Belfiore in Praise of Eros From Belfiore Daimonic Art-4

part ii
Eros and Hybris in the Symposium

Introduction to Part II: the narrators
of the Symposium
The Symposium has the extremely complex formal structure of a dramatic

dialogue in which narratives are nested within narratives.1 In the intro-
ductory framework (172a1174a2), Apollodorus says that he will comply
with the request of some unidentified friends (172a1) to tell them about
the speeches made at a symposium in honor of Agathons victory with his
first tragedy (173a56), and an unnamed Companion speaks a few lines
(173d410, 173e46). The rest of the Symposium takes the form of a long
narration by Apollodorus. Within his narration is another narration, for
Apollodorus, who was not present at Agathons symposium, reports what
the eyewitness Aristodemus told him. The reader is constantly reminded
of this narrative frame by Apollodorus use of indirect discourse (He
said that . . . : e.g., 174a3).2 Moreover, within Apollodorus narration of
Aristodemus narration are still other narrations, for Apollodorus narrates
Aristodemus narration of what the symposiasts said, including the speeches
some of them made in praise of Eros. Furthermore, two of these speeches
themselves narrate speeches made by still others: Socrates narrates what
Diotima said, and Alcibiades narrates what Socrates said. Of course, still
another narrator Plato tells the entire story to the reader.
This narrative complexity corresponds to, and helps to produce, an
equally complex characterization of Socrates. The multiple narrators por-
tray him as an erastes, an eromenos, a man who is marvelously skilled
concerning ta erotika, and as a figure who resembles the daimon Eros of
Diotimas speech. Socrates is also represented as both hubristic and virtu-
ous, comic and serious, wise and lacking wisdom. According to Alcibiades,
Socrates spends his life playing, but is also capable of being deeply serious
(216e46). Alcibiades Socrates has the virtues of moderation (sophrosyne),
courage, wisdom (phronesis) and endurance (219d47), but is also guilty of
1 On the narrative frame see, among many others, Gill 1999: xviiixix; Halperin 1992; Hunter 2004:
224.
2 Indirect discourse: Dover 1980, on 174a3175e10.
110
Introduction to Part II: the narrators of the Symposium 111
disdain, mockery, hybris and arrogance (219c36; hybris: cf. 215b7, 222a8).
In Alcibiades narrative, Socrates himself disclaims wisdom (218d6219a4),
just as he does in his initial conversation with Agathon (175e14). Agathon,
like Alcibiades, thinks that Socrates is wise (sophos: 175c8), but also accuses
him of hybris (175c7). Taken together, all of the narrators create a perplex-
ing, composite portrait of the philosopher who is said to play roles erotic,
ethical and dramatic that are usually thought to be incompatible.3 Like
Alcibiades (216c3), many of Platos readers have not known what to do with
this man.
The narratives within the Symposium, then, present readers with puzzles
that encourage them to open up Platos representation of Socrates, just
as Alcibiades claims that Socrates himself needs to be opened up in order
to be understood (216e57). Part II of this study does just this. I argue
that a focus on Socrates daimonic art can help to illuminate the many
puzzling, even apparently incompatible, accounts given by the narrators of
the Symposium, as well as many other aspects of the dialogue.
Indeed, the subject of Platos Symposium is not eros but Socrates.4 This
man is the main concern of Apollodorus and Aristodemus. In the opening
passage, Apollodorus tells his unnamed friends, who want to learn about
the speeches on love made by Socrates, Alcibiades and others at Agathons
symposium: I think that I am not unpracticed [melthtov] in the things
about which you ask (172a12). We learn shortly afterwards, however,
that the business of Apollodorus life, for the last three years, has been to
become practiced (pimelv), not about eros, but in knowing what he [sc.
Socrates] says and does (172c36). Moreover, Apollodorus has gotten his
information about the symposium from Aristodemus, a man whom he
identifies as a lover (rastv: 173b3), that is, an admirer, of Socrates.5
That Socrates is the main subject of the Symposium is also emphasized by the
structure of Aristodemus narrative as reported by Apollodorus. It begins as
Aristodemus first meets Socrates (He said that Socrates met him: 174a3)
and then follows him to the symposium, and it ends as Aristodemus again
follows the philosopher, as is his custom (223d10), after the party is over.
Moreover, of the dialogues fifty-one Stephanus pages, Socrates dominates
more than thirty. He is the topic of conversation in the introductory
3 Clay 2000: 143 notes that Socrates was characterized as dimorphos (two-formed) by an anonymous
comic writer (citing SSR I.A.17, vol. i: 7). On the ambiguity of Socrates persona cf. Blondell 2002:
6980 and 2006: 177; Blundell 1992: 12830; Corrigan 1997; Hunter 2004: 910; Nehamas 1998: esp.
5969; Ziolkowski 1999: 301.
4 Cf. Bury 1932: lxv.
5 Sheffield 2006a: 89 notes that the Symposium itself is a narrative passed on by the lovers of Socrates.
112 Part II Eros and Hybris in the Symposium
dialogue (172a1175e10); he converses with Agathon at 193e3194e3, and
plays an important role in the general discussion reported 176a1178a5.
The entire last section of the Symposium (198a1223d12) is concerned with
Socrates, who refutes Agathon, makes his own speech about Eros, is the
subject of Alcibiades speech, and is the protagonist in the concluding
drama. Not only is Socrates the subject of Platos dramatic dialogue, he
also dominates the other characters within the drama, defeating Agathon
and Aristophanes in debate (223d36), and being crowned by Alcibiades as
victor in speech over all people . . . for all time (213e16).
More specifically, the Symposium is concerned with Socrates practice of
the daimonic, erotic art. He is portrayed both by himself and by the other
characters in the dialogue as being marvelously skilled in ta erotika (denov
t rwtik: 198d12; cf. 193e45), and claiming to have knowledge about
these matters (pstasqai: 177d78). He is also represented as a lover
(211d38, 213c8d1, 216d23, 218c7, 222b34, 222d12), as a beloved (173b3,
217c78, 222b34) and as someone who shares many of the characteristics
of Diotimas Eros.6 He resembles the philosopher-daimon Eros in being a
lover of wisdom (component (3) of the erotic art), who recognizes his own
lack of wisdom (component (2)), who is marvelously skilled in seeking to
attain as much wisdom as he can (component (4)) and in helping others
to acquire his own erotic art (component (5)). Socrates is also represented
as being devoted to Eros and to ta erotika (component (1)), and as urging
others to become similarly devoted (212b58). These characteristics all
contribute to Platos representation of Socrates in this dialogue as a man
who has all five components of the erotic art.7 One aspect of Socrates
use of his erotic art that is especially emphasized in the Symposium is his
profound emotional effect on a variety of other people.
In this dialogue, Socrates does not influence others primarily by means of
argument. He does not engage in dialectic in response to Agathons request
to share the wisdom he has acquired in solitary thought (175c6e6), nor
in response to Alcibiades proposal to exchange wisdom for physical beauty
6 For the specific shared characteristics see Chapter 4 at 4.6. Scott and Welton 2008 argue at length
that the nucleus of the Symposium is the association of philosophy, in the person of Socrates, with
Eros (13). Gould 1963: 58 refers to Socrates as the great expert on love. Others connect Socrates
knowledge of eros with his knowledge of his own ignorance: see, for example, Nightingale 1995:
129 (quoting Lowenstam 1985: 88, and citing Reeve 1992: 93); Roochnik 1987. On Socrates as lover
and beloved see Blundell 1992: 12330 (citing [123 n. 17] Halperin 1986: 6870 and 1990: 1323);
Edmonds 2000. For Socrates as Eros see Bacon 1959: 424; Brisson 1998: 524; Bury 1932: xlii and
lxlxii; Clay 1972: 58 and 1975: 2489 (with n. 18, citing Maximus of Tyre, Philosophoumena 18. 84b
[Hobein], and Ficino, Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, ed. Marcel [Paris 1956]: 242); Osborne
1994: 93101; Robin 2002: cicix.
7 On these components, see Introduction at I.1.
(218c7219a4), although he offers to consider with Alcibiades in the future
what the best thing to do about this matter might be (219a8b2). What little
dialectic the Symposium contains or refers to is usually interrupted, forgot-
ten or not reported.8 When engaged in thinking, Socrates turns inward,
paying no attention to Aristodemus (174d47), or to his fellow soldiers at
Potidaea (220c1d5), and he does not reveal the subject of his thoughts.
Socrates questioning of Agathon is interrupted by Phaedrus (194d18),
and most of his concluding debate with Aristophanes and Agathon is for-
gotten or missed by Aristodemus, who falls asleep (223c6d2). The only
example of a complete dialectical exchange between Socrates and another
symposiast is that with Agathon at 199c3201c9. There, however, Socrates
casts doubt on the conclusions he arrives at by saying that it is not hard
to refute Socrates (201c89). The philosophers own speech, in which he
claims to report what Diotima has taught him, is not dialectic but an
unexamined account of what the prophetess taught Socrates (201d5) after
an elenchus that he does not report, other than to state that it resem-
bled his own elenchus of Agathon (201e67). When Socrates says that his
speech about Eros aimed to persuade people, he uses wordplay like that of
the sophist Gorgias: ppeismai . . . pepeismnov . . . peirmai . . . peqein
(212b13). This speech is good rhetoric, and it is praised by the rest of
the symposiasts. However, the fact that it is not dialectic is emphasized
when Aristophanes is prevented from questioning Socrates by the arrival
of Alcibiades (212c48). Alcibiades, moreover, crowns Socrates as victor in
words (213e16), but also calls him a liar (214d12).
Socrates words, however, have profound emotional effects on others.
According to Alcibiades, all of the symposiasts Phaedrus, Agathon, Eryx-
imachus, Pausanias, Aristodemus, Aristophanes and Socrates himself
have shared in philosophical madness and Bacchic frenzy (218a7b4), and
Socrates, more than any rhetorician, is responsible for producing this effect
on others (215e45).9 When we hear Socrates words, says Alcibiades, we
are stunned and possessed (215d56). He uses the word kpeplhgmnoi,
whose cognates are used elsewhere in the dialogue to refer to the effects of
sexual passion (192b7c1, 211d5, 216d3). As for Alcibiades, his heart pounds,
he weeps, is confused, pained, enslaved and ashamed, to the extent that
he thinks life is not worth living in his present condition of self-neglect
(215e1216c2). According to Alcibiades, no matter who hears them, and
8 On this point see Plochmann 1972: 330 and 333; Wardy 2002; Warner 1992: 158.
9 Unlike Rowe 1998, on 218b2, I see no reason to doubt that the symposiasts have all been strongly
affected by Socrates philosophical words. This does not imply, however, that they have become
philosophers in the sense that Socrates is a philosopher.
even if they are reported by someone very inferior, Socrates words never-
theless produce the same powerful effects (215d36). These effects are due
to Socrates use of component (5) of the erotic art: his ability to use words
to persuade others to recognize their own ignorance and to desire to seek
wisdom.
Socrates also produces another kind of emotional effect on those who
associate with him, many of whom become his lovers. Aristodemus, as
noted above, is a lover of Socrates (173b3), and after Alcibiades speech, the
symposiasts laugh because Alcibiades seems to them still to be in love with
the older man (rwtikv cein: 222c23). Alcibiades confirms that he is in
love when he says that Socrates deceives people into thinking that Socrates
is a lover, when he is actually a beloved. In addition to himself, Alcibiades
names Charmides, Glaucon, Euthydemus, Diocles and very many others,
and he warns Agathon against suffering the same fate (222a8b7).
The narrative structure of the dialogue is ideally suited to portraying
the ways in which the philosopher affects others, for the reader is always
aware of seeing Socrates through the eyes of the narrators on whom he has
these powerful emotional effects. This structure, however, also contributes
to the difficulties of interpretation, for each of the narrators has a different
point of view, and none is represented as completely reliable. In particular,
and as Apollodorus readily admits, neither Apollodorus nor Aristodemus
provides a narrative that is complete, accurate and objective: All that each
person said, Aristodemus did not entirely remember, nor did I remember all
that he said. But I will tell you what he remembered best, and what seemed
to me most worth remembering in the speech of each person (178a15).10
Apollodorus claims to have verified Aristodemus report: I asked Socrates
about some of the things that I heard from him [Aristodemus], and he
agreed that it was as he [Aristodemus] said (173b56). This very statement,
however, is an admission of bias, for Apollodorus asked Socrates about
only some of the things that happened at Agathons symposium, and he
questioned Socrates only about what Aristodemus said, without attempting
to fill in the gaps in this story. Apollodorus apparently did not, for example,
ask Socrates about the speeches that occurred between those of Phaedrus
and Pausanias, that is, the speeches, given by some other people, that
Aristodemus did not entirely remember (180c12), or about Socrates
final discussion, during most of which Aristodemus was asleep (223b8d2).
In addition to being selective and forgetful, Apollodorus and Aristode-
mus are also represented as biased due to their individual natures and ways
10 I discuss these two narrators in greater detail in Belfiore 1984.

