THE Life of Alcibiades

The Life of Alcibiades A volume in the series Cornell Studies in Classical Philology Published in association with the Cornell University Department of Classics Edited by Frederick M. Ahl, Annetta Alexandridis, Benjamin Anderson, Caitlín Eilís Barrett, Tad Brennan, Charles Francis Brittain, Michael Fontaine, Rachana Kamtekar, Sturt Manning, Alan Jeffrey Nussbaum, Hayden Pelliccia, Verity Platt, Éric Rebillard, Courtney Ann Roby, Jeffrey S. Rusten, Barry S. Strauss, Michael L. Weiss A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu . VOLUME LXVIII The Life of Alcibiades: Dangerous Ambition and the Betrayal of Athens By Jacqueline de Romilly Translated by Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings The Life of Alcibiades Dangerous Ambition and the Betrayal of Athens Jacqueline de Romilly Translated by Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings Cornell University Press Ithaca and London Original French edition, Alcibiade, ou, Les dangers de l'ambition . Copyright © Éditions de Fallois, 1995. English-language translation and translator’s preface copyright © 2019 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2019 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Romilly, Jacqueline de, author. | Rawlings, Elizabeth, translator. Title: The life of Alcibiades : dangerous ambition and the betrayal of Athens / Jacqueline de Romilly ; translated by Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings. Other titles: Alcibiade. English Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2019. | Series: Cornell studies in classical philology | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Identifi ers: LCCN 2018059296 (print) | LCCN 2018060257 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501739965 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501739972 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501719752 | ISBN 9781501719752 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Alcibiades. | Statesmen—Greece—Athens—Biography. | Generals—Greece—Athens—Biography. | Greece—Foreign relations— To 146 B.C. | Greece—History—Peloponnesian War, 431–404 B.C. Classifi cation: LCC DF230.A4 (ebook) | LCC DF230.A4 R6613 2019 (print) | DDC 938.05/092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059296 For Bernard de Fallois, as a token of gratitude and friendship Contents Translator’s Preface ix Author’s Preface xi Chronology xix 1. Richly Endowed 1 2. Insults and Scandals 15 First Interlude: Alcibiades between Two Lifestyles 31 3. Political Debut: The Argive Alliance 35 4. The Grand Design 52 5. The Scandals 70 6. Exile: Defending Treason 89 7. In Asia Minor 104 8. With the Athenians on Samos 123 viii Contents Second Interlude: Alcibiades between Two Historians 137 9. A Triumphal Return 141 10. Slightly More Than One Hundred Days 154 11. A Final Appearance 166 12. Repercussions 178 Conclusion 191 Index 201 Translator’s Preface Jacqueline de Romilly’s lifelong contributions to ancient Greek literature and history made her a major fi gure in French culture. In 1973 she became chair of Greek at the Collège de France, the fi rst woman nominated to this distinguished institution. In 1988, she was elected to the Académie Fran- çaise as its second female member. In her later years she became famous in France for her ardent advocacy of classical education for all. Romilly (1913–2010) was well known on both sides of the Atlantic as an intellec- tual and cultural critic and served as A. D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University from 1974 to1980. I was drawn to Romilly’s work in 2010, when I undertook the translation of her seminal book Histoire et raison chez Thucydide , fi rst published in Paris in 1956. That study altered the course of scholarship on Thucydides’s history of the Peloponnesian War by revealing the author’s rhetorical and literary artfulness, the means by which he refi ned and shaped the “facts” of history. The title chosen for my translation, The Mind of Thucydides (Cornell University Press, 2012), aptly captures Romilly’s purpose and achievement. x Translator’s Preface Alcibiades is a quite different kind of work, a biography of the mete- oric career of the egomaniacal fi gure who dominated Greek politics and the Peloponnesian War from 416 to 404 BCE. It is a product of Romilly’s superb scholarship and of her lifelong effort to acquaint the public with the pertinence of the ancient world to contemporary political and cultural life. To appeal to a wider audience, Romilly composed this book, which was published in Paris in 1995, in an informal style that would arrest attention and enable her readers to see Alcibiades’s charismatic personality in full. She wanted her contemporaries to appreciate the dangers his singular character posed to Athens, Sparta, and Persia, all of which fell under his spell and granted him authoritative