Complete Works (126 page)

55
. Protagoras of Abdera, whose life spanned most of the fifth century
B.C.
, was the most famous of the early sophists. We have a vivid portrayal of him in Plato’s
Protagoras
and an intriguing reconstruction of his epistemology in the
Theaetetus
.

56
. Literally, “the might of the Chalcedonian”: a Homeric figure referring to Thrasymachus, who came from Chalcedon. Cf. 261c.

57
. Pericles, who dominated Athens from the 450s until his death in 429
B.C.
, was famous as the most successful orator-politician of his time. The quotation is from the early Spartan poet Tyrtaeus, fragment 12.8 (Edmonds). Adrastus is a legendary warrior hero of Argos, one of the main characters in Euripides’
Suppliants
.

58
. Reading
anoias
at a5.

59
. Hippocrates, a contemporary of Socrates, is the famous doctor whose name is given to the Hippocratic Oath. None of the written works that have come down to us under his name express the view attributed to him in what follows. All doctors were said to be descendants of Asclepius, hero and god of healing.

60
. At 259e ff.

61
. Socrates may be referring to Corax, whose name is also the Greek word for “crow.”

62
. Literally, “is likely.”

63
. Naucratis was a Greek trading colony in Egypt. The story that follows is probably an invention of Plato’s (see 275b3) in which he reworks elements from Egyptian and Greek mythology.

64
. Theuth (or Thoth) is the Egyptian god of writing, measuring, and calculation. The Greeks identified Thoth with Hermes, perhaps because of his role in weighing the soul. Thoth figures in a related story about the alphabet at
Philebus
18b.

65
. As king of the Egyptian gods, Ammon (Thamus) was identified by Egyptians with the sun god Ra and by the Greeks with Zeus.

66
. Accepting the emendation of
Thamoun
at d4.

67
. Gardens of Adonis were pots or window boxes used for forcing plants during the festival of Adonis.

68
. Isocrates (436–338
B.C.
) was an Athenian teacher and orator whose school was more famous in its day than Plato’s Academy.

ALCIBIADES

Translated by D. S. Hutchinson. Except where noted, the translation follows the edition of J. Burnet; I have also consulted the edition of Antonio Carlini,
Platone: Alcibiade,
Alcibiade Secondo, Ipparco, Rivali
(Turin, 1964).—D.S.H.

Socrates feels that the time has come to approach Alcibiades and bring him into
his intellectual and moral orbit. It is Alcibiades’ lust for power that Socrates appeals
to, promising that Alcibiades will never amount to anything without his
help. In the discussion that follows, Alcibiades is brought to see, very reluctantly,
that he knows nothing about moral values or political expediency and
that he needs to cultivate himself assiduously in order to realize his enormous
ambitions.

But what is this “self” that he needs to cultivate? It is his soul, the ruler of
his body. The virtues of the soul that he needs to acquire are the intellectual
skills that give it the authority to rule, over its body and over other people as
well. Alcibiades is dismayed to recognize that he has no knowledge of himself
and is currently fit to be ruled, not to rule. He attaches himself to Socrates to
cultivate the knowledge of virtue and pledges undying devotion to Socrates and
his values, a pledge which Socrates presciently distrusts, for Alcibiades was notorious
in later life for his unprincipled conduct. He became a brilliant Athenian
politician and general in the Peloponnesian War, but he defected to the
Spartan side when accused of capital crimes in Athens and later became a double
agent in the war between Athens and Persia.

Socrates wins Alcibiades over, but their affair remains on a Platonic level; in
fact, their love affair gave us the term ‘Platonic love’. Many of Socrates’ followers
wrote versions of this love story: Euclides, Antisthenes, and Aeschines each
wrote an
Alcibiades
dialogue—some fragments of Aeschines’ survive, in
which Alcibiades eventually weeps with humiliation. Plato’s
Symposium
also
contributes to this genre, in an inventive way, in the speech in praise of Socrates
by the drunken Alcibiades. Platonic love is an intensely affectionate, but
not a sexual, relationship; but with Socrates and Alcibiades it was also a teaching
relationship, in which Socrates tried to help Alcibiades make the transition
to manhood by his stimulating conversation.

