Alcibiades and Assassination: From the Tyrant-Slayers to the Revolution of the Four Hundred in Athens

Alcibiades, the most divisive figure in the Peloponnesian War, was assassinated in 404 BCE (Kagan. 1987; De Romilly; Rhodes). I argue that his death is attributable to his betrayal of the Athenian elite, of which he was a member. His ancestor, the Alkmaionid, Kleisthenes, ejected the tyrant, Hippias, from Athens after the assassination of Hippias’ brother, Hipparchos, and, siding with the demos, first established Athenian democracy in 510-506 BCE (Lang. 1955; Kagan. 1993). Specifically, I argue that Alcibiades’ assassination was caused by his encouragement of the Revolution of the Four Hundred in Athens in 411 BCE.

That revolution, which overturned Athens’ democracy, bringing into power for the first time in a century an elite governing body, ended quickly (Lang. 1948; 1967). In fact, Alcibiades in 411 BCE was supported by the Athenian lower-class navy on Samos, and his parallel appeal to the Athenian elite to overthrow its democracy created an untenable situation in Athens. The overthrow of the Four Hundred itself led to a complete discrediting of the Athenian elite, whose support of Athenian democracy had been assumed for decades (Thuc. 8.47-97; Plut. Alc. 25-26). Alcibiades returned to Athens in 407 BCE to democratic acclaim, but the damage to his relationship with the elites was permanent.

By 404 BCE the Athenian elite, once again in power in Athens and recalling the rupture in their bond with the Athenian demos that collaboration with Alcibiades in 411 BCE had created, saw another assassination of an enemy of democratic Athens, like that of Hipparchos, as a symbolic and performative act to enhance their status with the demos (Isoc. 16 Chariot-Team 40). They were happy to assassinate one of their own – a renegade Alkmaionid no less – in return for Alcibiades’ similar use of them to further his own ambitions in 411 BCE.