Plutarch's Alcibiades

Link to the Plutarch reading on Alcibiades


Audiobook verion of the Alcibiades reading:

Alcibiades Part 1

Alcibiades Part 2

Alcibiades Part 3

Alcibiades Part 4

Plutarch's Alcibiades, short version: 

THE MAN WITH MANY FACES

TWO boys were wrestling in the streets of Athens, each trying to fling the other to the ground. One of them was just on the point of [52] falling when he bit the hands of his rival, and made him let go his hold.
"Ho!" cried the other wrestler, "you are biting like a woman!"
"No," he replied, "I bite like a lion."
Well, lions may bite if they please; but it does not appear to me to be manly for lads to bite, even in sport.
The boy who bit had a long Greek name—Alcibiades (Al-ki-by-a-deez). He lived from about 450 B.C. to 404 B.C.
One day he was playing at dice with other Athenian lads in the street. Just as he was about to throw the little square blocks of bone a wagon rumbled along, and Alcibiades called out to the driver to stop. The man took no notice of the boy's call, and came on. Thereupon Alcibiades laid himself across the narrow road, and dared the driver to run over him. This, of course, the driver would not do, and he was obliged to come to a halt, and the boy laughed at having got his own way.
When he grew to be a young man he was the talk of the city. He was rich, his house was splendid, his clothes costly; and many persons followed him and courted him in the hope of getting favors and gifts. As a man, he did strange freaks just the same as in his earlier years, and the Athenian folk would tell each other, with smiles, stories of [53] his jests and peculiar deeds. He would not play the flute because he said it made the player twist his mouth into ugly shapes, but he would rather play the stringed instrument called the lyre. And the young men of Athens followed his fashion, and none of them would buy or touch a flute.
A certain man invited Alcibiades to a feast at his house, and prepared a grand meal, setting gold and silver vessels on his table. Many guests were entering the banqueting-hall, when Alcibiades suddenly strode in, attended by several of his serving-men, and he bade them snatch up half the precious cups and carry them away. And they did so. The guests expected the master of the house to rush after Alcibiades and angrily demand his cups back again. The foolish man, however, only said:
"No, let him go. After all, he has only taken half, and if he had liked he might have taken all."
The fact was he was so stupidly fond of Alcibiades that he was ready to give him his richest ornaments. And all the time Alcibiades did not feel respect for these people who were so eager to make his acquaintance. He seemed (at any rate, sometimes) to care much for the company of Socrates. Now, Socrates was an ugly-looking man, who would sit in the market-place of Athens, or in the house of a friend, and talk to the people [54] who gathered about his chair. He was the best and wisest of the citizens, and young men would listen to his speech with great eagerness. I fear, however, that Alcibiades loved many other things quite as much as he loved Socrates, and these things were not always good or useful. He seemed to be a man with many faces. One day he would wear the face of a student, fond of learning. The next day he would wear the face of a clown, taking delight in jokes. He was very changeable.
Having met a well-known and honorable man, Alcibiades went up to him and gave him a box on the ears for no reason whatever, except that he had told his companions he would do so, and they would not believe it. The next morning he called at the house of the old citizen whom he had thus insulted and begged his pardon, and even offered to take any beating which the gentleman might care to give him. But the Athenian bore no ill-will, and freely forgave the daring young man; and I suppose the people passed the story round as a merry jest. He knew the citizens talked about him. He would have been rather miserable if they had not, for he was of a vain and conceited temper. Having bought a very fine dog for a considerable sum of money, he actually cut off the creature's beautiful bushy tail.
"Everybody in the town is talking about the [55] odd way in which you treated your dog," a friend told him.
"This," he replied, "is just what I wanted, for I would rather have the Athenians talk of this action, lest they might find something worse to say about me!"
