The Peloponnesian War

Alcibiades

The new leader of the war party was everything they could want. His name was Alcibiades: he was young, handsome, brilliant, daring, vain, highly educated, socially outrageous. He was clever, well-spoken, and he threw the best parties in town. Even better, he was the nephew of Pericles.

He was also politically amoral. He was not really a hawk; rather, he chose the war party because it fit his temperment and because he wanted to be a leader and the position was open. It was easy for him to lampoon Nicias and his followers. He loved to mock authority and to rile the conservatives.

Alcibiades became strategos in 420 and immediately began maneuvering for war. The politics of all this is most complex, but in the end Alcibiades was able to get what he wanted: a renewal of the war effort, with a new plan—his plan—and under his leadership.

History of Western Civilization

E.L. Skip Knox
Boise State University

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