Alcibiades

On Friday after finishing up my blog post I read Plutarch and Thucydides both of them talk about Alcibiades and his life.  If you want to watch a fun video about Alcibiades this video does a pretty good job of summarizing his life with some humor added.  If you don't know Alcibiades was an Athenian general and was regarded as one of the most persuasive people in all of Greece. Plutarch said that as a child he convinced the teacher to stop having kids learn the flute. As an adult, he first convinced Athens to go to war in Sicily and fail miserably.  Then to avoid trial he worked for the king of Sparta but he had to leave after he had a child with the queen making him no longer welcome in Sparta. After leaving Sparta he went to Athens where again he served as an advisor.  Then he helped to remove the Athenian democracy an install an Oligarchy of 400 so that he would not be put on trial.    The Athenian army did not like the plot to overthrow democracy and got rid of their generals involved in the plot. They then voted on new generals these generals recommended that Alcibiades was made a general and after a speech, he was elected general by the army.  He was quite successful as a general and had many victories against the enemies of Athens. He returned to Athens as a victor but after a defeat, he was exiled.  The last record of his life is that he tried to give advice to an Athenian fleet but, the fleet did not take his advice and were crushed.  No one his really sure how he died but the descrpition that Plutarch gives is interesting,

"The party sent to kill him did not dare to enter his house, but surrounded it and set it on fire. 3 When Alcibiades was aware of this, he gathered together  p115 most of the garments and bedding in the house and cast them on the fire. Then, wrapping his cloak about his left arm, and drawing his sword with his right, he dashed out, unscathed by the fire, before the garments were in flames, and scattered the Barbarians, who ran at the mere sight of him. Not a man stood ground against him, or came to close quarters with him, but all held aloof and shot him with javelins and arrows. 4 Thus he fell"

         Alcibiades would pose an interesting question to the founding fathers because they would have wanted to protect against people like him from destroying their democracy. For them, he is an example of a demagogue that could help to bring down democracy.  Constraining the ability of one person to convince the masses was something that the founders were very concerned about.  A person like Alcibiades was the exact kind of person that the founders were trying to protect against when they were building a new democracy.  Even though Alcibiades may have been fulfilling the will of the people it is clear that the will of the people is not always best for the country this would make the founders weary to implement direct democracy like Athens.