Alcibiades

and since they considered themselves injured, the Argives and their allies happening to be present, (having been introduced by Alcibiades,) they made a treaty and alliance with them on the following terms:

but on Alcibiades' exclaiming against the Lacedaemonians much more vehemently than before, they both listened to him, and were ready straightway to bring forward the Argives and those who were with them, and take them into alliance.

By speaking in the council on these points, and declaring that they had come with full powers to effect a settlement of all their disputes, they made Alcibiades afraid that if they were to talk in the same strain to the popular assembly, they would win over the multitude, and the Argive alliance would be rejected.

I beheld also the fair Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias — I know not where, except I beheld in a fine part of Greece — having the inscription of Chalcopogon, and another with his hands cut off, which was said to be of the art of Polycles;

Nor, then, did he make Gorgias or Polus or Thrasymachus or Prodicus or Meno or Euthyphro or Anytus or Alcibiades or Laches speak in vain, when he might have removed the names;

To Croesus she gives gold, to Candaules a wife, to Peleus a sword, to Nestor a shield, to Pterelaus a golden lock of hair, to Nisus a purple lock, to Alcibiades beauty, to Socrates wisdom, to Aristides justice, to the Lacedaemonians the land, to the Athenians the sea.

Then, Apollodorus, he said, do you know, I have just been looking for you, as I want to hear all about the banquet that brought together Agathon and Socrates and Alcibiades and the rest of that party, and what were the speeches they delivered upon love.

A few moments after, they heard the voice of Alcibiades in the forecourt, very drunken and bawling loud, to know where Agathon was, and bidding them bring him to Agathon.

On the honor of a gentleman, said Alcibiades, it is no use your protesting, for I could not praise anyone else in your presence.

and after treating a man with such contempt, later, when it suits his whim, he turns about, and as though he were accusing an Alcibiades or a Themistocles, the most famous men among all the Greeks, he proceeds to charge that same man with having destroyed the cities in Phocis, with having lost you the Thracian coast, with having expelled from his kingdom Cersobleptes, a friend and ally of the city.

My first experience in the field was in what is called division service, when I was with the other men of my age and the mercenary troops of Alcibiades, who convoyed the provision train to Phleius.

His mother’s father, Megacles, and his father’s father, Alcibiades, were both ostracized twice;

It is characteristic of Alcibiades to pay no attention to laws or oaths himself, and to try to teach you to disregard them as well, and while he is ruthless in bringing about the banishment and the death of others, to have recourse to heartrending tears and appeals for mercy on his own account.

It makes me angry to think that while you yourselves cannot place even malefactors under arrest without risk, because it is enacted that anyone who fails to gain one-fifth of the votes shall be liable to a fine of a thousand drachmae, Alcibiades, who imprisoned a man for so long and forced him to paint, went unpunished—nay, increased thereby the awe and the fear in which he is held.

According to the wife of Alcmaeonides—she had previously been married to Damon and was named Agariste—according, as I say, to Alcmaeonides’ wife, Alcibiades, Axiochus, and Adeimantus celebrated Mysteries in Charmides’ house, next to the Olympieum.

The Assembly had met to give audience to Nicias, Lamachus, and Alcibiades, the generals about to leave with the Sicilian expedition—in fact, Lamachus’ flag-ship was already lying offshore—when suddenly Pythonicus rose before the people and cried:

Alcibiades denied the charge at great length;

I will not parody them, as they say Alcibiades did, but I will lay quite bare, in accordance with the argument of truth, the sorcery hidden in them, and your so-called gods themselves, whose mystic rites they are;

And when Phryne the Thespian courtesan was in her bloom, all the painters reproduced the images of Aphrodite to the beauty of Phryne, just as again the stone-cutters at Athens likened the Hermae to Alcibiades.

When the Athenians at home got the news of the battle at Notium, they were angry with Alcibiades, thinking that he had lost the ships through neglect of duty and dissolute conduct, and they chose ten new generals, Conon, Diomedon, Leon, Pericles, Erasinides, Aristocrates, Archestratus, Protomachus, Thrasyllus, and Aristogenes.

