Name Origins
by Julie Helen Otto, Staff Genealogist
ALCIBIADES (m): A prominent
Athenian statesman (ca. 450-404 B.C.) during the Peloponnesian War, who
claimed descent from the Argonaut Nestor (who appears in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey).
In childhood a ward of Pericles, and later a friend of the philosopher
Socrates, Alcibiades held power in Athens but defected to Sparta after
accusations of sacrilege, and later to Persia. Returning to Athens, he
was reinstated and was instrumental in several victories but was again
exiled and later assassinated; his character and career are still
controversial. Alcibiades Whittier (b. Dorchester,
Mass. ca. 1818-20) of Reading, Mass. was a cabinet maker in
Massachusetts (he is enumerated in Reading in 1850 as “Archibald”
Whittier, in the household of future father-in-law Washington Damon); a
later Alcibiades [also later Archibald] Whittier (ca. 1840-1928), a carriage maker in Hyde Park, Mass., was related, but apparently not a son.
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