Phaedo wrote: Take for instance Antiochus' disaster at Notium. I simply can’t believe that a long-time friend, and, especially, a skilful seaman, a maritime professional! would do what he did on a mere whim of arrogance. These things are not a bunch plastic toys to shuffle around on the living room carpet. You are left in command of 80 ships and who knows how many lives of valuable warriors…
Ahhh….Alcibiades. The original Rubic’s Cube: he is the face you assemble.
Let’s start with that example. Firstly Antiochus is no genius; he is no high ranking person in social class let alone officer. The Athenian navy, at this stage of the war, was not overflowing with the skill of former years. In Phormio’s day I’d guess he’d rate as a row master. Without exaggeration this navy – compared to Phormio’s day – is like Antigonus Doson’s phalanx compared to Philip’s or Alexander’s.
The source material clearly indicates that Alcibiades left (to meet Thrasybulus or collect money) and gave his pilot the command. This is scandalous. There will have been battle experienced trierachs in the fleet that should have had the command and – possibly – one or more who may have been elected strategos before. We are not informed. Either way there was no excuse for giving a “hired sailor” (friend or not) the command. To my mind it speaks volumes about Alcibiades’ insecurity. This is in the aftermath of much recrimination at Athens over his “rehabilitation” (there were law suits being prepared). It seems – to me – that Alcibiades was prepared to put the fleet at the risk of command by his pilot because he didn’t quite trust those trierachs (of the “upper class”) in his absence.
Alcibiades was a very divisive figure – in antiquity as today. There was the feeling, at the time, that he was not totally responsible for Athens’ recent fortunes. This is a theme backed by Donald Kagan who, without stretching the material, argues the same line. The seminal victories in the Hellespont in 411-409 were – largely – the result of Theramenes and Thrasybulus. Alcibiades was the “Johnny-come-lately”.
One needs to bear in mind that Alcibiades – an exile at the eastern end of Thrace for the final years of the war – was almost certainly a major source for Thucydides (book 8) – an exile at the western end at the same time. It is possibly an excuse for Thucydides’ utter lack of interest in that which decided the war: the Persian alliance with Sparta and Athens inexplicable decision to back Amorges in Caria. He likely found much of what he was told hard to swallow??
That same source is likely behind the cuckolding of Agis’ wife. There is little likelihood that this information came to Thucydides from Sparta and there is no real reason to doubt it – he was incorrigible. What goes understated are the rifts rending Sparta at this time. It is too simple to call them “traditionalists” and “medisers”. Sparta suffered from a deeper rift: to engage (over much) outside Laconia or to concern oneself with the Peleponnese. To win this war they needed Persian money. This was apparent at the outset and pursued throughout.
It is not overtly apparent whether Agis, lucky champion of Mantinea, was in the “medising” or “realist” camp. What is apparent is that he was in the aggrandising camp that Agesilaos would soon champion. Agis was at Decelea with an army and he would use it – in central Greece if not against Athens. Endius and otheres at home in Sparta might grasp anything to reign in the freedom of a king at large with an army in time of war. Alcibiades is shown urging Endius to allow him to sail to Ionia and stir up revolt before Agis achieves anything by himself. He is, from memory, described as "estranged" from Agis, the reason not being given.
Politics. All is politics.
In the end, Endius, Alcibiades and Agis were all done in by a far better political infighter possessed of towering ambitions; a Laconian of lower class who well knew power, favour and how to curry it: Lysander.
And he would find his Waterloo in the pugnacious and endlessly ambitious Agesilaos. As would Sparta.
