On those dos equis commercials they have the most interesting man in the world
But today, I'm going to talk about someone who could actually possibly
be one of the most interesting men in the world
Alcibiades who was a general
Orator and
politician during the peloponnesian war
In my video on that [war] I breezed through most of the second half of it
for Brevity's sake but today we'll slow right down
And look just at what exactly went so horribly
wrong with athens through the lens of the incomparable Alcibiades now
Alcibiades is indisputably the most attractive man in the ancient world
that's a fact and it's very important for the story basically if you combine
the attractiveness of [George] [Clooney] [Chris] [Evans] and Henry Cavill you'll
Get Alcibiades on an off day like when he's just gotten up
in the morning. That's the kind of attractiveness
We're talking about with this guy
Alcibiades also had a well-earned reputation for banging just about
everybody and he also had a terrible knack for convincing people to do really really
Stupid things as we'll see likely because
of his dashing good looks and possible mind-control powers
Alcibiades would go up to someone and say hey Stefanos?
How's it going? Remember that time we banged last month, not sure if you forgot
But I just wanted remind you that I'm still
totally gorgeous. You know what Alcibiades? you're right, here
Take my money house, wife and Firstborn daughter. You deserve it Alcibiades
Thank you Stefanos, catch you on the flip side and no one would question it
So we've established that alcibiades has a little bit of Killgrave in him
But he's also a bit of a joker character if you get me so he's the ancient world's foremost crazed
supervillain and with that out of the way to history in 415
BC in the middle of a period of peace between athens and sparta
Athens ally Egesta appealed for help against Syracuse in the Athenian assembly
They are debating what to do about this
when Alcibiades said guys I've got an idea, and I'm gorgeous
So you're gonna listen to me and everyone
said you got it Alcibiades. We're listening. He said how about while
We're in Sicily defending Egesta
let's just go and take the rest of Sicily too we'll kick out
Syracuse those dirty Spartan sympathizers and the whole thing will be ours
We'll have more of an empire because that's totally awesome and Nicias gets up
Who was a guy who had organized the peace six years prior that stopped
the fighting between Athens and Sparta so he did not like
War and expansiony thingies and said Alcibiades, that's a terrible idea
I think we should absolutely not do that to which Alcibiades
said let's put it to a vote who wants to go and invade Sicily
everyone raises their hand and Nicias falls back in his chair like ah
Crap Alcibiades strikes again, okay guys here
how about this if we really wanted to invade Sicily we need a
Stupidly huge navy. I mean we already have a big navy,
but we need 200 ships to go and invade Sicily
There's no way we could do that and Alcibiades gets up again and says guys
I think that Nicias over here has given us a perfect solution to this problem
how about we raise a giant navy of 200 ships and go over to Sicily raise your hand if you agree and
Everyone of course raised their hand in agreement, Nicias again is like. Oh, no
So Athens devoted the next three terms to production
and assemble the biggest naval armada ever seen
Athens already had a huge navy
But this one was just absurd
However a night shortly before the expedition was
to leave something curious happens to the herms of athens the herms were
Statues that were really just stone square torsos with a head
and male genitals on them it's the closest thing the Athenians had to
Minimalist art although, I feel like the herms might find that offensive these pieces of art
Let's call them were sacred to Hermes who watched over travelers meaning
that if anything were to happen to the herms
It would be a very bad omen for those who are traveling
Well, just before some rather big travel plans to Sicily went
into motion a group of Rowdy College kids went about let's say de-herming
the herms I'll put it that way, and that's a no-no the next morning athens was up in arms about
What is now called the hermacopic conspiracy and wanted to figure out who was responsible
For some reason Alcibiades was implicated in
the treachery and accused of colluding in the conspiracy
Which if you think about it for more than two seconds makes zero sense
Alcibiades was the guy who pushed the idea of the expedition in the first place
So why would he then turn around and try to sabotage it?
Admittedly in the context of his character as we'll
see later on it makes perfect sense, but right now
It's kind of weird, so fine whatever
Alcibiades goes to the assembly and says hey
dudes. It's me Alcibiades still gorgeous possibly more gorgeous than yesterday
I'm about to leave for this big glorious expedition thing that we have going on that
We talked about last week, and if you want to put this sculpted
face right here and this glorious jawline on trial
How about we do that now?
