Description

Alcibiades was one of the most dazzling figures of the Golden Age of Athens. A ward of Pericles and a friend of Socrates, he was spectacularly rich, bewitchingly handsome and charismatic, a skilled general, and a ruthless politician. He was also a serial traitor, infamous for his dizzying changes of loyalty in the Peloponnesian War. Nemesis tells the vivid story of this extraordinary life and the turbulent world that Alcibiades set out to conquer.

David Stuttard recreates ancient Athens at the height of its glory as he follows Alcibiades from childhood to political power. Outraged by his celebrity lifestyle, his enemies sought every chance to undermine him.

Eventually, facing a capital charge of impiety, Alcibiades escaped to the enemy, Sparta. There he traded military intelligence for safety until, suspected of seducing a Spartan queen, he was forced to flee again—this time to Greece’s long-term foes, the Persians. Miraculously, though, he engineered a recall to Athens as Supreme Commander, but, suffering a reversal, he took flight to Thrace where he lived as a warlord. At last in Anatolia, tracked by his enemies, he died naked and alone in a hail of arrows.

As he follows Alcibiades’ journeys crisscrossing the Mediterranean from mainland Greece to Syracuse, Sardis and Byzantium, Stuttard weaves together the threads of his adventures against a backdrop of cultural splendor and international chaos.

Navigating often contradictory evidence, he provides a coherent and spellbinding account of a life that has gripped historians, storytellers, and artists for more than 2000 years.

Harvard University Press First published 2018

The book is also available in a Dutch edition.

Reviews include

No one before has come anything like as near as David Stuttard to penetrating the inner recesses of the mainsprings of Alcibiades's often outrageous, sometimes statesmanlike, always commanding public performances. Stuttard's mastery of the ancient sources and his narrative exposition are dazzling throughout, bringing to singing life the mercurial, magnetic, passionate and persuasive personality of this still hugely controversial Athenian aristocrat of the fifth century BC.

Paul Cartledge, author of The Spartans and Democracy, A Life

David Stuttard is a recognized expert at making the ancient Greek world come alive for modern audiences.In Nemesis, he conveys the horror and the glory of the years of Athens' greatness and decline. Central to these processes was the flamboyant Alcibiades, and Stuttard, wearing his learning lightly, gives us a hugely entertaining biography that is simultaneously an exciting adventure story and a short history of the period.

Robin Waterfield, author of Why Socrates Died

Stuttard has offered us a colourful, lively and engaging analysis of one of ancient Greece’s most fascinating and slippery characters: Alcibiades. With deft skill Stuttard navigates the ancient sources to offer the portrait not simply of a hero, or a villain, but of a man with equal talents and failings who managed to captivate the attention of the ancient world.

Michael Scott, author of Ancient Worlds: an Epic History

Nemesis is a rich and rewarding biography, as thorough as it is bracing and as measured as it is entertaining. Stuttard is to be praised for capturing the complexity of both the man and the world he lived in with such sensitivity and clarity. If in life Alcibiades’ “magic evaporated with him” whenever he went away, then in death the force of his charisma has been restored.

Daisy Dunn, New Criterion

So intriguing an investigation... There is a great deal in Stuttard’s book that is most welcome: the painstaking thoroughness of the testimonia that he deploys; the short shrift he on occasion gives to a revered author like Thucydides, who was no less susceptible than the next man to Alcibiades’ handsome blandishments; his readiness to parse anecdotes as guides to character rather than as historical fact. He has a sharp nose for the chicanery inherent in Athens’ hard-scrabble politics; he has read, and profited by, a remarkable amount of modern scholarship, by no means all in English. Best of all, he never lets us forget those complex and class-ridden family relationships that were, paradoxically, the main driving force behind Athens’ democratic institutions.

Peter Green, London Review of Books

Stuttard is skilled at drawing together background information that adds context to his characters’ actions, seamlessly smuggling exposition of Greek and Persian society and customs into his narrative. Nemesis demonstrates how readable and entertaining popular narrative ancient history can be, and adds a focus on social history to the military and political story.

