Politics in Socrates' Alcibiades

Alcibiades Major Socrates and the Spartan and Persian women not only are teaching Alcibiades what a great statesman must know, they are also teaching him how to be a man.

40 The normative assumption Socrates makes, according to Forde, which accounts for the prominence of women in the Spartan and Persian Speech, is that women are motivators and judges of male achievement.

Forde argues that Alcibiades’ self- perfection, which is called for by the speech, is dependent upon women’s judgment