The Life of Alcibiades

by Jacqueline de Romilly

  17. Because, he said, “one empire would scarcely attack another” (6.11.3). The point was that they would have exposed themselves to the same enmities as Athens. The argument had merit; but Syracuse as the ruler in Sicily would be a danger to Athens in other ways than as a military threat.

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  If we can do it, why balk when an ally appeals for help? “It is thus that

  empire has been won, both by us and by all others that have held it, by a

  constant readiness to support all, whether barbarians or Hellenes, that in-

  vite assistance” (6.18.2). That is the tradition of the origins—the tradition

  that inspires the patriotic plays of the fi rst years of the war, like Euripides’s

  Heraclides , and will later inspire the hymns of Athens. Like them, Alcibi-

  ades speaks of “our fathers.” And recalling their past, he shames those

  who hesitate, reminding them that the Athenians of those days had to

  deal not only with the hostility of Sparta but with that of Persia as well;

  that did not prevent them from acting, from sending their aid wherever it

  was needed.

  By evoking those traditions, Alcibiades was himself charged up, and he

  charged up his listeners. But he soon went beyond tradition with a more

  audacious and original argument.

  He said that Athens had no choice! Resuming, and altering a bit, Peri-

  cles’s theory, he held that the very existence of the empire required mul-

  tiple interventions: “Moreover, we cannot fi x the exact point at which

  our empire shall stop; we have reached a position in which we must not

  be content with retaining what we have but must scheme to extend it for,

  if we cease to rule others, we shall be in danger of being ruled ourselves”

  (6.18.3).

  The reference to Pericles is clear. But Pericles said that they could not

  renounce the empire, abandon it, or let it go; he was not speaking of con-

  quests. After him, Cleon had taken from similar circumstances the idea

  that it was necessary to show determination in repressions. This is a new

  idea: Athens cannot reject . . . conquest.

  This touches on the very principle that always leads the conqueror to

  go farther, with all the risks that entails. From Alexander the Great to

  Napoleon and even Hitler, all by different means, we fi nd the same idea.

  But no one ever expressed it so forcefully as did Alcibiades in Thucydides,

  particularly as justifi cation and rule of conduct.

  In his eyes, it is not even a question strictly about the empire: it is a rule

  of life with universal value. Alcibiades is the fi rst theoretician of activism

  for its own sake. The clarity of his thought sparkled like a diamond: “And

  that, by sinking into inaction, the city, like everything else, will wear itself

  out, and its skill in everything decay; while each fresh struggle will give

  it fresh experience, and make it more used to defend itself not in word

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  but in deed. In short, my conviction is that a city not inactive by nature

  could not choose a quicker way to ruin itself than by suddenly adopting

  such a policy, and that the safest rule of life is to take one’s character and

  institutions for better and for worse, and to live up to them as closely as

  one can” (6.18.6–7).

  These words are the words of Thucydides. What Alcibiades really said,

  we do not know. But there can be no doubt: this bold philosophy, pro-

  claimed boldly, was his. Even if he did not put it in these words or on that

  day, the words express his thinking.

  It is easy to imagine him expressing these thoughts with a look of

  scorn for the timid wisdom of Nicias. One can imagine the enthusiasm

  of the young people, drinking in these words, and perhaps some worry

  among their elders, recalling the time of Pericles and the idealism of that

  time.

  But there must have been some who saw the weakness of the argument,

  for it only took a little refl ection. Action, great! But what action? Going

  forward is good, but in what direction? And how far? The empire was

  being watched everywhere: the situation did not allow for weakness, but

  it also had to avoid failures. The conquest of Sicily could prove a failure,

  and a huge failure. If there were some people who had to know that, they

  were a minority.

  The Assembly, in fact, having listened to Alcibiades, “was more com-

  mitted to the expedition than ever.” Nicias saw that. And then came an

  episode almost as comic in its irony as the ostracism.

  Nicias made one last effort: he said that the enterprise would be dif-

  fi cult, that the cities of Sicily were strong, that they might join forces, that

  the distance was great, and that there would have to be a huge force . . .

  He was hoping to discourage the Athenians, but just the opposite resulted;

  everyone was excited, and the idea of a huge force reassured them. They

  asked Nicias how big he thought they needed. He hesitated, talked about

  at least one hundred ships, enumerated weapons of every kind. Nothing

  daunted the Athenians: if that is what it would take, that was what would

  be provided. They voted for everything that was wanted, and gave full

  authority to the generals to do their best . . .

  What a meeting! Alcibiades had fi rst called for approval of twenty

  ships. Nicias had protested. And now they are going to send a hundred

  ships. Alcibiades had never hoped for so much.

