ORATORY AS A SOURCE FOR BIOGRAPHY

ORATORY AS A SOURCE FOR BIOGRAPHY. THE PORTRAIT OF ALCIBIADES IN LYSIAS AND ISÓCRATES* José Luis Calvo Martínez University of Granada It is striking that Oratory is the literary genre to which fewer scholars have turned their mind when searching for items that have been able to contribute to the origin of Biography. It is all the more striking since Biography, as a part of History, deals with human affairs - and Oratory, to a greater extent than History, deals specifically with the affairs of the individual rather than of peoples. The usual studies on Biography look back even as far as Hesiod in search for elements which could be a precedent for the same, but, curiously, they rarely give the Oratory the importance it deserves. It is true that an author like Momigliano warns us, speaking of the Apomnemoneumata of Xenophon, that the purpose of this author in writing the defense of Socrates answers to the phrase by Lysias «in the dokimasiai one is justifíed in giving an account of the whole life»1. But that happens, I dare to add, not only in dokimasiai. Any kind of criminal procedure allows, and even induce, the defendants to account, to defend themselves, their conduct above reproach, their pride and their performance as a citizen of the State ‒which leads necessarily to an autobiography. For his part, the accuser has to do exactly the opposite, which leads in this case, to a biography of the accused. And of course, if any of them is a public figure, 1 Cf. The Development of Greek Biography, Cambridge, Mass.,1971, p. 53. * “Oratoria y biografía. El retrato de Alcibíades en Lisias e Isócrates”, in Pérez Jiménez, J. Ribeiro Ferreira, María do Céu Fialho (edd), O retrato literario e a biografía como estrategia de teorizaçáo política, Coimbra-Málaga, 2004, pp. 37-48. 1 or belongs to an influential group formed by key members in the political life of Athens, we can say that we are facing a full-fledged biography. If one looks, then, from this perspective, it seems clear that almost every speech contains a brief biography, or at least a portrait. In fact, the protagonist of a speech is always an individual who is accuser or defendant. And, given the procedural legal management of the Athenian state, in which the fundament itself of the attack or defense is "enteknon evidence", a good part of the process, any process, is dedicated to highlight the character, ethos in the past of both accused and defendant. And this is done, of course, by describing his life trajectory, positive or negative as circumstances require. Actually, in the first case we have a kind of encomium; in the second, we have a diabole2 call – and we must not forget that, in Biography, there are exactly two subclasses: encomiastic and denigratory. However, as this biography is a part of another broader piece, makes it summary and, in terms of structure, not necessarily chronological; on the other hand, the fact that this part, although inserted into the diegesis of the speech, has an essentially probative purpose, makes it a coherent narrative ethos rather than an accumulation of inorganic actions and sayings. Therefore, there is no need to attribute solely to the peripatetic school its ethical character, which is essential in Greek Biography once crystallized as gender. We already see that it is found in Oratory and we can also discover it in History, although here its purpose is not necessarily probative and, therefore, it is less conditioned to highlight the relevant features of the character of a relevant individual. It is not my intention here to theorize about Oratory as a possible source from which the first authors of biographies could drink, or at least get inspired, although it seems inevitable to think that this was the case. But I do want to point out that this assumption is not unwise, if we consider the links between the two. But in order to concretize, let us admit that there are at least two essential features that link them: on the one hand, the purpose, as mentioned, of extolling or denigrate an individual. In fact, the historical account was born as a genre and developed with the intention of justifying great actions and exalting great peoples. The objectivity was never a relevant feature, let alone a necessary condition, of the historic gender. The second note that relates Biography and Rhetoric is their 2 Cf. W. Voegelin, Diabolé bei Lysias, New York, 1979 2 attempt to highlight the character (ethos) of an individual through his words and actions. But I do not intend to dwell on this matter; my purpose here is more modest. I will refer to the biographic