And after he had spoken in his own defence before the Senate and the Assembly, saying that he had not committed sacrilege and that he had been unjustly treated, and after more of the same sort had been said, with no one speaking in opposition because the Assembly would not have tolerated it, he was proclaimed general-in-chief with absolute authority, the people thinking that he was the man to reco …

Thirty days later, however, Alcibiades, together with Mantitheus, who had been taken prisoner in Caria, provided themselves with horses and made their escape from Sardis by night to Clazomenae.

he added, too, that he was a womanizer—at which Alcibiades is said to have burst out laughing.

Did that which Alcibiades grieved at not consist of evils and vices of the mind?

For what shall we say, when Socrates had persuaded Alcibiades, as we have heard, that he was no real man, and that there was no difference between Alcibiades, born in the highest station, and any porter, and when Alcibiades, afflicting himself and weeping, was a suppliant to Socrates, that he would impart virtue to him and drive off baseness — what shall we say, Cleanthes?

Such a method Socrates points out to Alcibiades, who asks thus:

And the decree in which these gifts are recorded stands in the name of Alcibiades.

History tells us that Alcibiades lived at Athens in the good old days of her prosperity, and I want you to consider what great public services stand to his credit and how your ancestors dealt with him when he thought fit to behave like a ruffian and a bully.

For Alcibiades, Athenians, was on his father’s side one of the Alcmaeonidae, who are said to have been banished by the tyrants because they belonged to the democratic faction, and who, with money borrowed from Delphi, liberated our city, expelling the sons of Peisistratus, and on his mother’s side he claimed descent from Hipponicus and that famous house to which the people are indebted for many eminent services.

But these were not his only claims, for he had also taken arms in the cause of democracy, twice in Samos and a third time in Athens itself, displaying his patriotism, not by gifts of money or by speeches, but by personal service. He had also to his credit for the Olympian chariot-race and victories there, and we are told that he was regarded as the best general and the ablest speaker of the day.

You will next discover that Alcibiades, though his natural disposition was far inferior in respect to virtue and it was his pleasure to behave himself now arrogantly, now obsequiously, now licentiously, yet, as a fruit of his association with Socrates, he made correction of many errors of his life and over the rest drew a veil of oblivion by the greatness of his later achievements.

For if Aratus of Sicyon thought it a hard case, that private possessions of fifty years’ standing should be disturbed, how much weightier is that maxim of Augustus, that it is the character of a good man and a good subject to wish for no change in the present government, and, in the words, which Thucydides has assigned to Alcibiades, to support the constitution, under which he has been born?

And when your purpose was to accuse Socrates, as if you wished to praise him, you gave Alcibiades to him as a pupil who, as far as anybody observed, never was taught by Socrates, but that Alcibiades far excelled all his contemporaries all would agree.

So then, concerning the team of horses —that my father was in possession of them, not by having taken them away from Teisias, but by having purchased them from the Argive state—you have heard both the Argive ambassadors and the others conversant with the facts testify.

and finally, if, while in all other matters your actions are to be the opposite of those of the Thirty, you shall in regard to me show the same spirit as they, and if I, who then lost my fatherland in company with you, shall now be deprived of it by you.

Although I have many reasons for lamenting my fate, I am especially indignant for these reasons:

Now if Alcibiades in exile, and Conon after a disastrous defeat, and Dionysius, a man of no repute, and Cyrus, with his pitiable start in life, advanced so far and achieved such mighty deeds, how can we fail to expect that you, who are sprung from such ancestors, who are king of Macedonia and master of so many peoples, will effect with ease this union which we have discussed?

and that the Lacedaemonians, who then appeared to be at the height of their fortune, are reduced to their present state of misfortune,—all on account of Alcibiades.

Alcibiades, however, after having caused these great calamities, was restored to his city, having won a great reputation, though not, indeed, enjoying the commendation of all.

" By this gift Aeschines surpassed the soul of Alcibiades, the equal of riches, and all the munificence of the wealthy youths.

throw in my own face Alcibiades and Phaedrus—you who will turn out supremely happy the moment it falls to your lot to imitate our vices!

Alcibiades, for his part, exceeded all in licentiousness and insolence under the democracy.

while Alcibiades, on account of his beauty, was hunted by many great ladies, and because of his influence at Athens and among her allies he was spoilt by many powerful men:

Indeed, there is a story told of Alcibiades, that, when he was less than twenty years old, he had a talk about laws with Pericles, his guardian, the first citizen in the State.