Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T02:29:34.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Plutarch on the childhood of Alkibiades (Alk. 2–3)1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Timothy E. Duff
Timothy E. Duff
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Almost four decades ago, Donald Russell published in this journal an analysis of the first sixteen chapters of the Life of Alkibiades, which consist largely of short self-contained anecdotes about Alkibiades' childhood, youth and early career (Russell 1966b). As Russell demonstrated, most of these anecdotes are juxtaposed without any causal link. Although there are the occasional chronological markers – indications, for example, that Alkibiades is getting older and passing from childhood to early manhood – some are plainly out of chronological order and it is impossible to extract a clear chronology from them. Russell argued, however, that to try to extract such a chronological narrative would be to misunderstand the function of this material, which is not to provide a narrative of Alkibiades' early years but rather to illuminate and illustrate his character.

Russell's argument, in particular the stress on Plutarch's interest in character, was seminal; together with two other papers published at roughly the same time, it marked the beginning of a new appreciation of Plutarch as an author of literary merit. But Russell was rather less convinced of the logic of selection of the first five anecdotes, which relate to Alkibiades' youth and comprise some one-and-a-half pages of Teubner text (Alk. 2–3).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 49 , 2003 , pp. 89 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bearzot, C. (1985) Focione tra storia e trasfigurazione ideate, Milan.Google Scholar
Bearzot, C. (1993) ‘Il confronto tra Focione e Catone’ and ‘Introduzione’ to the Phokion, in Bearzot, C., Geiger, J. and Ghilli, L. (eds.) Plutarco. Vite parallele: Focione – Catone Vticense, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, Milan, 85–8 and 91–163.Google Scholar
Beck, F. (1975) Album of Greek education: the Greeks at school and at play, Sydney.Google Scholar
Bergen, K. (1962) Charakterbilder bei Tacitus und Plutarch, Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der philosophischen Fakultät der Universitat zu Köln, Cologne.Google Scholar
Brenk, F. E. (1998) ‘Caesar and the Evil Eye or what to do with “καί σὺ, τέκνον”’, in Schmeling, G. and Mikalson, J. D. (eds.) Qui miscuit utile dulci. Festschrift essays for Paul Lachlan MacKendrick, Waucanda, Illinois, 31–49.Google Scholar
Carney, T. F. (1960) ‘Plutarch's style in the Marius’, JHS 80, 24–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connor, W. R. (1984) Thucydides, Princeton.Google Scholar
Davies, J. K. (1971) Athenian propertied families 600–300 BC, Oxford.Google Scholar
Denyer, N. (2001) Plato: Alcibiades, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Dihle, A. (1956) Studien zur griechischen Biographie, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Philologische-historische Klasse 3, Folge 37, Göttingen.Google Scholar
Dodds, E. R. (1959) Plato. Gorgias, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dover, K. J. (1950) ‘The chronology of Antiphon's speeches’, CQ 43, 44–60. Repr. with addendum in The Greeks and their legacy. Collected papers II: prose literature, history, society, transmission, influence (1988), Oxford, 13–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dover, K. J. (1978) Greek Homosexuality. London. Repr. (updated and with a new postscript) Cambridge, Mass., 1989.Google Scholar
Dover, K. J. (1988) ‘Anecdotes, gossip and slander’, in The Greeks and their legacy. Collected papers II: prose literature, history, society, transmission, influence, Oxford, 45–52.Google Scholar
Dubuisson, M. (1980) ‘Toi aussi, mon fils!’, Latomus 39, 881–90.Google Scholar
