06 Dec Alcibiades had all the gifts, all the means… (JACQUELINE DE ROMILLY) | Part A’
Alcibiades needs no introduction: Plato has already provided that, on one unforgettable page. In the Symposium, he imagines a meeting of famous men who, over dinner, are discussing love. There are a lot of people there. They are talking, listening, the dialogue progresses. But then, after some time, a new guest arrives, after all the others. This arrival is intentionally reserved for the end, when its impact is greatest; suddenly everything is livelier. A knock on the door, and the sound is accompanied by the noise of merrymaking and a flute player. Who is coming at this hour? It is Alcibiades, completely drunk and supported by the flute player.
He stands at the door, “crowned with a bushy wreath of ivy and violets and wearing a great array of ribbons on his head.”
Immediately he is welcomed and seated next to the host. On his other side is Socrates, whom he hasn’t seen at first. A conversation ensues between the ivy-crowned youth and the philosopher: the rest of the dialogue is entirely between these two.
Such is the appearance, both triumphal and disturbing, of this individual. It contains the seed of his great appeal as well as of his scandalous failings. They love him; they welcome him. Why? Who is he? Those at the banquet knew; but twenty-five centuries later, we need to describe him. In a word, he has everything one could want.
Beauty
One quality is immediately apparent: Alcibiades is gorgeous, exceptionally so. All the sources speak of his beauty and describe all the love affairs in which he figures. This is the quality that Xenophon, in his Memorabilia, points to first, stating with characteristic naivete that “because of his beauty, Alcibiades was pursued by many well-known women.” People spoke of “the beautiful Alcibiades.” At the beginning of Plato’s Protagoras, when Socrates is teased about his great admiration for Alcibiades and seems to be a bit confused, they asked: “What could have brought this about? Has anything happened between you and him? For surely you can’t have found anyone more beautiful, at least not in this city.” There was no one more beautiful than he. But there might be another kind of beauty besides physical beauty, and that is what Socrates meant when he said that he had met Protagoras, the wisest of all living men; it is a distinction he will make frequently.
It should be remembered that at that time beauty was a virtue, widely recognized and celebrated. It was linked to other qualities of a moral nature that formed an ideal human condition, called in ancient Greek kalos kagathos. Beauty also attracted less virtuous admirers, and they were not secretive—such as those on many painted vases celebrating some young man by the single word beautiful. And at times, as was the custom, we find an almost lyrical evocation of the frenzy inspired by the beauty of someone or other: we see it in the Symposium of Xenophon, where this theme occurs several times, in particular in the excitement aroused by young Critobulus, who extols his own beauty and that of his friend Cleinias: “I would rather be blind to all things else than to Cleinias alone.” Young Cleinias was Alcibiades’s first cousin.
Returning to Alcibiades, we wish we could imagine his beauty, but we must be satisfied with the opinion of his contemporaries in assessing his perfection. They never precisely describe Alcibiades, and we have no image with any authenticity at all. We are told that after his victories in the Olympic Games he had his portrait painted while receiving the crown; but the two paintings have been lost. There were various statues in which he is shown driving a chariot, but these were generally produced posthumously. We allow ourselves to imagine his countenance, a classic face, proud silhouette: that would be him.
We do know that along with beauty, he had charm and the power of seduction. Plutarch marvels at this power very early in his biography: “As regards the beauty of Alcibiades, it is perhaps unnecessary to say aught, except that it flowered out with each successive season of his bodily growth, and made him, alike in boyhood, youth and manhood, lovely and pleasant. The saying of Euripides, that ‘beauty’s autumn, too, is beautiful,’ is not always true. But it was certainly the case with Alcibiades, as with few besides, because of his excellent natural parts. Even the lisp in his speech became him, they say, and made his talk persuasive and full of charm”.
He could cajole even those he had offended. In another important text by Plutarch, he is shown to have seduced a Persian satrap (governor) to do his bidding.
