Dedications by Alkibiades and Thrasyboulos

Abstract

Custom regards such displays as honourable, and they cannot be made without leaving behind them an impression of power. Again, any splendour that I may have exhibited at home in providing choruses or otherwise, is naturally envied by my fellow-citizens, but in the eyes of foreigners has an air of strength … And this is no useless folly, when a man at his own private cost benefits not himself only but his city …So in Thucydides' words Alkibiades spoke in defence of the celebrations of his recent chariot victories, against the charges of extravagance brought by Nikias. The tone and phrasing in his apology underscore the pleonexia of Alkibiades, yet in it there is an echo of the funeral oration of Perikles:Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness … We have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us.Perikles may not have been referring specifically to architectural or sculptural monuments, but from the Kerameikos, his audience would have seen the buildings on the Akropolis already associated with his name. One may read into his words disguised justification of his policies, remembering that charges of extravagance were also brought against him.