Duff, T. E. (1999) Plutarch's Lives: exploring virtue and vice, Oxford.Google Scholar
Duff, T. E. (forthcoming, a) ‘Alcibiades, Socrates, and his other lovers (Plut. Ale. 4.1–5): fragment of a commentary on Plutarch's Life of Alcibiades’, in Van der Stockt, L. and Stadter, P. A. (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Duff, T. E. (forthcoming, b) ‘Plutarch, education, and the Themistokles–Camillus’.Google Scholar
Dunbar, N. (1995) Aristophanes' Birds, Oxford.Google Scholar
Edwards, M. J. E. (1995) Greek orators, IV. Andocides, Warminster.Google Scholar
Eyben, E. (1996) ‘Children in Plutarch’, in Van der Stockt, L. (ed.) Plutarchea Lovaniensia. A miscellany of essays on Plutarch, Studia Hellenistica 32, Leuven, 79–112.Google Scholar
Fairweather, J. A. (1974) ‘Fiction in the biographies of ancient writers’, Ant. Soc 5, 231–75.Google Scholar
Fairweather, J. A. (1984) ‘Traditional narrative, inference and truth in the Lives of the Greek poets’, in Cairns, F. (ed.) Papers of the Liverpool Latin seminar, Fourth volume, 1983, ARCA Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 11, 315–69.Google Scholar
Fisher, N. R. E. (1998) ‘Gymnasia and the democratic values of leisure’, in Cartledge, P., Millett, P. and von Reden, S. (eds.) Kosmos. Essays in order, conflict and community in classical Athens, Cambridge, 84–104.Google Scholar
Förster, R. (1893) Scriptores physiognomonici graeci et latini, 2 vols., Leipzig.Google Scholar
Fraenkel, E. (1950) Aeschylus Agamemnon 3 vols., Oxford.Google Scholar
Frazier, F. (1988) ‘A propos de la “philotimia” dans les “Vies”: quelques jalons dans l'histoire d' une notion’, RP 62, 109–27.Google Scholar
Frazier, F. (1992) ‘Contribution à l' étude de la composition des “Vies” de Plutarque: l' élaboration des grandes scènes’, ANRW 2.33.6, 4487–535.Google Scholar
Frazier, F. (1996) Histoires et morale dans les Vies parallèles de Plutarque, Collection d' études anciennes 124, Paris.Google Scholar
Frost, F. J. (1980) Plutarch's Themistocles: a historical commentary, Princeton. Revised edn, Chicago, 1998.Google Scholar
Gagarin, M. (1997) Antiphon. The speeches, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gazzano, F. (1999) Pseudo-Andocide: contro Alcibiade, Testi e commenti 2, Genoa.Google Scholar
Gill, C. (1983) ‘The question of character development: Plutarch and Tacitus’, CQ NS 33, 469–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, C. (1986) ‘The question of character and personality in Greek tragedy’, Poetics Today 7, 251–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, C. (1990) ‘The character-personality distinction’, in Pelling, C. B. R. (ed.) Characterization and individuality in Greek literature, Oxford, 1–31.Google Scholar
Gill, C. (1996) Personality in Greek epic, tragedy, and philosophy. The self in dialogue, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleason, M. W. (1990) ‘The semiotics of gender: physiogomy and self-fashioning in the second century CE’, in Halperin, D. M., Winkler, J. J., and Zeitlin, F. I. (eds.) Before sexuality: the construction of erotic experience in the ancient Greek world, Princeton, 389–415.Google Scholar
Golden, M. (1985) ‘Pais, “child” and “slave”’, L'antiquité classique 54, 91–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldhill, S. (1986) Reading Greek tragedy, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldhill, S. (1992) Aeschylus: the Oresteia, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gould, J. (1978) ‘Dramatic character and “human intelligibility” in Greek tragedy’, PCPS 204, 43–67.Google Scholar
Repr. in Myth, ritual, memory, and exchange: essays in Greek literature and culture (2001), Oxford, 78–111.Google Scholar
Gribble, D. (1999) Alcibiades and Athens: a study in literary presentation, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, J. R. (1969) Plutarch. Alexander. A commentary, Oxford. 2nd edn., Stadter, P. A. (ed.), London, 1999.Google Scholar
