They love, and hate, and cannot do without him.
-Aristophanes on
the relationship of Athenians to Alcibiades
I very much liked Steven Pressfield's earlier historical novel Gates
of Fire (see Orrin's review), which told
the thrilling story of the small band of Spartans holding the pass at Thermopylae
against Persian invaders in 480 B.C. Tides of War advances
the action to 430 B.C. with the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, which
saw Sparta and the other city-states of Greece try to reign in the power
of Athens. His story focusses on the fortunes of Alcibiades (451-404
B.C.), the most gifted, though mercurial, leader of his day. Alcibiades
was adopted as a boy by Pericles, the great democratic leader of Athens.
By all accounts, the boy was physically beautiful, intellectually gifted
and moraly unscrupulous. He became a great disciple of Socrates,
with whom he campaigned in Potidaea, but contrary to the great philosophers
teachings, determined to try his hand at politics. He became the
worst kind of populist, opportunistic, demagogue--ultimately fighting for
Athens three different times, but also joining the Spartans and even the
Persians during periods when he had been exiled from Athens. He was
the driving force behind the ill-advised decision to try to conquer Syracuse
(415-13 B.C.), which may have been the single most significant factor contributing
to Athen's eventual downfall, as the Expedition proved to be a disastrous
drain on men and materiel.
Once again, Pressfield turns in an impressive performance. He's
working on a broader canvas here, but demonstrates an admirable command
of history, customs, battle tactics, and multiple other subjects.
He is especially good at depicting battle scenes, with all their inextricable
twining of confusion, brutality and heroism.
I did find the narrative structure of the book to be awkward.
A grandson relates the tale that his grandfather heard from one of the
men who was tried for assassinating Alcibiades. This results in three
separate narrative tracks, indicated by italics and brackets and the whole
thing takes on the nature of a Rube Goldberg contraption. Having
the entire story told in the first person also makes the author's linguistic
choices more noticeable, which seems like a bad idea. Even if you're
eager to suspend disbelief, you end up noticing the uneasy fit between
passages that seem as if they are meant to sound somewhat archaic and others
that sound like film noir banter. It just doesn't seem like the immediacy
of a first person narrator is worth all the hoops it forces author and
reader to leap through.
There is also a significant problem with the dramatic structure of the
story. For all his undeniable talent and charisma, at the end of
the day Alcibiades is merely another tyrant, who put his own fortunes ahead
of those of his country. Moreover, his various plots and stratagems
were responsible for the decline and fall of the world's first great democracy.
I suppose most everyone goes through a phase in youth where the Napoleons
of the world seem like romantic figures--men who restore order out of chaos
and bend the world to their will, however briefly. Perhaps it's simply
a sign of age that I no longer find such men sympathetic, now they just
strike me as trumped up bureaucrats who think they know better than anyone
else how the world should work. I think the term that Pressfield
uses is "necessity", which I guess he derives from the historical record,
Alcibiades always thinks he knows what is necessary at any given moment.
If the intervening 2400 years have taught us anything, it is that one man,
or group of men, never know what is necessary; they merely impose their
own vision on a typically unwilling populace with predictably disastrous
results, as here.
In fact, I found the story most effective as a cautionary tale of the
dangers inherent in depending on charismatic leadership and of trying to
make direct democracy work. In I. F. Stone's book The Trial of
Socrates (see Orrin's review),
he tries to reconcile his own veneration of Athenian-style democracy with
the, to him, inexplicable decision to execute the great philosopher.
But the great lesson of that episode and of the career of Alcibiades is
that the polity of such a democracy is "a beast needing to be fed", driven
by emotion and envy, not an enlightened and rational body. The unfettered
citizenry of Athens is really pretty scary and men like Alcibiades, who
would exploit the baser instincts (in particular, the imperial pretensions)
of the beast for personal gain, can in no wise be considered heroes, however
bold and fascinating they may be.
Despite these concerns, I do strongly recommend the book. One
of the great deficits of the modern education is how little we learn of
Greek and Roman Civilization. Books like this one, which help to
fill the gaps, and do it in a lively and accessible way, are invaluable.
I don't much like Alcibiades, but I certainly enjoyed reading about him.
