Alcibiades was the demagogue and con man who convinced the apparently ever-gullible Athenians to finance an expedition of conquest all the way to Sicily to conquer Syracuse.
So... it WAS Alcibiades who was behind the Syracuse disaster. I know what the vandalism consisted of. He smashed the genitalia of the statues of Greek heroes that lined a prominent boulevard in Athens. But I had thought that he fled eventually to one of the Greek cities in Asia, where he was trapped by his enemies in the house of a wealthy friend. They burned it to the ground. That must have been a different character in the great drama that was ancient Greece.
That Agesilaus sounds like a real classical paranoid tyrant, Hitler, Stalin, Hussein come to mind. And the compulsory pederasty of Sparta makes their demise all the more satisfactory. I am glad the enslaved greeks of the Spartan empire were finally freed.
I am aware that the famous Athenian 'democracy' was in fact an elitist system based on slavery and general equality among the landed and wealthy. I recall in Plato's Apology that the vote on the fate of Socrates was only a few hundred on each side. This implies a really tiny ruling elite. And they had no Bill of Rights, though they seem to have voted on everything. But they could, and did, often vote away their popular control by electing a Stratego.
The Athenians must have been total idiots to follow through with Alcibiades’ plan after he fell out of favor, and, well, JMHO, they were idiots. And they followed through. And it was a disaster.
Athenian foolishness is indeed astounding and perplexing. How could a people who achieved such remarkable cultural, material and military progress, whose motto was "Nothing in Excess", be so short-sighted?
I know the quote is usually rendered "All Things in Moderation", but that would, if taken literally, imply that one should practice everything, just in moderation. I like my rendering, or the alternative "Moderation in All Things."
I would like to comment on the Roman history you so generously share, but time constraints and the ungainly length of my posts dissuade me, at this time. We will have plenty of time to discuss this and much more, as long as my computer doesn't fail and terrorists don't shut down FreeRepublic!
Kind regards,
ARFAR
Thanks ARFAR!