The Cosmic Context of Greek Philosophy: Part Ten

The Cosmic Context of Greek Philosophy: Part Ten

Laura Knight-Jadczyk

Alcibiades 450 – 404 BC

At this point in my book, Horns of Moses, there is a discursus on the topic of Alcibiades, which I am going to abbreviate sharply here.  Alcibiades is mentioned in the Life of Socrates where Diogenes tells us about the latter’s military service in the Peloponnesian war, writing as follows:

At all events, he [Socrates] served on the expedition to Amphipolis; and when in the battle of Delium Xenophon had fallen from his horse, he stepped in and saved his life. For in the general flight of the Athenians he personally retired at his ease, quietly turning round from time to time and ready to defend himself in case he were attacked. Again, he served at Potidaea, whither he had gone by sea, as land communications were interrupted by the war; and while there he is said to have remained a whole night without changing his position, and to have won the prize of valour. But he resigned it to Alcibiades, for whom he cherished the tenderest affection, according to Aristippus[1] in the fourth book of his treatise On the Luxury of the Ancients.[2]

Jean-Baptiste Regnault: Socrates dragging Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sensual Pleasure (1791) (Louvre) 

Alcibiades, for whom Socrates “cherished the tenderest affection”? It appears that Socrates’ supernatural warning system apparently malfunctioned majorly or we just simply do not know all the facts. Recall that Diogenes, stated that ‘the Thirty’ (among whom was Socrates student and friend, Critias) forbade Socrates to teach when, in fact, it was after the deposition of the Thirty and the return to power of Anytus and his wealthy pals that Socrates was charged and executed. In fact, there is a story about Anytus and Alcibiades that suggests there is more to this story than we know.

Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades preserves stories of Anytus’ tumultuous relationship with the young Alcibiades. Alcibiades seems to have treated Anytus with great contempt: on one occasion upon which Anytus had invited him to dinner, Alcibiades arrived late and drunk. Seeing the table laid with gold and silver dishes, Alcibiades ordered his slaves to take half of the dishes back to his own house. Having played this prank, Alcibiades departed immediately, leaving Anytus and his other guests greatly surprised. When the guests began to rebuke Alcibiades, Anytus excused him, saying that he loved the boy so much that he would have suffered Alcibiades to take the other half of the dishes, too.

Plutarch refers to him thus:

It has been said not untruly that the friendship which Socrates felt for him has much contributed to his fame, and certain it is, that, though we have no account from any writer concerning the mother of Nicias or Demosthenes, of Lamachus or Phormion, of Thrasybulus or Theramenes, notwithstanding these were all illustrious men of the same period, yet we know even the nurse of Alcibiades, that her country was Lacedaemon, and her name Amycla; and that Zopyrus was his teacher and attendant; the one being recorded by Antistheries, and the other by Plato.

In the Symposium, Plato introduces Alcibiades by having him appear with a group of drunken revelers who burst in upon those at the banquet who are engaged in philosophical discussion. Alcibiades, as presented by Plato, appears at times to advocate as well as symbolize external beauty and ephemeral satisfactions as opposed to the eternal verities. However, curiously, Plato gives Alcibiades the role of recognizing and expounding upon the inner virtue and spiritual worth of Socrates and of acclaiming this as far surpassing the external achievements of obviously attractive and externally impressive men. Plato devotes almost all of the last quarter of the Symposium to Alcibiades and his conversation with Socrates. His great charm and physical beauty are emphasized repeatedly here.

Alcibiades, draped in red at the left, barging in on Plato's Symposium.

Plutarch, too, repeatedly emphasizes the positive and impressive qualities of Alcibiades:

It was manifest that the many wellborn persons who were continually seeking his company, and making their court to him, were attracted and captivated by his brilliant and extraordinary beauty only. But the affection which Socrates entertained for him is a great evidence of the natural noble qualities and good disposition of the boy, which Socrates, indeed, detected both in and under his personal beauty; and, fearing that his wealth and station, and the great number both of strangers and Athenians who flattered and caressed him, might at last corrupt him, resolved, if possible, to interpose, and preserve so hopeful a plant from perishing in the flower, before its fruit came to perfection.