So you guys don't recall me in the middle of my
campaign because that would be really stupid. What do you say?
And Athens collectively responds nah
we'd rather wait until you're like just about
to get to Sicily but not there yet like right before you get there and
Then recall you and probably put you on trial and possibly put you to death
Alcibiades is like ah
great fine
And the expedition heads out to glorious fanfare their first clue that everything
was going to fail horribly should have been when while sailing around
The bottom of Italy's boot the Athenian fleet
docked at towns and expected to be greeted with fanfare and a feast
But no one even bothered to show up or acknowledge
them so they carried on as they were making their way to Sicily Alcibiades
Nicias who was also made a general of the expedition probably in a
cruel twist of fate and an actually good
general named Lamechus were
Planning the expedition Nicias proposed the smallest possible
engagement and sticking to helping
out Egesta and doing little else
Lamechus proposed a direct assault on Syracuse to catch them off guard and get rid of them first
Alcibiades however proposed that they go to Egesta first which was on the
far side of Sicily and then work their way across
The Island going town to town amassing soldiers from the locals as they went
Even though this is a very very stupid plan because it
gives Syracuse time to prepare because they see them coming and as you've seen
The people of Italy do not really seemed like the
Athenians much Lamachus leaned over and said oh of course anything for you
Alcibiades we'll go with your plan because you're so totally gorgeous
Nicias said what the hell Lamachus you're supposed to be smart, so
right as this is happening as they're about to land
in Sicily as the Athenians had expertly prophesied
Alcibiades gets a letter saying hey Alcibiades
come back to Athens we want to put you on trial like we said we would
Alcibiades is like ah, crap okay. Fine. So the boat that's going to
recall him to Athens shows up and Alcibiades says guys
I have one last request if you would please let me take my boat
back to Athens instead of this little dinghy you guys brought
Because my boat's as gorgeous as I am and I'd like to be on something equally gorgeous to me
The Athenians who were there to recall him said okay, Alcibiades you little scamp sure no problem
and they set sail the two of them, their boats and
Alcibiades is behind the Athenian boat a couple,
couple boat lengths behind as you're supposed to do when you're driving and
The Athenians are like hey Alcibiades you're falling a little bit behind there,
and he says no no, it's okay
I can do what I want you guys are fine. Just keep going. I'm here. The Athenians keep going ahead
Alcibiades falls a little bit further behind
the Athenians say hey Alcibiades you still back
there? Alcibiades' like don't worry. I'm good. I'm great
just keep going I'm following you you guys are leading the way fantastically and
The Athenians keep going Alcibiades starts peeling
off more and more and more and then goes left and pisses of to Sparta
So the Athenians are like ah
Crap. And Alcibiades goes to the king and says hey Spartan king. I'm Alcibiades. I'm gorgeous
You can do with me Spartan King says I could do with you hot stuff
So then Alcibiades gets a long and prosperous
Two or three year career of basically telling the
Spartans how to defeat the Athenians which sounds like a pretty good deal
Alcibiades spends some time colluding with the spartans and doing his thing, but then eventually
they kind of realized that after a son was born that looked a little bit too much like
Alcibiades that he may have been fooling around with the queen so
the Spartan King said get the hell out of my house
I don't care how gorgeous you are clearly my wife does
Alcibiades says bye and then he goes over to Persia
Just because why not and he hangs out with the local governor there a
satrap called Tissaphernes and gave him advice on
how to deal with the whole Athenian Spartan conflict that was going on right now
we're actually going to divert away from
Alcibiades and go back to the Sicilian expedition and talk about what happened
there because it's actually kind of hilarious even without alcibiades there
so the Athenians were on their way from Egesta in the far west to
Syracuse in the far east trying to Gather soldiers all along their way
like Alcibiades' plan called for but perhaps unsurprisingly
No one really wanted to join them because no one outside
of Athens really likes Athens all that much
So that didn't exactly go very well and by the time they had gotten to
Syracuse they were met by a strong Syracusean
opposition as Nicias had warned them about
when you're sieging a city in the ancient world the idea is
that you build a wall around the city to starve them out and
cut off their food supply in the opposite order of course and
When the Athenians tried to do that with Syracuse
they kind of failed horribly because the Syracuseans were crafty and clever
