Life of Alcibiades

The life of Alcibiades is one of the longest and liveliest in the surviving book of Cornelius Nepos' On Famous Men on foreign generals. Nepos (about 110 to 24 BC) wrote it in the first century BC, drawing on Thucydides, Theopompus and Timaeus, whom he cites at the end.

Nepos opens by saying that nature seems to have tried in Alcibiades what it could do, for no one was more gifted in good qualities or in vices. Brought up in the house of Pericles and taught by Socrates, he was handsome, eloquent, rich and extravagant. He persuaded the Athenians to send the great expedition to Sicily in 415 BC and was one of its commanders, but was accused of mutilating the statues of Hermes and profaning the Mysteries and was recalled. He fled to Sparta and gave the enemy damaging advice, then, distrusted there, went over to the Persian satrap Tissaphernes. Recalled by the Athenians, he won victories in the Hellespont and returned home in triumph in 407, but after a defeat suffered by his deputy he was blamed and went into exile again in Thrace. He finally sought refuge with the Persian Pharnabazus, who had him killed in Phrygia in 404 BC at the request of his enemies.

Nepos' Latin is plain but the story is full of reversals. It is a classic school text and an easy route into the history of the Peloponnesian War.