Who is the real Alcibiades?

According to Gribble (1999) Alcibiades is one of the most famous political people from Greece in the ancient history who came from a one of the powerful families in the ancient Greek.

He is said to have been a very courageous man, ambitious but yet with bad morals Apart from being an active person in the political issues he was also talented in giving good speeches an art that he was taught by one of his great teachers who at that time was the Socrates.

His life in politics

Alcibiades started his career in politics during the time of a war called the Peloponnesian war that involved the people of Sparta and Greece. In this war Alcibiades with his ambitions wanted to lead the army to continue fighting so that Greek would win over the Spartans because there were signs that the war was ending.

Nicias who was representing and commanding the army in Greek had entered into peace deals with the people of Sparta. So one day some people from Sparta were sent to Athens the city of Greece to deliver a message of peace to the people of Greece going specifically through Nicias Gribble (1999).

As discussed in Gribble (1999) while they were there Alcibiades through his sweet talk managed to convince them to oppose the idea of having peace between the two regions as it would only benefit Nicias. By doing all this he undermined the efforts of Athens and Sparta of wanting to make peace with the Spartans by giving false information to the people who had been sent from Sparta to negotiate with Nicias.

Following the information that Sparta the war resumed with the people of Athens blaming Nicias who latter on lost political trust among the people of Athens and in effort to ensure that they maintained their powerful status that Greek was holding in the society they appointed Alcibiades to be the commander of their army starting a political career that led him to problems until his death at a war while he was still a commander.

The other wars that he in participated in include the war against the Abydos, Chalydon and other wars that were outside the city of Athens in which his strategies were said to have succeeded in setting the enemies against the Athenians.

Roles he played

As summarized in  Gribble (1999) at the time he was the commander Alcibiades made so many enemies because of this habit of changing political stands and taking actions that cost the lives of people and some of his actions were considered not to be moral in the society.

This was seen when at the start of his political life he led campaigns that were portraying Athenians as people who were so aggressive in using their power during the Peloponnesian war. He had used the Sparta people to achieve his own intentions in that manner made friends with them since they thought of him as being their true friend.

In addition to that Gribble (1999) at the time Athens went to war with Sicily he was accused of disobeying the rules that had been set by the army and disobeying the other rulers which made the enemies in Athens wanting to kill him.

He then ran to Sparta and from there he again incited the Spartan against the Athenians in the war that came afterwards. As an adviser to the Spartans he made them to withdraw the support that they were giving in aid for war that had just ended in Athens getting their support.

Gribble (1999) he then went back to Athens by promising the people of Athens that he would facilitate a process that would ensure they get a new constitution. He also promised to take riches to them from Sparta and with all the sincerity they accepted him back. After he was taken back the military gave him a big position where he planned to undermine the commander by spreading information that the Athens military had persuaded him to return so as to bring change when he failed to fulfill his promises.

How he looked as a traitor

Through all the actions that he led Alcibiades was always seen inciting many people who were against Athens. He used to draw the attention of those people by luring them through talks, using money, false promises among other favors.

This made Greece to face a tough time in dealing with its enemies as given that there was someone like Alcibiades who had most of the information about Greece many of their war secrets were give out making them to be more cautious on the strategies that they were using. By doing all this evil deeds at the last minute he was disowned by the people when the war ended and he was left to the enemies who killed him Gribble (1999).