The Alcibiades I is our most important source for the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, the oddest and most fascinating couple of ancient Athens, but doubts about the work's Platonic provenance had, until recently, left it marginalised. Now, in addition to N. Denyer's fine commentary (2001), we have these fourteen essays and two appendices, almost all on the Alcibiades I. The book had its origin in a symposium held at the University of Newcastle in December of 2008. Like most such volumes, the quality of the contributions varies; like too many such volumes there is little in the way of overt communication among the authors. The central topics covered are Socratic eros, the relationship of the Alcibiades I to canonical Platonic works and the ancient reception of the Alcibiades I. While the volume is officially agnostic on the authenticity issue, most contributors are sceptical.
Just how erotic was Socrates? J. looks for Sapphic influence on Socrates and finds it in the performative nature of the pedagogy both Sappho and Socrates employ, and the efforts by both to induce love in their students/beloveds, promoting a symmetry often lacking in ancient Greek thinking about eros. J. grants that Socrates' emphasis on self-control distinguishes him from Sappho, but nevertheless suggests that he ‘performed Sappho’. D. Blyth does not mention Sappho, but would presumably deny her any influence, as he argues that Socrates put on the role of the lover only ‘as an ironically managed bridge’ between Athenian pederastic norms and his own more peculiarly philosophic form of friendship (p. 41). A. Hooper argues that Socrates was a true lover who, in the Alcibiades I as elsewhere, promoted a ‘dual-role’ relationship in which both parties are inspired by eros to improve one another in a joint pursuit of the good. The unspoken disagreement here is driven in large part by whether we look to Socrates' remarks about his own feelings, which are usually ironic, or to his teaching, where eros plays a more substantial role. V. Wohl is rather tough on the famous visual paradigm for eros in the Alcibiades I, in which the lover sees himself in his beloved's eyes (132c–33c): for her the self-knowledge thus gained is ‘not only solipsistic but even onanistic’ (p. 47). But the Platonic self one is to see in the soul of one's beloved is the divine, intellectual (aspect of) soul that we all have in common, something I would have thought far removed from solipsism.
Three of the four essays comparing the Alcibiades I with canonical Plato find the Alcibiades I deviant to one degree or other. R. Ramsey shows that Plato responded to Socrates' controversial relationship with Alcibiades, but preferred to do so obliquely, treating Alcibiades more as a type (one also personified by Callicles) than an individual. Y. Kurihara argues that in the Alcibiades I, unlike in any canonical dialogue, Socratic ignorance – the better kind of ignorance – is sometimes said to consist of the knowledge that one does not know X rather than the mere belief that one does not know X. Kurihara grants that the Charmides contains a famous passage describing temperance in precisely the same terms (167a), but argues that the conception there is not really Socratic. T. suggests that the Alcibiades I may belong to the same milieu he has elsewhere assigned to the Theages, the Academy of Polemo, who took over the school in 314 b.c. The Theages would be at home in a school that featured a new ‘erotic culture’ in which intimacy between teachers and students was central, and the Alcibiades I shares some relevant features with the Theages. Each of these essays makes valuable observations, but none convincingly shows the Alcibiades I inauthentic. Plato's oblique approach elsewhere does not rule out a more direct approach here; Kurihara's expectations for terminological precision may be too high, especially given the evidence from Charmides; and T. himself grants that the Alcibiades I could just as well have helped inspire a new view of student–teacher relations as been shaped by such a view.
E. Benitez, on the other hand, starts with the premise that the Alcibiades I is ‘strange’, but suggests we ask whether this strangeness could be Platonic. He proposes that the Alcibiades I is not a sloppy imitation or, as Denyer has suggested, a one-off experiment on Plato's part (like the Menexenus or Cratylus), but may rather be a transitional dialogue. His test case is courage, where he finds traces of later Platonic ideas. Benitez's approach is clear and sensible, and his suggestion that the Alcibiades I may be a transitional dialogue is promising, but the scanty remarks about courage in the dialogue do not provide much evidence one way or the other.
In the first of the essays on the ancient reception of the Alcibiades I, F. King discusses Philo's critical attitude towards masculine same-sex behaviour; King says much of interest about Philo but his essay is only tangentially related to the Alcibiades dialogues. Two strong essays on the Neoplatonic commentaries on the Alcibiades I suggest ways in which they can offer alternatives to modern readings. Proclus is of course a dogmatist, as A. Taki notes, but his reading is none the less respondent-centred, an approach contemporary scholars would associate with a more sceptical reading. F. Renaud argues that Olympiodorus' effort to connect the divine sign to Socrates' description of eros as a daimon deserves more attention than it has received from modern interpreters, who tend strictly to segregate the two ideas.
Three essays escape categorisation as erotic, Platonic or post-Platonic. In the most valuable, J. Mintoff evaluates Alcibiades' argument that one can learn justice from the many just as one can learn Greek (110e–12d). His conclusion is that in a contemporary liberal society, where disagreement about important moral norms is common and tolerated, the many cannot be good teachers of justice. Mintoff, curiously, does not ask whether ancient Athens was a liberal society in this sense, though the picture of democracy in Republic 8 suggests that Plato might have found Athens liberal in the relevant sense. M. Sharpe discusses the Alcibiades II, arguing, in a broadly Straussian fashion, that it presents Platonic ruminations on the dangers of political megalopsuchia. N. Morpeth's ‘“The Individual” in History and History “in General”’ does not get beyond generalisations.
Two appendices suggest problems for the authenticity of the Alcibiades I. E.J. Baynham and T. argue convincingly that the reference to Peparethos at 116d–e makes most sense in the context of events known to us from 340. But it is of course possible that we have lost trace of other earlier events affecting this obscure island. In the second appendix, T. and T. Roberts report on stylometric tests that show the Alcibiades I having more in common with Platonic spuria than we would expect from authentic Plato. T. and Roberts do not discuss the statistical significance of their tests, and make no reference to other stylometric work on Plato. This decidedly amateur critic of stylometry is left with the impression that the stylometry here could benefit from more expert input.
There is a brief introduction sketching the book's contents, a full and valuable bibliography and two indexes. I have featured criticism, and these essays are a mixed bag, but there is much of interest for anyone concerned with the Alcibiades I and the issues it raises.
