I have two stories to tell: one is about a beautiful little temple in Western Sicily, and the other is about Alcibiades, surely one of the most interesting, important, and controversial characters in all of Greek History. Although they might, at first blush, seem like separate and distinct stories, I hope to show that there may well have been a connective tissue between the two. In some ways, I’m presenting here a detective story, or a whodunit, precisely the kind of story that Alcibiades has attracted to himself over the years. My personal involvement with both the temple and Alcibiades goes way back, as, I’ve taught about Alcibiades in my classes at Holy Cross College for the last 38 years, and I’ve seen the temple close up at least a dozen times.*
* I’m dedicating this revised version of a talk, originally given at UCLA on June 3, 2016, to Olga (Holly) Davidson, on the occasion of her 66th birthday. While Holly officially became my sister-in-law at that glorious wedding in 1975 at St. Paul’s in Cambridge, in reality she had just then become my beloved sister. Tanti auguri, dear Holly!