Document Type : Scientific-Research

Authors

1 PhD Student, Department of History, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

2 Associate professor, Department of History, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

3 Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Some scholars doubt that the dialog "Alcibiades Major" was written by Plato, but this conversation has an important place among the works belonging to the Platonic school. "Alcibiades Major" contains a dialog between Socrates and the young Alcibiades, and in some parts of the conversation they also talk about the Achaemenid Empire. In this study, only one part of the conversation has been considered, namely that Socrates mentions Cyrus the Great and Xerxes I as the only people the young and ambitious Alcibiades respects. Thus, the aim of this study is to identify, through a critical and comparative reading of the conversation of "Alcibiades Major", the concepts and images that led the author to mention the names of Cyrus and Xerxes as the only honorable persons for Alcibiades". Finally, this study aims to analyze the hidden ideas that existed in the public opinion of the Greeks of the 5th and 4th centuries BC about these two Achaemenid great kings.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Briant, Pierre. (2013). Histoire de l,empire Perse de Cyrus a Alexander, translated by Nahid Foroughan, tehran: Farzan [In Persian]
Brosius, Maria. (2019). The Persians: An introduction, translated by Isa Abdi, Tehran: Mahi [In Persian]
Ctesias (2011). History of Persia, tales of the Orient, translated by Fereydoon Majlesi, Tehran: Tehran [In Persian]
Gomperz, Theodor. (1996). Griechische Denker: eine Geschichte der entiken philosophie, translated by Mohammad Hasan Lotfi, Tehran: Kharazmi [In Persian]
Herodotus. (2010). The histories of Herodot, translated by Morteza Saghebfar, Tehran: Asatir [In Persian]
Jaeger, Werner. (2014). Paideia, translated by Mohammad Hasan Lotfi, Tehran: Kharazmi [In Persian]
Olmsread, Albert Ten Eyck. (2011). The history of Persian empire, translated by Mohammad Moghadam, Tehran: Amirkabir [In Persian]
Plato. (2022). Collections of works, Translated by Mohammad Hasan Lotfi & Reza Kaviani, Tehran: Karazmi [In Persian]
Procopius. (1983). History of the wars: The Persian wars, translated by Mohammad Saeedi, Tehran: Elmifarhangi [In Persian]
Rose, H.J. (1993). A handbook of Greek literature, translated by Ibrahim Younesi, Tehran: Amirkabir [In Persian]
Strauss, Leo. (2021). xenephon's Socratic discourse, translated by Yashar Jeirani ,Tehran: Agah [In Persian]
Stuttard, David. (2018). A history of ancient Greece in fifty lives, translated by Shahrbanoo Saremi, Tehran: Qoqnoos [In Persian]
Wiesehӧfer, Josef. (2011). Ancient Persia, translated by Morteza Saghebfar, Tehran: Qoqnoos [In Persian]
Xenophon (20150. Memorabilia, Translated by Mohammad Hasan Lotfi, Tehran: Kharazmi [In Persian]
Source of English
Aeschines (1958): The Speeches of Aeschines: Against Timarchus, On the Embassy, Against Ctesiphon, with an English translation by Charles Darwin Adams, Harward University Press.
Archie, Andre (2015): Politics in Socrates Alcibiades: A Philosophical Account of Plato’s Dialogue Alcibiades Major, Springer, New York.
Baynham, E. J & Harold Tarrant (2012): "Fourth-Century Politics and the Date of the Alcibiades I", in: Alcibiades and the Socratic Lover-Educator, edited by: Marguerite Jonson and Harold Tarrant, Bristol Classical Press, London.
Benitez, Eugenio (2012): "Authenticity, Experiment or Development: The Alcibiades I on Virtue and Courage, in: Alcibiades and the Socratic Lover-Educator, edited by: Marguerite Jonson and Harold Tarrant, Bristol Classical Press, London.
De Romilly, Jaqueline (2019): The Life of Alcibiades: Dangerous Ambition and the Betrayal of Athens, translated by Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London.
Gribble, David (1999): Alcibiades and Athens: A Study in Literary Presentation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Helfer, Ariel (2017): Socrates and Alcibiades: Plato’s Drama of Political Ambition and Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
Morrison, Donald R. (2010): "Xenophon's Socrates as Teacher", in: Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Xenophon, Edited by Vivienne J. Gray, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Plato (2001): Alcibiades, Edited by Nicholas Denyer, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Plato (1984): Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Gorgias, Menexenus: The Dialogues of Plato, Vol 1, translated with comment by R. E. Allen, Yale University Press, Haven and London.
Plutarch (1959): Plutarch's Lives IV: Alcibiades and Coriolanus, Lysander and Sulla, with an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Renaud, Francois & Harold Tarrant (2015): The Platonic "Alcibiades I": The Dialogue and its Ancient Reception, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1836): Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato, translated from the German by William Dobson, Cambridge.
Thucydides (2009): The Pelopennesian War, Translated by Martin Hammond, with an Introduction and Notes by P. J. Rhodes, Oxford University Press Inc., New York.
Tuplin, Christopher (2018): "Plato, Xenophon and Persia", in: Plato and Xenophon, Edited by Gabriel Danzig, David Johnson and Donald Morrison, Brill, Leiden & Boston.
Yuji, Kurihara (2012): "Socratic Ignorance, or the Place of the Alcibiades I in Plato’s Early Works, in: Alcibiades and the Socratic Lover-Educator, edited by: Marguerite Jonson and Harold Tarrant, Bristol Classical Press, London.
Xenophon (1994): Memorabilia, translated and annotated by Amy L. Bonnette, with an Introdution by Christopher Bruell, Cornel University Press, Ithaca and London.