus and sister of the Callias who entertains the sophists in his home in the Protagoras. Hipparete is reported to have brought with her the immense dowry of ten talents. She grew tired of his public indiscretions in bringing courtesans home with him, and went to the archon to file for divorce. Alcibiades followed her there, and in a display of machismo picked her up and carried her home through the marketplace. Alcibiades had two children by her, a daughter and a son named after his father. Hipparete died young, perhaps around 416.[9]
In 420, when Alcibiades was just over thirty years old and barely eligible, he stood for election as general and was duly elected. He would be elected general every year until 415, with one exception. In 420 the Peace of Nicias, to end hostilities between Sparta and Athens, negotiated by the Athenian generals Nicias and Laches, was in force. But there were problems of compliance to be worked out. During this transition period the cities of Greece were sending out feelers to each other, uncertain of what new alliances might emerge. Sparta was especially worried about Argos, a city with a glorious past stretching back into the bronze age. A traditional rival just to the north, Argos was abiding by a peace treaty with Sparta that had just expired. If Argos now made an alliance with Athens, the dominance Sparta enjoyed in the Peloponnesus would be threatened.
Alcibiades had hoped to broker the peace that Nicias got credit for the previous year, because his father had been advocate (proxenos) for Spartan interests in Athens. But his father was long dead and Alcibiades was too young to carry the weight he wanted, so the Spartans had negotiated with Nicias instead. Now, however, when they sent ambassadors to Athens to carry on details of the peace, Alcibiades pretended to have inside knowledge that would help the Spartans with further negotiations. He advised their ambassadors to say that they had not come with full powers to make a settlement and he would use his connections to help them gain their ends. But when they did tell the Assembly they had not come with full powers, Alcibiades double-crossed them, attacking them for not negotiating in good faith.[10]
Nicias did his best to patch up the situation, but when it became apparent that the Spartans had no concessions to offer, the Athenians sided with Alcibiades and made a defensive alliance with Argos, and also with Elis and Mantinea, all democracies in the Peloponnesus.[11] This “Quadruple Alliance” did not violate the Peace of Nicias, but it did make relations between Athens and Sparta much more precarious, because Athens was now committed to guaranteeing the safety of cities neighboring Sparta, in what Sparta regarded as her own sphere of influence. In this action the young Alcibiades emerged as the leader of the anti-Spartan faction in Athens, the foremost warmonger, opposed to Nicias, leader of the pro-Spartan, pro-peace faction. Alcibiades also showed, in his secret parlay with the Spartan delegates, how duplicitous he could be as a negotiator and how false as a friend.
In the summer of 419, with a small unit of infantry and archers accompanied by some allied soldiers, Alcibiades marched through the Peloponnesus perhaps to Mantinea to “make arrangements concerning the [recent] alliance.” He marched as far as Patrae on the northwest coast, making an alliance with that city and convincing them to build long walls down to the sea like Athens had, obviously to protect communications with the sea-going Athenians.[12] Clearly Alcibiades wanted to be seen as the activist general, parading with impunity through potentially hostile territory, making and strengthening alliances, laughing in the face of danger. Yet his parade had a military point: if he could build an alliance of democratic states around the borders of Laconia, he could effectively isolate Sparta and neutralize her power; Sparta would no longer be able to call the whole Peloponnesus her own domain nor dictate to her neighbors. The same summer, however, Argos picked a fight with neighboring Epidaurus, an ally of Sparta, which threatened to escalate into a regional war, showing how precarious was Athens’ position as an ally of Argos.
The following year the Athenians failed to elect Alcibiades general, perhaps worried that he was going too far in promoting foreign entanglements. The Spartans sent an army to support Epidaurus, which squared off against the army of Argos and her allies—with the Athenians arriving too late to help, perhaps by design? But when a battle seemed inevitable, the Argive general Thrasyllus and the Spartan commander, King Agis, met and decided to settle their differences by arbitration. Thus they avoided senseless bloodshed. But King Agis had an undistinguished military career which made his action suspect in Sparta; and Thrasyllus was so out of touch with his troops that they stoned him for backing down, making him flee for his life.[13]
When the tardy Athenians showed up, the Argives were disgusted with them. But Alcibiades, who, though no longer general, had gotten himself appointed as ambassador,[14] addressed the Argives and their allies, urging them to renew the campaign and march against Orchomenos. They did this, obtained the surrender of this small city, and then threatened Tegea, which asked the Spartans for help. The Spartans sent a large army with Agis again in charge, warning him that it was his last chance to prove himself.[15] The two armies met each other near Mantinea. After a day of maneuvering, they met each other and the Spartans won the day. King Agis had the victory he needed to prove himself. The Battle of Mantinea was a major victory for the Spartans and their allies.[16]
The nascent alliance of Peloponnesian democracies was now in shambles. The Spartans sent an embassy to Argos offering a peace treaty. Alcibiades was present to argue against the Spartan offer, but to no avail. The pro-Spartan faction carried the day and brought an end to the democratic alliance while giving back Orchomenos. The Argives later concluded an alliance with Sparta, while the Mantineans made a peace treaty with Sparta. Finally, the Spartans closed the door on the Peloponnesian spring by installing an oligarchic government in Argos.[17] Alcibiades’ dream of isolating Sparta had failed.
[1].For studies of Alcibiades, see Ellis 1989; Romilly 1995.
[2].Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2.24.
[3].Plutarch Alcibiades 10.2; Demosthenes Against Meidias 145.
[4].Plutarch Alcibiades 1.4; Aristophanes Wasps 44-46.
[5]. Plato Protagoras 320a-b.
[6]. Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2.12-25. There are two dialogues in the Platonic corpus with Alcibiades as interlocutor, Alcibiades I and II, the former probably genuine, the latter perhaps a forgery: Ledger 1989:144, 167-68.
[7].Plutarch Alcibiades 1.1.
[8].Plato Protagoras 320a, Alcibiades I 118e.
[9].ps.Andocides Against Alcibiades 13-14; Isocrates On the Team of Horses 31, 45; Plutarch Alcibiades 8. See Nails 2002, s.v. Hipparete; Ellis 1989: 32-34. On Hipparete’s death, cf. Plutarch Alcibiades 8.4 and 12.1.
[10].Thucydides 5.43, 45.
[11].Thucydides 5.46-47.
[12].Thucydides 5.52.
[13].Thucydides 5.60.
[14]. Thucydides 5.61.2, cf. 5.76.3; Diodorus Siculus 12.79.1 says he was present as a private citizen—but that may mean only that he was not a general. He may have been present as a political liaison. See Kagan 1981:90 n. 37; 102 n. 73; Hornblower 1991-2008, 3:161.
[15].Thucydides 5.61-64.
[16].Thucydides 5.65-74.
[17].Thucydides 5.76-81.