Alcibiades (fictional character)
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The prominent Athenian statesman Alcibiades has been criticized by ancient comic writers and appears in several Socratic dialogues. He enjoys an important afterlife, in literature and art, having acquired symbolic status as the personification of ambition and sexual profligacy. He continues to fascinate the world and appears in several significant works of modern literature.
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[edit] Ancient Comedy
The prominent Athenian statesman Alcibiades excited in his contemporaries a fear for the safety of the political order.[1] Thereby, he has not been spared by Ancient Greek comedy and stories attest to an epic confrontation between Alcibiades and Eupolis resembling that between Aristophanes and Cleon.[2]
Aristophanes mentions Alcibiades several times in his satirical plays, for instance making fun of his manner of speech. According to Aristophanes the Athenian people "yearns for him, and hates him too, but wants him back".[3] Aeschylus in Aristophanes' Frogs illustrates Alcibiades' ambivalent personality saying:[4]
| “ | You should not rear a lion cub in the city,
[best not to rear a lion in the city,] |
” |
Aeschylus sees Alcibiades as a powerful creation arousing admiration, but also as a "savage figure" unacceptable and dangerous when released in the city.[5]
[edit] Socratic Dialogues
Alcibiades also appears in several Socratic dialogues:
- Plato's Symposium where he appears to be in love with Socrates.
- There are two dialogues from antiquity titled "Alcibiades", ascribed to Plato, that feature Socrates in conversation with Alcibiades: First Alcibiades (or Alcibiades I) and Second Alcibiades (or Alcibiades II). Some scholars, however, consider them spurious.
For Plato, Alcibiades is an extraordinary soul. What is extraordinary for the philosopher, however, is not the deeds that result but the soul itself, especially that passion for what is best for himself, best for himself beyond the conventional offices and honors. For Plato, Alcibiades embodies the culmination of politics, but that culmination that seeks a grand and almost god-like superiority that transcends politics. Plato presents Alcibiades as a youthful student of Socrates who would, in time to come, be the ruin of Athens.[6] According to Habinek, his appearance in Plato's Symposium conforms to the pattern of Alcibiades literature: Alcibiades is always just what is wanted.[7]
In his trial, Socrates must rebut the attempt to hold him guilty for the crimes of his former students, including Alcibiades, Critias and Charmides.[8] Hence, he declares in Apology: "I have never been anyone's teacher", responding to quite concrete circumstances and recent events (mutilation of the hermai, betrayal of Athens by Alcibiades in the middle of the Peloponnesian War, regime of the Thirty Tyrants).[9]
[edit] Literature
In medieval and Renaissance works such as the Canterbury Tales, Erasmus's adage The Sileni of Alcibiades, Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, Montaigne's Essays, Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, and Thomas Otway's tragedy Alcibiades, Alcibiades is presented as a a military commander and student of Socratic teaching.[10]
Alcibiades constituted also a source of inspiration for certain modern novelists, especially those writing historical novels. In On the Knees of the Gods (1908), Anna Bowman Dodd covers Alcibiades' expedition against Sicily.[11] The Jealous Gods (1928) of Gertrude Atherton is another novel about Alcibiades and ancient Athens. In Steven Pressfield's Tides of War, it was the character of Alcibiades who loomed most large over the narrative, just as he had the greatest impact on the Peloponnesian War. Undefeated during his career as a general and admiral, Alcibiades’ life played itself out like an epic tragedy with the tensions between his genius and the hubris that was his ultimate downfall. In Daniel Chavarria's novel, The Eye Of Cybele, a novel that fictionally recreates the behind-the-scenes scandals and political intrigues that occupied the Athenian home front at the height of the Peloponessian War, Alcibiades is the central character and he is depicted as one of the Athens' most powerful generals and as a leading competitor for the favor of both Pericles and the masses. Alcibiades also appears in the satirical novel Picture This by Joseph Heller.
Other modern works featuring Alcibiades as a main character include:
- Peter Green's Achilles His Armour (1955),[12]
- Rosemary Sutcliff's Flowers of Adonis (1969)
- Joel Richards' Nebula award-nominated short story "The Gods Abandon Alcibiades" (Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2001) full text
- Paul Levinson's time travel novel, The Plot To Save Socrates (2006)
- Erik Satie's Socrate, a work for voice and small orchestra (or piano) (The text is composed of excerpts of Victor Cousin's translation of works by Plato, all of the chosen texts referring to Socrates).
- Machado de Assis' short story "Uma Visita de Alcebíades" (1875) is about Alcibiades showing up to a police officer in 19th century Brazil.
[edit] External links
- Project Gutenberg:
- 11 comedies by Aristophanes et al.: Part I and Part II
- Socratic dialogues, translated by Benjamin Jowett: Alcibiades I and Alcibiades II
- Alcibiades. Endres, Nikolai. Retrieved on September 22, 2006.
- Alcibiades in the Socratic Tradition and in Plato. Michelini, Ann. Retrieved on August 5, 2006.
[edit] Notes
- ^ D. Gribble, Alcibiades and Athens, 41
- ^ D. Gribble, Alcibiades and Athens, 32-33
- ^ Aristophanes, Frogs, 1425
- ^ Aristophanes, Frogs, 1432-1433
- ^ D. Gribble, Alcibiades and Athens, 1
- ^ E. Corrigan, Plato's Dialectic at Play, 169
- ^ T. Habinek, Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory, 23-24
- ^ G.A. Scott, Plato's Socrates as Educator, 19
- ^ Plato, Apology, 33a
- ^ N. Endres, Alcibiades
- ^ J. Nield, A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales, 4
- ^ T.T.B. Ryder, Alcibiades, 32
