The Life of Alcibiades

by Jacqueline de Romilly

  one of their number and follow his advice. These might be made up of

  good democrats, but many of them represented reactionary leanings, and

  these were feared. In the affair of the herms—or as they were called, the

  hermocopidai —the hetaereiai were constantly blamed by their opponents.

  They also appear later, in the problems of 411, and in Lysistrata (574–81)

  Aristophanes has his heroine deliver a tirade against a civic union that

  describes everything in terms of yarn and women’s work:

  Well, fi rst as we wash dirty wool so’s to cleanse it, so with a pitiless zeal we

  will scrub

  Through the whole city for all greasy fellows; burrs too, the parasites, off we

  will rub.

  That verminous plague of insensate place-seekers soon between thumb and

  forefi nger we’ll crack. 4

  The term “burrs” refers to what were for the demos a constant source of

  suspicion. The herms could well have been mutilated by members of any

  of the hetaereiai , as a prelude to taking political action.

  And of course, it was not only reactionaries who wanted oligarchy;

  curiously, Athens never ceased to be haunted by the terror of a tyranny.

  It was, after all, in reaction to the tyranny that the democracy had been

  instituted. And the tragedies of the time continued to remind people of

  the horrors of that regime. It was Aristophanes, again, who ridiculed this

  constant fear. In the Wasps , produced in 422, a prostitute asks a man if

  he “wanted to re-create the tyranny of Hippias.” In the Birds of 414, a

  reward is offered to “anyone who kills one of the dead tyrants.” In 411,

  in Lysistrata again, the chorus says, suspiciously, “I smell the tyranny of

  3. See chapter 3.

  4. Translation by Jack Lindsay.

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  Hippias in particular.” 5 With all these inclinations among Athenians, it is easy to imagine their reaction to a sacrilege as suspicious as the mutilation

  of the herms.

  If there was someone considering tyranny, who was a more likely ob-

  ject of suspicion than Alcibiades? With all his talents and ambitions, with

  his scorn for the rules and his insolence? His enemies would immediately

  exploit these very natural fears. Accusations about him spread.

  Thucydides put it clearly in the text that has been cited above, but one

  phrase has become signifi cant here: “The mass of the people,” convinced

  that Alcibiades aspired to tyranny, made themselves his enemies and de-

  prived themselves of his talents, thereby “ruining the city.”

  Not only is this statement accurate: the suspicions had grown strong

  enough that Thucydides put here, in this context, and right after the

  measures taken against Alcibiades, a long digression on the end of tyr-

  anny in Athens. 6 This digression is only loosely related to the account;

  it repeats the ideas of book 1; but the similarity to the state of mind

  in 416 is striking when he returns to the account: “With these events

  in their minds, and recalling everything they knew by hearsay on the

  subject, the Athenian people grew uneasy and suspicious of the persons

  charged in the affair of the mysteries, and became convinced that all

  that had taken place was part of an oligarchic and monarchical con-

  spiracy” (6.60.1).

  This would not be the only time this suspicion was connected to the

  name of Alcibiades; at the moment of his return, there were those who

  thought he was moving in that direction. 7

  Later, in the speech Against Alcibiades falsely attributed to Andocides,

  we read that citizens who rose too high were suspect: “It is they who

  create tyrannies” (24). The suspicion simmered, reappearing at the least

  provocation. In fact, nothing ever entirely removed the idea that Alcibiades

  5. The verses quoted are, respectively, 502, 1074, and 620. Two months later, in the Thes-mophoriazusai, a woman pronounces a curse on several of the guilty ones, one of whom is a man who proposed being “a tyrant or helping bring back a tyrant.” See my article “Il pensiero di Euripide sulla tirannia,” in Acts of the National Institute of Ancient Drama (1969): 175–87.

  6. 6.53.3–59.1.

  7. See below, chapter 11. Even today, this accusation sometimes reappears among certain critics (for example, Cinzia Bearzot, in Prometheus, 1988).

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  really did aspire to tyranny. His conduct and his tone made the accusation

  an easy one to make.

  In such an atmosphere, political suspicions added to the religious anxi-

  ety. People were afraid. That is what explains the immediate reaction of the

  Athenians. As Thucydides wrote: “The matter was taken up all the more

  seriously, as it was thought to be ominous for the expedition, and part of a

  conspiracy to bring about a revolution and to upset the democracy” (6.27.3).

  In the midst of these doubts and suspicions, one thing at least is cer-

  tain. At the very moment the city was to launch the biggest expedition it

  had ever seen, it felt vulnerable. And most likely that was not by chance.

  Whatever their previous intentions, the authors of the attack had wanted

  to strike a blow against the project, and also against the author of the

  project, and by sowing disorder, to end it.

  As for sowing disorder, they succeeded. The reaction to the event was

  immediate. Large public rewards were offered, and it was decreed “that

  anyone who knew of any other act of impiety having been committed

  should come and give information without fear of consequences, whether

  he was citizen, alien, or slave” (6.27.2).