Harris, H. A. (1964) Greek athletes and athletics, London.Google Scholar
Harrison, A. R. W. (1968) The law of Athens. Vol. I: the family and property, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hein, A. (1914) ‘De optativi apud Plutarchum usu’, PhD thesis, University of Breslau.Google Scholar
Helmbold, W. C. and O'Neil, E. N. (1959) Plutarch's quotations, Philological Monographs published by the American Philological Association 19, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. J. (1974) ‘Sparring partners: a note on Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae 964–965’, AJP 95, 344–7.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. J. (1991) The maculate muse: obscene language in Attic comedy, Oxford. 2st edn., New Haven, 1975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hesk, J. (2000) Deception and democracy in classical Athens, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillman, T. P. (1994) ‘Authorial statements, narrative, and character in Plutarch's Agesilaus–Pompeius’, GRBS 35, 255–80.Google Scholar
Hughes, B. L. (1955) ‘Dramatic imagery in Aischylos’, PhD thesis, Bryn Mawr College.Google Scholar
Javier del Campo López, E. (1991) ‘Una cita de César en Plutarco, Pomp. 60,4: consideraciones a partir de este testimonio’, in López, J. Garcia and Dorda, E. Calderón (eds.) Estudios sobre Plutarco: paisaje y naturaleza. Actas del II Simposio Español sobre Plutarco, Murcia 1990, Madrid, 253–56.Google Scholar
Jones, R. M. (1962) The Platonisum of Plutarch, Menasha,Google Scholar
Wis. Reprinted in The Platonisum of Plutarch and other papers, New York and London, 1980.Google Scholar
Keitel, E. (1984) ‘Principate and civil war in the Annals of Tacitus’, AJP 105, 306–25.Google Scholar
Knox, B. (1952) ‘The lion in the house (Agamemnon 717–36 [Murray])’, Classical Philology 47, 17–25.Google Scholar
Knox, B. Repr. in Word and action: essays on the ancient theatre (1979), Baltimore and London, 27–38.Google Scholar
Knox, R. A. (1985) ‘“So mischievous a beast”? The Athenian demos and its treatment of its politicians’, G&R NS 32, 132–61.Google Scholar
Kurke, L. (1999) Coins, bodies, games and gold: the politics of meaning in archaic Greece, Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larmour, D. H. J. (2000) ‘Metaphor and metonymy in the rhetoric of Plutarch's Parallel Lives’, in Van der Stockt, L. (ed.) Rhetorical theory and praxis in Plutarch. Acta of the IVth International Congress of the International Plutarch Society. Leuven, July 3–6, 1996, Collection d'Études Classiques 11, Louvain and Namur, 267–81.Google Scholar
Lebeck, A. (1971) The Oresteia: a study in language and structure, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Leo, F. (1901) Die griechisch-römische Biographic nach ihrer litterarischen Form, Leipzig. Repr. Hildesheim, 1965.Google Scholar
Ludwig, P. W. (2002) Eros and polls: desire and community in Greek political theory, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDowell, D. M. (1978) The law in classical Athens, London.Google Scholar
McKinnon, J. (1984) ‘The rejection of the aulos in classical Greece’, in Strainchamps, E. and Maniates, M. R. (eds.), Music and civilisation: essays in honor of Paul Henry Lang, New York, 203–14.Google Scholar
McNellen, B. (1997) Herodotean symbolism: Pericles as lion cub, ICS 22, 11–23.Google Scholar
Marr, J. L. (1998) Plutarch: Life of Themistocles, Warminster.Google Scholar
Mathiesen, T. J. (1999) Apollo's lyre: Greek music and music theory in antiquity and the Middle Ages, Nebraska.Google Scholar
Murray, O. (1990) ‘The affair of the Mysteries: democracy and the drinking group’, in idem (ed.) Sympotica: a symposium on the symposion, Oxford, 149–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nikolaidis, A. G. (1997) ‘Plutarch's criteria for judging his historical sources’, in Schrader, C., Ramón, V. and Vela, J. (eds.) Plutarco y la historia. Actas del V Simposio Español sobre Plutarco, Zaragoza 20–22 de junto de 1996, Saragossa, 329–41.Google Scholar
