Key Arguments

• He begins from the premise that “better natures are likely to be found in noble races” and that those “well born and well bred” are most likely to be perfect in virtue, then compares the ancestry of Spartan and Persian kings to that of Alcibiades and himself.
• He notes that the Spartan kings are “sprung from Heracles” and the Persian kings from Achaemenes, both lines going back to Perseus, son of Zeus, and observes that they are kings over Argos, Lacedaemon, and Persia, whereas Alcibiades’ and Socrates’ ancestors were private persons.
• He ridicules the idea of boasting about Athenian origins in front of the Persian king: “How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display of your ancestors and of Salamis the island of Eurysaces, or of Aegina … before Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes.”
• He details the material and symbolic superiority of Spartan kings: their great property, the Ephors’ guardianship of their wives to preserve “the purity of the Heracleid blood,” and the massive and enduring accumulation of gold and silver that has flowed into Lacedaemon and never left.
• He gives an even more lavish picture of Persian royal wealth and prestige, describing the unquestioned legitimacy of royal paternity, empire‑wide feasts and holidays at the prince’s birth, and enormous tracts of land such as “the queen's girdle” and “her veil” set aside for the queen’s adornment.
• He contrasts the careful, elite upbringing of Persian princes—nursed by honoured eunuchs and at fourteen taught by four chosen masters of wisdom, justice, temperance, and valour—with Alcibiades’ own tutor: “Pericles gave you, Alcibiades, for a tutor Zopyrus the Thracian, a slave of his who was past all other work.”
• He similarly contrasts Persian and Spartan education in self‑mastery and courage with the Athenian neglect of youth, remarking that “no one cares about your birth or nurture or education, or, I may say, about that of any other Athenian, unless he has a lover who looks after him.”
• He underscores Spartan and Persian cultural excellences—temperance, orderliness, grace, magnanimity, courage, endurance, love of toil, desire of glory, and ambition—concluding that in all these Alcibiades is “but a child in comparison.”
• He uses the imagined reactions of Amestris (queen of Persia) and Lampido (Spartan queen) to Alcibiades’ uneducated challenge to their sons to show how implausible his pretensions would appear even to his enemies’ wives and mothers.

Source Quotes

ALCIBIADES: How so? SOCRATES: Let me ask you whether better natures are likely to be found in noble races or not in noble races? ALCIBIADES: Clearly in noble races.

SOCRATES: Then let us compare our antecedents with those of the Lacedaemonian and Persian kings; are they inferior to us in descent? Have we not heard that the former are sprung from Heracles, and the latter from Achaemenes, and that the race of Heracles and the race of Achaemenes go back to Perseus, son of Zeus? ALCIBIADES: Why, so does mine go back to Eurysaces, and he to Zeus!

But, for all that, we are far inferior to them. For they are descended 'from Zeus,' through a line of kings—either kings of Argos and Lacedaemon, or kings of Persia, a country which the descendants of Achaemenes have always possessed, besides being at various times sovereigns of Asia, as they now are; whereas, we and our fathers were but private persons. How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display of your ancestors and of Salamis the island of Eurysaces, or of Aegina, the habitation of the still more ancient Aeacus, before Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes. You should consider how inferior we are to them both in the derivation of our birth and in other particulars.

I might enlarge on the nurture and education of your rivals, but that would be tedious; and what I have said is a sufficient sample of what remains to be said. I have only to remark, by way of contrast, that no one cares about your birth or nurture or education, or, I may say, about that of any other Athenian, unless he has a lover who looks after him. And if you cast an eye on the wealth, the luxury, the garments with their flowing trains, the anointings with myrrh, the multitudes of attendants, and all the other bravery of the Persians, you will be ashamed when you discern your own inferiority; or if you look at the temperance and orderliness and ease and grace and magnanimity and courage and endurance and love of toil and desire of glory and ambition of the Lacedaemonians—in all these respects you will see that you are but a child in comparison of them.

I have only to remark, by way of contrast, that no one cares about your birth or nurture or education, or, I may say, about that of any other Athenian, unless he has a lover who looks after him. And if you cast an eye on the wealth, the luxury, the garments with their flowing trains, the anointings with myrrh, the multitudes of attendants, and all the other bravery of the Persians, you will be ashamed when you discern your own inferiority; or if you look at the temperance and orderliness and ease and grace and magnanimity and courage and endurance and love of toil and desire of glory and ambition of the Lacedaemonians—in all these respects you will see that you are but a child in comparison of them. Even in the matter of wealth, if you value yourself upon that, I must reveal to you how you stand; for if you form an estimate of the wealth of the Lacedaemonians, you will see that our possessions fall far short of theirs.

Key Concepts

• Let me ask you whether better natures are likely to be found in noble races or not in noble races?
• Have we not heard that the former are sprung from Heracles, and the latter from Achaemenes, and that the race of Heracles and the race of Achaemenes go back to Perseus, son of Zeus?
• we and our fathers were but private persons. How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display of your ancestors and of Salamis the island of Eurysaces, or of Aegina, the habitation of the still more ancient Aeacus, before Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes.
• I have only to remark, by way of contrast, that no one cares about your birth or nurture or education, or, I may say, about that of any other Athenian, unless he has a lover who looks after him.
• in all these respects you will see that you are but a child in comparison of them.

Context

To refute Alcibiades’ claim that Spartan and Persian leaders are no different from others, Socrates offers a long comparative sketch of genealogy, property, and elite upbringing in Sparta and Persia versus the relative obscurity and neglect of Athenian private families, aimed at shaming Alcibiades out of his complacent pride.