The Life of Alcibiades

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The Life of Alcibiades Page 13

by Jacqueline de Romilly


  cused person of good character pass unquestioned, owing to the rascality

  of the informer” (6.53.2).

  In order both to provide a sense of the atmosphere and to explain what

  happened to Alcibiades, here are the charges of which we are aware. Two

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  of them preceded the departure of the expedition; the others came after

  it. Of the fi rst two, one came (it was said) from a slave, the other from a

  metic. The fi rst concerned the mysteries and named Alcibiades; the second

  concerned the two affairs and did not name him. But that was not the end

  of it.

  First there was a shocking charge about the herms. A man named Dio-

  cleides said he had seen, by the light of the moon, some three hundred

  people dividing into suspicious groups. He recognized forty-two of them.

  Catastrophic! He named two members of the Council, members of aris-

  tocratic families like Leogoras, a brother of Nicias, Critias . . . , people

  belonging to the ruling class who gave the appearance of a vast oligarchic

  conspiracy. A state of emergency was decreed, armed citizens gathered in

  the night in different parts of the city. There was panic: it grew stronger

  when the rumor, widely accepted, started to spread that troops of Boeo-

  tians were moving toward Attica, in league with Sparta. 14 The plot had become an international crisis. Important men fl ed; others were arrested.

  Diocleides had, in fact, lied: he spoke of the light of the moon, but the

  sacrilege had occurred during the new moon. Questioned, he admitted

  that he had been urged to make this false charge by two people—one of

  whom was Alcibiades’s cousin. 15

  However, the affair backfi red. Among the accused was one Leogoras

  and his son Andocides. After his arrest, Andocides decided, with a prom-

  ise of immunity, to confess, by way of a denunciation. He admitted that

  his hetaereia was guilty. 16 He spared his father and other people accused by Diocleides, but gave names: these were the same people whom Teucrus had denounced (his second denunciation), and four other people who

  were able to fl ee.

  Andocides was supposed to enjoy immunity, but his guilt was never

  really erased. He was exiled by a decree relating to impiety and spent the

  rest of his life without ever returning to Athens; we know this from his

  speeches. From the same source, we also have a vivid impression of his

  dramatic experiences: his account remains one of the fi rst examples of

  14 . 6.61.2. Andocides 1.45.

  15 . There is no evidence that this person (Alcibiades of Phlegonte) acted in concert with his famous cousin, but he may have wanted to save him by this ugly initiative.

  16 . He himself was innocent; his friend had taken advantage of the fact that he was injured (1.61–62).

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  conscience evinced in Greek literature. It is worth the trouble to quote

  passages, even though the account concerns Alcibiades only indirectly:

  it gives us some idea of the circumstances at the time. It might even call

  to mind certain situations that accused persons, from different countries,

  have known in our time. Andocides, with his supporters, is in prison; they

  weep, they lament. A cousin, or a friend 17 comes to fi nd him and says: “I beg of you: if you have heard anything concerning this affair, disclose it.

  Save yourself; save your father, who must be dearer to you than anyone in

  the world; save your brother-in-law.” And Andocides is overcome: “How

  unhappy I am, fallen into the worst distress, must I suffer that my relatives

  perish unjustly?” He describes his agonies, says how he imagines confess-

  ing, and indicates that he would feel less responsible given that among the

  guilty, some had already been executed and others had taken fl ight. He

  counted them: there were still four, but in danger; and he ended his night

  of anguish by deciding that it is his duty to save the innocent. 18

  With this confession the affair of the herms appeared to be resolved (al-

  though Thucydides remained doubtful); and the city itself, on the whole,

  had found immediate and palpable relief. 19

  Was that the end of it? Regarding the herms, yes, but not the mysteries.

  What came next was surprising: we know about two more accusations,

  both relating to the mysteries. The very last one did not concern Alcibi-

  ades at all, but the preceding one was enough: it proved fatal for him.

  It came from a woman named Agariste, who belonged to one of the

  important families. Was it a simple concern for the truth that caused her,

  after several weeks of delay, to come forward? In any case, she did. She

  came to say that she knew about a parody of the mysteries held, not in

  the home of Poulytion, but in that of Charmides. Charmides (not to be

  confused with Plato’s Charmides) was a member of Alcibiades’s hetaereia .

  And Alcibiades was supposed to have participated, as well as his uncle

  Axiochus. What was worse, she said it involved the Mysteries of Eleusis,

  and Alcibiades had a major part in the farce; he played the hierophant,

  meaning the principal offi ciant responsible for the fi nal initiation.

  17 . Andocides named his cousin Charmides (48), whom he also incriminated in the mys-

  teries. Plutarch names one of his friends, Timaeus. There may be different pressures; and the advice of Timaeus, very realistic, would not have constituted a good defense for Andocides.

  18 . This is taken from 1.48–55.

