Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades
Extreme Charisma?
Preview Discussion
The eros of Alcibiades
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
3
“He had a golden shield made for him,
which was emblazoned not with any
ancestral device, but with the figure of
Eros armed with a thunderbolt.”
(Plutarch Alcibiades p. 58)
11-20 2012
Eros, Zeus with thunderbolts.
Plutarch Alcibiades
4
Comments
• eromenos
•
• “who I am”
•
•
desirable al
• dysfunctional eros
•
I am mr carrot and stick
I’m hubristic
love-hate relationship
• relied on eros
•
ingratiated self with demos
• eros with lightening bolts
•
•
lightening is the bia part
both separate and
simultaneous eros/bia
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
5
Agenda
• Debate Continued
• Women in Aristophanes' Lysistrata embody
positive role models (politically, etc.).
• Reading the Body Rhetorical
• Alcibiades and Charisma
• Discussion
• Alcibiades — Which Lens?
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
6
Debate Continued
Women in Aristophanes' Lysistrata embody
positive role models (politically, etc.).
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
7
Two Quotes
Chorus Leader to Lysistrata:
Magistrate (on Demostratus)
Hail the bravest of all women!
Now you must be more besides:
Firm but soft, high-class but low-brow,
Strict but lenient, versatile.
Delegates from every city,
captured by your potent charms,
Come before you and request your
arbitration of their cause. (p. 142)
. . . a noisy rooftop party for Adonis,
just like the one that spoiled our
assembly.
That ill-starred, foolish politician moved
we sail to Sicily, while his wife was
dancing
and yelling for Adonis. When he said,
let’s muster allied troops for this armada,
his wife was on the rooftop getting drunk
and yelling ‘Oh doomed youth!’ But he
persisted,
the goddamned stubborn hotheaded son
of a bitch! (p. 110)
Reading the Body Rhetorical
Alcibiades and Charisma
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
9
“Theophrastus noted long ago that the strongest desire
of men who have attained to leadership in a popularly
governed state is not so much the acquirement of personal
wealth as the gradual establishment of their own
sovereignty at the expense of popular sovereignty.”
(Michels 349)
“The leader (demagogue) rules by virtue of the devotion
and trust which his political followers have in him
personally” (Weber 268)
“Greek writers about politics all thought that the
‘demagogues’ gained and maintained their authority
through substantive promises [i.e., rather than through “emotional
appeals”]…. The evidence, as I read it, fully supports that
view.” (Finley 98)
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
10
Kharis, Charisma, Charm
• “Charisma” < kharis
• “charm,” “pleasure,” “favor”
• Compare
• pros kharin legein (Demosthenes)
• kharizomai & cognates (Aristophanes Knights)
• sexual
• political
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
11
And Alcibiades?
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
12
Al’s Life and Times
ca. 450
431
432-431
ca. 427
424
421
417/6
416
11-20 2012
Born.
Peloponnesian War
starts.
Potidaean campaign.
Follower of Cleon.
Battle of Delium.
Peace with Sparta .
Melian debate.
Olympic victory.
Ostracism survived.
Sicilian Debate.
415
413
413-412
411
408
406
404
404-403
Plutarch Alcibiades
Mysteries affair. Defection
to Sparta.
Fortification of Decelea.
Sicilian disaster. Defection
to Persians.
Oligarchic coup.
Repatriation.
Re-exile.
Sparta defeats Athens.
Tyranny of 30. Al
murdered.
13
Kharis
“As for Alcibiades’ beauty, . . . it
flowered at each season of his
growth in turn, and lent him
and extraordinary grace and
charm (erasmion kai hēdun). . . .
Even his lisp is said to have
suited his voice well and to have
made his talk persuasive and full
of charm (kharis)” (245-246)
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
14
Erōs: Various Writers
•
•
Comic poet’s quip
“Though seemingly no man, he’s
sure man enough for any
woman.” (Pherecrates fr. 164
PCG)
Bion of Borysthenes
“In his adolescence he drew
away the husbands from their
wives, and as a young man the
wives from their husbands.” (ca.
300 BCE, in Diogenes Laertius
4.7.49)
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
15
Erōs: Plutarch’s Life
•
•
•
•
“He had a golden shield made for him, which was emblazoned not
with any ancestral device, but with the figure of Eros armed with a
thunderbolt.” (Plutarch Alcibiades p. 58)
“But the weakness which his tempters played upon most of all was
his love of distinction (philotimia) and his desire for fame
(philodoxia)” (p. 250)
“The hopes he aroused among the Athenians were great enough,
but his own were even more ambitious, for while others regarded
Sicily as the final objective …, to him it was no more than a
springboard” (p. 260)
“The sway which he held over the humbler and poorer classes was
so potent that they were filled with an extraordinary passion (eros)
for him to rule them as a dictator (turannos)” (p. 280)
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
16
Savvy Orator?
•
General assessment:
“Alcibiades possessed in a higher degree than any of his
contemporaries the faculty of discerning and grasping what
was required of a given situation.” (Plutarch Alcibiades p.
253)
•
Samos, 411:
“He not only convinced the people and showed them their
danger by his speeches in public, but he appealed to them as
individuals, using entreaties with some and force with
others.” (pp. 272–3)
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
17
Discussion
Alcibiades — Which Lens?
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
18
“Theophrastus noted long ago that the strongest desire
of men who have attained to leadership in a popularly
governed state is not so much the acquirement of personal
wealth as the gradual establishment of their own
sovereignty at the expense of popular sovereignty.” (Michels
349)
“The leader (demagogue) rules by virtue of the devotion
and trust which his political followers have in him
personally” (Weber 268)
“Greek writers about politics all thought that the
‘demagogues’ gained and maintained their authority
through substantive promises [i.e., rather than through “emotional
appeals”]…. The evidence, as I read it, fully supports that
view.” (Finley 98)
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
19
Discussion…
• weber charisma in action
• fits all three
• finley – substantive promises
• weber applies – charisma
• michels – ambition, oligarchic side
11-20 2012
Plutarch Alcibiades
20