Blog week 8 - Politics and Religion

Having looked at the Moodle site I already had an idea for the blog entry for this week, which will follow, however after the lecture I shall update the entry with any new ideas that I have come across from what I have learned.  One of the biggest events that involve Hermes is the incident of the Herms being vandalised in Athens in 415 BC, which involved the Athenian statesman Alcibiades, at least he was accused of this crime.  This is a great example of how religion being involved with politics can cause catastrophic events that can turn a society on itself. 

Alcibiades had attained much power and influence in Athens during his years as a general in the Peloponnesian war; it was first attempted by a man called Hyperbolus to have either Alcibiades or his rival Nicias ostracised.  This was a political manoeuvre that was brought in after the Phye incident in order to exile anyone gaining too much power, like Pisistratus, who became tyrant of Athens after this (Aristotle: 14-19).  Much like the god Hermes though, Alcibiades was able to talk and trick his way out of this situation. By secretly meeting with Nicias he was able to join his votes with Nicias’ and had Hyperbolus ostracised instead, interestingly ostracism was never used again after this (Rhodes 2011: 41).  Hyde points out that Alcibiades was one of only three characters in ancient Greek literature to be referred to as (polutropos), which can mean wily, much travelled or versatile.  The other two characters are Odysseus and Hermes.  This is interesting as Alcibiades is much like some of the other trickster characters we have come across.  Unlike Hermes it has been seen that he was not a welcome part of the societies that he was part of during his life, Hyde describes him as a “deceitful Athenian general and Socratic pretty-boy” (Hyde 2008: 52-3).

The next step in this drama was to take place in 414 BC, the Athenians, mainly under the direction of Alcibiades had planned the Sicilian expedition.  This was to help the Athenian allies against Syracuse (the main polis on Sicily), but with the eventual aim of placing Sicily under Athenian influence. This eventuality was scuppered when the night before the expedition the Herms in the city, as previously mentioned in other posts, were vandalised by being mutilated about the face.  This happened to almost all of them as Thucydides tells us in his history of the Peloponnesian war (Thucydides 6.27).

Alcibiades

This gave way to rumours and lies that circulated around the polis, eventually fingers were pointed at Alcibiades, though not for the correct reasons as we will see.  The expedition was allowed to go on, despite the vandalism done and many people trying to stop it.  Nicias and Alcibiades were leading the expedition and left. It was then decided to have Alcibiades recalled answering for the crime of damaging the Herms, not because he actually did it, which there was no proof of.  Alcibiades was seen as being too powerful and could possibly make a play for power and become a tyrant, so his political enemies decided to prosecute him.  It is also interesting to note that the Athenians did not consider this crime alone to be all that important and they in fact had to add another sacrilege to the charge in order to have Alcibiades recalled for trial.  This was the Eleusinian mysteries, where it is said that mock shows took place in certain citizen’s homes in order to mock the god Dionysus (Rhodes 2011: 47-9).  Furley states in his book 'Andokides and the herms: a study of crisis in fifth-century Athenian religion’, that the mutilation of the Herms was done by an anti-Alcibiades faction and that the Eleusinian was committed by a pro-Alcibiades faction.  We now know that this did not end well for democracy. Alcibiades jumped ship and ended up in bed with the Spartans, giving away valuable information on tactics and eventually convincing the Spartans to set up a permanent outpost in Attica, in Declea, where the Spartans had not gone to before because the Decleans had, in mythology, given Helen (of Troy) back to them after she had been kidnapped and raped by Theseus (Price & Kearns 2004: 245-6).

UPDATE: Unfortunately I discovered no further information for my topic from the lecture.  Though I did read Herodotus’ version of the Phye incident, which was a better written and more interesting version of the story.

Bibliography

Aristotle, ‘The Athenian Constitution’, Rhodes, P.J. Penguin, 1984

Thucydides, ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’, Kindle Edition

Furley 1996 'Andokides and the herms: a study of crisis in fifth-century Athenian religion'.  *Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Stuies* suppl. 65

Murray 1990 'The affair of the myseries: democracy and the drinking group', in O. Murray ed *Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion* Oxford. 149-61.

Osborne 1990 'The erection and mutilation of the hermai'. *Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society* 31: 47-73

Price, S & Kearns, E, ‘Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion’, Oxford University, 2004

Rhodes, P.J. ‘Alcibiades: Athenian Playboy, General and Traitor’, Pen and Sword, 2011