From the book
Alcibiades I
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordXerxes’ wife and the Persian king’s mother, imagined by Socrates as an assessor of Alcibiades’ chances.
- In Alcibiades IHer response is a hypothetical speech constructed by Socrates, not reported correspondence or an actual encounter.
- In this editionThe note recounts external stories of Amestris; these are unnecessary to the present argument and are not implied by Socrates’ imagined speech.
- A place to readThe imagined royal-maternal judgement leads toward the Delphic demand.
Meaning
Xerxes’ wife and the Persian king’s mother, imagined by Socrates as an assessor of Alcibiades’ chances.
Use in the book
Her response is a hypothetical speech constructed by Socrates, not reported correspondence or an actual encounter. Told that Deinomache’s son intends to contend with her son, she would naturally suppose he must possess care and wisdom. Learning instead of his youth, lack of education and refusal to train, she would be astonished. If his supporters cited beauty, height, family, wealth and natural aptitude, she would think them mad when comparing those resources with her own court’s. Socrates gives an enemy’s mother an imagined grasp of what the ambitious Athenian needs to understand about himself. Her shaming power is heightened by the question why the enemies’ women should judge the requirements better than the men proposing to oppose them.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The note recounts external stories of Amestris; these are unnecessary to the present argument and are not implied by Socrates’ imagined speech. Its repeated conditional forms must be retained in any paraphrase.
Ἄμηστρις
Attested: Ἀμήστριδι (amēstridi; 123c). Amestris, Xerxes’ wife and the king’s mother, imagined as assessing Alcibiades. Lexical identification: lemma: Ἄμηστρις. See Amestris.
μειράκιον
Attested: μειράκιον (meirakion; 123e). Lad or youth, the diminutive by which the imagined Amestris questions Alcibiades’ confidence. Lexical identification: lemma: μειράκιον. See Amestris.