Ober, J. (1989) Mass and elite in democratic Athens. Rhetoric, ideology, and the power of the people, Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1988a) ‘Aspects of Plutarch's characterisation’, ICS 13.2, 257–74. Repr. with revisions in idem (2002b), 283–300.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1988b) Plutarch. Life of Antony, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1989) ‘Plutarch: Roman heroes and Greek culture’, in Griffin, M. T. and Barnes, J. (eds.) Philosophia togata. Essays on philosophy and Roman society, Oxford, 199–232.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1990a) ‘Childhood and personality in Greek biography’, in Griffin, M. T. and Barnes, J. (ed.) Characterization and individuality in Greek literature, Oxford, 213–44. Repr. with revisions in idem (2002b), 301–38.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1990b) ‘Conclusion’, in Griffin, M. T. and Barnes, J. (ed.) Characterization and individuality in Greek literature, Oxford, 245–62.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1990c) ‘Truth and fiction in Plutarch's Lives’, in Russell, D. A. (ed.) Antonine literature, 19–52. Oxford. Repr. with revisions in idem (2002b), 143–70.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1991) ‘Thucydides' Archidamus and Herodotus' Artabanus’, in Flower, M. A. and Toher, M. (eds.) Georgica: Greek studies in honour of George Cawkwell, BICS Supplement 38, London, 120–42.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1992) ‘Plutarch and Thucydides’, in Stadter, P. A. (ed.) Plutarch and the historical tradition, London and New York, 10–40. Repr. with revisions in idem (2002b), 117–41.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1996) ‘Prefazione’, in Albini, F., Plutarco. Vita di Coriolano. Vita di Alcibiade, I grandi libri Garzanti, Milan, xx–lviii.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1997a) ‘Cassius Dio and the early Principate’, in Edwards, M. J. and Swain, S. (1997) (eds.) Portraits. Biographical representation in the Greek and Latin literature of the Roman empire, Oxford, 117–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (1997b) ‘Plutarch on Caesar's fall’, in Mossman, J. M. (ed.) Plutarch and his intellectual world. Essays on Plutarch, London, 215–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (2000) Literary texts and the Greek historian, London.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (2002a) ‘The Apophthegmata regum et imperatorum and Plutarch's Roman Lives’, in Literary texts and the Greek historian (2002b), 65–90. Repr. in Van der Stockt and Stadter (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelling, C. B. R. (2002b) Plutarch and history: eighteen studies, London.Google Scholar
Percy, W. A. III (1996) Pederasty and pedagogy in archaic Greece, Erbana and Chicago.Google Scholar
Poliakoff, M. B. (1982) Studies in the terminology of Greek combat sports, Beiträge für klassische Philologie 146, Königstein. 2nd edn., Meisenheim, 1986.Google Scholar
Poliakoff, M. B. (1987) Combat sports in the ancient world: competition, violence, and culture, New Haven and London. Repr. 1995.Google Scholar
Polman, G. H. (1974) ‘Chronological biography and akmē in Plutarch’, CP 69, 169–77.Google Scholar
Pritchett, W. K. (1974–1991) The Greek state at war, 5 vols., Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rood, T. C. B. (1998) Thucydides: narrative and explanation, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudd, N. (1976) Lines of enquiry: studies in Latin poetry, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, D. A. (1963) ‘Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus’, JRS 53, 21–8. Repr. in Scardigli (1995), 357–72.Google Scholar