Plutarch also cites many examples in which Alcibiades is shown responding with unprovoked and arbitrary insolence to those who sought to do him honor. Thucydides also notes the dichotomy of Alcibiades:

They feared the extremes to which he carried his lawless self-indulgence, and … though his talents as a military commander were unrivalled, they entrusted the administration of the war to others; and so they speedily shipwrecked the state.

 

In his seminal work on psychopathy, The Mask of Sanity, psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley wrote a section devoted to Alcibiades the psychopath.  What Cleckley wrote is detailed and supported with many citations.  I am reducing it to just a short version of his summary: 

Despite his talents and many attractive features some incidents appear even in his very early life that suggest instability, a disregard for accepted rules or commitments and a reckless tendency to seize arbitrarily what may appeal to him at the moment. … On a number of other occasions his bad judgment and his self-centered whims played a major role in bringing disasters upon Athens and upon himself. Though this brilliant leader often appeared as a zealous and incorruptible patriot, numerous incidents strongly indicate that at other times he put self-interest first and that sometimes even the feeble lure of some minor objective or the mere prompting of caprice caused him to ignore the welfare and safety of his native land and to abandon lightly all standards of loyalty and honor. …

Despite the widespread admiration that Alcibiades could so easily arouse, skeptical comments were made about him even before his chief failures occurred. According to Plutarch, "It was not said amiss by Archestratus, that Greece could not support a second Alcibiades." Plutarch also quotes Timon as saying, "Go on boldly, my son, and increase in credit with the people, for thou wilt one day bring them calamities enough." Of the Athenians attitude toward Alcibiades, Aristophanes wrote: "They love and hate and cannot do without him." …

The character of Alcibiades looms in the early dawn of history as an enigmatic paradox.  He undoubtedly disconcerted and puzzled his contemporaries, and his conduct seems to have brought upon him widely differing judgments. During the many centuries since his death historians have seemed fascinated by his career but never quite able to interpret his personality. Brilliant and persuasive, he was able to succeed in anything he wished to accomplish. After spectacular achievement he often seemed, carelessly or almost deliberately, to throw away all that he had gained, through foolish decisions or unworthy conduct for which adequate motivation cannot be demonstrated and, indeed, can scarcely be imagined. Senseless pranks or mere nose-thumbing gestures of derision seemed at times to draw him from serious responsibilities and cause him to abandon major goals as well as the commitments of loyalty and honor.

Apparently his brilliance, charm, and promise captivated Socrates, generally held to be the greatest teacher and the wisest man of antiquity. Though Alcibiades is reported to have been the favorite disciple and most cherished friend of the master it can hardly be said that Socrates succeeded in teaching him to apply even ordinary wisdom consistently in the conduct of his life or to avoid follies that would have been shunned even by the stupid.

According to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica (1949), "He was an admirer of Socrates, who saved his life at Potidaea (432), a service which Alcibiades repaid at Delium; but he could not practice his master's virtues, and there is no doubt that the example of Alcibiades strengthened the charges brought against Socrates of corrupting the youth."

When we look back upon what has been recorded of Alcibiades we are led to suspect that he had the gift of every talent except that of using them consistently to achieve any sensible aim or in behalf of any discernible cause. Though it would hardly be convincing to claim that we can establish a medical diagnosis, or a full psychiatric explanation, of this public figure who lived almost two and a half thousand years ago, there are many points in the incomplete records of his life available to us that strongly suggest Alcibiades may have been a spectacular example of what during recent decades we have, in bewilderment and amazement, come to designate as the psychopath.

During this brief period Greece, and Athens especially, produced architecture, sculpture, drama, and poetry that have seldom if ever been surpassed. Perhaps Greece also produced in Alcibiades the most impressive and brilliant, the most truly classic example of this still inexplicable pattern of human life.[3]

What catches my eye in particular is the statement: “the example of Alcibiades strengthened the charges brought against Socrates of corrupting the youth." Recall the claim noted above that Anytus was involved in a romantic/sexual relationship with Alcibiades and that it was Anytus who, after The Thirty were deposed, forced the prosecution of Socrates.  Note also my remark that Socrates’ supernatural insight apparently did not work with Alcibiades for whom Socrates “cherished the tenderest affection”. 