elements, in a broad sense, which are found in the narrative part of the speeches (diegesis), although they may also appear occasionally in the demonstration. And then, more specifically, I will dwell in one of the most important characters that appear in the Corpus Lysiacum. Since Lysias lived his life and intellectual maturity in crucial years in the history of Athens (end of the Peloponnesian War, the Thirty oligarchic regime, the restored democracy), the gallery of characters who parade through his speeches is broad and important: many of them were well known in Athens, although for us they are simple names; others, on the contrary, have gone down in history as decisive characters: so is the case of Alcibiades, Theramenes and Nicias, or the collective character of Thirty. On the other hand, it is important to note that Lysias himself actively participated in the events within the ranks of the Democratic Party, so his attitude in general has to be necessarily biased and the outline of the characters involved could not be objective in any way. Therefore, everything leads to believe that any judgment made by Lysias of public figures, is designed from the perspective of the Democratic group who suffered the atrocities of the Thirty, fought to expel them and, finally, restore democracy. It is the group of moderate Democrats, but intransigent towards any inclination to the Laconians namely, the Democrats who were grouped around figures like Thrasybulus or Ánytos. Given that the situation in those years was one of civilian and military confrontation, and that in the years immediately following them, as evidenced by the work of Lysias and other speakers, a partisan use was made of figures such as those previously named, by then already disappeared but remembered by the listeners of Lysias, it is to be expected that the testimonies that we preserve are different and even opposing, at least in their interpretation, according to the speaker's political position – be it the speaker or his client. Thus, if in the case of an author as Thucydides and Xenophon the partial vision can be explained simply by virtue of its own ideology, or their personal likes and dislikes, which are unavoidable, in the case of Lysias is often partiality. On the other hand, he does not hide the author, it is often required by the very agonal context in which his work is inscribed: the forensic process. There are, moreover, big differences within these biographical that we find in a discourse: there is an autobiography, there is a more or less 3 disguised biography, and very often, there is the simple portrait of a character that Lysias achieves with four brushstrokes through his wellknown mastery in the art of ethopoeia. To begin with, we have in the XII speech an autobiography of Lysias himself –indeed, to tell the truth, the first autobiography which was written in Greece consciously and intentionally. It is indeed short and is embedded in an impeachment speech, so it only relates to the relevant facts. But it is a biography of the person who is speaking, as evidenced by his own narrative form. Suffice it to add here the beginning of paragraph 4: «Pericles persuaded my father Cephalus to come to this land. He inhabited it for thirty years and never, neither he nor we, brought a lawsuit against anyone nor faced it. Rather, we live under democracy in such a way that we neither committed crimes against others nor suffered from others. When the Thirty, which were perverse and sycophantic, installed themselves in power, claiming that it was necessary to cleanse the city of criminals and guide the other citizens towards virtue...»; and so, the speaker continues recounting the fundamental facts of his life that affect the process. This autobiography, of course, is in turn part of a portrait of what we might call “the collective character of the Thirty”. Clearly the intention of Lysias is not to tell the story of the oligarchic regime, but to draw a negative picture of the same. Well, his mastery in the diegesis or narratio ensures that, selecting three members of the Thirty Tyrants (Melobius, Theognis and Piso in addition to Eratosthenes who is the accused), and with several strokes, we are left with the indelible image of a group of greedy, unprincipled and criminal individuals who adequately exemplify the assertion with which he introduces them into the story: «When the Thirty, who were perverse and sycophant, settled down»... (Cf. above). The image of Piso accepting the orator´s bribe and searching his trunks in search of gems, or that of Melobius ripping off Polemarcus´wife´s earrings3, makes us think of anything but a group of aristocrats who sought to restore “patrios politeia” of Solon - but not without first cleaning the city of malefactors4. But important as the portrait of the Group of Thirty is, here we are talking about biography in a broad sense. Let's see, then, the more properly biographical treatment that Lysias makes of a fundamental figure in the 3 Cf.XII, 8-20 That was his claim at the outset, as confirmed Aristotle, Ath. 34.2 et seq., and Xenophon, Hell. II 3.2 (see also Plato, Ep. VII 324d). 