By John Fletcher.
Almost 2,500 years ago a young general persuaded Athens to launch an attack on Sicily. Alcibiades was a member of the Athenian baby-boomer generation, whose elders had fought to give their children a society of justice, wealth and education. The baby boomers explored every sexual avenue, took drugs to excess, and were the greatest consumers of the most exotic products. Then it all went wrong. Within two years of the defeat in Sicily, imperial, democratic Athens, the pinnacle of human civilisation, lay in ruins. Yet. as the city endured its death agonies, something new and wonderful was born: the Socratic idea of universal love.