Abstract

The Alcibiades purports to offer us the very first conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades. Previously, it seems, Socrates has just lingered at the back of a crowd of lovers looking rather stupid. This is hardly surprising. Socrates did look stupid, and both Aristophanes and his rival Ameipsias thought that he was good enough material for a laugh to present him on stage in their comedies at the Dionysia of 423 BC. The only slight surprise here is that Alcibiades, though he is mentioned in other Aristophanic comedies, is never actually named in the Clouds. One might suspect that the young man Pheidippides, whom Socrates exposes to the corrupting influence of philosophic argument and the ensuing amoral attitudes, bears some relationship to Alcibiades. He shares with him a partially Alcmaeonid background, a passion for horse-racing, and an interesting lisp, but as the play stands Pheidippides is never seen as having been in any way close to Socrates.1 Their relationship is in fact akin to one between the principal of a college and an individual first-year student, with no sinister overtones whatever. I doubt that the relationship with Alcibiades had by that stage been seen as in any way unusual; either its bizarre nature was a well-kept secret, or it was not seen as very unusual after all. Alcibiades had experienced the attentions of a host of would-be lovers, so what would have made Socrates special?