He was of course conscious of his ability to seduce and took pleasure in it. One anecdote relates that when he was learning everything a well-bred young man needed to know, he refused to learn the flute: it would distort his mouth and prevent him from using his voice. The impudent refusal of this beautiful boy became famous, and, according to legend, the flute was removed from the course of liberal studies. With a taste for the dramatic and for provocation, the handsome Alcibiades would sometimes walk around the agora in a long, purple robe. He was a celebrity, the spoiled child of Athens, allowed to do whatever he pleased and admired for everything he did. Movie and television stars today are for us what Alcibiades was for Athens—with the difference that, in that small city, everyone encountered him, everyone knew him.
Aristocracy
They knew him for the very good reason that he was not just anyone— far from it. He came from an aristocratic family, a fact not to be ignored even in the egalitarian democracy that governed Athens at the time. Around the middle of the fifth century BCE, powerful families were highly regarded and enjoyed considerable authority. Alcibiades came from the two largest of these families. His father, Cleinias, was from the Eupatrid family, whose lineage, according to legend, went all the way back to the hero Ajax; and one family member, also called Alcibiades, had been a political associate of Cleisthenes, the founder of Athenian democracy. In this way, Cleinias, through marriage, became part of the most famous family in Athens, the Alcmeonids. He married the daughter of one Megacles, a political figure important enough to have been ostracized, a measure that was intended to remove an individual who was attracting too much attention. And was that all? Oh no! This same Megacles, Alcibiades’s grandfather, had a sister who was Pericles’s mother, the very Pericles who was for so long the most important man in Athenian democracy and who gave his name to the century. So many titles, such glory! Our own newspapers, so fond of the fates of princesses and famous families, give us some idea of the awe that was attached to such a pedigree, even at the height of the democracy. In addition, such status constituted a valuable asset and useful preparation for political life.
Moreover, for Alcibiades, the dazzling pedigree was not all: on the death of his father, in 447, while he was still a child, our Alcibiades was adopted by his guardian, none other than Pericles himself. There was no greater attainment than that.
All these great names were like a brilliant halo around his head. Such promise! On all sides, there were men around him who were used to leading Athenian politics, who were themselves from the aristocracy, yet who had often taken the side of democracy. There could be no inheritance better suited to start a young man on a life of political engagement.
And this heritage could be an advantage even outside Athens. Important families like his had relationships in other cities. Sometimes the ties were official. One would be named proxenos for a foreign city—in other words would be responsible for representing interests as well as the citizens—rather like a consul today with the important difference that the role did not make those individuals bureaucrats. At other times, this office might involve offering hospitality, something that held a strong element of obligation in the fifth century. In some cases, these relationships might be quite personal—just as, in the modern world, aristocrats or business leaders feel connected to their counterparts in foreign countries. Alcibiades, through his family, found himself possessed of numerous ties of this kind. One example: at the time Athens concluded the peace with Sparta, in 421, Alcibiades was offended that the Spartans did not go through him as intermediary and, according to Thucydides, had not shown the respect owed him based on a former proxeny: his grandfather had given it up, but he himself dreamed of renewing it by taking charge of the Spartan prisoners (5.43.2). These ties were not insignificant. The grandfather in question, Alcibiades the elder, had given up these functions during earlier proceedings between Sparta and Athens. One of the most important men of Sparta—on whom Alcibiades depended greatly, a man named Endius— was the son of another Alcibiades, in Sparta! This Endius would later welcome the exiled Alcibiades in Sparta.
It was much the same everywhere. Wishing to turn to Argos, Alcibiades sent “a private message” there. We will meet, in the story, “the hosts Alcibiades had in Argos,” and we will also learn that he “was related to the leaders of the Milesians as well.” Foreign affairs were often conducted through personal relationships, and the family of Alcibiades had no lack of these . . .
In a word, his family lacked nothing.
The Life of Alcibiades
Jacqueline de Romilly