You will be amused to hear that he, like many Athenians, was fond of breeding a sort of bird called quails. If you look in your book of natural history and examine a picture of a quail, you may not think it a very handsome bird; but it was the fancy of the young men in Athens to make pets of these quails, and Alcibiades used often to carry one under his robe. When he walked in the streets once his quail got loose, and a whole crowd of people went scampering after it to see which should have the honor of restoring it to the owner! They thought Alcibiades a very jolly fellow, and especially when he once sent seven chariots to the Olympic games to take part in the races. Loud were the shouts as he dashed by in one race after another, raising an immense dust about the hoofs of the horses and the wheels of his chariots. He won three prizes, and was so pleased at the result that at his own expense he gave a feast to all the thousands of people who had witnessed the races. When he passed along public places, dressed in a long purple cloak, he was gazed at with much admiration.
[56] "Here is a noble leader for us," some people would say. "See how handsome a man he is; how well he would lead us in war!"
You may remember how I told you of the long, long war (it lasted twenty-eight years) between Athens and Sparta. This struggle was now going on, and the man in the purple cloak—the man with many faces—thought he could be a mighty warrior as well as a flute-player, a quail-breeder, a chariot-racer, and a friend of Socrates. He would make speeches to the crowds, and tell them what a great city Athens was, and what victories she would win. One shrewd man, named Timon, called out to him once:
"Go on, my brave boy, and prosper; for your prosperity will bring ruin on all this crowd."
He meant that, if the people put their faith in Alcibiades, it would do no good to the city.
But for a while Alcibiades made himself a famous name in the wars, and won several battles; and when the Athenians (as I have related) set sail to conquer Sicily he was captain of one hundred and forty galleys, fifty-one hundred soldiers in heavy armor, and thirteen hundred archers and slingers. But he did nothing of much note in Sicily, and was called back to Athens to answer a charge. It was brought against him that, one night, in a mad trick, he and his friends had [57] gone round the streets breaking the images of Hermes (Her-mees), which stood at the doors of all houses in Athens. These images were guardians of the homes, and it was thought a very dreadful thing to interfere with them. Whether Alcibiades had really done this I do not know, but people knew his character, and thought he was quite likely to have insulted the images; and he was condemned to lose his property, and to be sent into exile. Where do you think he went to? He went to Sparta, the city which hated Athens, and was making war against his own native place. In Sparta he acted as he did in Athens. He tried to set everybody admiring him. All his fine clothes were hidden away; he was now dressed in coarse garments; his curls were clipped, his hair close-shaven; he ate the Spartan black bread, and drank the black broth, and sat on rough wooden seats, and would have neither carpets nor pictures in his house. This pleased the people of Sparta, and that was all Alcibiades cared for. He pleased them yet more when he joined their armies, and took part in the war against his own countrymen. When, at length, the King of Sparta grew suspicious of him, and thought he was not to be trusted, the man with many faces went over to Asia Minor, and took refuge with a Persian grandee, or nobleman; and the Persians, as you have heard, were bitter foes to the Athenians, [58] but it was all the same to Alcibiades. With the Persians he drank and ate, and sang and hunted; and they also regarded him as a fine fellow. Later on he changed again, and took the side of Athens, and helped in a sea-battle against the Spartans, and won a victory. Other battles were won, and the citizens welcomed him back, gave him his lands again, and crowned him with crowns of gold.
But this glory did not last. The Spartans were masters at the end of the war, and the walls of Athens lay in ruin.
And where was Alcibiades? He had fled to Asia again, and there the Persians slew him, in order to please the powerful Spartans. They had set fire to his house one night. He sallied out, sword in hand, and died fighting.
Certainly, he was clever; and he was witty; and he was handsome; and he was brave; and he was popular—that is, people thought a great deal of him. And do you consider he was good? No. And why not? His aim was always to make the folk admire him, wonder at him, and talk about him. From one thing to another he changed; in one respect only he was forever the same—he never seemed to care for any one but himself. Socrates was ugly; but we honor his memory. Alcibiades was handsome; his cloak was rich purple; his house filled with treasures; [59] but we do not honor his memory. He could not teach even a dog to love him; neither could any man trust him.