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  On the day of departure, there were even more forces than planned. It was

  an extraordinary day; Thucydides describes it with equally exceptional

  emphasis. Never had such a huge expedition set off for such a distant lo-

  cation. Everyone’s excitement was great.

  At dawn on the appointed day the men who were to embark went

  down to Piraeus. Everyone went with them. “With them also went the

  whole population, one may say, of the city, both citizens and foreign-

  ers, the inhabitants of the country each escorting those that belonged to

  them, their friends, their relatives or their sons, with hope and lamenta-

  tion upon their way as they thought of the conquests which they hoped

  to make . . . although the strength of the armament, and the profuse pro-

  vision which they observed in every department, was a sight that could

  not but comfort them. As for the foreigners and the rest of the crowd,

  they simply went to see a sight worth looking at and passing all belief”

  (6.30.2–31.1).

  There were sixty light ships, forty troop transports. Each one had cost

  a lot, each competing with the others; the departure had become a kind

  of festival.

  When everyone had boarded, the trumpet sounded for silence. And

  there were prayers, offered as on all ships at such times, but this time

  there were libations for everyone, soldiers and offi cers, in cups of gold and

  silver. When the hymn ended, the immense fl eet set off, “sailing out in a

  column then raced each other as far as Aegina” (32.2).

  Alcibiades of course was on his ship. He had armed himself splen-

  didly. 18 This was his expedition, his plan. He was bound for glory.<
br />
  Let’s not think just yet about the fate of this fl eet, leaving Athens with

  such high hopes. When he describes the splendid departure, Thucydides,

  though, is thinking about its fate; and he sets up the contrast that appears

  at the end of book 7 with the tragic end of this expeditionary force. Then

  the difference will be clear. Everyone will refl ect on it, “especially when

  they contrasted the splendor and glory of their setting out with the humili-

  ation in which it had ended. For this was by far the greatest reverse that

  ever befell a Hellenic army” (7.75.6–7).

  18. Plutarch 16.1. But Plutarch doesn’t mention that the bed set up for him on his trireme was made specifi cally for this occasion. Alcibiades did things well.

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  That unprecedented fl eet. It was, for its day, “an invincible armada.”

  Alcibiades had no suspicion of this dark ending. He did have personal

  concerns and reasons to worry, as we will discover in the next chapter. But

  he must have believed that his dream was soon to be realized.

  At Corcyra (today Corfu) he was supposed to join the rest of his army:

  when all the forces had gathered, there would be, not one hundred, but

  134 triremes, plus two large ships from Rhodes as well as fi ve thousand

  infantry, cavalry, archers, and supply units.

  With that, he would conquer Sicily.

  And perhaps even more.

  Yes, even more. He had not said so, but things must have come out. Later,

  he would reveal the truth to the Spartans: the huge plan was part of an

  even larger picture that gave shape to the most extreme ambition.

  It suffi ces for us to listen to what Thucydides has Alcibiades say at the

  time, giving the impression of a door opening to an unforeseen prospective:

  We sailed to Sicily fi rst to conquer, if possible, the Sicilians, and after them

  the Italians also, and fi nally to assail the empire and city of Carthage. In the

  event of all or most of these schemes succeeding, we were then to attack the

  Peloponnesus, bringing with us the entire force of the Hellenes lately ac-

  quired in those parts, and taking a number of barbarians into our pay, such

  as the Iberians and others in those countries, recognized as the most war-

  like known, and building numerous triremes in addition to those which we

  had already (timber being plentiful in Italy); and with this fl eet blockading

  the Peloponnesus from the sea and assailing it with our armies by land, and

  taking some of the cities by storm, and besieging others, we hoped without

  diffi culty to defeat them completely and after this to rule the whole of the

  Hellenic world. (6.90.2–3)

  The aspiration was majestic, coherent, and specifi c. Alcibiades went on to

  say that they would have taken silver and crops from the annexed territo-

  ries in the west; everything had been foreseen. The Mediterranean would

  become Athenian. 19

  19. He said “the whole of the Hellenic world” specifi cally to indicate to the Spartans that they too, in turn, would have been subjugated. However, the prior subjugation of Carthage suggests that the domination was not only Hellenic.

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  We now understand why people were drawing on the ground the out-

  lines of Sicily and the position of Carthage and Libya. 20 The grand plan, mostly a secret one, was not actually an invention meant to frighten the

  Spartans, and a failure to take it seriously is to misunderstand Alcibiades’s

  personality. The fact is, he was not kidding. Thucydides openly recognized

  by name the existence of the grand plan; it comes in book 6, chapter 15.2,

  when Alcibiades speaks out in favor of the expedition. He says that Al-

  cibiades boasted that he would “reduce Sicily and Carthage.” This helps

  us make sense of a phrase in his speech, as it has come down to us; in it,

  Alcibiades describes the advantages of the expedition and ends by saying,

  “At the same time we shall either become masters, as we very easily may,

  of the whole of Hellas through the accession of the Sicilian Hellenes, or

  in any case ruin the Syracusans, to the no small advantage of ourselves

  and our allies” (6.18.4). The phrase “as we very easily may” is the grand

  plan. While the speech says no more about it, many people must have

  understood it.