4 4 politics of those years: Alcibiades 5 . The case of this character is particularly revealing because his figure, apart from the testimony of Thucydides and Xenophon, is outlined in opposite directions by no less than three speakers: Lysias and Andocides on the one hand, and Isocrates on the other. I insist that the figure of Alcibiades is important because after the Peloponnesian War and the Civil War, and the democracy was restored, it is known that a wave of trials took place in Athens that ultimately tried to determine responsibility for the terrible failure that will definitely ºtrying to demarcate responsibility for the terrible failure. Naturally processes could not be for crimes directly related to the events of the years 403-2 because he expressly prohibited, with a few exceptions, by the Piraeus Pacts6. Moreover, the direct and main actors in the drama had died. That is why they indirectly took advantage of the litigation of those who had links with them to incriminate them - or exculpate them not only them, but, eventually, their entire political group. There were certainly many processes of this nature, but there are two characters that served to channel paradigmatically the hatred of their opponents: Socrates was probably the scapegoat, the pharmakos, of Critias and The Thirty; and Alcibiades' son served more than once as an excuse to attack or defend his father, and with it, the warmongering policy of the dominant democratic group. This character, still twenty years after his death, had many detractors as well as defenders: his figure had become a symbol and had grown considerably, as is natural in a man in whom everything was excessive. Do not forget his role in the Sicilian expedition and therefore in the final defeat of Athens; or his relations with the Persian court, already at the end of his life, which made him almost an oriental satrap. To get into the matter that concerns us, I will say that there are three speeches that contain biographical elements of Alcibiades: speech number IV, attributed to Andocides, the XIV of the Corpus Lysiacum (Contra Alcibiades 7) and XVI Isocrates (De bigis). We will set aside the one which is attributed to Andocides, thanks to the brevity of exposure and the fact that it is independent of the other two, although it forms part, together with that of Lysias, of the current of writings that try to demolish the figure of 5 After the now classic bibliography of the character by J. Hatzfeld (Alcibiade: étude sur l'histoire de Alheñes á la fin du siécle V, Paris, 1951) further works on the character have been slow to appear. Lately, however, several noteworthy works have been published, including, of course, that by J. de Romilly (Alcibiade ou les dangers De l'ambition, Paris, 1993), by W. Ellis (1989) and S. Forde (1989), and the very recent D. Gribble, Alcibiades and Athens: a study in literary Presentation, Oxford, 1999 6 Cf. Aristotle, Ath. 39. 5 Alcibiades as a public figure. On the other hand, the Lysias´ Contra Alcibiades I 7 is intimately connected with De bigis of Isocrates, written the year 396 and which also took advantage of a trial against Alcibiades junior to, in this case, defend and exalt the figure of his father. It is necessary, therefore, to previously review that of Isocrates. The approach to litigation, whose historical reality has been questioned as in the case of Andocides, is based on one of the well-known acts of hybris in the life of Alcibiades. To compete in Olympia on the occasion in which he won brilliantly, according to the version of the supporters of Alcibiades, he commissioned a certain Diomedes to acquire for him an excellent chariot that was in Argos; according to the opposing party, the chariot was owned by Diomedes from whom it had been borrowed and to whom it was never returned. This provoked a dispute, started in 408 and interrupted by the war, which was resumed once Alcibiades and, probably, Diomedes were dead. For the litigants in Isocrates' speech are the son of Alcibiades as the accused and a certain Tisias as the accuser. But actually, the same as in the Ps. Andocides, the litigation