of imitating Socrates.11 Apollodorus shows himself to be disdainful and
quarrelsome in the introductory section of the dialogue. He tells Glaucon
that, before becoming a follower of Socrates, he, Apollodorus, used to be
more wretched than anyone, no less than you are now (173a2). His low
opinion of others is also evident in his statement that he enjoys exceed-
ingly (perfuv v carw) hearing speeches about philosophy, and that
when he hears other kinds of speeches, especially those of wealthy money-
makers, he is annoyed (cqomai) and feels pity for the speakers (173c27).
Apollodorus is, paradoxically, very confident that his recognition of his
own defects makes him superior to others: Perhaps you believe that I am
unfortunate, and I think that you are right. But I do not just think that
you are unfortunate, I know it well (173d13). That Apollodorus uses the
elenchus in a combative way is evident in the exchange at 173d4e4. Accord-
ing to the unnamed Companion, Apollodorus reviles (kakhgorev) and is
harsh to (grianeiv) himself and all others except Socrates (173d410).
My very dear friend, Apollodorus replies, is it clear that I am mad and
out of my senses to have this opinion about myself and you? The Com-
panion responds: Its not right to quarrel [rzein] now about these things,
Apollodorus. Apollodorus appears, then, to be like the young imitators
of Socrates mentioned in the Apology, who lack real understanding, but
take pleasure in listening to Socrates public refutations and in engaging in
these activities themselves (23c26, cf. Resp. 7.539b16).12
Aristodemus is a different kind of imitator of Socrates. He is a lover
or fan (erastes), not of wisdom, but of Socrates (173b34), and we know
from 223d10 that he makes a practice of following Socrates about.13 He
even imitates the philosopher in going unshod (173b2, 174a34, 220b6).
Aristodemus is small (173b2), and his low social status corresponds to
his physical stature. Aristodemus inferior social status is suggested by the
fact that he needs to be described in detail (173b12), unlike the well-
known figures Agathon and Alcibiades, and by the fact that he does not
make a speech and is otherwise ignored by the others.14 That Aristodemus
has a low opinion of his own social and intellectual status is apparent
11 The view of Osborne (1994: 86101) that the two narrators are philosophical guides is refuted by
G. A. Scott 2000: 4, 223, 1801 n.7, and Scott and Welton 2008: 2831. On the two narrators see
also Arieti 1991: 967, 1078; Babut 1980; Blondell 2006: 14752; Blundell 1992: 131; Corrigan and
Glazov-Corrigan 2004: 818; Halperin 1992; Hunter 2004: 249; Kofman 2002: 48; Nightingale
1995: 11718; Penwill 1978: 1667.
12 On Apollodorus in Plato and in the Socratic literature see Burnet 1911, on Phd. 59a9; Nails 2002:
3940; de Vries 1935.
13 On lovers as fans see Davidson 2007: 246.
14 These characteristics of Aristodemus are noted by Rowe 1998, on 173b23, and 2001.
from his statement that, in going to Agathons party uninvited, he will
be an inferior man going to visit a wise man (falov n p sofo
ndrv: 174c7). Moreover, the fact that he goes to the symposium uninvited
(klhtov: 174b1, c7, c8) by his host, and is put in the ridiculous (geloon:
174e2) position of arriving without Socrates, who invited him, would
have reminded Platos audience of the akletoi, the uninvited hangers-on of
inferior social, physical and ethical status, who earned a dinner by providing
comic entertainment for the invited guests.15 Instead of imitating Socrates
by using the elenchus in a combative way, as Apollodorus does (173e4),
Aristodemus yields to Socrates authority, telling him, Ill do whatever
you order (174b2), and instead of defending himself against the charge of
being an uninvited guest, he asks Socrates to do this for him (174c7d1). In
keeping with his humble opinion of himself, Aristodemus, unlike Agathon,
Alcibiades and the very many others Alcibiades mentions (222a8b3),
never aspires to be an eromenos of Socrates, but is represented from the
beginning as an erastes.
Apollodorus and Aristodemus, then, are unreliable narrators, who imi-
tate Socrates words and deeds but are not able to acquire the erotic art
that is essential to his practice of philosophy. The stories told by these
narrators, and by the narrators within their narratives, serve to remind the
reader that the dialogue cannot be accepted as an historically accurate tran-
scription of what Socrates said and did (172c6), that it is fiction, and that
it requires critical evaluation.16 Part II analyzes these puzzling narrations of
what Socrates says and does (172c6), first, in Chapter 3, by contrasting
Socrates with the first five speakers, and then, in Chapter 4, focusing on
his interactions with Agathon and Alcibiades.
15 Akletoi: Fehr 1990; Halliwell 2008: 1434; Wilkins 2000: 7186.

16 Clay 2000: 31, writes that the narrative framework suggests that the memory of Socrates cannot be
independent of the character of his memorialist.
c h a p ter 3
In praise of Eros: the speeches in the Symposium
3.1 victories in words

The Symposium is set within the context of a number of competitions.
At a symposium honoring Agathons victory in a dramatic competition
(173a56), six speakers compete in praising Eros, and a seventh, Alcibiades,
praises Socrates. Before this competition begins, Agathon says that he and
Socrates will soon be judged by Dionysus concerning their wisdom (sophia:
175e79). Socrates is explicitly represented as winning a victory not just
once but six times.1 First, like Perseus killing the Gorgon, he overcomes
the Gorgianic power of Agathons words that threaten to reduce him to
silence (198b1c5). Second, he defeats Agathon in an elenchus, at the end
of which the poet admits his own lack of wisdom (199c3201c9). Socrates
is awarded a third victory by Alcibiades, who crowns him, declaring that
this man wins the victory in words over all people, not just the other day,
like you [sc. Agathon], but always (213e16). At the end of the Symposium,
Socrates wins two more victories in words. He wins a fourth victory by
persuading Agathon, the most beautiful man present, to sit beside him in
order to receive Socrates praise (223a35). And in a fifth victory, Socrates
compels Agathon, the tragedian, and Aristophanes, the comic poet, to
agree that a comic poet who has skill also knows how to compose tragedies
(223c4d6).
Most importantly, Socrates wins a sixth victory in the competition
(gnisai: 194a1) in praising Eros proposed by Eryximachus (177a1d5).
That his speech is the best is not explicitly stated in the dialogue. There are,
however, several indications that Socrates in fact wins the victory. For one
thing, his speech receives the most enthusiastic responses from the other
symposiasts. After Phaedrus speech, we are merely told that Pausanias
1 I discuss some of these victories in detail below. Socrates first victory is the subject of 3.3.1 below,
his second that of Chapter 4 at 4.3, and his fourth and fifth victories are analyzed in 4.5. Socrates
sixth victory is discussed throughout Chapter 3.
117
criticized Phaedrus view that there is only one Eros (180c1d1), while Pau-
sanias own speech is followed by Eryximachus criticism of the last part of
this speech (185e6186a2). Eryximachus speech is accompanied by Aristo-
phanes comic attempts to stop his own hiccups (185c4e5) and followed
by Aristophanes jokes about this speech (189a1b2). Aristophanes speech
receives only slightly better treatment, for Eryximachus, after politely say-
ing that it was pleasantly spoken, states that he knows that the next speakers,
Agathon and Socrates, will not be at a loss since they are marvelously skilled
in ta erotika (193e37). Agathons speech receives applause (naqorubsai)
from everyone for having been spoken appropriately (prepntwv: 198a1
3). Socrates, however, suggests that this speech, like all the others, paid no
attention to the truth (198d3e4). He then praises the beginning of the
speech (199c36), but goes on to demonstrate that Agathon did not know
what he was talking about, an assessment with which Agathon himself
agrees (201b912). Socrates speech receives by far the most positive reac-
tions, for everyone except Aristophanes is said to praise it (painen:
212c4). This verb and its cognates are used, significantly, to characterize
the praises of Eros that the speakers give (for example, 177b3, 6, d2; 198d7;
199a5). Aristophanes does not join in praising Socrates speech because
he is about to discuss a point that Socrates made about Aristophanes
speech (212c46). He is, however, interrupted by the entrance of Alci-
biades, who gives Socrates part of the victory crown he had intended for
Agathon, declaring the philosopher to be the victor in words, not just on
one occasion, but over all people at all times (213d8e6).
Socrates is represented as winning these victories because he really has
marvelous skill concerning ta erotika, in contrast to the other speakers, who
falsely claim to have expert knowledge that they lack. The first five speakers
Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes and Agathon all claim
to be experts on eros, each according to his own kind of skill.2 Aristophanes
tacitly accepts Socrates statement that Aristophanes whole occupation
is concerned with Dionysus and Aphrodite (177e12), and he prefaces his
speech by saying that his audience must learn from him and teach others
(189d36). Phaedrus and Pausanias discuss the role of eros in political virtue,
stressing military and intellectual virtue respectively (178e3179b3, 182a7
d4, 184c4e4). They claim to have superior knowledge in these areas when
they confidently make long speeches and criticize the views of others. The
2 Bacon 1959: 429 writes that each man sees love in terms of his own profession; Reeve 1992: 91 views
the speakers as representatives of conventional wisdom. Scott and Welton 2008: 43 hold that each
speech is an expression of one kind of love. Sheffield 2006a: 21516 n.8, argues convincingly that
each of the first five speakers can be associated with one of the Muses.
In praise of Eros: the speeches in the Symposium 119
physician Eryximachus speaks as an expert when he argues that medicine
is an erotic science (186c5e3), as does the tragedian Agathon, when he
contends that the god Eros is a wise (sophos) poet, who is able to make
others wise also (196e13).
Each of these speakers happens to make some good points about eros,
as scholars have often noted.3 However, because they do not examine
their claims critically, each is in fact characterized by amathia, lack of
understanding, about eros. According to Socrates Diotima, amathia is the
condition of someone who is not fine and good or wise [phronimos] but
thinks that he is adequate in these respects (204a46).4 Socrates remarks
after Agathons speech indicate that he believes that all the speakers have
exhibited this amathia. He says that all of the previous speakers5 seem
to have thought that the task set by Eryximachus was to represent Eros
so that he might appear to be as beautiful and good as possible [v
kllistov ka ristov], to the ignorant, clearly certainly not to those
who know (198e6199a2). This comment refers most immediately to
Agathons statement that Eros is most beautiful and best (kllistov ka
ristov: 197c2, 195a7), but it is a criticism of the other speeches as well,
each of which represents Eros as the best and most beautiful of the gods.
This view of Eros, as Socrates will show in his speech, is a result of amathia.
In addition to Socrates explicit criticism of these speeches, Plato uses other
techniques to portray the first five speakers as lacking understanding. Their
speeches contain internal inconsistencies, make a selective and uncritical
use of literary authority, and fail to give an adequate account of the good
things they claim Eros gives to humans.
Socrates, like the other speakers, represents himself as having skill con-
cerning eros. He says that he knows nothing except ta erotika (177d78),
and claims to be marvelously skilled in these matters (198d12). He also
claims to have learned about eros from a wise woman (sophe), Diotima
(201d15). Socrates claims, however, are justified by his possession of the
erotic art. Socrates is wiser than his competitors because he does not lack
understanding, but recognizes that he lacks wisdom (gnoe: 216d34). He
3 Detel 2003 (858, with bibliographical survey n.18) and Sheffield 2006a (1539 and 20724, with
bibliographical survey 212 n.2) and 2006b discuss the positive contributions of all of the speeches.
Friedlander 1969: 238 and Sedley 2006 emphasize Agathons speech in particular.
4 For amathia as lack of understanding see LSJ, Supplement s.v. maqv. Plato does not always use
the term in this sense, however. Brickhouse and Smith 1994: 126 n.41 point out that Socrates uses it
of his own ignorance at Grg. 488a3, and I note in Introduction to Part III n.1, that he also uses it
in this sense at Phdr. 235c28. On the comic aspects of the speakers false conceit of wisdom see
Patterson 1982: esp. 8490 (quotation: 82).
5 This is suggested by each of us at 198e3. Plurals are also used at 198e5, e6.
demonstrates this component of the erotic art (component (2)), not only
by criticizing the false pretense to wisdom of the other speakers, but also
when he suggests, in part through his characterization of Diotima, that
he did not acquire wisdom from Diotima in the form of truths contained
in a body of teachings that are to be accepted without critical examina-
tion. Socrates speech also exhibits the other four components of his erotic
art, especially (5): his marvelous skill in persuading his audience to devote
themselves to ta erotika, to recognize their own lack of wisdom and other
good things, to desire these things passionately, and to seek to attain as
much of them as they can. In making a speech that appeals to each of the
self-styled experts with whom he competes, Socrates uses his daimonic
art very effectively to persuade his audience that the philosopher-daimon
Eros described by Diotima is the best helper for humans (212b24).
3.2 the first five speakers: the best and most

