Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades Extreme Charisma?.

Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades

Extreme Charisma?

3Plutarch Alcibiades

Preview Discussion

The eros of Alcibiades

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4Plutarch AlcibiadesEros, Zeus with thunderbolts.

“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)

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Comments

• eromenos• desirable al

• dysfunctional eros• 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

• “who I am”• I am mr carrot and stick• I’m hubristic

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Agenda

• Debate Continued• Women in Aristophanes' Lysistrata embody

positive role models (politically, etc.).

• Reading the Body Rhetorical• Alcibiades and Charisma

• Discussion• Alcibiades — Which Lens?

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Debate Continued

Women in Aristophanes' Lysistrata embody positive role models (politically, etc.).

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Two QuotesChorus Leader to Lysistrata: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)

Magistrate (on Demostratus). . . a noisy rooftop party for Adonis,just like the one that spoiled our

assembly.That ill-starred, foolish politician movedwe sail to Sicily, while his wife was

dancingand yelling for Adonis. When he said,let’s muster allied troops for this armada,his wife was on the rooftop getting drunkand yelling ‘Oh doomed youth!’ But he

persisted,the goddamned stubborn hotheaded son

of a bitch! (p. 110)

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Reading the Body Rhetorical

Alcibiades and Charisma

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“Theophrastus noted long ago that the strongest desireof 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)

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Kharis, Charisma, Charm

• “Charisma” < kharis• “charm,” “pleasure,” “favor”

• Compare• pros kharin legein (Demosthenes)• kharizomai & cognates (Aristophanes Knights)

• sexual• political

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And Alcibiades?

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Al’s Life and Timesca. 450 Born.431 Peloponnesian War

starts.432-431 Potidaean campaign.ca. 427 Follower of Cleon.424 Battle of Delium.421 Peace with Sparta . 417/6 Melian debate.416 Olympic victory.

Ostracism survived. Sicilian Debate.

415 Mysteries affair. Defection to Sparta.

413 Fortification of Decelea.413-412 Sicilian disaster. Defection

to Persians. 411 Oligarchic coup.408 Repatriation. 406 Re-exile.404 Sparta defeats Athens.404-403 Tyranny of 30. Al

murdered.

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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Discussion

Alcibiades — Which Lens?

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“Theophrastus noted long ago that the strongest desireof 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)

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Discussion…

• weber charisma in action• fits all three

• finley – substantive promises• weber applies – charisma• michels – ambition, oligarchic side

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