is the least important thing; the true purpose of the speech is to make a "commendation" of Alcibiades - a positive biography that occupies 37 paragraphs in a speech of 50 - that is, 74% of its length. The justification for this lengthy épainos is the first argument used by Alcibiades junior in his favour: exposing the life of his father, he says, is necessary for him because in fact the accusation is directed against his father. Surely the speech contained an accusation diabolé complete Alcibiades taking advantage undoubtedly of the topoi that appear on the Ps. Andocides and that are going to be repeated in Lysias8. So that, from § 5 begins the biography: the formal structure is articulated on two parameters, the timing and contrast, a rhetorical, between public and private - although in fact Isocrates does not enter into the private stricto sensu, but rather into the family, and especially into the political merits of his family. As a whole, the biography consists of three 7 In fact, publishers often assign to XIV the title Contra Alcibiadem Prior and to XV Contra Alcibiadem Altera. The scholars believe both speeches as Lysias´ Synegoriai (ie δευτερολογία and τριτολογία) of a process of "illegal recruitment" (ἀστρατεία), even though the accusers mix various types of military process (δειλία and λιποταξίου or “desertion”, especially). Of the two speeches, the one which is our concern here is the first, which is named Contra Alcibiadem I. Cf. L. Gil, Lysias. Discursos, Madrid, 19862, vol. II, pp. 69 ff. 8 Cf. M. Turchi, "Motivi della its controversial Alcibiade negli oratori attici" Par. Pas. 39 (1984) 105-119. 6 parts: a first one with the most important political facts of the character, a second on about his family life (not detached, I repeat, from the public) and a third one which justifies his attitude, rather than his acts as public man is justified. From the beginning to § 22 he refers to his public life and almost equally mixes the justification or denial of his reprehensible -or at least generally reprehensible acts with the exaltation of his actions and his positive attitude towards Athens. This is done with sometimes credible reasons and sometimes with chronological manipulation of the facts or by outright lies. For example, § 5-8 contain a deliberately confused account of the events surrounding the mutilation of the Hermes and the mockery of the Mysteries: according to Thucydides (cf. 6.8) 9 , Alcibiades was elected strategist for the Sicilian expedition in a first assembly; and in a second assembly the issue of the desecration of the Hermes and the Mysteries was discussed without any agreement being reached. Isocrates changes the sequence: first the issue of the Hermes was discussed and then Alcibiades was elected strategist, implying that he was not only exonerated at first, but rewarded with the generalship. In the chapter on his acts of treachery towards Athens, the speaker resorts to justification and lies sometimes both together: on the one hand, he claims that he first went to Argos and then, in the face of Athens' harassment, had to take refuge in Laconia 10 , whereas, according to Thucydides, he went directly there 11 precisely because his "xenoi" in Argos were suspected of conspiring against democracy. Isocrates also claims that he never advised the occupation of Decelea by the Spartans, and, above all, that, if he attacked Athens, the democrats did nothing else in the civil war by occupying Piraeus, cutting down the country and storming the walls - a very weak argument, as it turns out, which Lysias later refuted. Finally, among his favours to Athens, done before his first exile, it is alleged first of all that he never collaborated with the oligarchs in 411 (the Four Hundred); that he personally managed to separate important Peloponnesian states like Argos, Mantinea and Elis from Sparta; that he did not collaborate with the Thirty either - on the contrary, he was expelled by them - and that during his exile he won many victories and separated Teisaphernes from the 9 καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐκκλησίαν ποιήσαντες…ἐψηφίσαντο ναῦς ἑξήκοντα πέµπειν ἐς Σικελίαν καὶ στρατηγοὺς αὐτοκράτορας Ἀλκιβιάδην τετὸν Κλεινίου καὶ Νικίαν τὸν Νικηράτου καὶ Λάµαχον τὸν Ξενοφάνους 10 De big. 9.3-9 ὥστ᾽εἰς Ἄργος ἐλθὼν ἡσυχίαν εἶχεν…τελευτῶν ἐπὶ Λακεδαιμονίους ἠναγκάσθη καταφυγεῖν. 