beautiful of the gods
3.2.1 The symposiasts and the poets

One way in which each of the first five speakers exhibits amathia is by
appealing uncritically to the Greek literary tradition, especially poetry.6
This tradition is explicitly mentioned at the moment when the contest in
making speeches about Eros is proposed. After the initial sparring between
Socrates and Agathon (175c7e10), the guests dine and agree to drink
only as much as each man pleases (176a1e6). The physician Eryximachus
then makes a proposal about the kind of entertainment they will enjoy:
I propose that we let the aulos-player who just now came in go and
pipe to herself or, if she wishes, to the women inside, and that today
we spend our time with each other in talk (176e69). After all of the
guests enthusiastically agree to decline the womans services, Eryximachus
proposes, specifically, that they compete in praising the god Eros (177a1
d5). In proposing Eros as a topic for competitive speaking, Eryximachus
reports the complaint of Phaedrus that neither poets nor prose writers have
yet made an encomium of Eros (177a5b1). Prodicus, Phaedrus said, praised
Heracles,7 and another man praised salt for its usefulness, but no one has
6 As far as I know, this aspect of the theme of rivalry between poetry and philosophy in the Symposium
has never been discussed. A good, recent account of this theme from another perspective is that of
Scott and Welton 2008: esp. 3543, 1513, 1812 and 1913.
7 Bury 1932, on 177b, notes that Prodicus story about Heracles choice of Virtue is recounted in Xen.
Mem. 2.1.21ff.
adequately praised Eros (177b1c4). The salt example suggests that the kind
of encomium Phaedrus and Eryximachus have in mind is one that praises
something or someone for qualities that are useful to humans. Phaedrus
complaint, then, while perhaps an exaggeration, is an accurate reflection
of much of Greek literature, in which eros is often represented as more to
be feared than praised, a destructive force causing sickness and madness.8
Eros is also frequently associated with hybris, a term that has connotations
of violence, lust and dishonor.9 There are indeed hymns to Eros in tragedy
that are encomiastic in that they represent the god as a powerful force.10 In
another respect, however, these passages are not encomia, for they attribute
to Eros a power destructive to human beings. In Sophocles Antigone, Eros
is addressed in these terms: You who make unjust the minds of even just
people, to their ruin, you have stirred up this quarrel of kindred men (Ant.
7914), and in Euripides Hippolytus the god is called: Eros, the tyrant
of men . . . destroying mortals and sending all misfortunes to them when
he comes (Hipp. 53842). In giving his encomium, then, each speaker is
asked to remedy what is presented as a deficiency in the literary tradition,
by praising Eros for the good things he gives to humans.
One way in which the first five speakers do this is by their use of
quotations and allusions to show that, even if the poets and prose writers
have not made formal encomia of Eros, their works do in fact praise the god
for his beneficence. Despite having agreed to entertain one another with
their own words and to dispense with the musical entertainment provided
by another person, the aulos-player, each of the first five speakers in effect
invites others to speak for him when he quotes extensively from poets and
prose writers.11 The symposiasts competitive use of quotations is itself a
traditional sympotic game, and an activity at which Platos Socrates excels,
as will be seen below 3.3.1.12 In the context of the Symposium, however,
8 Numerous examples, especially in archaic poetry, are given by Calame 1999 and Cyrino 1995.
9 Examples of the association of eros with hybris are given by Fisher 1992: esp. 10411; Lattimore 1969:
23 and 812 n.24; and MacDowell 1976: 17. On hybris and violence see Lattimore 1969: 23. Hybris
and dishonor are discussed in Chapter 4 at 4.2.
10 Sophocles Antigone 781[801] and Euripides Hippolytus 525[564] are cited by Bury 1932: 19. Cf.
Soph. Trach. 4415, where Eros is said to be a sickness and to rule gods and humans. In lyric poetry,
Alcaeus (frag. 327 Voigt 1971 = Lobel and Page 1955) characterizes Eros as deintaton (most
terrible) without attributing beneficence to the god (cited by Rowe 1998, on 177b12). Friedlander
1969: 10 cites evidence for the worship of Eros.
11 Brandwood 1976: 9911003 provides a useful Index of Quotations in Plato, although it has
limitations noted by Halliwell 2000: 95 n.4. Brownson 1920: 2273 and Tables: 15965 collects
and discusses Platos quotations of and references to the poets. Tarrant 1951 is also helpful. A good
survey of each speakers use of rhetorical figures is given by Brisson 1998: 4951.
12 See Halliwell 2000 on the general Greek practice of invoking and citing poetic texts to formulate,
illustrate, or reinforce a point of view (95), and on Platos portrayal of and reaction to this practice.
the reliance on, and selective use of, quotations and allusions by the first
five speakers reveal not only their own lack of understanding about eros,
but also the inadequacies of the Greek literary tradition itself. When the
symposiasts quote or cite literary works without examining critically the
views these authorities express, they implicitly claim expertise they do not
in fact have. Poetry is itself full of contradictions.13 Moreover, as Socrates
notes in the Protagoras, it is not possible to question the poets, whose
works can be interpreted in different ways by different people. To quote
poetry, he says, is to act like inferior people who invite aulos-players to their
symposia.14 The first five speakers, then, demonstrate not only their own
amathia, but also the accuracy of this assessment of the poets and other
literary authorities.
3.2.2 Phaedrus: courage

According to Phaedrus, Eros is a great god (178a7) who is the cause of the
greatest goods for us (178c23). His encomium follows Greek conventions
in idealizing an asymmetrical relationship between two men, the older
erastes, lover, and the younger eromenos, beloved (178e12, 180a4b5).
Eros is a benefactor because he inspires the lover with shame in regard to
shameful things and with love of honor (philotimia) with respect to what is
noble (178d12, 178e6). Phaedrus is almost exclusively concerned with only
one aspect of Eros: the gods role as a source of courage in facing death either
in battle or in other circumstances.15 More specifically, courage leads the
lover to protect (179a6) or even to die for the beloved (179b4). Eros inspires
even the most cowardly man with the virtue of courage (nqeon poiseie
prv retn . . . mnov mpnesai), so that he becomes like someone who
is by nature bravest (179a7b3). Phaedrus holds that courage is conducive
to political virtue. An army or city of lovers and beloveds, he says, would be
Competitive quotation of poetry at symposia is discussed by Lissarrague 1990b: esp. 135, and in
several of the chapters in Murray 1990, Lukinovich, esp. 264, Pellizer, esp. 17980 and Rosler. Vetta
1983 provides an excellent introduction to the role of poetry in the Greek symposium. Of particular
interest is his discussion of metapoiesis, the correction or transformation of a poem known to an
audience (xxxxxxi).
13 Halliwell 2000: 102 cites Laws 4.719ce, Meno 95d96a and Prt. 339aff. for Platos view that self-
contradiction is a fundamental characteristic of mimetic poetry. Two poets may also contradict each
other. For example, in Platos Lys., Homer and Hesiod are cited in support of opposite views: Lys.
214a6 quotes Od. 17.218, on the attraction of like to like, and Lys. 215c5d1 quotes Hesiod, Op. 256
on their enmity (noted by Vicaire 1960: 1921).
14 Prt. 347b8348a9, noting that different people have different interpretations of poetry; cf. Phdr.
275d4e5.
15 Military terminology is used at 178e4 (stratpedon), 179a1 (macmenoi), 179a34 (lipn txin,
pla pobaln).
best governed, for they would refrain from all shameful things and compete
with each other in love of honor (178e3179a2).16
There are, however, indications that Phaedrus lacks understanding when
he makes these claims. For one thing, he seriously compromises his own
thesis when he attributes the same virtues to the beloved, who is not inspired
by Eros, as he does to the lover, who is so inspired. According to Phaedrus,
the beloved, like the lover, experiences shame and loves honor, and he
fights courageously in the presence of his lover (178e1179a2). The beloved
is even capable of dying for his lover, as Achilles dies to avenge his lover
Patroclus by killing Hector (179e1180a4).17 Indeed, Phaedrus suggests that
the beloved who acts courageously has virtue superior to that of the lover
precisely because he is not inspired by love: [T]he gods . . . marvel and
admire more . . . when the eromenos has affection for the erastes than when
the erastes has affection for his boyfriend. For the erastes is more divine than
the boyfriend, since he is inspired (nqeov gr sti: 180a7b4).18 If the
beloved acts virtuously without the inspiration of Eros, however, it would
appear that the god is not, after all, the cause, or at least the sole cause, of
the greatest goods for us, as Phaedrus claims (178c23).19
Another weakness in Phaedrus account is that he appeals uncritically
to sources that could also be used to undermine his claims. In support of
his view that Eros is the oldest of the gods, Phaedrus quotes from Hesiod,
Theogony 11620: Hesiod says that first Chaos came to be, but next [came]
broad-breasted Earth, the ever steadfast seat of all things, and Love (178b3
7). However, he leaves out any negative associations and attributes when he
omits Hesiods reference to Tartarus (119) and stops just before the poets
lines attributing destructive powers to the god: Love . . . the loosener of
limbs, who overcomes sense and prudent counsel in the breasts of all gods
and humans (Theog. 1212).20 Phaedrus also quotes Homer selectively
16 Bury 1932, on 178e notes that this principle was exemplified in the sacred band of the Thebans and
cites a parallel in Xenophon, Symp. 8.32.
17 Phaedrus follows Aeschines (1.142: Against Timarchus) and Aeschylus, Myrmidons (frags. 228, 229
Mette 1959 = 135, 136 Radt 1985) in representing this relationship as an erotic one, although he
departs from Aeschines in portraying Achilles as the eromenos (noted by Dover 1989: 53 and 197).
Dover 1980 on 180a4 suggests that Aeschylus may have been the first to represent Achilles as the
erastes. Unlike Phaedrus, Xenophons Socrates (Symp. 8.31) denies that there is an erotic element in
Homers representation of this relationship (Dover 1989: 199). Davidson 2007: 25584 argues that
the relationship was erotic even in Homer.
18 I borrow the translation boyfriend from Gill 1999.
19 Cf. Corrigan and Glazov-Corrigan 2004: 534 and Rowe 1998, on 180a7b4.
20 On the omission of 1212 cf. Hunter 2004: 401. Theog. 119 is bracketed by Solmsen 1990 and by
Mazon 1951, who cites Plato in support of the excision. The line is, however, accepted by West 1966,
and Phaedrus omission of Tartarus is consistent with his omission of Theog. 1212.
when he argues that Eros inspires courage in lovers. According to Homer,
says Phaedrus, a god breathed battle-strength into some of the heroes
(179b12). Phaedrus, however, omits the name of the god who does this
in Iliad 10.482: Athena, a virgin goddess, whose domain is not eros but
wisdom.21 The passages omitted by Phaedrus, then, suggest that wisdom is
more desirable than eros. His use of the example of Achilles and Patroclus
reinforces the same idea. In stating that Achilles gave aid to his lover
Patroclus by taking vengeance on Hector (179e1180a7), Phaedrus omits
the fact that it was Achilles mistake in judgment that caused Patroclus
death in the first place. Indeed, Achilles blames himself for his companions
death when he speaks the well-known lines in the Iliad:
I must die soon, then; since I was not to stand by my companion
when he was killed. And now, far away from the land of his fathers,
he has perished, and lacked my fighting strength to defend him.
Now, since I am not going back to the beloved land of my fathers,
since I was no light of safety to Patroklos, nor to my other
companions, who in their numbers went down before glorious Hektor,
but sit here beside my ships, a useless weight on the good land,
I, who am such as no other of the bronze-armoured Achaians
in battle, though there are others also better in council. (Il. 18.98106)22
According to these lines, courage without wisdom leads to disaster. More-
over, Phaedrus example of Alcestis, the lover who so excelled in philia
[friendship] because of eros (179c12) that she was willing to die for her
husband, Admetus, is also questionable. At least in Euripides play, Alcestis
appears to be motivated by philia rather than by eros.23 It is instead Adme-
tus who exhibits sexual passion for his wife, saying that he will embrace
a model of her in bed (34852). Admetus eros does not make him coura-
geous, however. He allows his wife to die for him because he is a coward
(Alc. 9547), and because of a mistake in judgment that he later recognizes
(rti manqnw: 940). A more comprehensive survey of the passages Phae-
drus quotes, then, suggests that, according to the very tradition to which
he appeals, the association of eros with courage is a dubious one, and that
eros and courage without judgment lead to disaster. One way in which
Phaedrus shows his amathia, then, is by failing to ask questions about the
relationship between eros and courage represented in these passages.
21 In Il. 15.262 the phrase is used of Apollo, another god associated with wisdom. References are given
by Bury 1932, on 179b.
22 Translation: Lattimore 1951. Lines 1056, often suspected, are ably defended by Edwards 1991.
23 Noted by Rowe 1998, on 179b56. See especially Alc. 279: sn gr filan sebmesqa (I honor
your friendship).
3.2.3 Pausanias: education