Carol Atack, Times Literary Supplement

A theater director of ancient Greek drama and popular writer on Hellenic myths and persons, Stuttard knows how to narrate his character in context. If Alcibiades lacked character, in Stuttard’s telling he is one.

Ryan Shinkel, Los Angeles Review of Books

Very fine! It’s gripping, and written with intensity, and there’s so much to learn outside the life of Alcibiades. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hoplite battle more vividly described, including by Herodotus!

Robert Garland, Classics Professor, Colgate University

David Stuttard is a fine classical scholar, and also, through his extensive work with Greek drama, a master of character assessment and human motive. So this book has both a solid foundation in scholarship and numerous illuminating insights into the mercurial nature of Alcibiades and what drove him to commit so many outrageous deeds. To date, no work on Alcibiades has so tellingly come to grips with a man whose ego was so large that he literally knew no shame. Stuttard explains the context of the story so that those with little prior knowledge are able to understand the politics, society and culture of Athens and the wider ancient world that provides the backdrop for Alcibiades’ widespread antics.

The British Museum Magazine

We are understandably fascinated by a life that pushes the limits of our understanding of what is believable, and Nemesis does justice to that life, in a most readable and enjoyable way. Stuttard’s book can be read just for pleasure, but even better is the reward when readers are led to re-examine the problems of historiography and historical consciousness, our understanding of the classification of different regimes, and how we should determine what legally constitutes treason.

Steven Grosby, Law and Liberty

A general-audience biography about the controversial Athenian statesman has now hit the bookshelves, which may bring Alcibiades into the mainstream… Stuttard’s work is laudable especially in its depth and its use of availablesources. The main body of the text, at 306 pages, leaves few if any details of Alcibiades’ life untouched. In terms of primary sources, he displays a firm grasp of the near-contemporary accounts, drawing onthe historical, literary, and oratorical works of the classical period, as well as relevant archaeological and epigraphical evidence. He also cites heavily from much later sources, including first and foremost Plutarch, but also Diodorus Siculus, Justin, and others. Stuttard also draws from a variety of secondary sources intended for both scholarly and general audiences, making his endnotes useful for both types of readers to pursue further inquiry on specific topics.

Samuel Ortencio Flores, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

David Stuttard’s new life of Alcibiades is a lively, fast-paced and eminently readable attempttobring the insolent young monster back to life.

Peter Thonemann, Literary Review

It’s quite the tale, told with rare gusto and precision by David Stuttard – an astute inquisitor of the conflicting sources with an eye for the telling anecdote.

Jonathan Wright, Catholic Herald

Robust new biography... To anyone looking for a readable introduction to the Peloponnesian War, I would recommend Stuttard’s book.

Thomas Hodgkinson, The Spectator

As an entertaining biography of a scoundrel, Nemesis is superb... Stuttard eloquentlytells the reader of the rise and fall of a man and his city, who both angered the gods through their acts presents an exciting tale of the late and attitudes.

Choice

Writing with humor and gusto, Stuttard presents an exciting tale of the late fifth century BCE... I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Aaron Beck, H-War

Stuttard’s background in theater and his style seem to be tailor-made for such a dazzling subject and theatrical story. Flourishes abound, metaphors laden, and images drawn out. Stuttard adroitly weaves the many facets of Alcibiades’ life, public and personal, into the seemingly unending Greek conflict of his lifetime. Ancient sources are examined against each other and circumstantial reports so readers can follow up and make up their own mind as to what to believe. It’s a lively read, covering one of the major characters during this chaotic span of ancient Greece’s history. What emerges is a portrait of a complex figure, as enigmatic today as he probably was in his won time. A prior knowledge of the period is helpful, but not required given Stuttard’s excellent overview. The provided maps, time line, and family tree are extremely helpful. Very highly recommended.

Dwight Green, Bookcents.blogspot.com