Russell, D. A. (1966a) ‘On reading Plutarch's Lives’, G&R NS 13, 139–54. Repr. in Scardigli (1995), 75–94.Google Scholar
Russell, D. A. (1966b) ‘Plutarch, Alcibiades 1–16’, PCPS 192, 37–47. Repr. in Scardigli (1995), 191–207.Google Scholar
Russell, D. A. (1973) Plutarch, London.Google Scholar
Russell, D. A. (1983) Greek declamation, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, J. (1980) ‘Caesar's last words’, in Marshall, B. (ed.) Vindex humanitatis: essays in honour of John Huntley Bishop, Amidale, Australia. 123–28.Google Scholar
Saller, R. P. (1980) ‘Anecdotes as historical evidence for the Principate’, G&R NS 27, 69–83.Google Scholar
Salza Prina Ricotti, E. (1995) Giochi e giocattoli, Museo della civiltà romana 18, Rome.Google Scholar
Sansone, D. (1980) ‘Plutarch, Alexander and the discovery of naphtha’, GRBS 21, 63–74.Google Scholar
Scardigli, B. (ed.) (1995) Essays on Plutarch's Lives, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schnapp-Gourbeillon, A. (1981) Lions, héros, masques: les représentations de l'animal chez Homère, Paris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, R. K. (1988) Democracy and participation in Athens, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stadter, P. A. (1989) A commentary on Plutarch's Pericles, Chapel Hill, NC, and London.Google Scholar
Stadter, P. A. (1996) ‘Anecdotes and the thematic structure of Plutarchean biography’, in Delgado, J. A. Fernández and Pardo, F. Pordomingo (eds.), Estudios sobre Plutarco: Aspectos formates. Adas del IV Simposio Español sobre Plutarco. Salamanca, 26 a 28 de Mayo de 1994, Madrid, 291–303.Google Scholar
Stadter, P. A. (forthcoming) ‘Before pen touched paper: Plutarch's preparations for the Parallel Lives’, in Van der Stockt and Stadter (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steidle, W. (1951) Sueton und die anlike Biographie, Zetemata 1, Munich.Google Scholar
Swain, S. C. R. (1989) ‘Character change in Plutarch’, Phoenix 43, 62–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swain, S. C. R. (1990) ‘Hellenic culture and the Roman heroes of Plutarch’, JHS 110, 126–45. Repr. in Scardigli (1995), 229–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swain, S. C. R. (1992) ‘Novel and pantomime in Plutarch's Antony’, Hermes 120, 76–82.Google Scholar
Swain, S. C. R. (1996) Hellenism and empire. Language, classicism and power in the Greek world AD 50–250, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trail, J. S. (1996) Persons of ancient Athens, vol. 5, D- to Dionysos, Toronto.Google Scholar
Van der Stockt, L. and Stadter, P. A. (forthcoming) (eds.) ‘Repetita placent’: interpreting composition in Plutarch, Collection des études classiques, Louvain.Google Scholar
Vickers, M. (1994) ‘Alcibiades and Critias in the Gorgias: Plato's “fine satire”’, Dialogues d' histoire ancienne 20, 85–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walcot, P. (1977) ‘Odysseus and the art of lying’, Anc. Soc. 8, 1–19.Google Scholar
Wardman, A. E. (1974) Plutarch's Lives, London.Google Scholar
Whitehead, D. (1983) ‘Competitive outlay and community profit: ϕιλτιμία in democratic Athens’, C&M 34, 55–74.Google Scholar
Wilson, P. (1999) ‘The aulos in Athens’, in Goldhill, S. and Osborne, R. (eds.) Performance culture and Athenian democracy, Cambridge, 58–95.Google Scholar
Woodman, A. J. (1992) ‘Nero's alien capital: Tacitus as paradoxographer (Annals 15.36–7)’, in Woodman, A. J. and Powell, J. (eds.) Author and audience in Latin literature, Cambridge, 173–88 and 251–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodman, A. J. (1993) ‘Amateur dramatics at the court of Nero: Annals 15.48–74’, in Luce, T. J. and Woodman, A. J. (eds.) Tacitus and the Tacitean tradition, Princeton, 104–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeitlin, F. I. (1965) ‘The motif of the corrupted sacrifice in Aeschylus' Oresteia’, TAPA 96, 463–508.Google Scholar