The story of Alcibiades is really a startling irruption in the life of Socrates.  And Plato doesn’t help by giving Alcibiades the role of recognizing the value of Socrates over against mere worldly achievements unless he is a) just using figures that people knew to dramatize his ideas b) trying to convey a message between the lines, so to say.  It actually compares to the scene in the Gospel of Mark where Peter recognizes the role of Jesus only later to deny him and fade into ignominy. (The disciples are never redeemed in Mark, they are, throughout, dull, pedestrian dolts.)

We can note here that Alcibiades died in 404 BC and, in the same year, the Thirty Tyrants were installed in Athens. 

In 404 BC, Alcibiades, exiled in the Achaemenid Empire province of Hellespontine Phrygia, was assassinated by Persian soldiers, who may have been following the orders of Satrap Pharnabazus II, at the instigation of Sparta. La mort d'Alcibiade. Philippe Chéry, 1791. Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Rochelle.

It is said that Lysander of Sparta was ultimately responsible for the assassination of Alcibiades and it is generally known that Lysander, the victor in the war, installed the Thirty. Again, note that Critias was a member of the Thirty and Socrates was his friend. It was only well after the deposition of the Thirty (some 8 months later), that Socrates was prosecuted.  Socrates remained in the city throughout this period.

We can easily understand why Plato would distance himself from The Thirty, including his own relative. Though his dialogues, including Critias as an interlocutor in two of them, were written long after both Socrates and Critias were dead, Plato made no mention in them of the alleged activities that tarnished the reputation of Critias.  It should also be noted that, at one fraught point in the War, Critias was recorded as proposing a decree to repatriate Alcibiades who had been exiled at the time. [4]  Critias was even, at one point, exiled to Thessaly over his defense of Alcibiades.[5]

While in Thessaly, he was reported by Xenophon to be “setting up a democracy in Thessaly and was arming the serfs against their overlords”.[6] Also, he “consorted with men subject to lawlessness rather than to a sense of justice”.[7] Against this, Philostratus said, “he rendered their oligarchies the more grievous by conversing with those in power there and by attacking all democracy. He slandered the Athenians, claiming that they, of all mankind, erred the most”.[8]

Xenophon wrote of Critias:

It seems enough to me that a herdsman who lets his cattle decrease and go to the bad should not admit that he is a poor cowherd; but stranger still that a statesman, when he causes the citizens to decrease and go to the bad, should feel no shame nor think himself a poor statesman.[9]

At another point, Xenophon wrote that Socrates took Critias to task for being enamored of a young man:

Critias seems to have the feelings of a pig: he can no more keep away from Euthydemus than pigs can help rubbing themselves against stones.[10]

And again he wrote:

Now Critias bore a grudge against Socrates for this; and when he was … drafting laws with Charicles, he bore it in mind. He inserted a clause which made it illegal “to teach the art of words.” It was a calculated insult to Socrates, whom he saw no means of attacking except by imputing to him the practice constantly attributed to philosophers, and so making him unpopular.[11]

Plato appears to be doing some damage control in his Apology where Socrates recounts an incident in which the Thirty once ordered him (and four other men) to bring before them Leon of Salamis, a man known for his justice and upright character, for execution. While the other four men obeyed, Socrates refused, not wanting to partake in the guilt of the executioners.

When the oligarchy came into power, the Thirty Commissioners in their turn summoned me and four others to the Round Chamber and instructed us to go and fetch Leon of Salamis from his home for execution. This was of course only one of many instances in which they issued such instructions, their object being to implicate as many people as possible in their crimes. On this occasion, however, I again made it clear, not by my words but by my actions, that the attention I paid to death was zero (if that is not too unrefined a claim); but that I gave all my attention to avoiding doing anything unjust or unholy. Powerful as it was, that government did not terrify me into doing a wrong action. When we came out of the rotunda, the other four went to Salamis and arrested Leon, but I simply went home.[12]

In his Seventh Letter, Plato describes the interaction between the Thirty and Socrates from his own point of view. Note that he says nothing disparaging about Critias directly – either about his exile in Thessaly or his time as one of the Thirty.