11 Cf. 6.61 ὁ δὲ Ἀλκιβιάδεης ήδη φυγὰς ὦν οὐ πολὺ ὕστερον ἐπὶ πλοίου ἐπεραιώθη ἐς Πελοπόννησον ἐκ τῆς Θουρίας 7 Spartans. All this is true, but then he adds that he returned power to the people - which is false; and that he ended the defection of the allies12, which, in addition to false, it is cynical because they had to do and did not do so - especially with the Chiots. Reversing the normal order of biography, Isocrates now turns to his family and very little of his private life, perhaps because it was well known and not very edifying. Isocrates' intention is to show that Alcibiades' areté comes from the family, which is hereditary - an eminently aristocratic idea. To do this he uses the same procedure of exaggerating and mixing the true with the false. Thus, he begins by saying that his ancestors, the Alcmaeonidae, although they were related to the tyrant Peisistratus, did not participate in the tyranny, but rather were exiled by the tyrant. To his grandfathers, Alcibiades and Cleisthenes he attributes not only the establishment of democracy, but also the overthrow of tyranny. As confirmation of the hereditary character, Isocrates states that Alcibiades received his eunoia towards the people as an inheritance from his father, who died fighting at Coroneia, and from his tutor Pericles, who was held by all as σωφρωνέστατος, δικαιότατος and σοφότατος. In reality, he is attributing to him the four cardinal virtues: the andreia of his father and the sophrosyne, dikaiosyne and phronesis of Pericles13. In any case, this inherited areté justifies his warlike prowess (he refers, for example, to the battle of Potidaea, where Alcibiades was rewarded for his andreia with a crown and armour) and his athletic prowess at Olympia where - Isocrates dares to claim cynically - it became clear that public goods were inferior to Alcibiades' private good14. His opponents claimed, on the contrary, that the chariot with which he won was not his and the sacred vessels with which he held a feast parallel to the official one belonged to the Athenian theorists. Finally, his marriage to the daughter of Callias, the richest man in Athens, was a reward for his courage (aristeion) 15 . The allusion to his victory at Olympia ends the list of biographical details. The third part of this encomiastic bios constitutes an exaltation of the character in which, finally, there is an identification of Alcibiades with the polis that could be summed up in the following sentence: "when Athens 12 Cf. ibid. § 18-21. Cf. ibid. § 25-28. 14 Cf. ibid. 34 ταῖς ἄλλαις ταῖς περὶ τὴν ἑορτὴν δαπάναις οὕτως ἀφειδῶς διέκειτο καὶ μεγαλοπρεπῶς, ὥστε φαίνεσθαι τὰ κοινὰ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἐλάττω τὼν ἰδίων τῶν ἐκείνουm 15 Cf.ibid. § 31. 13 8 was happy and successful, Alcibiades was happy and successful; and when Athens failed, Alcibiades failed"16. But, of course, the polis is the body of democratic citizens: for what is ultimately sought is to demonstrate the "ancient and inherited" eunoia towards the democratic party of a man who never collaborated with the oligarchs, although he could even set himself up as a tyrant; and who suffered at the hands of (ὑπό), for the sake of (διά), on behalf of (ὑπέρ) and together with (μετά) the people 17. Just the opposite - Isocrates goes on to say - of Calicles, kinsman of the accuser and one of the Thirty. With this the biography ends and fades gently into the last part of the speech, which returns to the son of Alcibiades and the subject of the dispute. But let us now turn to Lysias. As mentioned above, of the two speeches cited in the Corpus lysiacum against the son of Alcibiades in a trial for non-enlistment (ἀστρατεία), the first (XIV of the Corpus) contains, once again, the biography of the personage we are dealing with. Here too the authorship of Lysias has been denied, but there seem to be no compelling reasons for this. On the contrary, there is nothing to suggest that the logographer took it upon himself to write this accusation on behalf of a personage belonging to the group of radical democrats among whom Lysias had many friends. On the other hand, the mastery shown by the author of the speech in presenting the bios of Alcibiades by merging it with that of the son; and the rhetorical skill shown in the speech in silencing truths and airing falsehoods, which do not appear to be such, clearly reveals the hand of Lysias, the supreme master of doxa and pseudos. Another aspect, relevant in my opinion, of the speech is that its author demonstrates a good knowledge of that of Isocrates because, in reality, it is a counter-biography - although it is shorter and better integrated into the cause, which, even for this reason, seems to be real and not fictitious. But it is easy to see that at times he replies almost literally to some of the arguments that Isocrates had made in favour of Alcibiades; and, above all, the deep