Sex, Love, and Politics II: Alcibiades I (103a-106c)

Link to previous post here, and to online text of Alcibiades I here

If an anthropologist from Proxima Centauri or thereabouts wanted to grasp just how odd Earth's population of hairless hominids was, a good starting point for the extraterrestrial's education would be sex.  Most other animals seem to get on with the business of rutting in a relatively neurosis-free sort of way, at least so far as we can tell.  Peacocks grow their plumage, salmon swim upstream, and nature, as it were, takes its course.  Only man, with his infinite capacity to trap himself in puzzles of his own devising, seems to want to ascribe special significance to his sexual impulses

He's hot and he knows you know it

These meanderings serve as a sort of preface to the topic of this post, namely the commingling of sex and philosophy in the Alcibiades.  For make no mistake, what is presented in the opening lines of the Alcibiades is most certainly a scene of erotic seduction. Socrates himself says as much, calling himself "the first to love" Alcibiades, and then later saying "It's a hard thing for a lover to approach a man who does not yield to lovers" (103a, 104e).  

At the time that this dialogue is set, Alcibiades would have been around 20 years old and just about to formally transition out of boyhood and take his place as a full citizen of Athens by addressing the Assembly, which Socrates notes should happen "within a very few days" (105b).  Socrates, as far as the scanty biographical details of his life can tell us, would have been around 40.  The existence of this age gap is significant because it helps situates the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades within the context of the pederastic practices of Classical Athens.  

He drank hemlock so that 2,000 years later someone could make his head a planter

Scholars have traditionally thought (although not without controversy and clashing interpretations) that homosexual pederasty in Athens was idealized as between an erastes, an older man who penetrates, and an eromenos, a young, beautiful boy who is penetrated. These relationships, although not without controversy even then, were generally accepted as part of boyhood, at least among the aristocratic set. "The older lover," in this case

is presented as some sort of substitute father: he is there to help his beloved one on his way to manhood and maturity, and to initiate him in the customs of grown-up people. He showed his affection with little presents, like animals (a hare or cock), but also pieces of meat, a disk, a bottle of oil, a garland, a toy, or money.

Plato himself depicts this form of pederasty as the root of philosophy in both the Symposium (210a) and the Phaedrus (251a), with the divine beauty of the boy awakening philosophical impulses in the soul of the erastes.  Yet in this dialogue, Alcibiades is already past the stage of his life where this form of relationship would be appropriate.  It was generally accepted that as the eromenos grew into manhood, he would end the sexual involvement with the erastes, although the expectation was they would remain life-long friends.   Socrates himself notes that his rival suitors have generally given up their pursuit as Alcibiades has gotten older (103a).  

Indeed, given that Alcibiades is soon to go in front of the Assembly, being in a same-sex relationship could be detrimental to his political prospects.  Although evidence exists of homosexual relationships between adult males in Athens, it seems the practice was looked down upon as effeminate and disgraceful for a free citizen.  Aristophanes in particular loved to ridicule adult homosexuals in his comedies, especially those playing the passive role, labeling them euryproktos (wide-assed)   

Lounging Around - a typical symposium scene

What then are we to make of the fact that Socrates states his daimon is only now letting him approach Alcibiades?  The two speeches that Socrates makes to Alcibiades shed some light on this question.  In the first, from 104a to 104c, Socrates lists out all the qualities that has made Alcibiades reject all his previous suitors, from his stunning good looks to his famous family to his considerable wealth.  Far from needing an erastes to guide him to manhood, Alcibiades even as a child considers himself far superior to his older lovers.   

Yet in his second speech, starting at 104e, Socrates points out the limits of Alcibiades' self-sufficiency.  Socrates' knows, just as Plato's audience would have, of Alcibiades' limitless ambition for power and glory, stating that Alcibiades "would rather die at once if it will not be possible for you to acquire more" (105a).  Now Socrates makes a bold claim.  If Alcibiades is to get the power he craves, he must come under the tutelage of Socrates (105e).  It is for this reason that Socrates has held off stating his case as a lover, as only now that Alcibiades is on the verge of becoming an active political citizen that Socrates can demonstrate why he is the best possible lover.  

If you had read my previous post on the Alcibiades, you will doubtless recall that while I provided a biography of Alcibiades, I did not do so for Socrates.  This was intentional and for two reasons.  Firstly, given that nearly all we know about Socrates comes from Plato, it makes sense for his character to come out through his presentation in the dialogues.  Second, I wanted to preserve something of the strangeness and bewilderment that Alcibiades must have felt around this man.  Imagine an ugly, poor-looking fellow silently following you around for years, then he one day proclaims that he is your lover, and then further that he knows the innermost contents of your soul and that without his help you will never achieve your heart's desire!     

The odd little head of an odd little man

Socratic oddness in fact is the starting point of the dialogue.   Socrates states that there are two things about himself that must have piqued Alcibiades' curiosity.  One is why Socrates has has remained in love with Alcibiades after the other lovers have left and another why after all these years of silence he has chosen to spoke now.   The latter puzzle Socrates answers with reference to his divine daimon, telling Alcibiades "you will be told of its power later" (103a).  Tellingly, I think, the first point is not completely answered.  As we have seen, Socrates seems in love with not the qualities that are conventionally attractive about Alcibiades, but rather his overwhelming ambition.  But is Socrates' goal simply to be the lover and teacher of the world's greatest conqueror or tyrant?  This seems unsatisfactory, yet all the examples Socrates presents are of rulership and domination, progressing from Alcibiades' dominion over Athens, to Greece, to the whole of Asia and Europe.  It is the task of uncovering the heart of Socrates' attraction that we as readers must carry out as we continue on.