Against Alcibiades: For Deserting the Ranks

If, again, some of the magistrates come to his support, so as to make a display of their own power, and to enjoy the glory of being able to save even obvious offenders, you ought to observe, in the first place, that if everyone had shown the same character as Alcibades there would have been no need of our generals,—for they would have had nobody to lead,—and secondly, that it is much more their duty to accuse deserters from the ranks than to speak in defense of such creatures. For what hope can we have that the others will comply with the orders issued by the generals,when these lend their authority to the attempt to save the insubordinate?

Now my claim is this: if those who speak as intercessors for Alcibiades can prove that he has been on service in the infantry, or was a cavalryman duly approved on scrutiny, he should be acquitted; but if, for want of any justification, they demand a favor for themselves, you should remember that they are teaching you to break your oath and disobey the laws, and that their excessive zeal in the support of wrongdoers will make many people aspire to the same conduct.

What surprises me most of all, gentlemen, is that any of you can think it right that Alcibiades should be saved on account of his supporters, instead of perishing on account of his villainy. And of that you ought to be told, so that you may understand how unreasonable it would be for you to acquit him on the ground that, though guilty of these offences, in all else he had shown himself a loyal citizen. For the rest of his actions would justify you in condemning him to death.

It is your duty to be informed of them; for you allow those speaking in defence to discourse on their own merits and on the services rendered by their ancestors, and therefore it is fair that you should listen also to accusers when they expose the many crimes that the defendants have committed against you, and the many evils that their ancestors have brought about.

When this man was a child, he was seen by a number of people at the house of Archedemus the Blear-eyed,[*]( A popular leader, who pressed for the prosecution of the commanders after Arginusae, 406 B.C.; cf. Aristoph. Frogs 417.) who had embezzled not a little of your property, drinking the while he lay at length under the same cloak; he carried on his revels till daylight, keeping a mistress when he was under age, and imitating his ancestors, in the belief that he would not achieve distinction in his later years unless he could show himself an utter rascal in his youth.

He was sent for by Alcibiades,[*](His father, then in exile in the Thracian Chersonese.) since his outrageous conduct was becoming notorious. And indeed, what ought you to think of the character of the man whose practices were such as to discredit him even in the eyes of the great ringleader in those ways? He conspired with Theotimus against his father, and betrayed Orni[*](One of the residences of Alcibades in the Chersonese.) to him: but he, when he had gained possession of the stronghold, after abusing him in the flower of youth, ended by imprisoning him and holding him to ransom. But his father felt so deep a hatred of him that he declared that even though he should die he would not recover his bones.

When his father was dead[*](404 B.C.) Archebiades, who had become his lover, obtained his release. Not long afterwards, having diced away his fortune, he took ship at White Cliff,[*](On the Propontis.) and attempted to drown his friends at sea.

Well, to relate all the offences that he has committed, gentlemen, either against the citizens, or against foreigners, or in his dealings with his own relations or with ordinary people, would be a lengthy affair; but Hipponicus assembled a number of witnesses[*](This was the only formality required for a divorce.) and put away his wife, stating that this man had been entering his house, not as her brother, but as her husband.

And after committing offences of this sort, and being guilty of such a number of monstrous and grievous crimes, he is heedless alike of the past and of the future; when he ought to have been the most orderly of citizens, so as to excuse by his own life the offences of his father, he attempts to outrage others, as though he might succeed in imparting to his neighbors some tiny share of his own store of infamies, —and that, too, when he is the son of Alcibiades,

who induced the Lacedaemoniains to fortify Decelea,[*](In Attica, 413 B.C.) who sailed to rouse the islands to revolt, who became a promoter of mischief to our city, and who marched more often in the ranks of the enemy against his native land than those of his fellow-citizens against them! For those actions it is your duty, as it is also of those who are to come after you, to take vengeance on anyone of this family who falls into your hands.