Pausanias departs from Phaedrus in distinguishing two kinds of Loves and
two kinds of lovers. The inferior lover, governed by the Eros who is the
son of the vulgar Aphrodite, loves women as well as boys, bodies more
than souls, and foolish more than sensible people, being concerned only
with accomplishing the act (181a7b6). The statement that the heavenly
Aphrodite, the mother of the superior Eros, has no part in hybris (brewv
morou: 181c4) suggests that, in contrast, the inferior Eros and lover are
indeed hubristic. When they are governed by the inferior Eros, both lover
and beloved act shamefully and give rise to negative judgments in others,
who blame this kind of eros and think it shameful for a beloved to yield to
a lover of this kind (182a13, 183c4d3). Pausanias is primarily concerned
with the superior lover, inspired by the superior Eros, who is the son
of the heavenly Aphrodite. This man loves only males, who are by nature
stronger and more sensible (181c26), and he loves good character (qouv
crhsto: 183e5) more than body. Superior lovers love with the intention
of being together and living in common for life with their beloveds
(181d35).
Aside from positing two Loves, Pausanias accepts much of what Phaedrus
says, including the idealization of the relationship between older erastes
and younger eromenos, and the assumption that Eros is a god (180d3).
Pausanias also agrees with Phaedrus in holding that the superior Eros
inspires virtue. The superior lover educates (padeusin: 184e1) the beloved,
who in turn gratifies his lover sexually (184c7e4). Like Phaedrus (see
178e3179a2), Pausanias is concerned with virtue within a civic setting.
He stresses the importance of law and custom, and favorably contrasts
Athens with other cities.24 Pausanias, however, stresses the intellectual
virtues that are conducive to political virtue, whereas Phaedrus emphasized
love of honor and courage. Pausanias beloved gratifies the lover in order
to acquire philosophy and other virtues (filosofan ka tn llhn
retn: 184d1) or wisdom [phronesis] and other virtues (frnhsin ka
tn llhn retn: 184d7e1).
Closer examination of his speech, however, reveals that Pausanias lacks
those intellectual virtues that he himself emphasizes, for his account of the
two Loves depends on a dubious way of distinguishing noble from shameful
24 The word nmov (law) and cognates appear at 181d7, e3; 182a5, a7, b2, b7, d3, d4, e2; 183b4, c2, c3,
d3; 184a1, a6, b5, b7, c4, d4, e3. Davidson 2007: 41845 provides an insightful analysis of Pausanias
speech as a source of information about distinctively Athenian customs.
acts.25 Pausanias states that an act is not noble or shameful in itself, but
that it is noble if done well, shameful if done shamefully (180e4181a4;
183d46). He also claims that it is noble to do anything whatsoever for the
sake of virtue (185b15). These statements entail that superior lovers who
act for the sake of virtue can act nobly even while engaging in activities
that would be thought shameful in other circumstances. They can, for
example, resort to entreaties, swear oaths, lie in doorways (183a46) and
in other ways endure a kind of voluntary slavery (183a67, 184b7c1).
According to Pausanias, superior beloveds, like their lovers, can also act
nobly even while doing things that might appear to be shameful. Pausanias
holds that it is right for the beloved to endure even voluntary slavery in
gratifying the lover (184c27), and to serve him in any way whatsoever
if the beloved will thereby become wise [sophos] and good (184d57).26
Even if the beloved is deceived and his lover turns out to be a bad man, his
deception is a noble one (kal pth), for he has shown that for the
sake of virtue he is ready to do anything for anyone (pn . . . pant), and to
do anything in any way (pn pntwv: 185a5b5). These last statements in
particular, with their repetition of any, can be taken to imply that license
is justified if it promotes virtue.27 They thus risk collapsing Pausanias
distinction between the vulgar Eros and the heavenly Eros. At the very
least, their phrasing suggests that Pausanias views need to be supported
further. Pausanias also shows his own lack of understanding about eros in
another way. According to his account, one kind of lover is superior because
he is able to educate his beloved, by giving him wisdom (phronesis) and the
other virtues (184c7e4). What really distinguishes the superior from the
inferior lover, then, is not eros of a certain kind, but virtue and wisdom.
Like Phaedrus, Pausanias uses quotations to support his criticism of
the inferior lover, whose oaths are no oaths (183b7) and who goes flying
away (183e34).28 In referring to the genealogies of the two Aphrodites, the
heavenly and the vulgar (180d6e1, 181b8c4), who are the mothers of the
two Loves, Pausanias does not name his sources, but his fellow symposiasts
would have recognized them as Hesiod and Homer.29
25 Bury 1932: xxvixxvii notes that Pausanias is sophistic in taking the side of law against nature, and
in being inconsistent and self-contradictory.
26 In contrast, Socrates in Euthydemus 282b36 restricts the slavery of the beloved to noble service:
tion . . . phreten tn kaln phrethmtwn.
27 Cf. Corrigan and Glazov-Corrigan 2004: 601; Nichols 2009: 423; Rosen 1987: 812; and Rowe
1998, on 185b34.
28 Bury 1932 notes that the statement at 183b7 is a proverbial expression with a number of poetic
versions and that 183e34 recalls Il. 2.71.
29 Dover 1980, on 180d69 cites Hesiod Theog. 190ff. (daughter of Ouranos) and Il. 5.370430 (daughter
of Zeus and Dione).
Pausanias also resembles Phaedrus in using literary sources selectively,
omitting those lines that tell against his distinction between the two Loves.
Specifically, he omits important details of the Hesiodic account of the birth
of Ouranian (Heavenly) Aphrodite. According to Hesiods well-known
story, Ouranos hates the children Gaia bears him and hides them deep
within her, causing her pain. Gaia then persuades her son, Cronos, to
castrate his father, and Aphrodite grows from the severed genitals (Theogony
154200). The circumstances surrounding Aphrodites birth in Hesiods
poem might well lead Pausanias audience to question his view that she
has no share in hybris (181c4). The outrage Ouranos commits against
Gaia could be considered hubristic, as could Cronos dishonoring violence
against Ouranos. Hesiods Aphrodite, then, does share in hybris, at least in
so far as her birth is the result of hubristic acts by her father and brother.30
Pausanias also fails to mention Hesiods statement that deceit is included
in Aphrodites portion (moran . . . xaptav: Theog. 2035). Nevertheless,
his contention that the superior beloved may be deceived (pth: 185b1,
cf. 185a1, a7) might well remind his audience of this characteristic, of
dubious morality, attributed by Hesiod to the heavenly Aphrodite. The
Greek literary tradition to which Pausanias appeals, then, suggests that the
son of the heavenly Aphrodite may, like his mother, have some share in
hybris and deceit. If this is so, the superior Eros may not be very different
from the inferior Eros, the son of the vulgar Aphrodite. It appears, then,
that the literary sources to which Pausanias appeals could equally well be
used to support the view that there is no distinction between the two
Loves. His selective and uncritical use of these sources is one indication
that Pausanias lacks understanding of his subject.
3.2.4 Eryximachus: medicine

The physician Eryximachus agrees with Pausanias in holding that Eros
is a god (186b1) who is double (186a23) and in idealizing the Eros
who inspires virtue and lacks hybris. The common association in Greek
literature of eros and hybris is downplayed in both of these encomia of
a non-hubristic Eros.31 The physician also resembles his predecessor in
failing to give adequate criteria for distinguishing the two Loves, thereby
demonstrating his lack of understanding in the very field in which he
claims expertise.
30 The circumstances of ones birth were thought to influence character. For example, in Platos Laws
775d4e2, the Athenian states that people who commit hybris or injustice before conception stamp
these effects upon the souls of their children.
31 For the association see above n.9.
Eryximachus distinguishes the noble, heavenly (187d7) and orderly
(188a3, c3) Eros, who acts with sophrosyne (moderation) and justice (188d5
6) from the shameful (186d1) and vulgar Eros (pndhmov: 187e1), who is
hubristic and unjust ( met tv brewv Erwv . . . dkhsen: 188a78). He
does not limit the gods effects to human relationships, a topic he mentions
only briefly (186a34), holding instead that Eros has power over all human
and divine affairs (186b12), and over medicine in particular (186e4187a1).
The hubristic Eros produces greed and disorder, plagues, diseases of ani-
mals and plants, and bad weather (188a7b5), while the noble Eros creates
philia and community (koinwna: 188c1) among humans, and between
humans and gods (188b6d9). Medicine is the science of distinguishing
(diagignskwn) the noble from the shameful eros in the case of the body,
and the most accomplished physician is someone who knows how to cre-
ate the former instead of the latter (186c5d5).32 Other sciences music,
gymnastics, agriculture (187a1) and divination (188b7) know how to do
this with respect to other things.
Far from telling us how to distinguish the noble from the shameful eros,
however, Eryximachus does not even explain why the shameful eros should
be called eros at all, rather than hostility. The science of medicine knows how
to make things that are most hostile (cqista nta), that is, the opposites
in the body (for example, the cold, the hot, the wet and the dry), become
friends and have eros for one another (186d5e1). Similarly, the science of
music knows how to produce eros and agreement (187c34) between high
and low sounds that were formerly in disagreement (187a8b2). In both
cases, then, the skilled physician does not replace a shameful with a noble
eros, but rather produces eros instead of hostility and disagreement. The
doctor adds further confusion when he recommends making judicious
use of the vulgar and shameful Eros: One must take care in applying
this Eros to those to whom one does apply him, so as to provide benefit
from the pleasure he brings without producing licentiousness (187e13).
In making this surprising concession to the shameful Eros, Eryximachus
fails to distinguish science from the shameful gratification of appetite,
and undercuts his own fundamental distinction between the noble and
the hubristic eros.33 It seems, then, that because Eryximachus does not
32 In this passage, diagignskwn (cf. 187c7) is used almost in the technical sense of making a medical
diagnosis (Bury 1932, on 186c).
33 Cf. Rosen 1987: 11516. Attempts to justify Eryximachus statement do not satisfy. Konstan and
Young-Bruehl 1982: 42 write: It is permissible . . . to take advantage of the baneful desires, so long
as they are not permitted to gain the upper hand. Rowe 1998, on 187e12 (cf. 1999b: 624) argues
that Eryximachus addresses Aristophanes and refers to comedy.
have the knowledge that would enable him to make an accurate diagnosis
by distinguishing the noble from the shameful eros, he is not a good
physician, according to his own definition (186c7d1). Moreover, his failure
to recognize that he is ignorant in these matters is an indication of his
amathia.34
In support of his views about music, Eryximachus does not, like his
predecessors, appeal to poetic authority, but instead quotes the prose of the
philosopher Heraclitus. Music, he says, is governed by Eros:
as perhaps Heraclitus means to say, although he doesnt say it well with his words.
He says that the one being at variance with itself agrees with itself, like the
harmony of bow and lyre [diafermenon at at sumfresqai, sper
rmonan txou te ka lrav]. It is very illogical to say that harmony is at
variance or is composed of elements that are still at variance. But perhaps this is
what he meant to say: that harmony has come into existence, by means of musical
skill, from things that were previously at variance (that is, the high and the low)
and then later came to be in accord. (187a3b2)
The text of the Heraclitus passage quoted by Eryximachus is problematic.

Fragment 22 B51 DK reads: they do not understand how, being at variance
with itself it is in accord [homologeei] with itself; there is a back-turned [pal-
intropos] harmony like that of bow and lyre.35 Kirk, Raven and Schofield
(1995), on the other hand, read sumpheretai (agrees) instead of homolo-
geei (is in accord with) on the basis of Symposium 187a5, and they read
palintonos (back-stretched or counter-stretched) instead of palintropos
(back-turned). They translate: being at variance it agrees [sumpheretai]
with itself . . . there is a back-stretched [palintonos] connexion, as in the
bow and the lyre.36 They convincingly argue that palintonos, which has
as much support in ancient sources as does palintropos, gives better sense,
referring to something tending equally in opposite directions. A tension
in one direction automatically produces an equivalent tension in the other;
if not, the system collapses.37 The texts of both DK and Kirk, Raven and
Schofield, then, indicate that Eryximachus misquotes Heraclitus, adding
the one before being at variance, and leaving out back-stretched
34 McPherran 2006 argues that Eryximachus speech is philosophical in that it places eros within the
context of the universal. He does not, however, address the concerns noted above.
35 o xunisin kwv diafermenon wuti mologei palnpropov rmonh kwsper txou ka
lrhv.
36 Kirk, Raven and Schofield 1995: 192, frag. 209: o xunisin kwv diafermenon wut xumfretai
palntonov rmonh kwsper txou ka lrhv.
37 Kirk, Raven and Schofield 1995: 1923; quotation: 193 n.2.
(or back-turned).38 The addition is of little significance for present pur-
poses, but the omission, as will be seen below, has serious philosophical
consequences.
The doctor not only misquotes, but also radically misinterprets
Heraclitus.39 One problem is that Eryximachus is concerned with harmony
between musical notes, while Heraclitus focuses on the very different kind
of equilibrium that exists within a single physical object.40 Heraclitus pal-
intonos harmonia is a back-stretched connection in which two opposite
tensions that produced by the strings of a bow or lyre and that produced
by the curved arms of these artifacts are balanced so as to create a sin-
gle unified effect.41 According to Heraclitus, this kind of war and strife
between opposites produces order in the cosmos: One must know that war
is common and justice is strife, and all things happen according to strife
and necessity (DK 22 B80). Eryximachus, however, calls this principle
of equilibrium of opposites very illogical (187a67), and he reinterprets
Heraclitus so as to eliminate it. What Heraclitus really means, according
to Eryximachus, is that a harmony cannot exist where there is variance. He
then uses his corrected version of Heraclitus to support his own view that
medicine and music produce eros, friendship and harmony between things
that were previously enemies and in disagreement (186c5187c5).
Eryximachus correction of Heraclitus contains playful elements.42 How-
ever, it can also be taken as symptomatic of this physicians lack of under-
standing of his own science (episteme: 186c6) of medicine. There is con-
siderable evidence that many medical writers, from Alcmaeon on, held a
Heraclitean view of health as a krasis (blend) of opposing powers in the
body (for example, the hot, the cold, the wet and the dry). In this dynamic
equilibrium, no opposite was suppressed: it retained its own power, but
was restrained by the corresponding opposite.43 The fact that Eryximachus
simply calls this theory illogical and omits the word back-stretched,
which characterizes the kind of harmony constituted by a dynamic
38 DK vol. i, 162 n.3 note Dielss suggestion that mologe n (the one agrees) is a possible reading,
quoting Symp. 187a.
39 Pace McPherran 2006: 80, who provides (n.27) helpful bibliography on the issue.
40 Cf. Konstan and Young-Bruehl 1982: 41; Nehamas and Woodruff 1989: 21 n.24.
41 I follow Kirk, Raven and Schofield 1995: 1923.
42 Hunter 2004: 539, and Rowe 1999b: 62 and n.34.
43 Alcmaeon, DK 24 B4. On ancient medicine see Vlastos 1947: esp. 1568, citing Alcmaeon, and
Tracy 1969: 2276: esp. 234 and 67: Health . . . is . . . a dynamic equilibrium maintained through
the active interplay of opposing forces (24: emphasis in original). I argue in Belfiore 1986, 2006
and Chapter 6 at 6.4 that psychological health is also said to depend on an equilibrium of opposites
in Platos dialogues.
equilibrium, suggests that Eryximachus has neither the medical knowl-
edge he claims, nor an adequate understanding of Heraclitus.
Another indication of Eryximachus lack of understanding is provided
within the dramatic framework by Aristophanes, who was prevented by
the hiccups from speaking in his proper turn. Throughout Eryximachus
speech, Aristophanes hiccups and applies the remedies prescribed by the
doctor: holding his breath, gargling with water, and tickling his nose in
order to sneeze (185d6e5). When he finally stops, after applying all of
these cures, he remarks that he is surprised that the orderliness of the body
desires such noises and ticklings (188e4189a6). In actions and words, then,
Aristophanes ridicules (gelwtopoiev: 189a8) the doctors speech.44
3.2.5 Aristophanes: comedy

