Alkibiades, a tale of the Great Athenian War

by Charles Hamilton Bromby

It is a great event in a man’s life when he first takes his seat in a popular assembly. After many years of hope deferred and unsuccessful efforts, when, each time we try, we think this time at last we must succeed, and then, when the votes are counted, after waiting with ill-concealed anxiety for the result, we find we have again just missed the mark, and we determine we will never, never try again; when we think, after all, the game is not worth playing, and we have to make a speech thanking those who have voted for us, and hinting at all we might have done for our opponents, as well as for those who have given us their support; and then, and then, come other opportunities, and we allow ourselves to be persuaded, against the grave advice of friends and relatives, to try once more, and then, if at length we are elected, with what strange indescribable feelings we walk in and take our place, if there is room for us, upon those seats it has cost us so much to get at! Those only who have undergone all this can really know the feeling.

True, Alkibiades had not to wait until he could get the people’s vote and confidence as against some other candidate, but he had waited for at least ten years till he was old enough. Though there was no precise law at Athens forbidding citizens to speak as soon as they had completed their twentieth year, the age at which they were capable of assisting at the meetings of the Ekklesia, there was so strong an unwritten custom against anyone below the age of thirty presuming to address the great Assembly that it had all the force of law.

In fact, few ever spoke at all except the wealthy, the high-born, or the trained orators. So great was the critical nicety of the Athenian ear and taste that any fault of grammar or pronunciation, which all but the well-educated few could not help but make, at once called forth a clamour of disgust. It was only by force of impudence, or extraordinary natural power, that such men as Hyperbolos or Kleon could gain a hearing.

During all these tedious ten years he had felt how much fitter he was to direct affairs, to persuade the people, to govern in their name, than those who were in power. He saw the short-sightedness, and all the wretched bungling, both in peace and war, of a man like Nikias. He saw the mistakes and weakness of Kleon, and while admiring the skill and artifice with which the demagogue could gain his ends, he could not help despising his—well, his want of breeding. Still, for a whole year after the time when he might have spoken, he only pondered over and elaborated his great designs, and thought or talked of them in private; with marvellous restraint he held his peace in public, and bided his time.

At length the full time came. The day arrived at last when he might not only sit and vote, but might also mount the steps of the great stone tribune, and loudly speak his long-pent-up thoughts unto his fellow-citizens.

Argos, it was known, had been in treaty for some time with Lakedaimôn for an alliance. An alliance between these, the two strongest states in the Peloponnesos, against Athens meant the end of the Athenian Empire.

Nikias had given back to Sparta the prisoners Kleon had taken at Sphakteria, without receiving any compensating advantage in return for them. So the Athenians lost the great check they had held for so long upon their rivals. Sparta had promised, in return, to restore Amphipolis; but this she had not done. She undertook, on oath, to assist Athens in her wars; she gave her no assistance in her efforts to recover her revolted dependencies. She was bound by the terms of the alliance not to make a treaty with anyone without the consent of Athens; but she made a treaty with Boiotia, the most dangerous enemy of Athens, without consulting her.

At last even Nikias and his party, who were answerable for the peace, grew weary. Alkibiades, who at one time had imagined, and hoped for, the possibility of a peace with Sparta, the home of many of his ancestors, and, indeed, had endeavoured to bring it about, now saw the hopelessness of ever being able to trust such a people. He also foresaw the strength it would bring to Athens, the perils it would save her from, if her future policy were alliance with Argos against Sparta.

There never could be, he was convinced, a lasting truce with Sparta. She was oligarchic and dishonest. Argos was democratic, and he had reason to know from his friends there that the Argives, together with the people of Elis and Mantineia, were about to send an embassy to Athens to treat for an alliance. The Spartans, hearing of this, and frightened by the warnings and threats of their friend Nikias, thought it was time they too should send ambassadors to explain their conduct, and prevent, if possible, the proposed alliance with the Argives and their allies. Both embassies arrived at the same time at Athens.

Endios, a leading Lakedaimônian of high birth, whom we shall meet again, was one of the three Spartan ambassadors. He was a relation and firm friend of the family of Alkibiades, and was his guest during his visit to Athens.