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The Life of Alcibiades

Dangerous Ambition and the Betrayal of Athens

Jacqueline de Romilly Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings

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Hardback

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English
Cornell University Press
15 October 2019
This biography of Alcibiades, the charismatic Athenian statesman and general (c. 450-404 BC) who achieved both renown and infamy during the Peloponnesian War, is both an extraordinary adventure story and a cautionary tale that reveals the dangers that political opportunism and demagoguery pose to democracy. As Jacqueline de Romilly brilliantly documents, Alcibiades's life is one of wanderings and vicissitudes, promises and disappointments, brilliant successes and ruinous defeats. Born into a wealthy and powerful family in Athens, Alcibiades was a student of Socrates and disciple of Pericles, and he seemed destined to dominate the political life of his city-and his tumultuous age.

Romilly shows, however, that he was too ambitious. Haunted by financial and sexual intrigues and political plots, Alcibiades was exiled from Athens, sentenced to death, recalled to his homeland, only to be exiled again. He defected from Athens to Sparta and from Sparta to Persia and then from Persia back to Athens, buffeted by scandal after scandal, most of them of his own making. A gifted demagogue and, according to his contemporaries, more handsome than the hero Achilles, Alcibiades is also a strikingly modern figure, whose seductive celebrity and dangerous ambition anticipated current crises of leadership.

By:  
Translated by:  
Imprint:   Cornell University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 24mm
Weight:   907g
ISBN:   9781501719752
ISBN 10:   1501719750
Series:   Cornell Studies in Classical Philology
Pages:   228
Publication Date:  
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Translator's Preface Author's Preface Chronology 1. Richly Endowed 2. Insults and Scandals First Interlude: Alcibiades between Two Lifestyles 3. Political Debut: The Argive Alliance 4. The Grand Design 5. The Scandals 6. Exile: Defending Treason 7. In Asia Minor 8. With the Athenians on Samos Second Interlude: Alcibiades between Two Historians 9. A Triumphal Return 10. Slightly More Than One Hundred Days 11. A Final Appearance 12. Repercussions Conclusion Index

Jacqueline de Romilly (1913-2010) was a distinguished scholar of Greek history and culture. In 1973, she became Chair of Greek at the College de France, the first woman nominated to this prestigious institution. In 1988, she was elected to the Academie Francaise as the second woman member, after Marguerite Yourcenar. Romilly was an A.D. White Professor at large at Cornell from 1974 to 1980. Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings is a freelance translator of texts in French, working since 1992. She has degrees from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the University of Iowa. Since 1995, she has translated independently, or with others, a number of books and articles, primarily in the field of Greek and Roman literature and history.

Reviews for The Life of Alcibiades: Dangerous Ambition and the Betrayal of Athens

With this translation, Rawlings makes available to Anglophones a biography of Alcibiades by esteemed Franco-Greek scholar Jacqueline de Romilly... The Life of Alcibiades is a remarkable adventure story of political intrigue, warfare, and betrayal carried out by an egomaniacal leader... The Life of Alcibiades offers warnings for contemporary readers about the dangers of blind ambition and unchecked power on the part of charismatic leaders. * Choice * While thoroughly rooted in serious scholarship - de Romilly gives us an excellent analysis of the sources - The Life of Alcibiades is written for the lay reader, yet her insights and analysis will prove of interest even for the well-versed student of the period. * The NYMAS Review *


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