As befits a comic poet, Aristophanes presents his encomium in the form of
a humorous myth. Humans, he says, were originally whole people, with
two heads and two sets of limbs, who, when they moved quickly, went
rolling around like giant beach-balls with appendages (189e5190a8). After
Zeus cut them in two as punishment for their attack on the gods, each half
longed for and sought after its other half (191a56). Eros, then, is desire and
pursuit of the whole (192e10193a1). If we succeed, with the help of Eros,
in becoming reunited with our other halves, we will return to our former
condition as whole people and so become blessed and happy (193d15).
Although it has more comic aspects, this account resembles those of
the first three speakers in idealizing Eros as a god (189c8, 193c8) who
benefits humans. Aristophanes states that Eros is the most people-loving
of the gods, an ally of humans and a healer of those things the healing
of which would be productive of the greatest happiness for the human
race (189c8d3; cf. 193d45). Like Phaedrus and Pausanias, he values most
highly an asymmetrical relationship between an older man and a young
boy (191e6192b3). He agrees with Eryximachus in characterizing Eros as
a physician and healer, arguing that eros is an innate part of our nature
as half-people, beings who lack what is needed to make us whole, and
that the god provides a remedy for the defects of human nature (189d13,
191c8d3, 193d5). Aristophanes eros, like that of Phaedrus and Pausanias, is
a civilizing force. Satisfaction of desire allows lovers to practice husbandry
and the other means of subsistence45 (191c78) instead of being idle in
44 On the hiccups see Bury 1932: xxiixxiii; Clay 1975: 2412; Lowenstam 1986; Plochmann 1972: 334;
Scott and Welton 2008: 57; and Wardy 2002: 1920.
45 Translation: Bury 1932, on p t rga (191c).
these matters due to frustrated desire, as was the case before Zeus made
sexual intercourse possible (191a8b1). Eros also contributes to political life,
according to Aristophanes, for boys who enjoy embracing men are the only
ones who turn to political affairs in later life. These boys, he says, are not
shameless, but brave and manly (192a27).46 Aristophanes Eros, then, like
the Eros of Phaedrus, is a single entity having nothing to do with shame,
instead of being a double god, like the Eros of Pausanias and Eryximachus.
Aristophanes begins his speech by explicitly claiming to have supe-
rior knowledge of Eros. Because people have entirely failed to recognize
the power of eros (189c45), Aristophanes says, he will try to initiate the
symposiasts into an understanding of this power.47 They in turn will be
teachers (didskaloi) of others if they first learn (maqen) from Aristo-
phanes (189d36). In using the term didaskaloi (teachers), Aristophanes
elevates his own art, for the term can also mean producers or trainers of
a dramatic chorus.48
In spite of his authoritative claims, Aristophanes, like the previous speak-
ers, does not really have the wisdom he claims, for he does not give an
adequate account of how the god benefits humans. He fails to explain how
reunion with our other halves is good for us, or how eros can help us to
achieve the union that may in any case be an unattainable ideal (193c58).
Whatever the good is that the two halves of the whole people want from
each other, Aristophanes says, it is certainly not sex (192c4d2). Indeed,
far from being the greatest human good, sex in Aristophanes myth is a
thoroughly ridiculous affair. The whole people were the reverse of the beast
with two backs, resembling in some respects two modern people joined
at the back. Their faces and genitals were turned outwards (189e5190a4),
and they reproduced not in each other but within the earth, like cicadas
(191b7c1).49 Aristophanes leaves the exact nature of this laughable sexual
act to the imagination of his audience. The sexual practices of the half-
people are even more comical. When the whole people were first cut in
two, the face of each half was turned around toward the cut (190e25), but
the genitals remained in their former position, at what is now the back or,
more accurately, the buttocks.50 These half-people embraced one another
46 Ludwig 1996 and 2002: 2768, takes these statements seriously; others interpret them as irony or
humor, for example: Dover 1980, on 192a17; Hug 1876: 91 n.4; and Rowe 1998, on 191e8192a3.
47 eshgsasqai (189d3) means initiate into: Bury 1932. 48 LSJ, s.v. didskalov, II.
49 The exact shape of the whole people is open to debate. See Ludwig 2002: 723 and Morrison 1964:
469. The comparison with cicadas concerns only means of reproduction (Bury 1932, on 191c) and
does not extend to ethical qualities, as Dorter claims (1969: 2202).
50 Cf. Ludwig 2002: 73 n.10.
(191a7), but were unable to have sexual intercourse because their genitals
were in the wrong position. They therefore continued to reproduce within
the earth, like the whole people (191b7c1). Finally, Zeus had pity on the
half-people and turned their genitals around to the front, so that they could
reproduce and relieve their frustration by means of each other (191b5c8).
These half-people are us, and the juxtaposition of their sexual practices
with the practices of the whole people, and with those of the half-people
before their genitals were turned around, brings out the comic aspects of
our own sexual acts.51
The greatest good that Eros could give us, then, according to Aristo-
phanes, would not be the ridiculous act of sexual intercourse, but a return
to our original nature as whole people (193c25, d4). In fact, Aristophanes
supposes that Hephaestus might offer literally to fuse lovers together in
order to make them whole (192d2e5). This story, unfortunately, recalls
Homers myth of Aphrodite and Ares, who were chained together in bed
by Hephaestus as a shameful punishment for adultery, while the other gods
stood around laughing (Odyssey 8.266366). Indeed, the comic poet fails
to explain how a return to our former whole state will benefit us, anymore
than being chained together helped Aphrodite and Ares. The whole peo-
ple were licentious (selganein: 190c6), incontinent (kolasav: 190c8),
arrogant (fronmata megga) and attacked the gods (190b6). Aristo-
phanes identifies them with, or compares them specifically to, Homers
Giants, Ephialtes and Otus (190b7),52 and more generally to the Giants
of myth (190c34).53 The half-people are too weak to have these defects,
but Aristophanes does not rule out the possibility that the Eros who could
return them to their ancient whole nature would also make them licentious
and arrogant again.54 Aristophanes says that humans must be pious if they
are going to return to their ancient whole nature (193d35), but he does not
explain how, if they do become whole again, they will be different from
the original whole people, who were notably impious. Indeed, if satisfied
eros could make people more vicious, it is hard to see how it could be a
true healer of human nature or lead to happiness.
The poetic sources to which Aristophanes alludes, then, could also be
used to support the view, contrary to his own, that being whole is a bad
51 Nussbaum 1986: 1716 gives a good account of the humorous aspects of sex in Aristophanes speech.
52 Dover 1980, on 190b7 cites Il. 5.385ff. and Od. 11.30720.
53 Sources include Pindar, Nem. 1.679, Eur. HF. 17780 and Ion 20618, cited by Gantz 1993, vol. i:
44554.
54 Ludwig 2002: 107 makes a good point, although he expresses greater certainty than the text warrants:
If eros . . . aims at reconstituting the natural man in each of us, then the fulfillment of eros would
entail becoming lawless once more.
thing. Socrates later takes him up on this very point, when his Diotima
argues that eros is not of the half or the whole unless these are good (205d10
206a1). While Aristophanes can tell a good story, then, he does not give
evidence of being able to answer important questions about eros, which,
according to Socrates, is one of the main subjects of his plays (177e12).
3.2.6 Agathon: tragedy

According to the tragic poet, Agathon, Eros is the most happy, most
beautiful, best (195a67, cf. 197c2) and youngest of the gods (195a8, c1).
He is the embodiment of good things, and he gives them to humans. Eros
is delicate (195c7), and he flees the hard character in order to settle in
the soft one (195e57). The god is gracious (lewv), good (agathos) and a
giver of gentleness, good will and attachment (okeithtov), a god who
removes ill will, harshness and alienation (llotrithtov) (197d15). Eros
creates friendship and peace among the gods (195c56), and to humans he
brings peace and, when we are grieving, sleep (197c56). For good measure,
Agathon also attributes to the god the virtues of courage (196c8), justice
(196b6), moderation (196c3) and especially the wisdom (sophia: 196d5) that
has enabled people, under loves guidance (rwtov gemonesantov), to
invent crafts (197a67), including Agathons own art of poetry (196e12).
As is suitable for a poet, Agathons views about eros depend, more than
those of any other speaker, on the literary tradition. His speech is full
of quotations and allusions to poetry and prose writers, and the end of
his speech employs an extraordinary variety of metrical forms.55 Agathon
quotes and echoes Homer,56 and he adapts a line from Sophocles, substi-
tuting Eros for necessity.57 He also quotes the rhetorician Alcidamas,58
Euripides,59 and a poetic source unknown to us.60 Agathons statement
that Eros lives among flowers (kat nqh daita: 196a8) recalls a common
theme in literature and, of course, the title of Agathons own play, The
55 Dover 1980: 124.
56 Bury 1932 notes that 195b5 (moion mo e pelzei: like always draws near to like) is derived
from Od. 17.218, and that the couplet at 197c56 recalls Od. 5.391[2] = 12.168[9].
57 Not even Ares withstands Eros ( Erwti od *rhv nqstatai: 196c8d1). Bury 1932; Brand-
wood 1976: 992 #338 and 1002 #261; and Vicaire and Laborderie 2002: 42 n.3 cite Soph. Thyestes,
frag. 235; Nauck 1964 (= 256 Radt 1977).
58 The laws, kings of the city, are just (o plewv basilv nmoi dkaia enai: 196c23). Aristotle,
Rh. 3.1406a1823 attributes a similar phrase to Alcidamas: cited by Bury 1932; Hug 1876: 105 n.3;
and Brandwood 1976: 992 #337 and 995 #51.
59 Eros is said to make everyone a poet even if he is previously unmusical (kn mousov t prn:
196e23): Eur. Stheneboea, frag. 663 Nauck 1964, cited by Bury 1932 and Brandwood 1976: 996, #84.
60 To govern gods and humans (kubernn qen te ka nqrpwn: 197b3) is possibly from a tragedy
of Agathon (Bury 1932 and Brandwood 1976: 994, #49) or Aeschylus (Renehan 1990: 1256).
Flower.61 Agathon uses other terms that are common in poetry when he
speaks of Eros as enchanting (qlgwn: 197e4) gods and humans, and says
that Eros is the father of charms, yearning, longing (cartwn, mrou,
pqou patr: 197d7).62 Moreover, Eros is himself a poet, who inspires
other poets (196d6e6).
However, Agathon leaves out lines, in the very passages he quotes, that
cast doubt on the beneficence of Eros. Agathon implicitly claims to be
Homers equal when he speaks at length about the delicacy (paltaton:
195e8) of Eros and argues that a poet like Homer is needed to show
us this delicacy (195c6196a1). Agathon first quotes the lines in which
Homer states that Ate (Delusion) is delicate because she walks on soft
things (195d45, quoting Il. 19.923). He then offers a similar proof for
the delicacy of Eros, saying that Eros lives in the softest things. However,
Agathon omits the words immediately preceding and following those he
quotes: Delusion . . . the destructive, who deceives all . . . harming people
(Il. 19.912, 94).63 Homers lines, then, could be used to support the view
that delicate things like eros can be harmful.
In other respects also Agathon uses the literary tradition selectively,
omitting ideas that call his own views into question. The tragic poet says
that Eros hates old age, which he flees (195b14), and he also states that there
is always war between Eros and ugliness (196a67). Not only does Agathon
fail to explain how the god of love, who brings peace and friendship (195c5
6, 197c5), can also hate and engage in war, he also makes statements that
are contrary to both the Greek literary tradition and everyday experience.
Indeed, old people as well as young fall in love, and one persons beloved
may be considered ugly by others.64 Diotimas statement that a person can
love someone with a beautiful soul, even if the beloved has only a small
amount of bloom (literally, flower, anthos: 210b8c1) will later correct
Agathons view that Eros and ugliness are opposed, perhaps with a pun on
the title of his play, The Flower. Moreover, poetry is full of instances that
contradict Agathons claims that eros is just, commits no violence, and is
always served willingly (196b6c2).65 Indeed, immediately after Agathons
61 Eros and flowers: Calame 1999: 15364. On Agathons play, Anthei, see Leveque 1955: 10514.
62 Examples are given by Calame 1999. See subject index s.v. thelgein, pothos, himeros, kharis.
63 Omissions are noted by Corrigan and Glazov-Corrigan 2004: 878; Dorter 1969: 225; and Rosen
1987: 179.
64 Old age: Plato, Prm. 136e9137a4, referring to Ibycus frag. 287 Page 1962; traits considered ugly:
Resp. 5. 474d4475a2.
65 Dover 1980, on 196b7 cites Sappho frag. 172 [Lobel and Page 1955], in which Eros is said to give pain,
and Theognis 13536. See also Ibycus 287.7 (force) and above nn.810. Inadequacies in Agathons
arguments about the virtues of Eros are noted by Robin 2002: lxviiilxix.
speech, Socrates reminds his audience of the deceits practiced by lovers
and of the disasters eros can cause when he quotes Hippolytus famous
line in Euripides play: My tongue swore but not my heart, spoken
by Hippolytus when he threatens to break his oath and reveal Phaedras
incestuous love for him.66
After Agathon finishes his encomium, Socrates delivers a harsh criticism,
remarking that, apparently, in giving an encomium, one should make the
subject appear as good and beautiful as possible, without regard for the truth
(198d8e2). In his elenchus of Agathon and in the teachings he attributes
to Diotima, Socrates argues that Agathons portrayal of Eros is inaccurate
in a number of respects. In fact, according to Socrates and Diotima, Eros
is not a god (202b10c2); he lacks good and beautiful things (201c45,
202d5), and he is himself neither beautiful nor good (202b23). Whether
or not all of Socrates arguments in his conversation with Agathon are
valid, and whether or not all of Diotimas views are adequately supported
by argument, the issues they raise about eros (or Eros) show that Agathon
has not subjected his own ideas, or those of the authorities he quotes, to
critical examination. For example, Agathon has not asked the questions he
needs to ask before attributing all good things to Eros. The poets account
of a perfect and wise god does not explain how eros can be compatible
with perfection, or how the wise can love the wisdom they already have,
a question raised by Diotima at 204a12. Moreover, in claiming that Eros
is eros of beauty (197b39), Agathon does not address the issues Diotima
raises about why we love beauty (204d39) or what the function (ergon) of
eros is (206b14).
Agathons speech, then, demonstrates that neither he nor the tradition
within which he claims expertise is able to give a satisfactory account of the
benefits of eros. There are, however, two indications that Agathons amathia
is less serious than that of the other speakers. When he cites Hesiod and Par-
menides, Agathon questions their veracity, saying: If they spoke the truth
(195c23). This statement suggests that he may be open to engaging in crit-
ical examination of his authorities. Second, Agathon concludes by saying:
Let this speech from me, Phaedrus . . . stand as my dedication to the god,
sharing as it does partly in play, partly in a modest seriousness [spoudv
metrav], to the best of my personal ability.67 Agathons modesty is con-
sistent with his ability to admit mistakes in his later conversation with
Socrates (201b1112). Moreover, Agathons explicit acknowledgement that
66 199a56 uses nearly the same words as Eur. Hipp. 612. On Platos use of Hippolytus in the Phaedrus
see further Chapter 6 at 6.3.
67 197e68. Translation: Rowe 1998.
his speech is partly serious, partly play indicates a self-awareness shared
by none of the other five speakers. Each is in fact playing a game, but
one in which he has a serious stake, as a self-proclaimed expert on the
topic.
I have argued in 3.2 that each of the first five speakers lacks understanding
of eros in that each claims to be an expert on this topic when in fact he is
not. The speakers show their amathia by expressing ideas, supported by a
selective use of literary quotations and allusions, without questioning or
examining these ideas. According to Socrates, they give encomia by making
Eros appear to be the most beautiful and best (199a1) without regard for
the truth (198e12). Specifically, the speakers claim that Eros is a god, that
he possesses beauty and virtue, and that he gives good things, including the
virtues, to humans.68 After their speeches, Socrates agrees with the other
speakers that Eros is the cause of good things (212b24). In other respects,
however, he calls their views into question. Before doing so, he wins his
first victory in words, aided by means of his skillful manipulation of poetic
allusions.
3.3 socrates: eros the philosopher
3.3.1 Interlude: Socrates and the Gorgon