plot of the argument is a counter-argument to that of Isocrates. For all that, it reflects the very structure of Isocrates' speech, although Lysias fuses the political facts with the character's attitude, the public with the private and the personal with the familiar. Cf. ibid. 40 ἐκείνου τοίνυν εὖ μὲν πραττούσης πόλεως τίς ευδαιµονέστερος ἢ θαυµαστότερος ἢ ζηλωτότερος ἦν τῶν πολιτῶν, δυστυχησασης δὲ τίς ἐλπίδων µειζόνων ἢ νχρηµάτων πλειόνων ἢ δόξης καλλίονος ἐστερήθη; 17 Cf. ibid. τὰ µὲν ὑφ᾽ ὑμῶν, τὰ δὲ δι᾽ ὑμᾶς, τὰ δ᾽ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, τὰ δὲ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν. 16 9 Indeed, the speech has all the trappings of a deuterology by someone who acknowledges that in the past there was rivalry between the fathers of the two.18 And he devotes exactly the first half of it (24 paragraphs) to justifying the accusation of desertion (actually enlistment with the cavalry and not with the hoplites, which entailed more risk). The speech, therefore, has every chance of being real and not a mere excuse. As a further argument for the attitude of Alcibiades junior, Lysias draws a portrait of him in which he appears as a libertine, as an aristocrat corrupted since childhood who has spent his adolescence and early youth amidst orgies and acts of violence caused and received. Well, it is precisely here that the bios of the father, which occupies 15 paragraphs (from 30 to 45), is properly inserted. In paragraph 29 Lysias says: "he attempts to humiliate others who should have been the most restrained of citizens by making his own life a defense of the crimes of his father, the son of Alcibiades, the one who persuaded the Lacedaemonians to fortify Decelea". The transition from son to father is therefore very smooth and natural. Lysias eliminates all allusion to the subject of the Hermes and the Mysteries and begins, in medias res, with the crimes of Alcibiades against the polis: the subject of Decelea, the expedition to the islands to make them defect, his alliance, finally, with the Lacedaemonians against Athens: "he fought more often with the enemy against his fatherland than against the enemy for his fatherland"19- And he devotes exactly the first half of it (24 paragraphs) to justifying the accusation of desertion (actually enlistment with the cavalry and not with the hoplites, which entailed more risk). The speech, therefore, has every chance of being real and not a mere excuse. As a further argument for the attitude of Alcibiades junior, Lysias draws a portrait of him in which he appears as a libertine, as an aristocrat corrupted since childhood who has spent his adolescence and early youth amidst orgies and acts of violence caused and received. Well, it is precisely here that the bios of the father, which occupies 15 paragraphs (from 30 to 45), is properly inserted. In paragraph 29 Lysias says: "he attempts to humiliate others who should have been the most restrained of citizens by making his own life a defense of the crimes of his father, the son of Alcibiades, the one who persuaded the Lacedaemonians to fortify Decelea". The transition from son to father is therefore very smooth and natural. Lysias eliminates 18 19 Cf. § 2. Cf. § 30. 10 all allusion to the subject of the Hermes and the Mysteries and begins, in medias res, with the crimes of Alcibiades against the polis: the subject of Decelea, the expedition to the islands to make them defect, his alliance, finally, with the Lacedaemonians against Athens: "he fought more often with the enemy against his fatherland than against the enemy for his fatherland"20. In the above facts, rather than lies, there is a clear suppressio veri: he silences the brilliant victory that Alcibiades achieved at Cyzicus and does not point out that the culprit for Notion's defeat, and his subsequent exile to Thrace, was Antiochus, his second in command 21 . And that if he did not get money from the king, it was not his fault. Having twisted the facts and manipulated them to denigrate the character of Alcibiades, Lysias - like Isocrates - now turns to his family. But from this very moment Lysias does something surprising and rhetorically brilliant: he skillfully merges and confuses the biography of both Alcibiades with each other and with that of the whole family. From now on (§ 41-43) all verbs are in the plural and no distinction is made between any of the family members, nor between public and private crimes: "it is not the case that they should be forgiven because in public they are bad and in private they are honest", says the speaker. Lysias thus seeks to prove just the opposite of