Because of its emphasis on self-knowledge as the necessary foundation of any
other worthwhile knowledge,
Alcibiades
held pride of place in later antiquity
as the ideal work with which to begin the study of Platonic philosophy. We
have extensive commentaries from Olympiodorus (complete) and Proclus (first
half only) and fragments of commentaries by Iamblichus, Damascius, and others.
Proclus says, “Let this then be the start of philosophy and of the teaching
of Plato, viz., the knowledge of ourselves.”

Until the nineteenth century
Alcibiades
was assumed to be the work of
Plato, but the ascription to Plato is now a minority view. It resembles Plato’s
‘Socratic’ dialogues in its plain conversational quality, but it reflects later Academic
doctrine as well. The clearest argument against Plato’s authorship is
probably that Plato never wrote a work whose interpretation was as simple and
straightforward as that of
Alcibiades
. That very quality makes it an excellent
introduction to philosophy.

If Plato is not the author, the signs point to an Academic philosopher writing
in the 350s or soon after (116d). The anthropology implicit in
Alcibiades
is similar to Aristotle’s, and the Aristotelian
Magna Moralia
(1213a20–24)
takes up the striking idea that self-knowledge is best gained through a philosophical
friendship in which we see ourselves, as if in a mirror (132c–133c).

D.S.H.

[103]
S
OCRATES
: I was the first man to fall in love with you, son of Clinias, and now that the others have stopped pursuing you I suppose you’re wondering why I’m the only one who hasn’t given up—and also why, when the others pestered you with conversation, I never even spoke to you all these years. Human causes didn’t enter into it; I was prevented by some divine being, the effect of which you’ll hear about later on. But [b] now it no longer prevents me, so here I am. I’m confident it won’t prevent me in future either.

I’ve been observing you all this time, and I’ve got a pretty good idea how you treated all those men who pursued you: they held themselves in high esteem, but you were even more arrogant and sent them packing,
[104]
every single one of them. I’d like to explain the reason why you felt yourself so superior.

You say you don’t need anybody for anything, since your own qualities, from your body right up to your soul, are so great there’s nothing you lack. In the first place, you fancy yourself the tallest and best-looking man around—and it’s quite plain to see you’re not wrong about that. Next, you think that yours is the leading family in your city, which is the greatest [b] city in Greece: on your father’s side you have plenty of aristocratic friends and relations, who would be of service to you if there was any need; and on your mother’s side your connections are no worse and no fewer. And you have Pericles son of Xanthippus,
¹
whom your father left as a guardian to you and your brother; you think he’s a more powerful ally than all those people I mentioned put together—he can do whatever he likes, not only in this city, but anywhere in Greece, and also in many important foreign countries. I will also mention your wealth, but I think that’s the [c] least of the reasons you hold yourself in high esteem. You bragged about all those things and got the better of your suitors; they didn’t measure up and came off the worse. You knew what was going on.

And so I’m sure you’re wondering what I could possibly have in mind—why don’t I give up on you? The others have all been sent packing, so what do I hope to achieve by persisting?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes, Socrates, perhaps you don’t realize that you’ve just taken the words out of my mouth. I had already decided to come and ask [d] you that very question: what could you have in mind? What do you hope to achieve by bothering me, always making so sure you’re there wherever I am? Yes, I really do wonder what you might be up to, and I’d be very glad to find out.

S
OCRATES
: So then you’ll probably be eager to give me your full attention, since, as you say, you’re keen to know what I have in mind. I take it that you’ll listen carefully?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes, of course—just tell me.

S
OCRATES
: Watch out—I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I found it as hard [e] to stop as it was to start.

