Abstract

In the Life of Alcibiades we may observe the connection between physis and nomos as it presents itself in Callicles’ words in the Gorgias by Plato: the natural disposition reveals itself in opposition to law and social convention . Socrates endeavours to transform Alcibiades’ nature, but he fails. After the attempts of the Socratic education the personage advances in his political career to the end in following his own physis. Thus his personality is devoid of reference to Universal : therefore either it makes itself directly known without any universal support or submits to the tyche . This behaviour is just the contrary of Plutarch’s ideals of the statesman, as some passages of the Moralia demonstrate; therefore his condemnation of Alcibiades is unavoidable: the final judgement is negative, inasmuch as the positive characteristics turn into the negative ones, because Alcibiades’ political and military qualities alternate in a rhythm of positiveness and negativeness without a principle that ensures them constance and continuousness, tokens of moral universality