roles in their policymaking. Although this is a work of history, it often reads like a novel. But Romilly evinces her usual acumen and care in the research she con- ducted for this book. She plumbs and critiques the sources for Alcibiades’s life, including Thucydides, Plato, Andocides, Lysias, Xenophon, Isocrates, Plutarch, Athenaeus, and Diodorus. On the one hand, she reproduces from the later biographers numerous anecdotes from Alcibiades’s youth in order to paint his character, while acknowledging their historical unreli- ability; on the other hand, she critically evaluates the contemporary and more authentic portraits drawn by Thucydides and Plato, and accords them respect, but not complete credibility. Numerous footnotes disclose her sources to the reader, thus making her biography an unusual blend of erudition and accessibility. Romilly’s treatment of Alcibiades’s youthful insolence and arrogant disregard for social norms, and of his later athletic, fi nancial, and religious scandals, was informed by her perception of events in her native France in the mid-1990s. Several times she refers to contemporary scandals in French politics that mirror Alcibiades’s outrages in fi fth-century Greece. Her central lesson is that a charismatic, amoral, and narcissistic leader imposes enormous risks on a democratic state. Few commentators are as well qualifi ed as Romilly to warn of the public dangers inherent in such reckless individuals. To say that twenty-fi rst-century readers of this biography are likely to fi nd in it parallels to today’s political environment is to understate the case. Author’s Preface The life of Alcibiades is one of astonishing journeys and adventures. As a young man, he was adopted by Pericles and beloved by Socrates. He was at the center of all political activity at the end of the fi fth century BCE. Driven by ambition and endowed with uncommon abilities, he dominated politics fi rst in Athens, then in Sparta, then in the Persian satrapies. He experienced highs and lows worthy of a Greek tragedy. From a position of power over all of Athens, he was suddenly forced to fl ee from the city that had condemned him to death. He returned as a savior, honored and acclaimed, only to be exiled once again, and ultimately assassinated, by order of the state, in a village in upper Phrygia. Following him every- where, from city to city, from Sicily to Lydia, from one campaign to an- other, was the persistent whiff of scandal. Moreover, a colorful adventurer, he did not live in ordinary times. The Peloponnesian War, in which he played a leading role, was one of the most important turning points in Greek history. It had begun at a moment when Athens was at the very peak of power and infl uence. It ended in xii Author’s Preface utter defeat. Athens lost both its empire and fl eet, thus ending a century of tragic greatness and glory. Alcibiades had presided over all the important decisions, on both sides. He therefore bore, undeniably, responsibility for the disastrous results. And he died in the same year as Athens’ defeat. It is as if, from every angle, his personal experience was interwoven with the crucial moments in Athenian history. It is for this reason, then, that he held the attention of and inspired contemplation by the greatest minds of his time. The names of Pericles and Socrates appear above in the opening lines for good reason: Pericles gave his name to the century, and Socrates was the founder of Western philosophy. Moreover, Alcibiades fi g- ures in the work of the greatest historian of the time, Thucydides, as well as works of Plato and Xenophon, the historical works and the memoirs on Socrates. Other authors contain allusions or references to Alcibiades, including Aristophanes and Euripides. Even after his death, the orators Isocrates and Lysias argued about the role and character of Alcibiades. There was, in fact, an Alcibiades problem. An orphan and the ward of Pericles, he seems to have pursued a political path contrary to that of his teacher. Over twenty-fi ve years, that change could be seen to correspond to the ruin of Athens. Was there a connection? And if so, what was it? Was it simply a generational issue of personality and temperament? Or was there a broader decline in civic purpose and morality in political af- fairs? And did this decline refl ect, or cause, a crisis in the democracy and its workings? If the latter hypothesis is correct, as was thought at the time, then it is of paramount interest to us and to all those who hold dear the idea of democracy. We might say that the life of Alcibiades brought out two political prob- lems that were apparent as early as the fi fth century and are still current in today’s world. First, his life embodied Athenian imperialism, in its most extreme and dominant form and in the lack of prudence that led to its ruin.

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