    In the days of my youth my experience was the same as that of many others. I thought that as soon as I should become my own master I would immediately enter into public life. But it so happened, I found, that the following changes occurred in the political situation. In the government then existing, reviled as it was by many, a revolution took place; and the revolution was headed by fifty-one leaders, of whom eleven were in the City and ten in the Piraeus (each of these sections dealing with the market and with all municipal matters requiring management) and Thirty were established as irresponsible rulers of all. Now of these some were actually connections and acquaintances of mine; and indeed they invited me at once to join their administration, thinking it would be congenial. The feelings I then experienced, owing to my youth,[Plato was only 20 at the time.] were in no way surprising: for I imagined that they would administer the State by leading it out of an unjust way of life into a just way, and consequently I gave my mind to them very diligently, to see what they would do. And indeed I saw how these men within a short time caused men to look back on the former government as a golden age; and above all how they treated my aged friend Socrates, whom I would hardly scruple to call the most just of men then living, when they tried to send him, along with others, after one of the citizens, to fetch him by force that he might be put to death—their object being that Socrates, whether he wished or no, might be made to share in their political actions; he, however, refused to obey and risked the uttermost penalties rather than be a partaker in their unholy deeds. So when I beheld all these actions and others of a similar grave kind, I was indignant, and I withdrew myself from the evil practices then going on.[13]

Notice carefully what Plato mentioned above: “the government then existing, reviled as it was by many” and: “I imagined that they would administer the State by leading it out of an unjust way of life into a just way”.  That is, he is apparently referring to the previous “democracy” as an “unjust way of life” that was “reviled by many.” It seems to me that the whole situation was mainly a war between different groups of elites, jockeying for power.

But then, Plato notes, within a short time, The Thirty turned bad, one might say.  And we don’t know why (other than the suggestion mooted above) and I doubt that a 20 year old Plato was able to understand it either.  But, one point I would like to make is this:  if Socrates was so disobliging toward The Thirty, why did they not charge and execute him also, since it is claimed they were busily decimating the ranks of those who favored democracy (Greek style, that is)?  Did his student/friend, Critias, prevent such action?  Or did the elites fear the masses? In this work, Plato in general corroborates the consensus of other sources, that the rule of the Thirty made the old way - reviled by many – look like a golden age. But consider, what else was Plato to write when his very life depended on reviling the Thirty?  After all, his teacher was executed by those who deposed them and who were still in power!

Luciano Canfora has suggested that Xenophon, one of Socrates’ students, was one of the two commanders of the cavalry which was the militia of The Thirty.[14]  That is a bit awkward considering that, in his Memorabilia (Bk 1, Ch 2), Xenophon, too, writes about a contentious confrontation between Socrates and the Thirty, Critias included. Socrates was summoned before them and ordered not to instruct or speak to anyone, whereupon Socrates mocked the order by asking sarcastically whether he will be allowed to ask to buy food in the marketplace.

So, can it be that Xenophon also was involved in whitewashing history? Such a passage would be recognized as criticism of The Thirty and an attempt to establish that Socrates’ relationship with Critias was not so close after all. Well, it certainly could happen that the relationship between Critias and Socrates had deteriorated once the former had risen to power, but still, and again, it was only after the removal of the Thirty that Socrates was charged and executed.  That ineluctable fact is troubling.

Let me here, once again, remind you of the timeline of events:

405 BC the Athenian fleet was defeated by Lysander at Aegospotami in 405 BC, the exact spot where the famous meteorite of Anaxagoras was said to have fallen.

404 BC – End of Peloponnesian war, death of Alcibiades; reign of the Thirty “Tyrants”.

399 BC – Death of Socrates.

Considering Alcibiades, Anytus, the timeline of events, it surely makes one wonder if the charges against Socrates were not trumped up out of the jealousy of Anytus and perhaps his grief at the death of Alcibiades.  

The Wounded Alcibiades

Jean Charles Nicaise Perrin (1754–1831) 

Apparently, it was very difficult to find a way to charge Socrates since his life was in every way exemplary and the charges against him may have been supported by only one, egregious example set by what appears to have been a psychopath: Alcibiades, and possibly blaming all the acts of the Thirty on his other student, Critias.  Xenophon lumped Critias in with his friend Alcibiades in his criticism:

    Critias and Alcibiades became disciples of Socrates and did the city much harm. For, in the oligarchy, Critias turned into the most thievish and violent and murderous of all, while Alcibiades, in the democracy, was of all men the most uncontrolled and wanton and violent.  If the two of them did the city harm, I shall not offer a defense.[15]

Blaming Socrates for the actions of Alcibiades and the Thirty might very well have turned the Greek public against him.