Isocrates, and with the same argument: that Alcibiades junior, the defendant in the trial, is a hereditary enemy of the city: "his great-grandfathers were ostracized; his father was condemned to death; "most" of them have prostituted themselves; "others" have slept with their sisters; "others" have mutilated the Hermes and scoffed at the Mysteries; in short, "all of them" are ashamed of good deeds and proud of bad ones. The climax of the méiosis is to be found in the conclusion of this biography, which began with the son, continued with the father and has ended with the whole family - that is, in reverse chronological order to that which is usual in biography. Just as Alcibiades the father did not have the influence that his friends claim, so the son can neither benefit the people by being good nor harm them by being bad. In other words, he is a dead weight on earth. That is, he lacks areté. This is the counter-conclusion that Lysias deduces by thinking, no doubt, of Isocrates´ speech. If the latter, as I pointed out earlier, emphasizes the full areté of Alcibiades, the possession of courage, moderation, justice and intelligence - and this by inheritance from his ancestors - Lysias has been tacitly emphasizing just 20 21 Cf. Xenophon, Hell., II 1.25. Cf.ibid. I 5.11. 11 the opposite: the Alcibiades are cowards (lacking andreia), are libertines (lacking sophrosyne), are unjust (lacking dikaiosyne) and do not even have the intelligence for evil. It is kakia in its broadest and most Hellenic sense: the useless evil of Margites. I will conclude by trying to derive (or rather summarize and repeat) some conclusions from the considerations I have just made about Alcibiades' bios in the rhetors. Most of them, of course, develop ideas, or insist on aspects of the biography that have been expressed above. The first thing, perhaps, that emerges is the confirmation that biography already existed in the 5th century. It certainly does not seem logical that it should have become independent as a genre, because the conditions for it do not seem to have existed, but there are bioi as parts - sometimes substantial parts - of other genres: to begin with, of History, as has been said so often. But I would like to insist that there are also biography and autobiography integrated into the genre of Oratory as another element of the demonstration, either in the form of épainos or as diabolé as the case may be - and not only in dokimasiai processes or in the epictic genre. In my opinion, it is above all in the genos dikanikon that it has the greatest presence and importance. It is also possible, of course, although difficult to prove, that it had already become independent without detaching itself from the framework of a discourse: in this case what we would have are biographies disguised under the guise of fictitious processes. There are those who think, for example, that the three discourses mentioned here are political pamphlets22. In any case, and this seems important, in my opinion it is precisely this rhetorical framework that makes biography have from the outset the original hamarthema of lack (or non-requirement) of objectivity; and the eminently ethical orientation that it will have when it becomes independent. A bios, independent or not, is always an ethical paradigm that is proposed as something to be followed or avoided. Naturally it will also be, later and through the influence of the historical genre and philosophy, an exemplum on the capricious action of chance, or of providence in a more religious consideration, Christian or otherwise. But in the end, it will be a lesson on the rhythmós that governs the human condition, as Archilochus would say. I don't think it is necessary to repeat that biography as a detailed chronicle of an individual's deeds and sayings is a modern creation. 22 Cf. Münscher, en RE, “Isokrates”, cols.2161-2163. 12 Finally, if biography serves as a vehicle for ideas about individual moral behaviour, it is all the more reason for it to become an instrument of political ideology from the outset. It can be seen - and this is what I am attempting here - that in the case of Alcibiades his biography is merely an excuse to justify the actions and political attitude of this character - and above all of his group of supporters; or for the opposite, in the case of his political opponents. The same is true of Theramenes or of Lysias himself in the 12th and 13th speeches of the Corpus Lysiacum. The greater or lesser persuasive success will consist precisely in concealing the mechanisms of manipulation. And in this field, we all know that Lysias was the greatest of masters. 13