| Summary: | This book is about the explosive mixture of fear and fascination excited by Alcibiades in his contemporaries and in contemporary texts. Dr. Gribble does not attempt to add to the existing biographical literature on Alcibiades. Instead he explores the tensions which dominated the life of this controversial figure, between the classical city and the individual of superlative power, status and ambition. Focusing on key texts - Thucydides, the mysterious pseudo-Andocides 4, Isocrates 16, the final scene of Plato's Symposium - Dr. Gribble considers the way Alcibiades is approximated to archetypes of the individual 'outside' the city: the tyrant, the athletic victor, the ostracism victim, the scapegoat, the barbarian.
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