After reading much on the Peloponnesian wars and learning of the significant blow to the Athenian cause with the 'exile' of Alcibiades, I find my self holding Socrates, and to a lesser extent Pericles, at least partially to blame for the loss of the Peloponnesian wars.
Alcibiades seems to me the perfect opportunity for a philosopher king, and his close relationship to Socrates in his early manhood would almost seem the ideal pairing. However, the character flaws in Alcibiades undid him in the Athenian democracy and robbed Athens of his immense talents. His resulting 'exile' or flight seems to me a critical straw that helped break the back of the Athenian empire.
I know Socrates was charged with corruption the Athenian youth and this charge eventually lead to his suicide, but was there any contemporary or more modern criticism leveled at Socrates or even Pericles for their role in the upbringing of Alcibiades and his character flaws?
Also, what do we know about the relationships between these famous Athenians? Thanks!
As you say, Sokrates was blamed in general terms for corrupting the youth of Athens. For this he was executed ("suicide" seems quite a misleading term, even if it is literally true). However, the individual students we hear about took his teachings in very different directions, so it would be difficult to blame him personally for the character flaws and political views of each one. While Xenophon tried to take his philosophies as practical advice serving the community of Athens, Plato or Antisthenes went off in a direction of abstraction and ideal forms; Kritias made them the foundation of a skill set that made him one of Athens' oppressors during the reign of the Thirty.
To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, Sokrates was never personally praised for the achievements or blamed for the wrongs committed by each one. No doubt their association with Sokrates was a reason for suspicion among many, but that was because Sokrates was already a controversial figure. It would also have been a reason for good hopes among others. In any case, Alkibiades himself tends to be judged in terms of his innate character and talents, rather than as a puppet of Perikles or Sokrates.
The fact is that Alkibiades' character is typical of the absolute top layer of the Athenian leisure class to which he belonged. These men usually worked to maximise their personal influence within the democratic system through connections, rhetorical skill, benefactions to the community, and successes in traditional forms of competitive display. Perikles himself would be another prime example of such behaviour. Alkibiades' entering seven chariot teams into the Olympic Games was only a more extreme variant of the ways in which the rich used their wealth to gain glory for themselves in the name of their city-state. His attempts to erode the democracy and turn it into a more oligarchic system entirely served his own interests, and the efforts of contemporary leisure-class politicians like Theramenes and Kritias shows that he was not alone. It would be odd to blame Sokrates for the character traits (arrogance, ambition, extravagance, questionable loyalties) that appeared innate to much of his social class.
Meanwhile, we probably shouldn't overestimate Alkibiades' personal influence on the events of the Peloponnesian War. It is always tempting to credit the rise and fall of empires on a single man, but this hugely oversimplifies the events. There were many factors at play in the eventual collapse of Athenian power, and we surely cannot credit them all to the machinations of Alkibiades. On the whole, it seems Alkibiades probably did as much for the Athenian empire as he did against it; his double betrayal largely cancels itself out.