so as the Athenians were building their wall across the Syracuseans shot out a
Perpendicular counter wall to basically stop their wall from
going any further this happened three more times
Hilariously until Lamechus actually died at the
battle and then it gets sad becomes hilarious again later, but for now
It's sad
so the wall war was
lost and the Athenians went back to try to figure out what to do since the
Syracusean's still had access to outside food at this point
Nicias was quite sick because he was staying in a nearby swamp
and he sent a letter to Athens seeking help and asking for him
to be relieved because he was sick and kind of dying
The Athenians heard him loud and clear and sent a response saying
what's that you want us to send you more troops and keep you where
you are? don't worry Nicias. We got you buddy
So they sent another general after the other two either died or left and this guy Demosthenes
Shows up this guy's deal was always doing night attacks whether or not it worked
he loved to do it his first brilliant plan upon showing up was to capture
the strategic position of the Epipolae which was a
hill outside of Syracuse
To make sure that the Athenian side didn't accidentally kill itself
in the confusion and nighttimeness they came up with a code word which
I can only presume was marshmallow
so they would be able to say marshmallow to each
other and know that they were on the same side now a slight
Massive problem here is that the Athenians were fighting alongside
Argives from Argos. Argives are dorian Syracusans are also dorian
The Athenians are Ionian which are different dialects of greek now
when the Argives were getting ready for battle that did their typical
Dorian war chant the Athenians of course freaked
the hell up because upon hearing Dorian dialect and a war chant
Conspicuously close to their camp they think oh my God the Syracusan's have infiltrated us
We're gonna die we need to go kill those guys forgetting that they have Argives right there
but I guess that kind of slips your mind in the middle of a nighttime assault, so
things go wrong
So the athenians are stabbing the ever-loving hell out of these poor
Argives who are screaming Marshmallow Marshmallow don't kill me marshmallow
Please marshmallow oh God my spleen and
The Syracusan's over on the other side of the hill are like hey
Stefanos do you think that
That marshmallow thing is a... a code word? They're saying it as if to convey
I'm on your side, please don't stab me. Oh my God. Why'd you stab me,
but then it seems like maybe if we
Use that code word we can sneakily murder all of them
So they did and they walk through the Athenian Camp whispering hey Marshmallow [stab]
Marshmallow [Stab stab]
Going around whispering Marshmallow and murdering everybody
so the Syracusan's are killing the Athenians and the Argives the Athenians are killing the
Argives and the Argives are patiently not so patiently getting murdered
So the whole experiment kind of falls apart
But that's what happens when you kill your
own people thinking they're someone else life lessons kids
So at this point the Athenians are starting to
think maybe we should just get out of here and cut our losses
but at that moment the Spartans show up and
sort of blockade in with the help of the Syracusan fleet all of the Athenian ships
They fight a naval battle to try and get out,
but it doesn't exactly work, so when Nicias goes back to his camp still
pneumonia'd out of his mind
He goes to the oracle and says what do we do this kind of sucks the oracle says you gotta wait
27 days before you try to retreat again Nicias
says all right fine. I'll listen to it and his advisors say Nicias
That's really stupid. We should go now we have a chance Nicias says no, no, no shhh
Oracle says and they're like oh
God, we're all gonna die and they do, but I'm getting there. Don't get ahead of me
so
The boats are kind of wrecked because as they're staying in this swamp waiting
for 27 days for retreat they get completely waterlogged the thing
With triremes is you got to take them out and clean it every once in a while
And when they're in a swamp,
you don't get the chance to take them out and clean them every once in a while
So that doesn't really go very well,
and they try instead to do a land retreat remember kids Sicily is an Island
So you can probably figure out where this one's going the sad
plot twists that the Athenians were not Jesus
So they couldn't just walk over the water and escape the whole island thing
So they're all ultimately captured and killed
It's really sad, but this is a comedy show so I'm going to
breeze right over that and get back to Alcibiades
Who's in Persia
And he's giving the local Governor some advice
But he never really planned to stay in Persia for an extended
period of time his ultimate goal was to come back to Athens with
A bunch of Persian money and be like hey guys look it's me
Alcibiades still totally gorgeous now totally rich
Aren't I awesome you should welcome me back and
not kill me like you said you would that'd be great
So soon enough he leaves and goes to the nearby
