From the book
Alcibiades I
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordEurysaces is the ancestor Alcibiades names when claiming descent from Zeus; Aeacus is a still earlier ancestor whose homeland Socrates adds to the comparison.
- In Alcibiades IAlcibiades answers the royal pedigrees with “ours too,” insisting that his own family goes back to Eurysaces and ultimately Zeus.
- In this editionThe source note supplies Ajax as a link in the pedigree, but Ajax is not named in the dialogue.
- A place to readAlcibiades names Eurysaces in his genealogical rejoinder.
Meaning
Eurysaces is the ancestor Alcibiades names when claiming descent from Zeus; Aeacus is a still earlier ancestor whose homeland Socrates adds to the comparison.
Use in the book
Alcibiades answers the royal pedigrees with “ours too,” insisting that his own family goes back to Eurysaces and ultimately Zeus. Socrates does not dispute this claim; he first mirrors it with his own Daedalian genealogy and then relativizes it. Displaying Eurysaces’ Salamis and Aeacus’ Aegina to Artaxerxes, he says, would bring ridicule. The ancestral names therefore do not simply endorse Alcibiades’ noble standing. They illustrate how a familiar basis of prestige can remain genuine on its own terms yet fail to confer the superiority demanded by his ambition.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The source note supplies Ajax as a link in the pedigree, but Ajax is not named in the dialogue. The relation to Zeus is asserted here; the intermediate genealogy is not narrated.
Αἰακός
Attested: Αἰακοῦ (aiakou; 121b). Aeacus, an earlier ancestor whose homeland is Aegina. Lexical identification: lemma: Αἰακός. See Eurysaces and Aeacus.
Εὐρυσάκης
Attested: Εὐρυσάκη (eurysakē; 121a). Eurysaces, Alcibiades’ named heroic ancestor. Lexical identification: lemma: Εὐρυσάκης. See Eurysaces and Aeacus.
Source note
The supplied edition, note 36 on 121a, cites Plutarch, Alcibiades 1 and supplies the links through Ajax and Aeacus. Ajax is not a named figure in the present dialogue.