The Life of Alcibiades

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The Life of Alcibiades Page 5

by Jacqueline de Romilly


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  But fi rst, we come to the area most scandalous of all, relating not to

  Alcibiades’s wealth, but to his beauty: his love life.

  The stories multiply. They may not all be true, of course; but together

  they leave an unmistakable impression. Not surprising, either, that his

  good looks would lead to scandal: he was involved with both men and

  women. It was said that even here he always wanted to win.

  And winning was easy for him.

  Normally, relationships with women caused little gossip in Athens.

  Marriage demanded that women submit to their husbands, living in the

  home, seeing no one. And relationships with prostitutes were ignored.

  They were talked about only in the case of Alcibiades because of the num-

  ber of liaisons and the rumors that fl ew about them.

  But our man went further: he managed to inject scandal into his own

  marriage.

  First, some gossip: while still young, he had been to Abydos, on the

  Hellespont, with his uncle. There, the uncle and nephew were said to

  have married the same woman; a daughter was born, but which one

  was the father? Later, both would enjoy her favors, a case of pos-

  sible incest. The story is outrageous and defies belief. 8 But again, he

  was rich. Later, people would even say that Alcibiades was guilty of

  incest with his mother, his daughter, and his sister. 9 The vile charges

  transmitted under the name of Antiphon say that he went to the

  women of Abydos to learn things that met his inclinations for vice

  and debauchery. 10

  Nevertheless, he had a real marriage. The choice was an honorable

  one, for he married the intelligent and well-raised daughter of a very rich

  and famous man. But there was such behavior . . .

  First, he slapped his future father-in-law, following a bet. The next

  day he invited this man to punish him with a whipping. But . . . he was

  pardoned.

  8. The primary source is a fragment of a speech attributed to Lysias. It is found again in an anecdote in Athenaeus, among other references to hetaeras known to have had ties to Alcibiades.

  9. See chapter 12.

  10. Fragment 4 Budé. This is all that remains of this text; hence it is not cited among the sources in our preface.

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  He received a very nice dowry, but before long the young groom de-

  manded more, alleging that it had been agreed to in case there were chil-

  dren. His wife’s family feared they were being robbed.

  Was he a good husband? Of course not. His wife knew that Alcibiades

  was “frequenting both foreign and Athenian courtesans, so she left his

  home and repaired to the house of her brother. Alcibiades did not care and

  continued his debaucheries.” 11 She sued for divorce. Divorce by a woman was rare and looked on with disapproval, but it did exist. On the day of

  the decree, according to Plutarch, Alcibiades “ran, grabbed her, and led

  her home across the public square as bystanders watched without daring

  to save her” (8.5). It was useless to argue, according to Plutarch, that this

  was absolutely against the law. Such was the audacity of Alcibiades.

  There were other women in his life. After the capture of Melos by the

  Athenians in 416, all the men on the island were killed and the women

  were taken as slaves. Alcibiades took one as a partner and raised the child

  he had with her (16.6). Plutarch might say that is human nature; one

  could say that a master suits himself and serves his passions at the expense

  of the helpless people whose fate has been a constant source of shame for

  Athens. It appears that Alcibiades supported the decree that called for

  the harsh repression of the island—at least the proposal to enslave the

  women. 12 After that, to have a child with one of them was low behavior.

  Having now slipped into the political realm, led there by his amorous

  adventures, we might as well continue. Two episodes in his political career

  show vividly the role his relationships with women of all sorts and from

  all countries would play over the course of time.

  As an exile in Sparta, Alcibiades owed his new friends everything.

  What did he do? According to the texts, he took advantage of the king’s

  absence when he was off on a campaign to seduce his wife and father a

  child (yes, another one). The queen, overcome with passion, is reported

  to have named the child, from day one, Alcibiades. Scandalous! As for

  our hero, he was as proud as he could be, bragging that he did it so

  that one day his descendants could be kings of Sparta. The husband

  was less proud, calculations confi rming his bad luck; an earthquake,

  11. Plutarch 8.4–5.

  12 . Thucydides does not report it, but see [Andocides] 20.

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  easy to date, had forced the handsome Athenian to fl ee from the queen’s

  bedroom. 13

  Is there more, you ask? Oh yes. But this act resulted in Alcibiades’s

  breaking with Sparta and approaching Persia, which from then on was

  going to control the action. The outcome of the war was altered by his

  behavior. Athens profi ted from it. But, indirectly perhaps, the fate of Eu-

  rope vis-à-vis Asia was affected. The actions of a seducer in the midst of

  powerful people infl uences politics whether he wants to or not.

  We will skip over these years: we reach the fi nale. Alcibiades is again an

  exile. He fi nds himself in a village of Phrygia with a courtesan named Ti-

  mandra. 14 There he was assassinated. Our fi nal view of the young god of Athens is a body riddled with arrows and spears, a body that a courtesan

  covered with her own clothes to improvise for him there, so far away, the

  best burial possible. This woman was the mother of another very famous

  courtesan, Laïs.

