Thucydides Roundtable, Book VI: Spot the Alcibiades Points

It is not clear if Alcibiades actually believed the argument Thucydides put into his mouth. It is an unusually self-serving one. Given the outcome of the Sicilian Expedition, it is easy to dismiss it. I would not be so quick to do so. Alcibiades needed something convincing to inspire his fellow citizens to war, and at this point in the contest the Athenians had fallen deep into the cold rhetoric of realpolitik. Alcibiades made a compelling point—the Athenians were a people who could not sit still. Her empire was built on fear of her power and strength of her word. What could maintain that fear in times of plenty and peace? “Take one’s character and institutions for better and for worse,” he advised, “and to live up to them as closely as one can” (6.18).

Athens had reached its Alcibiades point. The Athenians would now either climb the hill or come crashing down it.

[1] Book of Lord Shang, Book 5, Par 1. Translated in J.J.Duyvendak, The Book of Lord Shang, (London: Arthur Probsthain, 1928), 117.

[2] Mark Edward Lewis, Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han

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