A
LCIBIADES
: Tell me, please. I will pay attention.

S
OCRATES
: Speak I must, then. It’s not easy to play the role of suitor with a man who doesn’t give in to them; nevertheless, I must summon up my courage and say what’s on my mind.

Alcibiades, if I saw that you were content with the advantages I just mentioned and thought that this was the condition in which you should live out the rest of your life, I would have given up on you long ago; at
[105]
least that’s what I persuade myself. But I’m going to prove to you in person what very different plans you actually have in mind. Then you’ll realize how constantly I’ve been thinking about you.

Suppose one of the gods asked you, “Alcibiades, would you rather live with what you now have, or would you rather die on the spot if you weren’t permitted to acquire anything greater?” I think you’d choose to die. What then
is
your real ambition in life? I’ll tell you. You think that as soon as you present yourself before the Athenian people—as indeed [b] you expect to in a very few days—by presenting yourself you’ll show them that you deserve to be honored more than Pericles or anyone else who ever was. Having shown that, you’ll be the most influential man in the city, and if you’re the greatest here, you’ll be the greatest in the rest of Greece, and not only in Greece, but also among the foreigners who live on the same continent as we do.

And if that same god were then to tell you that you should have absolute power in Europe, but that you weren’t permitted to cross over into Asia [c] or get mixed up with affairs over there, I think you’d rather not live with only that to look forward to; you want your reputation and your influence to saturate all mankind, so to speak. I don’t think you regard anybody as ever having been much to speak of, except perhaps Cyrus and Xerxes.
²
I’m not guessing that this is your ambition—I’m sure of it.

Since you know that what I say is true, maybe you’ll say, “Well then, [d] Socrates, what’s this got to do with your point? You said you were going to tell me why you haven’t given up on me.”
³
Yes, I will tell you, my dear son of Clinias and Dinomache. It is impossible to put any of these ideas of yours into effect without me—that’s how much influence I think I have over you and your business. I think this is why the god hasn’t allowed me to talk to you all this time; and I’ve been waiting for the day he allows me.

[e] I’m hoping for the same thing from you
⁴
as you are from the Athenians: I hope to exert great influence over you by showing you that I’m worth the world to you and that nobody is capable of providing you with the influence you crave, neither your guardian nor your relatives, nor anybody else except me—with the god’s help, of course. When you were younger, before you were full of such ambitions, I think the god didn’t let me talk
[106]
to you because the conversation would have been pointless. But now he’s told me to, because now you will listen to me.

A
LCIBIADES
: Really, Socrates, now that you’ve started talking you seem much more bizarre to me than when you followed me in silence, though you were very bizarre to look at then, too. Well, on the question of whether or not these are my ambitions, you seem to have made up your mind already, and no denial of mine will do anything to convince you otherwise. Fine. But supposing I really do have these ambitions, how will you help me achieve them? What makes you indispensable? Have you got something to say?

[b] S
OCRATES
: Are you asking if I can say some long speech like the ones you’re used to hearing? No, that sort of thing’s not for me. But I do think I’d be able to show you that what I said is true, if only you were willing to grant me just one little favor.

A
LCIBIADES
: Well, as long as you mean a favor that’s not hard to grant, I’m willing.

S
OCRATES
: Do you think it’s hard to answer questions?

A
LCIBIADES
: No, I don’t.

S
OCRATES
: Then answer me.

A
LCIBIADES
: Ask me.

S
OCRATES
: My question is whether you have in mind what I say you have in mind.

[c] A
LCIBIADES
: Let’s say I do, if you like, so I can find out what you’re going to say.

S
OCRATES
: Right then; you plan, as I say, to come forward and advise the Athenians some time soon. Suppose I stopped you as you were about to take the podium and asked, “Alcibiades, what are the Athenians proposing to discuss? You’re getting up to advise them because it’s something you know better than they do, aren’t you?” What would you reply?