  These women were faithful to Alcibiades. But he was never faithful.

  Even up to this fi nal episode that concludes Plutarch’s written account

  and shows how legends are born, starting with certain well-known traits.

  Assassins would not have been hired by his political enemies, but by the

  victims of a different scandal: “He had seduced and was holding a young

  woman from a good family, and it was her brothers who, tired of his outra-

  geous behavior,” ended, in the middle of the night, the life of the seducer.

  How fi tting that would be! An ending worthy of refl ection. Plutarch

  does not quite believe it. But he leaves us to wonder, inconclusively, and

  without commentary. So we have a choice of these two types of women

  surrounding the death of Alcibiades.

  Alcibiades was a ladies’ man, and his female conquests were well

  known throughout Greece. But, as was quite common in Greece, he also

  knew the other kind of love. It was his good looks that attracted many

  admirers, who courted him with differing degrees of success.

  Plutarch shows that he could be hard and insolent. And he certainly

  was with Anytus. Later Anytus would be Socrates’s accuser; but at this

  time he was one of the whole Socratic group; and he was quite taken with

  13 . For more about this event, see below, chapter 6.

  14 . And probably another one, Theodotia of Athen
s (according to Athenaeus 13.574).

  See below, chapter 11.

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  Alcibiades. One evening, he gave a dinner to which he invited his beloved.

  Alcibiades refused, got drunk at home, and then marched with a rowdy

  band on Anytus’s house, where he ordered his slaves to take half of all the

  gold and silver. Anytus’s guests were appalled, but the lover did not com-

  plain, observing on the contrary: “Rather say . . . that he treated me with

  consideration and kindness, because, free to take it all, he left me some-

  thing” (4.5). The anecdote is well known. It may reveal the submissiveness

  that love may impose, but it also reveals the insolent manners Alcibiades

  might adopt toward those enthralled by his beauty.

  By contrast, he was at times generous—not with his favors but with

  money. He did not give it away, no. He did more. A certain metic (resident

  alien) was smitten with Alcibiades; he sold all his goods to offer the profi t

  to Alcibiades. The latter, amused, invited him to dinner, gave him back his

  gold, and advised him to go the next day to pursue a certain offi ce. He

  himself went to stand with the metic. The men who held this offi ce were

  uneasy about their accounts and offered the metic money to drop the case.

  Alcibiades pushed him to bargain, and the metic left one talent richer—

  which was a lot more than he had offered Alcibiades in the fi rst place.

  Quite an operator, the handsome young man, as clever and irritating as

  you could wish. The sharp eye, the pleasure in playing a trick—both give

  us a sense that he was mocking it all, his own ability to attract and those

  shady types who would pay to have him.

  Clearly, he did not always say no. And in this too he was never both-

  ered by scandal. A story is told that as a child one day he disappeared.

  People worried and wanted to organize a search; Pericles declined, know-

  ing that the child was with Democrates, one of his erastai , or lovers. The

  great man thought it was better to avoid drawing attention that would

  compromise the boy (3.1). Alcibiades himself had no such qualms.

  The texts contain frequent allusions to these relationships. People

  talked about the lovers of Alcibiades. And it seems that as a young man

  he was immersed in an atmosphere of pleasure and its pursuit. We men-

  tioned earlier the incident of Alcibiades’s debut in the Assembly and the

  quail that fl ew away. To be presented to an offi cial, one had to be an adult;

  but everyone knew that common birds, cocks and quails, were often gifts

  between lovers. In the Birds (line 707), Aristophanes cites the handsome

  boys who “won over or ceded to lovers when they received a quail, a

  waterfowl, a goose, or a cock.” The fl ight of the bird could be a clear sign

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  (to those) around the young donor of the amorous relations in which he

  took pleasure.

  All the stories and all the profi les of the lovers taken or rejected are

  enough to show that Alcibiades was no more discreet or moderate in this

  domain than in others. We will see how they explain the relationship be-

  tween Socrates and Alcibiades. But from now on, added together, all those

  anecdotes, true or false, are enough to explain the harsh opinions many

  held of the beautiful Alcibiades. Xenophon, in his Memorabilia (1.2.12),

  awards him the prize for the three fl aws particularly offensive to Greek

  morality: he, more than anyone else, lacking all self-control ( akratesta-

  tos ), was guilty of excesses and crimes ( hubristotatos ), as well as violence ( biaiotatos ). With self-discipline he might have resisted the temptations

  of amorous pleasures, popularity, extravagance; the insolence that he

  showed so readily came from hubris and aggressiveness.