  Can we even imagine the consequences had the plan succeeded? The

  unifi cation of Greece, under the rule of Athens, the unifi cation of the Med-

  iterranean, having become a Greek sea. That would have changed the

  history of the world.

  Of course, hearing these words and knowing the disaster that the ex-

  pedition would become, we cannot help thinking of La Fontaine’s fable

  “The Milkmaid and the Pot of Milk”; and we think also about the lesson

  there. 21 Still, it must be said, the dream was not an impossibility. Neither was starting with the conquest of Sicily. With the audacity and intelligence

  of Alcibiades, with all his forces . . . who knows? No one can say for

  certain, because nothing happened as intended. At the very moment of

  the triumphant and fl amboyant departure, Alcibiades must have begun to

  worry. If not, he should have, because a dark cloud began to take shape:

  into the grand plan there suddenly arose the taint of scandal—that of the

  “affairs.”

  20. Mentioned earlier in this chapter.

  21. You would understand if you knew La Fontaine. My apologies to young readers for

  this reference to knowledge so out of date.

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  The Scandals

  When the fl eet sailed with great fanfare for Sicily, Alcibiades must have

  briefl y forgotten his worries in the hope of future glory. But he had wor-

  ries, and they were well-founded. Because two grave matters had just

  erupted in Athens, between when the expedition had been approved and

  the day of departure.

  On a beautiful morning, possibly June 8 according to scholars’ esti-

  mates, it was discovered that all the herms in the city (or all but one) 1 had

  been mutilated. Thucydides says modestly “in front,” but it was clearly

  the phalluses adorning these rather rough images that were affected. These

  herms were simplifi ed statues of the god Hermes, or rather busts placed on

  rectangular pillars that marked boundaries and doorways of both private

  homes and sanctuaries. They appealed to the god for protection; they had

  religious signifi cance.

  1. The herm of the tribe Aigeis was spared. It was claimed that Andocides was responsible (see his On the Mysteries, 62).

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  But now they had been mutilated: all of them. Emotions were high,

  and this was the beginning of one of the most serious and complicated

  incidents in Athenian history. We know a lot about it because many au-

  thors have written about it. Among them, of course, was Thucydides, but

  another one was directly involved in the events and was even charged with

  the crime: the orator Andocides, who described it all in two speeches that

  have been preserved. 2

  Why was this affair so upsetting? To understand that, we must remem-

  ber how strong religious traditions remained in the Athenian democracy.

  All political
activity was conducted with prayers, sacrifi ces, and libations.

  Anything that might indicate divine will was taken as a sign, from an

  earthquake to a mere sneeze; the rationalism of sophists and intellectuals

  was too recent to have penetrated to most people. This fact can be seen

  in the pains Pericles took to explain that a boar with only one horn was

  an anomaly but not a prophecy, or that an eclipse could be explained sci-

  entifi cally. Moreover, belief in hereditary curses continued to be an issue.

  Just before the Peloponnesian War, Lacedaemonians and Athenians ar-

  gued about removing citizens because of hereditary curses. In such an

  atmosphere, it is easy to understand that a deliberate offense to a guard-

  ian spirit might terrify people, as much for its audacity as for its future

  consequences.

  Again we ask: Why? The fact that such a blow had struck all the

  herms implied intention. It was too widespread for anyone to think that

  there were just a few overexcited or inebriated young people. There was

  more to it. It was the sign of a plot, one all the more alarming for having

  been carried out in secret. Had the conspirators sought to create a bond

  among themselves by committing a sacrilege together, to hide another

  move? But what conspirators? And what move? An air of panic swept

  through the city. Something sinister was believed to be threatening the

  democracy.

  That democracy of which the Athenians were so proud had never, in

  spite of its greatness, lived without anxiety. It constantly feared subversive

  elements. And there was even a judicial procedure, specifi c and dubious,

  called eisangelia , allowing any citizen to bring to trial anyone suspected

  2. The speech On His Return (speech 2) dates from 410 or 407, and the speech On the Mysteries from 399 (the incident itself took place in 415).

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  of acting against the democracy. The defi nition of such activity was very

  broad and these trials were held frequently.

  Clearly, one of their fears was that people would band together to bring

  about a less democratic regime, one that was openly oligarchic. There

  were indeed such people. Moreover, there was a way for these groups to

  form. There were quite a few hetaereiai , 3 groups of friends or companions that brought together men with shared views, who could support