Socrates prefaces his elenchus of Agathon (199c3201c9) with a brief inter-
lude (198b1199b5) in which he comments on the poets speech and con-
trasts his own manner of giving encomia with that of the other symposiasts.
When he describes his reactions to Agathons encomium, Socrates alludes
to Homer:
Indeed, thinking that I myself would not be able to say anything anywhere near
as fine as this, I almost ran away out of shame, and would have done so if Id had
anywhere to go. For the speech reminded me of Gorgias, so that I really had the
experience recounted by Homer. I was afraid that Agathon would end by sending
against my speech the head of Gorgias, who is terribly skillful at speaking, and
turn me to stony speechlessness. (198b6c5)
The reference to Homer in this passage indicates that Socrates is alluding

to the Gorgons head Odysseus fears encountering in the Underworld:
68 Eros is a god: Phaedrus (178a7), Pausanias (180d3), Eryximachus (186b1), Aristophanes (189c8 and
193c8d1), Agathon (195a5). Eros possesses beauty: Pausanias (181a56), Agathon (195a7 and 197c2).
Eros possesses virtue: Agathon (196b4197b3). Eros gives good things to humans: Phaedrus (179a3b3),
Pausanias (185b5c1), Eryximachus (188d49), Aristophanes (193c8d5), Agathon (197c1e5).
[G]reen fear took hold of me
with the thought that proud Persephone might send up against me
some gorgonish head of a terrible monster up out of Hades.
So, going back on board my ship, I told my companions
also to go aboard, and to cast off the stern cables.69
The image of the Gorgias/Gorgons head, placed exactly in the mid-
dle of the dialogue,70 has a wider resonance, however. For one thing, it
recalls the common sympotic motif of the Gorgons head on the inside
of drinking cups. As Francoise Frontisi-Ducroux points out, the Gorgon,
the aulos-playing satyr and Dionysus are often presented frontally on the
inside of drinking cups, staring at the drinker and presenting him with
representations of both the divine and the bestial aspects of his own nature
under the influence of wine.71 Socrates punning allusion to the Gorgons
head would also remind his audience of the story of Perseus and Medusa.
In Pindars Pythian 12, Perseus kills the Gorgon Medusa in order to use her
head to turn his enemy, Polydectes, to stone. Pindars story has sympotic
and musical associations, for Athena invents the aulos as a way of imi-
tating the cries of the Gorgon.72 Socrates image of the Gorgias/Gorgon
head brings with it all of these associations: Homeric, Pindaric, musi-
cal and sympotic. At this symposium, the philosopher does not play the
role of Homers Odysseus, who leaves Hades in fear, but that of Perseus,
who appropriates the powers of the Gorgons head for his own use. After
hearing Agathons poetic and Gorgianic eloquence, Socrates almost runs
away (198b7c1). But of course he does not do so, and far from being
turned to stony speechlessness (198c5) he proceeds to speak at great length.
Indeed, according to Alcibiades, Socrates resembles an aulos-playing satyr,
who, rather than being turned to stone by others eloquence, immobilizes
people with his words and leads them to examine their own lives (216a28).
The image of the Gorgias/Gorgon head in the middle of the dialogue,
then, is a good example of Socrates erotic skill in persuading his audience to
search for wisdom. Its sympotic imagery appeals to his fellow symposiasts,
and it also functions, like the images in drinking cups, as an invitation to
Socrates audience to search for the truth about themselves that is reflected
within the speech that Socrates is about to give. Socrates use of this image
also serves as a skillful and persuasive warning against the amathia of the first
five speakers, demonstrating that truth cannot be found by merely citing
literary sources, for these authorities must always be subject to philosophical
69 Od. 11.6337. Translation: Lattimore 1951.
70 Symp. 198 is 26 Stephanus pages from the beginning of a dialogue 51 pages long.
71 Frontisi-Ducroux 1989: esp. 156 and 163. 72 Sympotic associations: Belfiore 1992: 1419.
interrogation.73 Like Perseus killing the Gorgon, the philosopher must
overcome any servile dependence on literary authority that his traditional
education has given him. He must learn to use others words for his own
purposes, as Perseus does when he uses the Gorgons head to kill his enemy,
and as Athena does when she uses its cries to create the art of aulos-playing.
Socrates goes on to contrast his own manner of speaking with that of
the other symposiasts. When he agreed to give an encomium, he explains:
I thought in my foolishness that it was necessary to speak the truth about
each aspect of the thing praised, and with this as a foundation, picking out
the finest of these things, to arrange them as suitably as possible (198d3
6). Accordingly, he thought highly of his ability to speak well (198c6d3,
d67). After the others have spoken, however, Socrates changes his mind.
According to the previous speakers, he says, the way to praise something
is:
to attribute to the subject that which is greatest and most beautiful, whether this
is true or not. If its false, it doesnt matter. It was proposed, so it appears, that each
of us should seem to praise Eros, not really to praise him. For this reason, I think,
you call up everything that can be said and attribute it to Eros, and you say that he
has such and such qualities and is the cause of so much, so that he might appear
to be as beautiful and good as possible, to the ignorant, clearly certainly not to
those who know and your praise is beautiful and awe-inspiring. (198d8199a3)
Socrates refuses to give this kind of encomium, saying that he had
agreed to give one without knowing what was expected (199a35). He now
says that he will speak the truth about Eros, in his own way, leaving the
arrangement of words and phrases to chance (199a6b5).
At the same time that he undertakes to tell the truth, however, Socrates
also raises questions about whether or not he will in fact do so. In refusing
to keep an agreement he made in ignorance, Socrates quotes Euripides
line, My tongue swore but not my heart (Hipp. 612, quoted at 199a56).
In so doing, he not only suggests that he might be a liar, he also gives a
strange preface to his praise of Eros, by reminding the audience of Phaedras
disastrous passion for her stepson. Indeed, at the end of his speech he does
not quite claim to have given an encomium: If you wish, Phaedrus,
take this speech to have been spoken as an encomium to Eros, or call
it whatever you please (212b8c3). Furthermore, Socrates concludes his
elenchus of Agathon by stating that, although Agathon cannot contradict
73 On philosophy and poetic authority see Halliwell 2000: 1049. Cf. Hunter 2004: 39, and Ford
2002: ch. 9, who argues that Plato uses quotations in Resp. 1 and 2 to illustrate the unreliability of
taking poets as founts of wisdom or sources of technical knowledge (216).
the truth, it is not difficult to contradict Socrates (201c89). He thus
suggests, and modern scholars have been quick to agree, that there are
flaws in his arguments.74 Alcibiades will later confirm that Socrates is a
liar: Does Socrates persuade you of anything he said just now? Dont you
know that its entirely the opposite of what he said? (214c8d2).75
This interlude between Agathons speech and Socrates elenchus of the
poet, then, not only casts doubt on the truth of the claims made by
the previous speakers, it also raises questions, as do passages later in the
dialogue, about the truth of what Socrates himself says. The conflicting
claims made by Socrates in this interlude are Gorgon-like in that they
warn and invite the reader to examine critically the ideas he will present
in his speech. They also prepare his audience to consider the possibility
that the views he attributes to Diotima may, like the speech of Agathon
(197e7), and like the character Socrates himself (216e46), combine play
with seriousness.
3.3.2 Socrates and his teacher