Yet it is a constant habit of his to say that it is unfair, when his father on returning home received gifts from the people,[*](In 407 B.C., when he was welcomed back to a brief popularity on the strength of his friendship with the Persian satrap Tissaphernes.) that he should find himself unjustly discredited on account of his father’s exile. But in my opinion it would be monstrous if, after depriving the father of those gifts as having been unjustly bestowed, you should acquit this man, though a wrongdoer, on the ground of good service done to the city by his father.

And then, gentlemen of the jury, besides other abundant reasons for which he ought to be convicted, there is the fact that he takes your valorous conduct as a precedent to justify his own baseness. For he has the audacity to say that Alcibiades has done nothing outrageous in marching against his native land,

since you in your exile occupied Phyle, cut down trees and assaulted the walls, and by these acts of yours, instead of bequeathing disgrace to your children, you won honor in the eyes of all the world; as though there were no difference in the deserts of men who used their exile to march in the ranks of the enemy against their country, and those who strove for their return while the Lacedaemonians held the city!

And again, I think it must be obvious to all that these others sought to return that they might surrender the command of the sea to the Lacedaemonians, and gain the command of you for themselves; whereas your democracy, on its return, expelled the enemy and liberated even those of our citizens who desired to be slaves. So that there is no such parallel between the actions of the two parties as he seeks to draw.

But despite the many grievous disasters that are upon his head he prides himself on his father’s villainy, and tells us that the man was so mighty that he has been the author of all the troubles that have befallen our city. And yet, what man is there so ignorant of his own country’s affairs that cannot, if he chooses to be a villain, inform the enemy of the positions that ought to be occupied, point out the forts that are ill-guarded, instruct them in the weaknesses of the State, and indicate the allies who desire to secede?[*](Cf. the treachery of Alcibiades recorded by Thuc. 8.6.12.)

For if during his exile it was his power that enabled him to injure the city, how was it that, having obtained his return by deceiving you and being in command of many ships of war, he had not power enough to expel the enemy from our land or to regain for you the friendship of the Chians whom he had alienated, or to do you any other useful service?

Thus there is no difficulty in concluding that on the score of power he had no particular advantage, but that in foul play he stood first of his fellows. For he took upon him to indicate to the Lacedaemonians the points in your affairs which he knew to be in a bad way; but, when he had the duty of holding the command, he was powerless to do them any harm. After undertaking that, for his sake, the king would provide us with money, he embezzled more than two hundred talents of our city’s funds.

So sensible was he of his numerous offences against you that, for all his power of speech, his friends, and his acquisition of wealth, he never once ventured to come under an inquiry, but condemned himself to exile, and preferred to become a citizen of Thrace and any sort of city rather than belong to his own native land. Finally, gentlemen, he outdid his former villainy by daring, with Adeimantus, to surrender the ships to Lysander.[*](The fact rather is that Alcibiades tried to warn the Athenian commanders of the danger of their being surprised at Aegospotami (405 b.c.).)

So, if anyone among you feels pity for those who lost their lives in the sea-fight, or is ashamed for those who were enslaved by the enemy, or resents the destruction of the walls, or hates the Lacedaemonians, or feels anger against the Thirty, he should hold this man’s father responsible for all these things, and reflect that it was Alcibiades, his great-grand-father, and Megacles, his father’s grandfather on the mother’s side, whom your ancestors ostracized,[*](The famous Alcibiades was the son of Cleinias (son of Alcibiades, opponent of the Peisistratids, 510 b.c.), and Deinomache (daughter of Megacles, supporter of the Peisistratid party, 486 b.c.). The people once a year could vote for the expulsion of one citizen from the city, by writing his name on a potsherd (ὄστρακον).) both of them twice, and that the older among you have condemned his father to death.

Wherefore you ought now to condemn this man as one whom you have judged to be a hereditary enemy of the city, and to set neither pity nor forgiveness nor any favour above the established laws and the oaths that you have sworn.