I’m finding myself intrigued in the extreme by a figure from antiquity as colorful as Hannibal: Alcibiades. He is such a good character, he might be worth another book.
Why? Mostly because he was a (bad) student of Socrates‘, and indeed the perfect foil for the great old man:
- Socrates: ugly. Alcibiades: gorgeous.
- Socrates: wise, deep, profound, intellectual, curious. Alcibiades: confused, cynical, shallow, but clever!
- Socrates: interested in justice. Alcibiades: interested in himself.
- Socrates: tried to teach Alcibiades inner values. Alcibiades: tried (and failed) to sleep with Socrates
Let me give you an abbreviated and simplified biography of this man. (One reason why many people never learn to appreciate history is that many teachers get bogged down in boring detail. So let’s not make that mistake today.)
Alcibiades, his father having died young, was raised in the home of his uncle, Pericles, the greatest statesman of Athens, which was in turn the greatest power of Greece. Alcibiades was thus a rough equivalent of, say, a Kennedy heir in the 60s and 70s–a party boy in a powerful family.
On the eve of Alcibiades’ own entry into Athenian politics, Socrates took an interest and, using his customary Socratic irony (in which Socrates pretends to be less than he is), got Alcibiades to talk about what he wants Athens to do, in the process exposing him to be the confused young man that he was.
Alcibiades, being good-looking (and very much the ladies’ man, of which more in a minute) and charming, rose politically. He became a general in the Peloponnesian War, one of two to take a huge invasion army to Sicily in what was to be one of the dumbest pre-emptive strikes in history.
Just after they sailed, however, the Athenians discover that somebody had, apparently as a prank, broken off all the erect phalluses on the statues of Hermes, which was sacrilege. This was exactly the sort of thing that Alcibiades got up to when he was drunk, so he was presumed guilty. (Then again, he was such an obvious culprit that he may have been framed.) So the Athenians sent another ship after the invasion fleet to arrest their general and bring him home for trial.
Alcibiades did not like that idea and defected to … Sparta! The enemy. Because he was so charming, the Spartans accepted him, and Alcibiades helped them defeat the Athenians. But then it was found out that Alcibiades was sleeping with the wife of one of the Spartan kings, so he made a hasty exit.
Next he went to Persia, Athens’ other enemy. He charmed them, advised them …. (you get the pattern).
Such was his charm and charisma that, after having been a traitor to his native country so long, he then persuaded the Athenians to take him back! For a while, he became their general again. But then he fell out again and crossed back over the Hellespont to another kingdom.
He was sleeping with a girl there one day when his political enemies (he had amassed a few by then) surrounded the house. Alcibiades grabbed a dagger and, possibly naked, attacked. He died in a hail of arrows.
Hannibal and Me: life lessons from history 
SOCRATIC IRONY:
Presenting yourself in a way that doesn’t daunt the important other(s); making the world comfortable before greatness, presenting a beautiful lie instead of the ugly truth that: greatness is truly scarce. It seems kind even if it is hiding the facts.
It hides so as not to offend or, even more delicately, so as not to shame humans given to self loathing and the search for their own inferiority.
This lack of a need to cash in natures talent against another’s lack speaks of a humble state of self; a very desirable condition of rest offering ample opportunity to look to important matters above and beyond the competitive urge of the regular narcissist.
Whether ovarian or testicular, Alcibiades seems a common type in corporate culture.
I’m curious now.
How much depth of character did this historical figure
have?
Quite a bit, I suggest. I think of him as antiquity’s Felix Krull (a Thomas Mann character). More than that, as I tried to say, I think of him as a foil to Socrates, as a sort of alter ego or complement.
I hate to be rude, but can we get back to the Greeks?
Or, in preparation for my class next week, can we compare the similarities of the Epic of Gilgamesh, this version written in 1800 BCE, with Genesis, written in 600 BCE?
Can we discuss the fact that in the Epic, there was a flood, a Noah figure, a snake, a forest with an important tree, a poem from which Ecclesiastes was copied?
Can we do that?
Yes, we can, but you have to start (on your blog?). You’re ahead of all of us. I know that a lot of the “greek” and “jewish” myths originated in Mesopotamia, around the time of the Gilgamesh. Aphrodite (ie, goddess foaming out of genitals hurled into the sea). But you’re the one reading it now….