After his elenchus of Agathon, Socrates begins his own speech by saying
that he will tell what he himself was once told by Diotima, who taught him
about ta erotika (201d58). With a pun on mantic (prophetic), Socrates
characterizes her as a Mantinean woman (201d2).76 Diotima was wise
(sophe) in many things, and on one occasion, she used her wisdom about
divine matters to help the Athenians delay a plague for ten years by means of
sacrifice (201d35).77 Socrates speech is both playful and serious in that he
introduces her as an authority by whom he claims to have been persuaded
(212b14) and taught (201d5), while at the same time presenting her in such
a way as to suggest that her teachings cannot be accepted uncritically, in the
way in which the other speakers accept the views of the literary authorities
to whom they appeal.
74 Szlezak 1985: 256 n.16 points out that the phrase at 201c89 is ambiguous, meaning either that
Socrates does not tell the truth or that Agathon should think much less of Socrates than of the
truth. Logical difficulties in the elenchus of Agathon are discussed by Allen 1966 and Payne 1999.
75 Alcibiades is alluding to Socrates statements at 213c6d6, but his use of peqei (persuades) also
reminds his audience of Socrates recent statement (not heard by Alcibiades) that Socrates attempts
to persuade people about Eros (212b14).
76 As Bury notes (1932: xxxix and on 201d), Diotimas characterization as Mantinikv (Mantinean)
recalls the mantic (prophetic) art, and Cod. W reads mantikv (mantic).
77 Rowe 1998, on 201d1204c8, notes that the passage represents her as having powers of intervention
with the gods, and that she, like a seer, has an understanding of things, past and present as well as
future, which is superior to that possessed by ordinary human beings.
Socrates Diotima first discusses the nature of Eros (201e3204c6) and
then talks about his deeds, that is, his usefulness to humans (204c7
212a7).78 Her teachings correspond to the two stages of initiation into
the Mysteries of Eleusis: the Lesser Mysteries (discussed at 201e8209e4)
and the Greater Mysteries (described at 209e5212a7).79 She begins by
rejecting ideas about Eros held by all of the first five speakers. They claimed
that Eros is a god who possesses beauty and virtue, and who gives good
things to humans.80 According to Diotima, however, Eros is not a god
but a daimon, a being between god and mortal (202d13203a8), who lacks
good things (201e67, with 201c45). Eros is not evil and ugly, nor is he
beautiful and good, but between the two states (202b15). He is also in a
state between amathia and wisdom (sophia), and his realization that he lacks
good things is a necessary condition for his desiring to acquire them. Eros
is therefore a philosopher and a lover instead of a beloved (203e5204c6).
Moreover, Diotima denies that eros is desire for the whole (205d10206a1),
as Aristophanes claimed (192e10193a1), or for beauty, as Agathon held
(197b39), saying instead that it is a desire to generate in beauty (206e2
5).81 She goes on to explain that eros is a desire for generation, because
generation is a kind of immortality for mortals, and that all people desire
immortality together with the good (206e7207a4, 208b26, 212a27).
Diotima further explains the connection between eros and immortality by
claiming that people may be pregnant not only in body but also in soul,
giving birth to spiritual children who live on after their parents are gone
(208e1209e4). In the last part of her speech, she also says that it is necessary
(de) for the successful initiate into the Greater Mysteries of love to proceed
in the correct way (210a45, 211b7c1). This person must ascend as though
climbing a ladder from lower to higher objects of eros, in order to attain,
at last, the sight of divine beauty (211e3), in which he can give birth to
true things (211e4212a7).
It is a common view that Plato, or the Socrates of the Symposium, or
both, endorse at least a significant part of Diotimas teachings, in particular
the views expressed in the passage about the ladder of love. Charles Kahn
suggests that we read the final section of Diotimas speech as Platos self-
interpretation of the philosophical and pedagogical intention of his earlier
78 The distinction between the nature of Eros and his deeds is made at 201e12 and 204c8. At 199c36,
Socrates compliments Agathon for having followed this same procedure.
79 On the division into these two stages Brisson 1998: 6971 agrees with Riedweg 1987: 21. I discuss
the two stages of initiation below 3.3.3.
80 See above end of section 3.2 and n.68.
81 It is often difficult to distinguish Eros the daimon from eros, passionate desire, in Socrates speech.
I agree with Payne 1999: 2389, that the ambiguities may be deliberate.
work. The ladder of love is here the path that leads from the Socratic
elenchus to the doctrine of Forms.82 According to Kurt Sier, this passage
is a revelation of the truth.83 The idea that Diotima, or anyone else in the
dialogues, speaks for Plato has been sufficiently refuted by the arguments
of many scholars.84 It is more difficult to determine the extent to which
Socrates represents himself as endorsing the ideas Diotima expresses. It is
true that Socrates says that he has been persuaded by Diotima (212b12),
thus indicating that he agrees with at least some of what she says. Diotima
also employs question and answer with Socrates, just as Socrates does
with Agathon.85 Moreover, the first part of Socrates conversation with
her (201e37) recapitulates his own previous discussion with Agathon, in
which the two men came to agreement about certain things (201d57).86
On the other hand, that discussion ends with Socrates statement that it is
not difficult to refute Socrates (201c89), thus calling attention to possible
flaws in his argument (see above 3.3.1).
In other respects also, Socrates Diotima is characterized so as to raise
rather than answer questions. First, she is a woman who praises pederasty,
a relationship between an older and a younger male, and she is a female
expert on eros and birth who, as far as we know from Platos dialogue, has
never borne a child. These incongruities would lead Socrates audience to
question her knowledge and experience about eros and reproduction, and
to wonder why such a figure should idealize male homoerotic love.87
Another strange thing about Diotima is the fact that this teacher differs
so radically from the philosopher-pupil who reports her words. As noted
above, Diotima is a prophet (201d15), who, by definition, has knowledge
of a kind that is inaccessible to ordinary mortals. Socrates underscores this
idea when he replies to one of her statements: It would need prophecy to
know what you mean (206b9). Diotima is not only a prophet, but also,
as Deborah Nails notes, the priestess of a mystery religion, from whom
82 Kahn 1996: 271; cf. Santas 1988: 25, who writes that Socrates speech is usually taken to present
Platos own theory of eros.
83 Im Unterschied zu den alteren Dialogen aber folgt hier die Aufdeckung der Wahrheit; mit 209e5

der Ubergang vom Bereich der dxa zur lqeia erfolgt (Sier 1997: 3 and 270).
84 See, for example, the essays in Gonzalez 1995c and Press 2000.
85 The last point is made by Blondell 2006: 152. 86 Cf. Sheffield 2006a: 36.
87 David Leitao, in correspondence, called my attention to the fact that, in being childless, Diotima
is unlike the midwife of Platos Tht. 149b4c3. On the issue of Diotimas childlessness see Hobbs
2006: 2645. Plato may have had good reasons for making Diotima a woman (Halperin 1990;
Saxonhouse 1984: 1922; and Sier 1997: 1011), but her gender raises many questions. Arieti 1991:
105 calls the introduction of Diotima subversive. Gill 1999: xxix remarks that Platos use of this
figure is paradoxical and surprising.
one should not expect profound philosophy.88 Indeed, Socrates speech
repeatedly calls attention to her unphilosophical characteristics. If Dio-
tima really is wise (sophe: 201d3, cf. 208b8), as Socrates states, she cannot
be a philosopher, who, according to her own account, is not wise, and who
recognizes his or her own lack of wisdom (204a17). If, on the other hand,
she merely speaks like the accomplished sophists (sophistai: 208c1), she
may be deceitful.89 Diotimas claims to teach Socrates (peirsoma se
didxai: 204d12; cf. 201d5, 207a5, c6) also imply a claim to have the kind
of wisdom that her own philosopher-Eros lacks. Socrates, in contrast, states
that he persuades rather than teaches (212b13), and repeatedly acknowl-
edges his own lack of wisdom. The philosophical life of examination that
he is represented as leading is very different from the mystical contempla-
tion advocated by Diotima.90 Moreover, although Diotimas teachings as
reported by Socrates begin with a question and answer procedure like the
one that Socrates uses with Agathon (201e27), much of what she says, and
especially her account of pregnancy and the ladder of love (208c1212a7), is
in the form of a long speech, uninterrupted by questions and unsupported
by arguments.
Not only does Diotima differ significantly from Socrates, she also dis-
parages him, laughing at what he says (202b10) and suggesting that he may
be unable to understand her teachings so as to become marvelously skilled
in ta erotika (207c24; cf. 204b1, 209e5210a2), as he claims to be in this
dialogue (177d78, 198d12). She warns him, in particular, that he may not
be capable of being initiated into the Greater Mysteries of love (210a12).91
Why does Socrates represent his teacher as laughing at him?
It has been suggested that one reason why Diotima ridicules Socrates
is that the Socrates to whom Diotima speaks is young and has not yet
completed his initiation. According to Frisbee Sheffield, Socrates plays two
roles in his speech: that of his own youthful self, who resembles Agathon,
and that of the resourceful Diotima, who is his alter ego.92 At the time
of his conversation with Diotima, Socrates had advanced only part way
up the ladder of eros. The text, however, does not give clear indications
that Socrates, at the time of the Symposium, has in fact arrived at the top
of Diotimas ladder. The great variety of opinions about how far Socrates
88 Nails 2006: 1845 and 1923.
89 For this translation of Socrates phrase see Rowe 1998, on 208c1. 90 Nails 2006: 1923.
91 Sier rightly notes that Diotimas remarks are similar to traditional comments made by Muses (e.g.,
Hes. Theog. 26), although I do not agree that Diotimas remarks are merely ironical (1997: 12).
92 Sheffield 2006a: 669. She argues (69 n.38) that Diotima makes disparaging remarks about Socrates
because the latter is playing the role of Agathon. Socrates youth at the time of his conversation with
Diotima is also discussed by Blondell 2006: 1623; Ludwig 2002: 219, 31315; and Sedley 2006.
has advanced are in themselves some evidence that we are given no clear
indications about how far he has advanced, if in fact he has done so at
all.93 Indeed, Socrates never says that he has been initiated, nor does he,
as Aristophanes claims to be able to do (189d34), attempt to teach others
the knowledge he has acquired from Diotima. He is never represented as
following the specific itinerary of Diotimas ladder of love.94 Diotimas use
of the subjunctive at 211d3 (if you ever see it) indicates that he has not
seen the objects at the top of the ladder at the time of his conversations
with her, and there is no suggestion that he is contemplating them at
a later time, for example, when he is represented in the Symposium as
standing and thinking.95 Moreover, Socrates says that he does not know
(204d1011, 206b56, 206b910, 207c2) and needs teachers (207c56), and
he continues to disparage his own wisdom, even after he has been taught
by Diotima (175e24, 219a12).
Socrates responses to Diotima also indicate that he questions rather
than accepts much of what she says, and that, in particular, he has doubts
about her teachings concerning pregnancy and the ladder of eros. The
metaphor of pregnancy is introduced at the Lesser Mysteries stage of Dio-
timas teachings. At 206b7e5 she defines the function of eros as birth in
beauty, with respect to body and soul (206b78). Socrates expresses the
puzzlement shared by readers of the dialogue when he puns on Diotimas
epithet, Mantinean (201d2), in stating that divination (manteia) would
be required to understand what she means and that he doesnt understand
(ou manthano) what she is talking about (206b910). The pun also marks
with a note of humor the introduction of Diotimas metaphor of male
pregnancy.
Socrates puzzlement is especially noteworthy because up to this point,
he, like Agathon in his conversation with Socrates,96 has indicated agree-
ment with Diotimas teachings about Eros as a daimon who lacks and desires
beauty and wisdom. Socrates says in response to Diotima: You speak the
truth (202a10, 205a4, c3, c10, d9); You speak well (204c7), and finally,
You speak most truly (206a13). After Diotima introduces the metaphor
of pregnancy at 206b, however, Socrates ceases to express this kind of
93 Among those who hold that Socrates is at or near the top of the ladder are Anton 1974: 288;
Friedlander 1969: 301; Nussbaum 1986: 195; and D. Scott 2000: 32. That Socrates has not been
initiated into the Mysteries is argued by Lutz 1998: 108; Nails 2006: 1845; and Reeve 2006a: 1356.
Lowenstam 1985: 946 believes that Socrates has ascended many times, and Blondell 2006: 1748
agrees with him, while also contending that Socrates occupies all of the steps at the same time.
94 Br`es 1968: 248. 95 As is claimed by D. Scott 2000: 312.
96 Agathon says: Certainly (Pnu ge or on: 199d8, e8, 200a4, e1, e6); You speak the truth (200b8);
Yes (201a1, b3), and Necessarily (201b5).
agreement. He asks: What then? (206e4); says: Well then (206e6);
states that he does not know (207c2); says that he needs teachers, and asks
her to explain (207c57). His last reported words in his conversation with
Diotima express wonder and ask if the things she has said about reproduc-
tion are true: And I having heard her speech marveled and said: Really,
I said, O most wise Diotima, are these things truly so? (208b79). He
then reports that she answers sper o tleoi sofista (208c1), a phrase
that can mean either like the most perfectly wise people, or like the
accomplished sophists. It is likely that Socrates puns on both senses, just
as he punned shortly before on Mantinean and manteia (206b910).
Significantly, this phrase occurs just before her detailed account of spiritual
pregnancy (208e5209e4), with its comic image of pregnant males.97 This
marked change in Socrates responses, before and after Diotima begins
her account of pregnancy, indicates increased difficulty in following and
accepting her views.
Diotima, then, is characterized in such a way as to call attention to her
strangeness as a teacher of Socrates. As priestess and prophet, she is not a
philosopher, but instead the possessor of a kind of god-like wisdom that
cannot be acquired by ordinary mortals, who, like Socrates in the Apol-
ogy, are wisest when they realize that they lack wisdom.98 Her differences
from Socrates strongly suggest that she is not Socrates alter ego in the
sense of someone who has acquired wisdom that the mature Socrates of
the Symposium has also come to possess. This mature Socrates does not
have wisdom, but the daimonic art of the philosopher who recognizes his
own lack of wisdom and desires passionately to acquire as much of it as
he can.
Why, then, does Socrates introduce this extraordinary figure as his
teacher about ta erotika? One clue is provided by Diotimas ridicule of
Socrates. As noted above, she laughs at what he says (202b10), and dis-
parages him on a number of occasions, just as Socrates also disparages his
own wisdom, in the Symposium and in other dialogues. Stephen Halliwell
insightfully connects Diotimas ridicule with the self-mockery in which
Platos Socrates sometimes engages, on occasion using an alter ego for this
purpose.99 According to Halliwell, Diotima is an alter ego, not in that
97 See further below. Rowe 1999a: 2501 gives an excellent account of this phrase as an introduction
to the following passage, with its ironical tone and questionable ideas. Cf. Rowe 1998, on 208b89
and c1.
98 That one of you . . . is wisest who, like Socrates, recognizes that his wisdom is worth little or
nothing (Ap. 23b24).
99 Halliwell 2008: 2915, citing Hp. mai. 286c and 298bc. See also Chapter 4 at 4.2 and n.21.
she expresses specific doctrines that Socrates endorses, but because she
ridicules those who merit [ridicule] through their dialectical arrogance or
self-ignorance which piquantly includes [Socrates] himself.100 One use
that Socrates makes of his character Diotima, then, is to contrast the erotic
art that he himself has acquired with the wisdom that only a god or an
inspired prophetess and priestess could possess, and to ridicule those who
believe that they themselves can actually attain such extraordinary wisdom.
This does not mean that Socrates rejects Diotimas teachings: rejection as
well as acceptance would imply a certainty that he disclaims. He represents
himself as having a more complex attitude towards them. Socrates treats
Diotimas detailed accounts of male pregnancy and of specific steps up a
ladder as fruitful ways of thinking about eros that deserve further investi-
gation, rather than as truths to be accepted because they are stated by an
authority. Only a prophet, he suggests, could know that these things are
true, and any ordinary mortal who claims to have this knowledge deserves
ridicule. When Socrates says that he has been persuaded by Diotima, then
(212b2), he does not mean that he has been persuaded that her detailed
account of the ascent up the ladder of love contains authoritative truth.
Diotimas views about the nature of Eros as daimon and philosopher have
a different status, however, for her Eros is a personification of the erotic,
daimonic art that Socrates himself has acquired. What Diotima persuades
Socrates about, then, concerns the erotic art, an important component
of which is the recognition of ones own lack of wisdom, even about ta
erotika.101 Diotima herself is not a philosopher who practices this daimonic
art, but instead has a status similar to that of the god from whom Socrates
acquires true belief in the Lysis (see Chapter 2 at 2.3.3). Socrates also
reveals an important aspect of his erotic art in characterizing Diotimas
teachings as initiation into the Mysteries of eros. The acquisition of erotic
art is, like the Mysteries of Diotima, a kind of initiation in which ordinary
eros for physical beauty is a necessary preparation for Socratic eros for true
beauty and wisdom.
3.3.3 Pregnant men on ladders: the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries
The Lesser Mysteries (201e8209e4)
After Socrates remarks that divination is needed to understand what
she means in saying that the function of eros is to give birth in beauty
100 Halliwell 2008: 293; Diotima as alter ego: 292.
101 Cf. Scott and Welton 2008: 88, who argue that Socrates learned awareness of his own ignorance
from Diotima. I disagree, however, with their view that she also teaches the philosopher to achieve
a partial recollection of the Forms (99 and 136).
(206b110), Diotima proceeds to explain. She says: All people [anthropoi],
Socrates, are pregnant [kuousin] in body and soul, and when they reach
a certain age our nature desires to give birth (206c14). According to
Diotima, the intercourse of a man and a woman is the giving of birth
(206c56). Later on (208e1209e4), now speaking exclusively of males,
she provides a more detailed explanation of the two kinds of pregnancy
that of body and that of soul. Men who are pregnant in body are erotic
with respect to women because they desire to beget children (208e15).
Other men, she says, are pregnant in soul still more than in body (208e5
209a2), and the beloved they seek is beautiful in both body and soul
(209b27). Touching and consorting with the beautiful beloved, the lover
who is pregnant in soul gives birth to and generates that with which
he has long been pregnant, and brings up the offspring together with
his partner (209c24). Their offspring are not human children, but dis-
courses about virtue (209b8). The relationship between these two parents
is a reciprocal one in which both experience a much greater commu-
nity and more steadfast philia [friendship] than do parents who raise
human children together, because they share in more beautiful and more
immortal children (209c57). These parents produce many and beautiful
[poll ka kal] works, giving birth to all kinds of virtue [gennsantev
pantoan retn] (209e23). For Diotima, as for the first five speak-
ers, the ideal erotic relationship is one between an older and a younger
male. The lover who produces offspring of the soul is not explicitly char-
acterized as exclusively homoerotic, but he is contrasted with the lover
of women and is said to have educational goals (209c12) that are most
appropriate to the pederastic relationship between Greek males of different
ages.
In this part of her speech, then, Socrates Diotima presents an ideal-
ized relationship between lover and beloved that is, in some respects, like
that portrayed in Socrates second speech in the Phaedrus (discussed in
Chapter 5 at 5.3.2). Here also, Socrates describes a relationship of reciprocal
philia, in which both partners value the soul more than the body, and share
in what is more divine.
The differences, however, are instructive. Instead of providing a detailed
and original psychology of love to support and clarify her views, as Socrates
does in the Phaedrus, Diotima uses vague expressions and poetic language
that remind Socrates audience of the first five speeches of the dialogue.
The phrase quoted above (gennsantev pantoan retn, giving birth
to all kinds of virtue: 209e23) recalls language used in two earlier pas-
sages. Socrates referred to Agathons encomium, in which there were many
falsehoods, as a beautiful and variegated speech (kaln . . . ka panto-
dapn lgon: 198b3), and Eryximachus used the phrase manifold and
variegated (poll ka pantodap: 193e67) to characterize the speech
of his rival, Aristophanes.102 Moreover, the spiritual children of those who
are pregnant in soul are said to include the poems of Homer and Hesiod,
and the laws of Lycurgus and Solon, but philosophical discourses are not
mentioned (209d17). Indeed, Diotima in this passage, like the first five
speakers, appeals to poetic and mythological tradition without subjecting
this tradition to critical examination. She mentions Homer and Hesiod
(209d1), refers to the mythological figures Alcestis, Achilles and Patroclus,
who were also mentioned by previous speakers (208d23), and she echoes
Archilochus in calling intercourse of a man and a woman the divine thing
(qeon t prgma: 206c6).103 Diotima alludes to poetic sources unknown
to us in quoting a hexameter at 208c56, and in referring to the most
great and deceitful eros (dolerv rwv: 205d23).104 This last reference,
to a deceitful eros, is especially striking, containing, like Socrates earlier
quotation of Euripides Hippolytus (above 3.3.1), a hint that some of what
the speaker says about Eros might itself be deceitful.
It has been argued that the emphasis on poetry and laws in this part
of Diotimas teachings is due, at least in part, to the fact that she is here
discussing the Lesser Mysteries. At this stage, people are inspired by eros
in the generic sense of a desire for good things, as well as by eros in a
specific sense that has a sexual component (205d18), but not by love of
wisdom (philosophia).105 Accordingly, in this part of her teachings, Diotima
emphasizes love of honor (philotimia: 208c3) and desire for glory (208d2
e1), and she praises poets and lawgivers.106 One problem with this view,
however, is that Diotima does not explain how the poems of Homer and
Hesiod could be even a first step toward philosophy. To do so, she would
need to discuss in more detail her inclusion of these poems in the vague
category of all kinds of virtue, and to explain how their authors exhibit
the recognition of their lack of wisdom that Diotima attributes to the
philosopher-daimon Eros.
102 On 198b3 see Chapter 4 at 4.3 with n.34.

