Alcibiades 2
Plato (428–347 BC)
Plato's Alcibiades 2 in the Greek text edited by John Burnet.
Section 138
Section 139
Section 140
Section 141
[141] Soc. Oedipus, as I was saying, Alcibiades, was a person of this sort. And even now-a-days you will find many who [have offered inauspicious prayers], although, unlike him, they were not in anger nor thought that they were asking evil. He neither sought, nor supposed that he sought for good, but others have had quite the contrary notion. I believe that if the God whom you are about to consult should appear to you, and, in anticipation of your request, enquired whether you would be contented to become tyrant of Athens, and if this seemed in your eyes a small and mean thing, should add to it the dominion of all Hellas; and seeing that even then you would not be satisfied unless you were ruler of the whole of Europe, should promise, not only that, but, if you so desired, should proclaim to all mankind in one and the same day that Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, was tyrant:—in such a case, I imagine, you would depart full of joy, as one who had obtained the greatest of goods.
Al. And not only I, Socrates, but any one else who should meet with such luck.
Soc. Yet you would not accept the dominion and lordship of all the Hellenes and all the barbarians in exchange for your life?
Al. Certainly not: for then what use could I make of them?
Soc. And would you accept them if you were likely to use them to a bad and mischievous end?
Al. I would not.
Soc. You see that it is not safe for a man either rashly to accept whatever is offered him, or himself to request a thing, if he is likely to suffer thereby or immediately to lose his life. And yet we could tell of many who, having long desired and diligently laboured to obtain a tyranny, thinking that thus they would procure an advantage, have nevertheless fallen victims to designing enemies. You must have heard of what happened only the other day, how Archelaus of Macedonia was slain by his beloved, whose love for the tyranny was not less than that of Archelaus for him. The tyrannicide expected by his crime to become tyrant and afterwards to have a happy life; but when he had held the tyranny three or four days, he was in his turn conspired against and slain.