Lucy Hughes-Hallett - Heroes - Saviours, Traitors and Supermen

For the next two and a half years, Alcibiades lived in Sparta. Plutarch speaks pityingly of him wandering aimlessly about the city; but there is no evidence that he was humiliated by his hosts. The only story we have about his sojourn in Sparta is that of his liaison with Queen Timea, wife of Agis, one of Sparta’s two kings. Agis was abstaining from sex after an earthquake, which he took to be a divine warning, had interrupted his love-making with Timea. He was absent on campaign when a second earthquake shook the palace and a man was seen escaping from the Queen’s bedroom. That man, according to ancient gossip, was Alcibiades. Nine months later Timea gave birth to a son. The story may be scurrilous (Agis’ other heirs would have had a motive for alleging the baby was illegitimate), but it is perfectly credible. Alcibiades was as attractive as ever and unused to sexual continence. The child was later barred from succession. When challenged about his alleged paternity Alcibiades is reported as saying, with his characteristic arrogance, ‘ that he had not donethis as a mere insult, nor simply to gratify his appetite, but to ensure that his descendants would one day rule over the Spartans’.

While Alcibiades dallied in Sparta the Athenians’ campaign in Sicily ended in horror. The fleet was annihilated. The entire army was either slaughtered or enslaved. The venture for which Alcibiades was largely responsible, and which he had envisioned as the first phase of a glorious series of conquests, left Athens crippled, without money, without ships, without fighting men. At once her colonies began to contemplate secession.

During the winter of 413–412 BC, two years after Alcibiades had arrived in Sparta, the Spartans were twice approached by rebellious oligarchic factions within Athenian colonies asking for support. In both cases the rebels already had Persian backing. The Great King’s satraps in the region were eager to exploit any weakness within the Athenian empire. Alcibiades was among those who advocated sending a fleet to support the rebels on the island of Chios. He must, after two years’ stagnation, have been craving action and the chance to cut a brilliant dash. King Agis, who had presumably heard the stories in circulation about Queen Timea’s surprising pregnancy, was by now openly hostile towards him. Unless he could do the Spartans some signal service Sparta would not be a safe refuge for much longer. He embarked on the second phase of his self-mythologizing. He personally, and he alone, he told the ephors, would be able to break Athens’ hold on the cities of the eastern Mediterranean. ‘ He said he would easilypersuade the cities to revolt by informing them of the weakness of Athens and of the active policy of Sparta; and they would regard his evidence as being particularly reliable.’

The ephors were persuaded. A small fleet was assembled. The first group of ships to set out blundered into the Athenian fleet and were defeated. The commander was killed and the surviving ships blockaded off Epidaurus. The Spartans hesitated. Many were so discouraged by this first setback that they were ready to abandon the venture entirely, but Alcibiades succeeded in holding them to their purpose. A second group of five ships, commanded by the Spartan Chalcides but with Alcibiades on board as mastermind, dashed to Chios, arriving before the news of the first group’s defeat. Any seaman they encountered on the voyage was arrested and taken with them to ensure secrecy. They sailed up to the city while its Council was sitting. Alcibiades and Chalcides disembarked and marched into the assembly. To the consternation of the pro-Athenian party they announced that they were the vanguard of a Peloponnesian fleet (but omitted to mention that the rest of the aforesaid fleet was trapped several hundred miles away). The ruse was successful: their opponents capitulated. First Chios, then the neighbouring cities of Erythraea and Clazomenae, switched allegiance and prepared to resist the Athenians.

The suborning of Chios was a brilliant coup. It bears all Alcibiades’ trademarks: swiftness, audacity, a dependence on his own charisma and histrionic powers, flamboyant deception. Like the great runner Achilles he knew the value of speed, the way an army, or even a man, appearing where the rules of probability decree they cannot possibly be, can be as shocking and awesome as a supernatural apparition, demoralizing opposition and lending fresh courage to allies. Later that same year, after fighting all day in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to repel the Athenians at Miletus, Alcibiades took horse and galloped southward through the night to meet the Peloponnesian fleet as it came into harbour and urge its captains to turn and sail on till morning. At dawn the next day, thanks to his despatch, the fleet appeared off Miletus and the Athenians slunk away ‘without realizing the fruit of their victory’. A masterly manipulator of the facts with which circumstances presented him, Alcibiades was one who could conjure up an illusion of victory, and use it to make that victory real.

His cunning and theatricality as a commander have their parallels in the political games he was obliged to play throughout the last ten years of his life to keep himself alive and in command. He was instrumental in the making of a treaty between the Persians and the Spartans that heavily favoured the former. There were suspicions in Sparta (quite possibly justified) that he was not a faithful servant to his adopted masters, masters who had a reputation for summarily and secretly killing those inconvenient to them. ‘ The most powerfuland ambitious of the Spartans were by now both jealous and tired of him,’ says Plutarch. After the battle of Miletus the Spartan admiral received orders (probably originating with King Agis) to have Alcibiades put to death. Somehow, possibly warned by Queen Timea, who was so recklessly in love with him that in private she called her baby son by his name, Alcibiades heard of the order even before the admiral received it. A condemned man now in both halves of the Greek world, he slipped away from the Peloponnesian fleet and, turning his back not only on his native city but on his native culture, took refuge with the Persian Satrap Tissaphernes at Sardis.

The Satrap received him well. Plutarch describes Tissaphernes as one ‘ who was naturallyinclined to malice and enjoyed the company of rogues, being anything but straightforward himself’, adding that he ‘admired intensely Alcibiades’ versatility and exceptional cleverness’. The Persian and the Athenian, two schemers and conjurors with the truth, became – apparently – fast friends. Once again Alcibiades played the chameleon, adopting (possibly with more enthusiasm than he had adopted Spartan asceticism) Persian luxury and Persian pomp. Once again his extraordinary charm worked its spell. ‘Even those who feared and envied him could not help taking pleasure in his company,’ writes Plutarch. Tissaphernes was so delighted with his guest that he named a pleasure garden ‘decorated in regal and extravagant style’ after him, one ‘famous for its refreshing streams and meadows and pavilions and pleasances’. Alcibiades ‘ became his adviserin all things’, says Thucydides. But his position was terrifyingly insecure, dependent as it was on a web of deceptions. Tissaphernes welcomed him initially on the understanding that he offered advice on behalf of the Spartans, the people who in fact now sought his death. Over the next year he was to play a perilous game of bluff and double-bluff with Persians and Greeks alike, borrowing others’ authority to cloak his real situation, which was that of an impotent and resourceless fugitive, and seeking to impress each party by laying claim to vast influence over another who at best distrusted him, at worst wanted him dead.