  19. Thucydides 6.60.5.

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  That was the last straw! Another indictment was brought charging Al-

  cibiades. And on the belief that he should be judged immediately, an offi -

  cial ship, the Salaminia , was sent to Sicily to fi nd him and bring him back.

  As we can see, the whole business was not a credit to Athens. It was not

  a credit to the demos or to the city, acting in response to a wave of panic

  and hasty accusations. Nor was it a credit to the opposition, who appear

  to have fallen into a number of suspected parties. The hetaereiai were

  active. Pressures were felt on all sides. No one cared about the means, as

  long as they could harm their enemies and help their friends. These fi ghts

  were political, certainly; but they were above all personal. And they were

  sordid.

  We would not dare to compare this miasma with more modern times,

  even recent ones. But we can say that this period of Athenian history of-

  fers a refl ection, in a magnifying mirror, of the problems that can arise

  in a democracy when the fi ghts between factions overtake regard for the

  common good and the rules of simple morality.

  Alcibiades had done no worse than others. He had been imprudent,

  even bold and provocative. He must have joined in the sacrilege. But that

  was all. His biggest mistake was to have made enemies. And at the mo-

  ment, his enemies wanted his hide.

  Would he return? How could he not return?

  “Alcibiades, with his own ship and his fellow accused, accordingly

  sailed off with the Salaminia from Sicily, as though to return to Athens,

  and went with the ship as far as Thurii, and there they left it and disap-

  peared, being afraid to go home for trial with such a prejudice existing
/>   against them. The crew of the Salaminia stayed some time looking for

  Alcibiades and his companions, and at length, as they were nowhere to be

  found, set sail and departed. Alcibiades, now an outlaw, crossed in a boat

  not long after from Thurii to the Peloponnesus; and the Athenians passed

  sentence of death by default upon him and those in his company.” 20

  It is poignant to consider that a stone 21 preserves for us testimony of the sale of his property that was held one year later. In the inscription, we

  fi nd tables and beds from the dining room. We cannot help thinking of the

  day when Alcibiades invited Socrates, planning to yield to the seduction

  20 . Thucydides 6.62.6–7.

  21 . IG I2 325–34, with supplements. See above, chapter 1.

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  that never came. Plato’s text enabled us to enter a domain that seemed an

  imaginary one, out of time: the text of the inscription brings us back to the

  reality, and tragic fragility, of that scene. A bed, sold among confi scated

  property, having belonged to a man once heaped with good fortune, today

  an outlaw.

  At once we realize that all the fabulous stories were true, just as true as

  the disaster that now befell Alcibiades.

  And the expedition? The grand plan?

  We will never be able to gauge the consequences of Alcibiades’s exile, or

  what might have been the outcome of the enterprise in which he believed.

  Without a doubt, it was imprudent. As Nicias had said, Sicily was

  far away, its cities were powerful and might unite. That possibility had

  appeared at the time of the preceding expedition; and Hermocrates, the

  Syracusan, knew how to play his hand. The risk grew more real at the

  time of the great expedition because of Hermocrates. Thucydides leaves

  a very clear picture of his acts, letting us in on the negotiations at Cama-

  rina shortly after the departure of Alcibiades. Camarina was allied with

  Athens, and the Athenians counted on its support. Hermocrates shows up

  with a delegation from Syracuse at the same time as the Athenian Euphe-

  mus with his compatriots. Both spoke. Hermocrates claimed again, as he

  had at the congress of Gela, mentioned above, that they were in the midst

  of an imperialist takeover, that the help and assistance Athens claimed to

  be offering her allies was nothing more than a specious pretext. In brief,

  he brought accusations, charges, and called for a united resistance. The

  result: the people of Camarina, sharply divided and unsure about the fu-

  ture, remained allied to both sides; but once Syracuse had guaranteed its

  military support, Camarina sent troops to aid the city. And she was not

  the only one. Thucydides’s entire account is fi lled with the troops that

  rallied to Syracuse; and, when Camarina did, even Gela sent reinforce-

  ments. Thucydides says: “Indeed, almost the whole of Sicily, except the

  Agrigentines, who were neutral, now ceased merely to watch events as it

  had previously been doing and actively joined Syracuse against the Athe-

  nians” (7.33.2).

  But this strength of Syracuse, around which the cities gathered, came

  most of all from its maritime and naval initiatives. Nicias had warned the

  Athenians that Selinunte and Syracuse were cities with strong navies. Their

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  experience helped them. And we know that the Athenian fl eet, so large

  and so proudly developed, would end up blocked, and then destroyed, in

  the straits of Syracuse. Nicias was not wrong to warn of the danger.