  In principle, we have ceased to use denouncing and informing on fellow

  citizens—at least in ordinary times. But Athens felt its security at risk and

  the Athenian democracy was constantly mobilized for the defense of the city.

  It is, in any case, easy to imagine the ensuing intrigues, legitimate and

  false denunciations, arrests, and all the subterfuges into which this deci-

  sion would throw Athens.

  Immediately, Alcibiades’s problems grew.

  Not because he was involved in the affair of the herms. He was not. But

  the decree included “any other sacrilege,” and that is where things went

  badly for him. Did those who worded the decree that way have a specifi c

  incident in mind? It is highly likely. In any case the fi rst denunciation that

  appeared had to do with another sacrilege. A slave named Andromachus

  was presented by his master and swore that he had been present, in a pri-

  vate house (the house of someone named Poulytion), for a parody of the sa-

  cred mysteries, in which Alcibiades, among others, had also participated. 8

  8. Thucydides is talking about the mutilations of other statues, about young people who were partying and drinking, and speaks of the parody of the mysteries “in a few private

  houses.” But this seems to fold together several different denunciations.

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  Scandals 75

  This was bad business. And some people hastened to add fuel to the

  fl ames. Very soon an orator on the populist side, Androcles, tried to link

  the two affairs. Plutarch describes him as having been the instigator of the

  denunciation. 9 There were numerous allegations that this double sacrile
ge was a prelude to overthrowing the democracy.

  It is said that libel leaves a permanent trace. The hypothetical connec-

  tion Androcles tried to make between the two affairs left a trail that lasted

  for centuries; even the briefest reference in dictionaries of our own day

  continues to say that Alcibiades was involved in the affair of the herms. In

  this respect, Androcles was highly successful!

  Whatever the case, from that time on things began to go badly for

  Alcibiades.

  So, was he guilty?

  Certainly not in the affair of the herms, and no serious denunciation

  ever claimed that he was. But the mysteries? Maybe. It is hard to say ex-

  actly in what way he was involved. In the aftermath, the accusations grew

  more serious; and it is not impossible that the charges were infl ated. It is

  possible that everyone was guilty of insolence, of impudence; Alcibiades

  had a habit of both. Moreover, he loved to participate in foreign cults.

  One comedy presents him as joining in an orgiastic cult of the Thracian

  goddess Kottyto; 10 the play showed a cult with purifi cation rites like the Mysteries of Eleusis. The play has been lost, but it was apparently very

  upsetting to Alcibiades who, according to one rather suspect legend, was

  said to have drowned the author Eupolis during the crossing to Sicily. 11

  Did people, knowingly or not, confuse rites of this type with the parody?

  Was it simply a joke, meant for a laugh, or a true sacrilege? What we

  know is that Alcibiades had enemies ready to exploit anything they could

  use against him, and that he always showed a lack of prudence.

  We would like to be less vague, and to know from whom these attacks

  came, or at least from which side.

  9. Alcibiades 19; the role of Androcles is confi rmed in Thucydides 8.65.2, where he describes the assassination of Androcles, “the man mainly responsible for the banishment of Alcibiades.”

  10. The comedy of Eupolis entitled the Baptai (that is to say, something like “The Bap-tized”). It was probably somewhat earlier than the “affairs.” Participation in the cult was not illegal.

  11. See Cicero, Epistulae ad Att. 6.1.17 (the source would be Duris).

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  This is made all the more diffi cult because later we fi nd Alcibiades

  linked one minute with the partisans of the oligarchy and the next with

  those of the democracy. After his death, Alcibiades’s son would con-

  fi rm, in the speech Isocrates composed for him, that those who, at the

  time of the affairs we are concerned with, attacked his father were the

  same men who would later help the oligarchy triumph. 12 But Isocrates’s linking of these two events stems from his rhetorical skill. Alcibiades

  had (or also had) many enemies among the democrats. Hadn’t he had

  the democrat Hyperbolus ostracized? Had he not been accused by An-

  drocles, another extreme democrat, who was fi nally assassinated by the

  oligarchs in 411?

  The personal quarrels, jealousies, irritations caused by so many provo-

  cations were what seem to have mobilized opinion against him. But the

  hostility was strongest among those who suspected him of not supporting

  the democracy.

  For the most part, they were right: Alcibiades—the aftermath would

  prove it—supported only himself.

  In any case, he was in danger; and his enemies were going to do what-

  ever they could to oppose him.

  He asked to be judged immediately, before the departure of the expedi-

  tion, in order to leave cleared of charges. He did not wish his command to

  be tarnished by unanswered rumors: “He protested against their receiving

  slanders against him in his absence” (6.29.2). He insisted, he pleaded, but

  all in vain. Thucydides said his enemies feared he would have the army on

  his side if he were tried immediately and that the people might relent, be-

  lieving that they owed the presence of the Argives and Mantineans to him.