(Reviewed:03-Jul-00)
Grade: (B+)
Websites:
Steven Pressfield Links:
-AUTHOR SITE: Steven Pressfield
-FILMOGRAPHY: Steven Pressfield (IMDB.com)
-BOOK SITE: The Afghan Campaign ( StevenPressfield.com)
-BOOK SITE: The Afghan Campaign (Random House)
-ESSAY: Tribalism is the real enemy in Iraq (STEVEN PRESSFIELD, 6/18/06, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
-ESSAY: Why We Will Never See Democracy in the Middle East (Steven Pressfield, September 11, 2006, ABC News)
-ESSAY: Theme and Character in the Historical Novel (STEVEN PRESSFIELD, Historical Novel Society)
-INTERVIEW: The art of the art of war (Steven Martinovich, November 15, 2004, Enter Stage Right)
-INTERVIEW: Gates Of Fire: Richard Lee talks to Steven Pressfield about his new novel (Historical Novel Society)
-REVIEW: of The Afghan War ( Lisa Ann Verge, Historical Novel Society)
-REVIEW: of The Afghan Campaign (Scott Oden)
-REVIEW: of The Afghan Campaign ( N.S. Gill, About.com)
-REVIEW: of The Afghan Campaign (Critical Review)
-REVIEW: of The Afghan Campaign (Chet Richards, Defense and the National Interest)
-REVIEW: of The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1004/1004virtuesofwar.htmBy Steven Pressfield (Steven Martinovich, Enter Stage Right)
-REVIEW: of The Virtues of War (Helen South, About.com)
-REVIEW: of The Virtues of War(Chet Richards,
Defense and the National Interes)
-REVIEW ESSAY: Great expectations: Four new biographies suggest that the more we write about Alexander the Great, the less we understand him (Rory Stewart, January 8, 2005, The Guardian)
Book-related and General Links:
-CHAT:
A Review of Steven Pressfield's "Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades
and the Peloponnesian War" (Classics-L)
-REVIEW:
of Tides of War (SUSAN HALL-BALDUF - Knight Ridder Newspapers)
-REVIEW:
of Tides of War (Newt Gingrich, Newt,org)
-REVIEWS:
of Tides of War (Epinions)
-REVIEW:
of GATES OF FIRE By Steven Pressfield (RICHARD BERNSTEIN, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of Gates of Fire (Mary Lefkowitz, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Gates of Fire (Denver Post Wire Services)
-REVIEW:
of Gates of Fire (Curled Up)
-REVIEW:
of Gates of Fire (Historical Novel Society)
-REVIEWS:
of Gates of Fire (Epinions)
-REVIEW:
of Gates of Fire (Steven Zoraster)
-REVIEW:
of THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE Golf and the Game of Life. By Steven
Pressfield. (Dave Kindred, NY Times Book Review)
ALCIBIADES:
-ENCYCLOPÆDIA
BRITANNICA: Alcibiades
-Alcibiades
(The Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. 2000)
-AN
INTRODUCTION TO ATHENS IN 403 B.C.E.: DEMOCRACY AT THE CROSSROADS
(Reacting to the Past, Barnard College)
-ETEXT:
Alcibiades By Plutarch
-SHORT
BIO: alcibiades (Plato and his dialogues)
-ETEXT:
ALCIBIADES by Plato Translated by Sanderson Beck
-LINKS:
Alcibiades
-ESSAY:
Alcibiades and the Politics of Rumor (C. D. C. Reeve)
-ESSAY:
"Boring from Within: Reading the Speech of Alcibiades as Attack on the
Agenda of Definition" ( J.W. Powell)
-REVIEW:
of David Gribble, Alcibiades and Athens: A Study in Literary Presentation
(David M. Johnson, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Bryn Mawr
Classical Review 99.11.12 )
-REVIEW:
of THE GREEKS AND GREEK CIVILIZATION By Jacob Burckhardt. Translated
by Sheila Stern (Garry Wills, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Bernard Knox: The Theater of Ethics, NY Review of Books
The Fragility of Goodness: Luck
and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy by Martha C. Nussbaum
PELOPONNESIAN WAR:
-EMPIRES:
The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization (PBS)
-Peloponnesian
War (The Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. 2000)
-The
Peloponnesian War (History of Western Civilization by Dr. Ellis L.
Knox, Boise State University)
-ESSAY:
Was the Plague of Athens Really Ebola? (ANTHONY RAMIREZ, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of THE HONEY AND THE HEMLOCK Democracy and Paranoia in Ancient Athens
and Modern America. By Eli Sagan (Mary Lefkowitz, NY Times Book Review)
GENERAL:
-ESSAY
: The Second Fall of Rome : Have the past two centuries of Western
culture been one long saga of lionizing Greece while disparaging the cultural
prestige and classical values of ancient Rome? (Michael Lind, Wilson Quarterly)
-Historical
Novel Society
If you liked Tides of War, try:
Green, Peter
-Alexander
of Macedon 356-323 B. C. : A Historical Biography
Kagan, Donald
-Pericles
of Athens and the Birth of Democracy
Thucydides (ed. Robert Srassler)
-The
Landmark Thucydides : A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War
Comments:
Orrin welcomes reader comments on his reviews.
Add yours here.
Hey oj. Have been reading this novel and looked up your review. Sort of related to your comment on the lack of interest in Greece and Rome, I was surprised that you haven't read/reviewed Jacob Burckhardt's classic "Greeks and Greek Civilization." It's well worth your attention. As are several other classic (as opposed to the contemporary rubbish that the soixante-huitards call "cultural history") works of cultural history such as Burckhardt's own "Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" and Johan Huizinga, "Autumn of the Middle Ages."
- Jim in Chicago
- Jul-27-2006, 11:38
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