Marcello Bacciarelli - Alcibiades Being Taught by Socrates 1776-77 

What was Plato trying to convey in his Symposium when he introduced Alcibiades in a drunken state and had him recognize the nobility of Socrates? Was Plato implicating him indirectly in some way?

Nevertheless, the fact is, Critias was, in ancient times, castigated for his role as one of the Thirty.  Philostratus, in his Lives of the Sophists, had much to say about him.  His most damning comments were:

    In cruelty and in bloodthirstiness he outdid the Thirty. He also collaborated with the Spartans in absurd resolution in order that Attica, emptied of its flock of men, might become a grazing-ground for sheep. Hence it seems to me that he is the worst of all the men who have gained a reputation for wickedness… It appears to some that he became a good man toward the end of his life, inasmuch as he employed tyranny as his winding-sheet [burial shroud]. But let it be declared on my part that none among men died well in behalf of a poor choice. And it seems to me that for this reason the man’s wisdom and his thoughts were taken less seriously by the Greeks. Unless speech corresponds to character, we shall appear to be discoursing in an alien language, as though we were playing flutes.[16]

And yet, in the late 4th century, Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, wrote:

    The many do not demand a statement of the case if you wish to extol Achilles, for all know his deeds; yet it is necessary to make use of them. Also, if you wish to extol Critias, it is necessary. For not many know his deeds.[17]

This last suggests to us that Critias was worthy of praise, but that no one knew the truth!

And this is the ever-present historical problem described in detail by Robert Morstein-Marx in his magisterial biography of Julius Caesar: the teleological perspective of history.  

In the case of Caesar, our perception of Caesar is due to the malicious and corrosive influence of Cicero who totally contaminated our understanding of "what really happened."  We need to understand Cicero's rhetoric for what it was: propaganda.  Julius Caesar's political acts and interventions were legitimate responses to the needs and demands of the Roman people.  They were not demagogic manipulations as Cicero and those following him characterized them.  In every case, Caesar acted according to traditional Republican norms.  

The bottom line, according to Morstein-Marx, is that historical outcomes cannot give us straight-forward retrospective verdicts about the relative weight of the various causes that led to them.  Historical outcomes can change in significance depending on the viewer's vantage point.  Human beings are designed to "detect meaning" and sometimes this works against us.  We know the end-point of a story and seek to explain it.  We sift through the data and pick out what is congruent with the known telos, the end of the story, and discard those that do not fit. When the facts have been sifted and examined carefully, as Morstein-Marx does, the destruction of the Roman Republic is most assuredly the fault of Marcus Cato, Pompey, and Cicero, NOT Julius Caesar.  Those three destroyed the Republic and blamed it on Caesar.  (See Morstein-Marx: Julius Caesar and the Roman People, Cambridge University Press, 2021)  

So, my point here is, we simply can't take histories written by the victors, or by those who are in fear of the reprisal of the rulers, as necessarily "what really happened".   

With all of the above in mind, I think it is now time to talk about Plato.

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[1] Founder of the Cyrenaic school of Philosophy. He was a pupil of Socrates, but adopted a very different philosophical outlook, teaching that the goal of life was to seek pleasure by adapting circumstances to oneself and by maintaining proper control over both adversity and prosperity.

[2] Diogenes Laertius, II 21-23.

[3] Cleckley (1941, 1988) The Mask of Sanity.

[4] Thucydides, viii.97.3; Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades, 33.1.

[5] Xenophon, Hellenica, ii.3.15.

[6] Xenophon, Hellenica, ii.3.36.

[7] Xenophon Memorabilia, i.2.24.

[8] Philostratus, i.16.

[9] Xenophon, Memorabilia, i.2.32.

[10] Xenophon, Memorabilia, i.2.30.

[11] Xenophon, Memorabilia, i.2.31.

[12]  Plato, Apology 32c-d

[13] Plato, Letter 7, 324b-325a.

[14] Luciano Canfora Storie di Oligarchi

[15] Xenophon, Memorabilia, i.2.12-13.

[16] Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, i.16.

[17] Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii.16 (1416b26)