E-Book Overview
This biography of Alcibiades, the charismatic Athenian statesman and general (c. 450–404 BC) who achieved both renown and infamy during the Peloponnesian War, is both an extraordinary adventure story and a cautionary tale that reveals the dangers that political opportunism and demagoguery pose to democracy. As Jacqueline de Romilly brilliantly documents, Alcibiades's life is one of wanderings and vicissitudes, promises and disappointments, brilliant successes and ruinous defeats. Born into a wealthy and powerful family in Athens, Alcibiades was a student of Socrates and disciple of Pericles, and he seemed destined to dominate the political life of his city―and his tumultuous age.
Romilly shows, however, that he was too ambitious. Haunted by financial and sexual intrigues and political plots, Alcibiades was exiled from Athens, sentenced to death, recalled to his homeland, only to be exiled again. He defected from Athens to Sparta and from Sparta to Persia and then from Persia back to Athens, buffeted by scandal after scandal, most of them of his own making. A gifted demagogue and, according to his contemporaries, more handsome than the hero Achilles, Alcibiades is also a strikingly modern figure, whose seductive celebrity and dangerous ambition anticipated current crises of leadership.
E-Book Content
The Life of Alcibiades
A volume in the series Cornell Studies in Classical Philology Edited by Frederick M. Ahl, Charles Brittain, Kevin Clinton, David P. Mankin, Sturt W. Manning, Alan J. Nussbaum, Hayden Pelliccia, Pietro Pucci, Hunter R. Rawlings III, Eric Rebillard, Jeffrey S. Rusten, Barry S. Strauss A list of titles in this series is available at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
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. Identifiers: 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. Classification: 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 Cover illustration: François-André Vincent, Alcibiade recevant les leçons de Socrate, 1777.
For Bernard de Fallois, as a token of gratitude and friendship
Contents
Translator’s Preface
ix
Author’s Preface
xi
Chronology 1. Richly Endowed
xix 1
2. Insults and Scandals
15
First Interlude: Alcibia