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10 A Tragic Downfall (Alc. 35-39) In the last five chapters of his Life of Alcibiades, Plutarch describes Alcibiades’ final downfall. Three stages can be discerned. First, Alcibiades gradually falls into disfavour with the Athenians, so that he is eventually compelled to move to Thrace (35.1-36.5). Next, the Athenian fleet suffers a crushing defeat at Aegospotami. Alcibiades at first retires to Bithynia but then decides to go and summon the aid of Artaxerxes (36.6-37.8). Finally, he is murdered in Phrygia during the reign of the Thirty (38-39). Several of the events reported in Alc. 35-39 also figure in Plutarch’s Life of Lysander, which was most likely written before the Life of Alcibiades1 . 1. In Absentia (Alc. 35.1-36.5) 1.1. The Expedition against Andros (Alc. 35.1-2) In Alc. 34.3, we were told that the idea to re-establish the overland procession to Eleusis occured to Alcibiades when he was on the verge of leaving Athens with a hundred ships. In Alc. 35.2, it turns out that this great naval operation was only delayed, not lost. The new episode is carefully linked up to the previous part of the Life. Having just told us that the successful restoration of the Eleusinian procession filled the poor with an amazing passion for Alcibiades to rule as a tyrant (Alc. 34.7), Plutarch begins Alc. 35 by stating that “it is uncertain what thoughts he had about a tyranny himself”2 . He then explains that the most powerful citizens in Athens were afraid, and wanted him to leave as soon as possible; therefore, they voted everything he desired, including the colleagues of his own choice (35.2). Diodorus Siculus (XIII 69.3) and Cornelius Nepos (Alc. 7.1) only report the fact that Alcibiades got the colleagues he wanted for his new expedition3 . Did Plutarch himself devise the interpretation offered in 1 See supra, pp. 93-95. 2 Alc. 35.1: αὐτὸς μὲν οὖν ἐκεῖνος ἣν εἶχε διάνοιαν περὶ τῆς τυραννίδος, ἄδηλόν ἐστιν. 3 Cf. Büchsenschütz 1871, 232; Natorp 1876, 38; Bleckmann 1998, 482. At D.S. XIII 69.3, the manuscripts read “εἵλετο (ms. P: εἴλατο) δὲ καὶ στρατηγοὺς ἑτέρους ἐκεῖνος οὓς ἤθελεν, Ἀδείμαντον καὶ Θρασύβουλον”, but I prefer to read “εἵλαντο δὲ καὶ στρατηγοὺς 352 a tragic downfall (ALC. 35-39) Alc. 35.1? The picture surely looks very familiar. Once more, we see a minority turn against Alcibiades (cf. Alc. 19; 24.3-4). As for their motives, it is not for the first time that the leading citizens of Athens are said to have been afraid that Alcibiades would install a tyranny (cf. Alc. 16.2; 16.7). This time, however, their fear is not aroused by Alcibiades’ own behaviour but rather by his immense popularity among the members of the lower classes. In other words, envy seems to have come into play again as well (cf. Alc. 24.3-4; 33.2). Finally, the blind spot is where it has always been: we still do not learn whether Alcibiades himself aspired to tyranny4 . The only difference is that Plutarch now does not simply keep silent about the political ambitions of his protagonist but explicitly calls the tyranny question a moot one. Having left Athens, Alcibiades attacked Andros. Plutarch’s account of this undertaking is very brief and bluntly presents the expedition as a half failure (35.2)5 : προσβαλὼν Ἄνδρῳ, μάχῃ μὲν ἐκράτησεν αὐτῶν καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων ὅσοι παρῆσαν, οὐχ εἷλε δὲ τὴν πόλιν. Having attacked Andros, he defeated the inhabitants and the Spartans who were stationed there, but he did not capture the city. The two other extant reports are more positive. Xenophon relates that Alcibiades erected a trophy after the Athenians had shut up the Andrians in their city and had killed the Spartans that had been stationed there (HG I 4.22-23)6 . Diodorus underscores the merit of the victory on the battlefield and states that Alcibiades left an adequate garrison in the fort he had captured first (XIII 69.4-5). The explanation for this difference in tone is not far away: according to Plutarch, the events at Andros enabled Alcibiades’ enemies to level a new charge against him (35.2); if Plutarch wanted his readers to understand how, he had to draw attention to Alcibiades’ failure to capture the city. In short, the ἑτέρους οὓς ἐκεῖνος ἤθελεν, Ἀδείμαντον καὶ Θρασύβουλον”. I do not accept the conjectures of Dindorf and Vogel because of the similarity with Alc. 35.1 but because they make the sentence fit much better into Diodorus’ text: the main verbs of all the preceding sentences in XIII 69.2-3 are in the third person plural of the aorist indicative, and the next...

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