  He had seen the warnings confi rmed on many fronts. But he had stressed

  the fact that they were leaving Greece itself with an unstable peace and

  enemies ready to take up arms at the fi rst opportunity. What really made

  Syracuse succeed was Sparta’s help. Shortly after the start of hostilities,

  Sparta would help Syracuse in two ways: by sending a capable leader and

  also by resuming the war in Greece, by moving to set up a base in Attica. 22

  The expedition was not prudent, that much is clear. But we must not

  forget that nothing had gone as Alcibiades wished: the “affairs” had

  arisen against him, and the consequences of his exile changed everything.

  The Sicilian cities did not rally to Athens, it was true. But who was

  supposed to persuade them? Who had started working on that? Who was

  capable of being understood? Alcibiades and no one else. That was the

  policy he planned to lead; and he had had only a few weeks to work on

  it. Moreover, it was he who had wanted the expedition and who believed

  it would work. When Nicias was left at the head of Athenian forces, fi rst

  with Lamachus and then alone, how could he have led with conviction

  and zeal an expedition he considered futile and bound to fail? Not to

  mention the fact that the prosecution of the top general as well as of other

  members of the expeditionary force could only have had a devastating

  effect on morale.

  Thucydides understood perfectly this dual responsibility. He was not a

  man of single causes and simplistic explanations. He separated the various

  factors.

  He said and repeated that the expedition was seriously imprudent and

  that Athens failed to recognize the scope of its undertakings. He had de-

  clared just that in the opening phrases of book 6: “Most of the Athenians

  had no idea of the size of the island and of the number of its inhabitants,

  Hellenic and barbarian, and they did not take into account that they were

  undertaking a war not much inferior to that against the Peloponnesians”

  (6.1.1). He also shows that Alcibiades had thrust the Athenians into this

  enterprise partly to oppose his adversary Nicias, and, in the best case, to

  22. See chapter 6.

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  “gain in wealth and reputation by means of his successes” (6.15.2). The

  imprudence was condemned, and his motives were denounced.

  But the gravity of that mistake, for which Athens was going to pay

  dearly, can only be seen in view of what Athens did once the decision

  was made. And Thucydides has left us two lines on the subject, clear and

  defi nitive. They deserve consideration.

  One bears directly on Alcibiades. It analyzes the reasons that inspired

  the behavior of his enemies and states how serious the consequences of

  their conduct were: “And this later on had not a little to do with the ruin

  of the Athenian state” (6.15.3). Is this about the lack of prudence of the

  expedition? Not at all! It is about the exile of Alcibiades: “Although in his

  public life his conduct of the war was as good as could be desired, in his

  private life his habits gave offense to everyone, and caused them to com-

  mit affairs to other hands, and thus before long to ruin the city” (6.15.4).

  As we indicated in chapter 2, this text goes beyond the context of the

  Sicilian expedition and, in a bold juxtaposition, refers to the fi nal disaster

  of 404. What is of interest here is the rigorous distinction drawn between

  Alcibiades’s early imprudence and the disservice to the city by his enemies,

  who deprived Athens of the help he could have given her.

  In his great ju
dgment of Pericles, written after the fi nal defeat of 404,

  we fi nd exactly the same relationship, when Thucydides says: “This, as

  might have been expected in a great and sovereign state, produced a host

  of blunders, and among them the Sicilian expedition” (2.65.11). He uses

  the word “blunders.” The condemnation is clear, as it is in book 6. But as

  he does there, he follows that with a qualifi cation, and the text continues

  and specifi es the expedition: “Though this failed not so much through a

  miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was sent, as through

  a fault in the senders in not taking the best measures afterward to assist

  those who had gone out, but choosing rather to occupy themselves with

  private cabals for the leadership of the commons, by which they not only

  paralyzed operations in the fi eld, but also fi rst introduced civil discord

  at home” (2.65.11). Once again this sentence can mislead us, because it

  condenses so tightly all the facts grouped around the Sicilian expedition

  and everything that followed, including the internal fi ghting, the start of

  the civil war, Alcibiades’s fi nal exploits—the entire political life of Athens

  from 416 to 404. But the relationship this sentence establishes regarding

  the expedition to Sicily is, once more, perfectly clear. The expedition was

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  a blunder, but not the worst one: it was “less . . . than” or, to translate

  word for word, “not as bad as.” Thucydides knows: the failures of history

  (or of life) rarely result from a single circumstance. He liked to distinguish

  the various levels of causality: they were rarely as clear as they were in

  this case.

  He has still not specifi ed, in either of the two passages, what would

  make the exile of Alcibiades so serious. It is time to state it: Alcibiades,

  whom we left feigning cooperation on the Athenian ship that had come to

  summon him to appear, may have hesitated about the direction he should

  take. But where did he go? He went to Sparta and gave his support to the

  Lacedaemonians. In other words, his exile was not simply a factor against

  Athens, but a factor favoring her enemies. We shall see him, like a single

  player playing against himself, taking the part of his opponent, sometimes

 

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