Plutarch's Pericles

Link to the Plutarch Reading on Pericles


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Pericles 1

Pericles 2

Pericles 3

Pericles 4


Plutarch's Pericles (Short Version)

THE MAN WHO MADE ATHENS BEAUTIFUL

"YOUR head is like an onion!"
No answer.
"You brute, you scamp, your head is too big for your body."
No answer.
The man who did not answer was Pericles (Per-i-kleez), ruler of the State of Athens. Why the fellow was shouting at him along the street in this way I do not know. Pericles quietly kept on his road till he reached the door of his house. It was getting dusk, but through the darkness the [39] voice behind still bawled. Pericles called to one of his servants:
"Bring a lighted torch," he said, "and show this person the way home."
That was all the reply that Pericles gave to the rude Athenian. You see, he was a man of self-command. He did not break into a fury when he was insulted. This was not because he was weak or timid. When Athens was at war, Pericles joined the army, or sailed with the fleet.
He was a great favorite with the people; and you will not wonder at it when I tell you what he did for them. Any poor Athenian was allowed money to pay for admission to the open-air theatre. Soldiers were paid wages; and every year sixty galleys cruised about the sea for eight months, and the men who were trained in these ships as sailors were paid all the time. Corn was sold to poor persons very cheap. And parties of two hundred and fifty, and even one thousand, persons were sent across the water to settle in foreign cities where they would still be protected by the power of Athens. And if you had walked about the city in the days of Pericles, you would have seen large numbers of men at work building walls, archways, and temples, and using vast loads of stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony-wood, cypress-wood, and so on. You would have seen carpenters, masons, braziers (or brass-workers), goldsmiths, painters, rope- [40] makers, leather-cutters, paviors (those who laid pavement down in the roads), wagoners, and porters. Handsome statues of gods and goddesses were set up in the temples and streets. One statue was that of the lady Athene (Ath-ee-nee), made of shining gold and polished white ivory; she wore a tunic that reached down to her feet; a spear was in her hand, a dragon lay on the ground before her, and two sharp-beaked griffins grew out of her helmet. Where did the money come from to pay for these things? Well, I am afraid it mostly came from taxes (or tribute), which the city of Athens forced out of other people in the lands and islands round about. So, though the galleys sailed proudly, and the statues looked splendid, and the people enjoyed the plays at the free theatres, the glory could not last, because it was got by spoil from other people. Pericles had the rule for forty years.
The heart of Pericles was generous, and he was ever ready to aid a man who was in want. An old philosopher (or teacher of wisdom) had become so poor that he wished to die, and he lay down in despair, and covered up his head. Some people ran to the ruler.
"Sir," they cried, "your old friend, the philosopher, has covered up his head!"
Pericles knew at once what that meant. In ancient Greece it was a sign that a man would [41] put an end to his life. The old philosopher meant to starve himself.
In great haste Pericles went to the house where his friend lay.
"My dear friend," he cried, "do not die like this. We cannot lose you; you are a man whom we love."
"Ah," groaned the old man, who was a wit in his way. "Ah, Pericles! those who want a lamp to burn always take care to keep it filled with oil."
He meant that if people cared for him they ought to keep him supplied with the food, etc., which he needed; and you may be sure that Pericles did not let his friend die.
Two years before his death a war broke out between Athens on the one side and Sparta and her allies (friends) on the other, and this war lasted thirty years; but Pericles only saw the beginning of it. Sad indeed he would have felt if he could have looked on to the close of the war and seen his beloved city defeated and its walls thrown down. He had fitted out a fleet of one hundred and fifty ships, and had just gone on board his own galley when the sky became dull and the earth took on a strange, gray color. Can you guess what had happened? The moon was passing between the sun and the earth, and so casting a shadow. It was an eclipse (or hiding) [42] of the sun. The Greeks were in much fear, and the pilot of the commander's ship trembled exceedingly. Then Pericles took off his cloak, and placed it over the man's eyes, and said:
"Are you frightened at my cloak eclipsing you?"
"No, sir."
"Well, then, why are you frightened at the eclipse of the sun, which happens to be caused by something bigger than my cloak?"
The pilot regained his nerve, and the story was told from mouth to mouth, and there was no more terror in the fleet.
However, the ships returned to Athens without having done anything very remarkable, and the citizens were angry, and made Pericles pay a heavy fine of money. Before long they changed their minds, restored him his money, and chose him again for leader of the State. But the days of Pericles were soon to end. At this time a dire plague began in the city, and many thousands of the folk died. Some say it was caused by so many people flocking into Athens to escape from the Spartan foe, and these strangers were mostly country persons who were used to the pure air of the fields, and who fell ill when they breathed the close air of the crowded houses of Athens. The sons of Pericles died, and one of these was specially beloved, and as the father laid a garland of flowers on the head of his dead son he burst into tears.
[43] And not long afterward he took the fever himself, and lay dying.
One day his friends were standing about his bed, and he was so still they thought him asleep or in a faint, and they spoke one to another of his life and deeds.
"How beautiful a city he has made Athens; and men from foreign lands come to admire it."
"The temple on the hill—how fine a piece of work is that; and we should never have had it if Pericles had not carried out the plan."
"And how the people took delight in going to the theatres free."
"The isles of the sea paid tribute to Athens because they feared the power of our ruler."
"Ah, my dear fellows," said Pericles, who had been listening, "other men have done such deeds as these. You have left out the one thing of which I am proud."
"What is that, sir?"
"It is the fact that no Athenian has ever put on mourning because of me, for I have caused the death of no dweller in this city."
And thus Pericles died.
Just a few words about the Maiden's Chamber before I finish. This was the temple on the hill that was mentioned by one of the friends of the dying ruler. In the Greek tongue the Maiden's Chamber was called the Parthenon (Parth-e-non).
[44] It was built of marble, and was about twice as long as it was broad. Instead of walls all round it there were tall pillars, eight at each end and fifteen at each side, so that whichever way you entered you would pass in between marble pillars. Inside the first rows of pillars was a second row, all the way round. And over the tops of the pillars, and all round the temple, were pictures in stone—I mean carvings. These carvings showed the battles of the gods and the wicked giants; the battle of the Athenian warriors with the fierce women of the North, called Amazons; and a procession of men on horses. If ever you would like to see any of these sculptured horses and men and women soldiers, you need not go to Greece. You can find plaster casts of them in the art museums of New York, Chicago, and other cities, though I am sorry to say they show that the originals, now in the British Museum, are very much battered and broken.
When the power of the Greeks had passed the temple was used as a church, and was named after the Virgin Mary. This was in what we called the Middle Ages (from about the year 400 to 1300 or 1400). Afterward the Turks were its masters, and made it into a mosque (mosk). In the year 1587 a war took place between the Turks and the people of Venice. And one day—what was that?
[45] Boom!
A store of gunpowder which had been placed in the temple by the Turkish soldiers had exploded, and the building was almost destroyed.
War is a hateful thing. It brings to ruin the lovely carvings of the Maiden's Chamber, and it slays men who were once pretty babes nestling at the breasts of their mothers.