  Once he was far away, his enemies would take advantage of his absence to

  add to the charges against him. His appeals were in vain. Today it is easy

  to say that he didn’t know how to manage it: 13 but that is to misinterpret the power of the tension at that time. In any case, his enemies won: they

  12 . Isocrates 16.5. According to the text, those men who later would establish the oligarchy went to Alcibiades and, when he turned them down, decided to get rid of him. We know that Pisander, one of the investigators, would establish the oligarchy in 411. But there were four years between the two events (important to the statement of the son, in ll.37: “As soon as they were rid of him, they abolished the democracy!”). And Pisander was the one who was supposed to have proposed recalling Alcibiades in 411.

  13. E. F. Bloedow, “Alcibiades Reexamined,” Historia Einzelschriften 20 (1973).

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  Scandals 77

  arrested the other suspects and let him depart. This was, according to

  some sources, the decision of Androcles.

  What would happen after the fl eet sailed?

  Alcibiades was certainly not happy to leave in this way. But the fi nal

  days had been reassuring: another denunciation came from a metic named

  Teucrus and concerned the affairs of both the mysteries and the herms. We

  know the tenor of it from Andocides (1.15): for the herms, he denounced

  eighteen people; for the mysteries, he said he had participated in a parody,

  for which he gave eleven names. Alcibiades’s name was not one of them.

  This news must have been somewhat reassuring. And then perhaps he

  thought that future triumphs would silence his enemies.

  That was not to be the case.

  In the fi rst place, successes were slow to come. After assembling in

  Corcyra, the immense fl eet was to sail for the south of Italy, and it was

  there the disappointments began. The ships were to go to Rhegium (Reg-

  gio di Calabria); now even that city, attached to the Leontines and always

  loyal to Athens, did not want to receive them and declared its intention

  of remaining neutral. On top of that there followed another disappoint-

  ment: a ship sent ahead to Segestus came back with the bad news that the

  silver that was counted on was not there. The inhabitants had deceived

  Athens. They had shown off treasures and impressed the Athenian envoys

  by exhibiting vases they had borrowed and that were being passed back

  and forth! They had been tricked. Nicias was not surprised; but it was a

  serious blow for Alcibiades.

  What were they going to do under the circumstances? A war council

  was held by the three generals. Nicias advised going to Selinunte, as they

  had promised the people of Segestus. There they would learn what the city

  could or could not provide, and if it was true that they had nothing, ev-

  eryone would return to Athens. Alcibiades wanted to stay, and to begin a

  diplomatic effort with all the cities of Sicily except Selinunte and Syracuse,

  and then, after winning their support, attack Syracuse. Lamachus wanted

  to attack Syracuse right away while the army was still fresh; but he came

  around and agreed with Alcibiades. The man with the big plan won again.

  It was hoped that his power of persuasion, demonstrated once again in the

  war council, would work with the Sicilians.

  But it was not easy. Alcibiades went fi rst,
on his own ship, to Messina,

  but did not succeed in persuading the inhabitants, who refused to receive

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  the troops. At Naxos, they would be allowed to enter. But Catania? At

  fi rst Catania refused, but he tried again. Alcibiades was received with his

  two colleagues, and he spoke. But this was not simply a diplomatic effort.

  While he was speaking, while everyone was absorbed by the discussions

  under way, Athenian soldiers pushed into a postern gate and spread out

  in the city. The alliance with Athens was approved. Sometimes eloquence

  has to be supported by arguments of another kind!

  So Catania was brought in, which was important. Then it was an-

  nounced that Camarina was also in agreement. So they headed straight

  there. There they learned that Camarina would admit the Athenians, but

  only a single vessel.

  There were small successes, but a lot of little steps and setbacks. Noth-

  ing, in other words, that might impress the people back in Athens, who

  were engaged heart and soul in the two affairs: if things were going slowly

  in Sicily, in Athens events were moving quickly.

  It would be diffi cult to describe what these months in Athens had been

  like. Denunciations were growing. Terrifi ed, those who had been incrimi-

  nated fl ed. Those who remained were frequently executed without delay.

  These attacks fell on nearly all the most important families of Athens.

  There was total uncertainty. There were denunciations by people who had

  seen everything, who were treated with great respect; and their denuncia-

  tions were soon found to be inconsistent. They had, in fact, lied. Why? En-

  couraged by whom? Suspicions were rampant and fear reigned. In some

  respects, the atmosphere was more like that of the “blacklists” than of our

  drawn-out affairs today.

  Thucydides, who gave no names, either of the denounced or the in-

  formers, nor the number of those who were executed or who fl ed, did de-

  scribe the atmosphere very well (he was not in Athens at the time, but we

  can imagine the number of stories he heard). He wrote: “Instead of testing

  the informers, in their suspicious temper [they] welcomed all indifferently,

  arresting and imprisoning the best citizens upon the evidence of rascals,

  and preferring to sift the matter to the bottom sooner than to let an ac-