Alcibiades Saint

RODA'S Production of "Saint Alcibiades"

Contributors - Photographs

by Maria Peretzi

If Socrates' teaching was of any real value, then how is it possible that his chosen pupil, Alcibiades, ended up in the eyes of history as nothing less than an opportunist "punk"?

Strange as it may sound, the infamy of Alcibiades is the result of falsifications and of what could be seen as a methodical historical conspiracy to defame him. The rumours of his scandalous personal life evoke mixed feelings that still accompany his name, and are used to purposefully discredit the esoteric meaning of the powerful Socratic teaching and obfuscate Alcibiades' remarkable personal achievements.

By producing a play about Alcibiades, RODA is attempting to shed light to the life of this politician of ancient Athens who contributed to the making of its "golden age" as much as anyone.  

It was during the days of Athenian glory that the values of the old world, the ones cemented by the order of the gods and the achievements of the heroes, were creaking under the pressure of the times. The newly acquired wealth of the middle class had brought about democracy, new customs and new needs. The imperialistic Athenian appetite was causing social upheavals all over Greece, and that resulted in military confrontations with other cities. Competition with Sparta grew along that against the Persian rule of Asia Minor. At the same time, art and trade flourished, while philosophical questioning brought forward people like Socrates whose background and experiences as a follower of mystical cults, coupled with his thirst for rationality, gave birth to the tradition of Platonic philosophy.

Alcibiades was the central political figure of the years after Pericles. His public life was an impressive, dizzying adventure. It is an historical fact that he was the only Athenian ever to be voted to the post of "emperor"; that he is the only person ever to have won at the Olympic Games, in the same race, the gold, the silver and the bronze metal (it happened in the chariot race, where the medals were awarded to the chariot owners); that he became the first ruler of Byzantium, accepted as an "emperor-king" by the local tribes. And it is a historical fact that, as a general, he led armies in more than 300 battles on land and at the sea, all of which he won; Alcibiades was never defeated in battle!
Nonetheless, as Thucydides reports, his Athenian compatriots influenced by rumours against him which often were nothing but slander, gave their trust to incapable politicians, and that had disastrous results for the city. This ultimately brought about Athens' defeat, and with it Alcibiades' death.
It was then that the emotions of the crowd turned into fury against Socrates. And that was the real cause of the sage's trial and ultimate conviction. Alcibiades was indeed the "youth" that Socrates had been accused of corrupting. It is no coincidence that the prosecutor in Socrates' trial was Anytos, the wealthy Athenian who viewed Socrates as the rival who had won from him the favours of Alcibiades, when the young aristocrat was still an adolescent.

Alcibiades' life is not exhausted by descriptions of events of his public life or scandals of his personal life. He is perhaps mostly singled out by his studies in philosophy. He was an enthusiastic follower of all the mysteries, to the extent that he was often the target of the comedians of his time. The fact that he was regularly attending ceremonial mysteries and ritualistic "orgies" in Attica, the rest of Greece, and Asia Minor, suggests that his was a truly esoteric search. Alcibiades was a mystic. He was the product of the great tradition that had its roots in the ancient mysteries of Pan and found its philosophic expression in the writings of Plato. Because, as the distinguished scholar M.L. Morgan states, the Platonic tradition's relationship with Greek piety is deeper than just a meeting with the world of the Olympian gods, sacrifices and religious holidays. Plato adopts views of the Greek ecstatic ceremonies as the context for his search in philosophy.

The roots of philosophy itself lie in the ancient ritualistic ceremonies. This is the perspective from which RODA examines Alcibiades' life.