Michael Hone

Alcibiades the Schoolboy by Antonio Rocco Michael Hone

The book Alcibiades the Schoolboy was originally written in Italian, in 1630, and then translated into French by, perhaps, Édouard Cléder. Due to the expense of the English version--when found--I decided to translate it myself from French, my second language, into English, my first. I've priced the book, as I do everything I write, at the lowest cost allowed by the publisher. Incredibly, Rocco was a priest, as well as a writer and an Aristotelian philosophy teacher. He wrote Alcibiades the School Boy, as said, in 1630. It's first publication, in 1652, was mostly destroyed due to the filth of its content, and was republished in 1862. It was again found filthy and again largely destroyed. Philotime is modeled after Socrates, and is wonderfully portrayed as being as hypocritical as the great Athenian philosopher himself. The text is considered the world's first homoerotic novel, and I guarantee that it is highly erotic. Many a novice, many a monk, (many a translator), must have passed disquieting days copying it, restless nights mauling it over. The first half of this book recounts the historically accurate life of Alcibiades that I myself wrote following months of research. The second half is the translation of Rocco's oeuvre.