Athenian fleet that was tooling around in the Aegean sea and convinced them that the radical
democracy in Athens was no good that they
should totally overthrow it and replaced with an oligarchy an
Oligarchy would benefit Alcibiades because no democracy means no death
sentence for him thus begins the most comical political overthrow ever
so some salient details first the rich people of Athens really liked the idea of the
Oligarchy because the oligarchy means they're
in power whereas democracy means those poor peasants are in power
So they called a meeting outside of Athens just outside the city walls to discuss political stuff
The thing is since it's outside the city walls only the rich would have showed up
because the rich people of athens would have been
able to supply their own armor and weapons
The reason armor and weapons are necessary is because usually the
Spartans are outside of the Athenian Walls wreaking Havoc
So only those who could have protected themselves would have been not scared and gone outside
Very sneakily you've called a meeting of only the
richest people in Athens this group of upstanding citizens
Did what's called suspending the graphe Perrineau monde which is the law against illegal laws
I know it sounds ridiculous because it is
so basically in
Suspending the graphe perrineau monde illegal laws are now legal
which literally means they wrote a law that got rid of the democracy
And instated an oligarchy of four hundred aristocrats so in this situation
Alcibiades would be very happy because the death sentence on it is kind of gone, but what happened
Then was that the new oligarchy and Athens started
executing people really harshly and the fleet which was oligarchic said no
We don't like that
We don't stand for that and for the first time
ever created a democracy for ideological reasons rather than political reasons
Which is really interesting but kind of ridiculous
because you have an oligarchy fleet in a democratic city which flip-flops to in?
Oligarchic City and a democratic fleet what
but
Alcibiades doesn't care because he can go on and do whatever he wants
because as long as Athens isn't a democracy for the moment the
Death sentence is kind of gone. Which is good. So
he goes around fighting some battles doing some stuff with the fleet and in
407 he goes back to athens,
and they're like cool Alcibiades still gorgeous you get that silver Fox look
He's like. I know still looking good
always did always will and then they're like hey so Alcibiades
You're you're good. We like you no death threat this time. Go out
Do your stuff keep being awesome and win us some battles
And he's like you know it guys so Alcibiades is doing his thing up until 406
at the battle of Notium when Alcibiades presumably
had to use the restroom so he tells one of his guys look you
I'm gonna go to the restroom Gonna be gone for like five minutes
Maybe I need you to be in charge, but not touch anything
Don't look at the Spartans don't think about going to fight them if you see them
Because you shouldn't see them because you shouldn't be looking at them and just
Don't just don't do anything please just gonna be gone for like five minutes
You can handle this. He's like, okay boss
you got it, and he does the thing where he like salutes
but he hits himself in the eye cuz he's one of those guys, but then Alcibiades leaves and
He's like hey. Uh boss said we should go fight the Spartans right the other guys are like yup
so they do and they fight the battle of Notium and lose horribly and
Alcibiades comes back
He's like what the hell guys. I was gone for like
five minutes now the guys like oops and Alcibiades is like okay?
Fine screw this I'm out of here
and He goes and leaves and
runs off to his private castle in the northeast of Greece because he just kinda you know has one of
Those the last historically significant event of Alcibiades life was the battle of Aegospotami
which is the last battle of the
Peloponnesian war and this battle is actually kind of funny because
he's living sort of near where the battle was so he leans over to the
Athenians and he's like hey Athens, you're at a strategically disadvantageous position,
and I think you should move Athens is like no shut up Alcibiades
He's like fine
But you're gonna lose so they ended up losing Alcibiades was right and then
sort of after that Alcibiades just kind of dies
Historical accounts of Alcibiades' death are kind of all over the place
But I personally am preferential to the version where his house is attacked by assassins
And burned down and he jumps out with a knife like come at me, bros
Then he gets killed by a swarm of arrows it's not very flattering but it's kind of cool
So that's the one I go with but anyway there you have it folks the life of arguably one of the most
Interesting characters in the Ancient world and in my opinion
one of the most interesting characters in all of history
It's amazing how the majority of ancient Greece's funniest stories all surround this one guy
But at the same time how could it not because I mean look at him he's gorgeous