  The record would be overwhelming if we could forget that for all his

  excesses, Alcibiades was charming. The devilish man was charming. He

  could raise eyebrows in his fi nancial dealings and then dazzle with his

  generosity. He could pursue, provocatively, lovers of all kinds, and re-

  main the nice boy everyone loved anyway. He could offend, strike, insult,

  and be forgiven because he always did it with grace and good humor. As

  Plutarch said, “Even his fl aws were met with indulgence and favor.” He

  also noted that “he was not despised by his fellow citizens, even those he

  had wronged,” whereas Coriolanus, “as admirable as he was, was never

  well-liked.”

  All the damning superlatives that Alcibiades unquestionably deserved

  were softened by the indulgence that for so long attached to him and that

  all of us today continue to feel a bit, even as we censure unreservedly his

  indisputable faults.

  This very fact leads us to pause a moment to conclude with two fi nal

  incidents that drew attention in antiquity, and in which the reputation

  of the man and his moral failings came together. The fi rst concerns his

  relationship with Socrates, which is colored by the romantic mores of the

  time; the other leads us right into his role as a leader involved in politics.

  Socrates is widely regarded as one of Alcibiades’s suitors. Plutarch

  speaks of Socrates’s love for Alcibiades ( erōs , several times) and of his

  rivals. The First Alcibiades begins with a speech by Socrates, who calls

  himself the fi rst to have loved ( erastēs ) Alcibiades, and the only one who

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  remained faithful to him. The fi rst words of Protagoras are addressed to

  Socrates: “Where do you come from, Socrates? I wager that you have been

  chasing after handsome Alcibiades?” In Gorgias, Socrates says he has two

  loves: Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, and philosophy. In all cases, and Alcibi-

  ades’s arrival in the Symposium proves the point, the relationship between

  the two men is presented to us in the light of pursuit and fl irtation, with

  a hint of homosexual tenderness openly expressed, perhaps slightly in jest

  and also treated with irony, perhaps because it was serious.

  There would be no point here in trying, as so many others have done

  and without the slightest bit of evidence, to determine Socrates’s actual

  feelings. But one fact emerges from all the evidence: whatever his feelings

  were, Socrates did not seek a physical union but a spiritual one. In this

  case, as in those mentioned in the Symposium , his fi rmness (his karteria ) was legendary. He withstood temptations just as he resisted cold, fatigue,

  and sleep. Moreover, he expressed indignation about making sexual de-

  mands of a loved one. 15 Several texts show Socrates contrasting love of the body with that of the soul, physical beauty versus internal beauty. Confusion occurred easily because of the vocabulary used. This has sometimes

  led critics to misunderstand a very beautiful text by Aeschines of Sphettos

  in which Socrates compares the feelings he experienced toward Alcibiades

  with those of the bacchants. There was a rush to proclaim ecstasy and pas-

  sion. But if you read the sentence to the end, you see that his meaning is

  just the opposite. Why then, the bacchants? “Because the bacchants, when

  they were possesse
d by the god, drew milk and honey from wells where

  others could not even fi nd water. In the same way, having no knowledge

  the teaching of which would make me useful to him, I still believed that

  by spending time with him, my love would improve him.” 16 Drawing milk and honey from so unlikely a soul—that is how Socrates was comparable

  to the bacchants.

  While scholars may have been mistaken, the fi rst to be mistaken was

  Alcibiades himself. Not that he, savvy as he was, was foolish enough to

  regard Socrates as an ordinary lover. He was troubled, and surprised. He

  15 . Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2.29, relates how he considered Critias a pig for having wanted to demand sexual favors from young Euthydemus.

  16. Fragment 11; see the excellent commentary of G. Vlastos, Socrate: Ironie et philoso-phie morale, 340–41, of the French translation.

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  felt that Socrates had something that he himself lacked. But he believed

  that all he had to do was to offer himself as he would to someone else.

  That, at least, is what Plato has him say with self-awareness and irony and

  inimitable charm.

  Alcibiades fi nds himself with Socrates; he has sent his servants away;

  he is anticipating an advance to which he wants to yield. But nothing

  happens. Next, he invites Socrates to exercise with him, alone. Again,

  nothing. “So I invite him to have dinner with me, in the very friendly way

  of a lover who wants to attempt something with his beloved.” Socrates is

  reluctant to accept and then wants to leave right after dinner. Alcibiades

  insists, obliges him to stay . . . The story is delightful, the outcome almost

  obvious. But the result is that Socrates and Alcibiades are fi nally stretched

  out under a blanket while nothing happens except a lofty discussion about

  inner and outer beauty. Socrates’s inner beauty won.

  After that, the roles may have reversed. In the Symposium , Alcibiades

  frankly admits to feeling drunk when he listens to Socrates: “My heart

  beats harder than the Corybants in their frenzy; his words make my tears

  fl ow” (215e). The feelings have changed sides, and love has changed its

  very nature.

  To admit all this, one had to have the boldness of Alcibiades. The story

  implies overtures that made him look ridiculous when they failed. This

  was a venture to suppress. But Plato saw it clearly: Alcibiades’s audacity,

 

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