103 Archilochus, frag. 196a.15 West 19891992: t qeon crma (noted by Dover 1980, on 206c5).
104 For the hexameter see Bury 1932 and Sier 1997: 250. On deceitful eros see Bury 1932, who compares
Sappho 1.12: %frdita . . . dolploke, and Sier 1997: 212, who notes that the meter was probably
iambic tetrameter.
105 On generic and specific eros see Introduction at I.2.
106 See Ferrari 1992: 2556; Sheffield 2001: esp. 34 and 10, and Sier 1997: 125. A positive interpretation
of Diotimas emphasis on honor and fame is provided by Nichols 2009: 6470, who argues that in
so doing she places humans within the context of the political community.
Another problem in this passage is how to interpret Diotimas strange and
comic metaphor of male pregnancy. Plato frequently uses sexual imagery to
characterize a passionate desire for wisdom (see Introduction at I.2). The
metaphor in the Symposium in particular has stimulated Platos readers
to produce many fruitful philosophical ideas of their own.107 It does not,
however, accord with the basic facts of biology. Males do not become
pregnant or give birth, and sexual intercourse is not the same as giving
birth, as 206c56 appears to state, but precedes parturition.108 Moreover,
as scholars have noted, the verb kuo used at 206c1 (quoted above, beginning
of 3.3.3) usually refers to female conception or pregnancy, in contrast to
tiktein and gennan, that can be used of both sexes.109
Socrates audience at the symposium would have found the idea of male
pregnancy to be comic as well as strange. In Euripides Bacchae, Teiresias
asks Pentheus if he laughs (diagelv: 286) at the story of Dionysus double
birth. According to the myth recounted by the Chorus, Zeus killed Semele
with a thunderbolt when she was pregnant with the god. Zeus then fastened
the fetus into his own thigh in order to hide it from Hera and eventually
gave birth (teken: 99) to Dionysus (Bacch. 88103). What really happened,
Teiresias punningly explains, is that Zeus broke off (xav) a piece of the
ether that surrounds the earth and gave it to Hera as a hostage (mhron).
In time, people twisted the words around and came to say that the child
was sewn into the thigh (afnai . . . mhr) of Zeus (Bacch. 28697). Not
only is Teiresias story highly sophistical, as E. R. Dodds comments: The
thigh-birth lent itself too easily to ribald humor.110
In other contexts, the idea of male pregnancy was not only comic,
but also offensive to the Greeks. To suggest that a man in a homoerotic
relationship was pregnant was a serious insult, attributing to him the
passive, feminine role in intercourse, considered to be disgraceful for males.
Whether or not the incident actually occurred, Plutarchs story of Periander
107 For example, Irwin 1995: 309, holds that generation in beauty refers to propagation of the valuable
aspects of myself in a person who will exist in the future. Kosman 1976: 65 and n.29, writes that
the meaning of birth in beauty is that love calls the other to be his true self. According to
Price 1989, all love is a kind of pregnancy, whose goal is the creation of another life that will be an
extension of the lovers (227, cf. 259).
108 There is little agreement among scholars about how to interpret Diotimas views on reproduction.
Discussions include those of Burnyeat 1977; Halperin 1985: 1802 and 1990: 13941; Hobbs 2006;
Morrison 1964: 515; Pender 1992; Plass 1978; Pradeau 2007; Reeve 2006a: 1289; Rowe 1999a;
Santas 1988: 379; Sheffield 2001 and 2006a: 75111; Vlastos 1973: 1922. The strangeness of her
account is well brought out by Konstan 1999: 2645.
109 Noted by Dover 1980: 147; Hobbs 2006: 264; and Sheffield 2001: 1415.
110 Dodds 1960, on Bacch. 28697, citing Lucian, Dialogi Deorum 9 and the Old Comedy poet
Polyzelus, author of The Births of Dionysus [frag. 5, Kassel and Austin 19832001].
is a good indication of Greek attitudes. When the sixth-century tyrant asked
his eromenos: Arent you pregnant yet? the young man was so angry that he
killed Periander.111 Diotimas idea that it is the erastes who is pregnant could
be seen as even more offensive, for it casts in a ridiculous and humiliating
light the active partner in the relationship that is idealized by Diotima
herself, as well as by the symposiasts, who not only praise but participate in
such relationships. Moreover, the metaphor might be taken as specifically
ridiculing Pausanias and his eromenos Agathon (193b6c2), the tragedian
who might be said to be pregnant with poetry, like Homer, Hesiod
and the other good poets (poietas . . . agathous: 209d12), mentioned by
Diotima.112 Diotimas comic metaphor is playful, then, but it also comes
close to the division, often difficult to demarcate in Greek society, between
harmless laughter and aggressive, hubristic mockery.113
We cannot, then, fully appreciate Socrates use of this metaphor without
acknowledging and attempting to explain its comic aspects. Why, in the
metaphor of the pregnant lover, is eros represented ambiguously, as both the
source of our highest aspiration and as involving absurdities greater than
those associated with Aristophanes half-people, who at first reproduced
in the earth by means of genitals attached to their buttocks? The comic
aspects of Diotimas metaphor serve, like her laughter at Socrates, as a form
of self-mockery, directed against those who claim, as Socrates might be
thought to be doing in presenting the teachings of this authority, to have
more wisdom than they are in fact able to obtain. At the same time, this
striking image invites Socrates audience, and Platos readers, to examine
and question ideas that are based, in large part, on Greek erotic-educational
conventions. It therefore helps to induce recognition of their own lack of
wisdom about eros, and the desire to obtain as much of this wisdom as they
can.
The Greater Mysteries (209e5212a7)

The account of the Greater Mysteries given by Socrates Diotima is also
constructed so as to stimulate desire for wisdom, while disclaiming author-
itative knowledge. When she teaches Socrates about the stages necessary
111 Plutarch, Amatorius 768f, cited by Dover 1989: 107 n.101 and Plass 1978: 51. That this story is
also cited by Aristotle, Pol. 1311a39b2, shows that it was current in Platos time (David Leitao, in
correspondence).
112 For the pun on Agathons name see Chapter 4 at 4.3. I disagree with Hobbs 2006: 267, who
writes that Alcibiades is the only character in the Symposium who might find the metaphor of male
pregnancy offensive.
113 On this distinction within Greek society generally, see Halliwell 2008: 1938, and, in the case of
Platos Socrates in particular: 276302.
for initiation into the Greater Mysteries of eros (t d tlea ka poptik:
210a1), Diotima uses the metaphor of climbing a ladder (211c3) to describe
the ascent from lower to higher objects of eros. The lover goes from eros
for one beautiful body, to eros for all beautiful bodies, to love for beautiful
souls, then to beautiful practices and laws, next to beautiful sciences, and
finally to a vision of divine beauty itself (211e3). Diotimas description of
the lovers ascent raises important questions about the nature of love, the
soul, metaphysics and epistemology. Socrates does not, however, represent
it as providing definitive answers to these questions.
One reason for believing that Socrates does not represent himself as
accepting Diotimas account as conveying authoritative truth is the fact
that the comic image of male pregnancy is retained throughout, from the
lowest to the highest level. The Lesser Mysteries are said to be for the sake
of, that is, preparatory to, the Greater Mysteries (210a12). This, together
with the birth terminology in both passages, indicates that the lover in the
Greater Mysteries passage is, like the lover of the earlier passage, a pregnant
male. We are now asked to imagine that pregnant men climb the ladder of
eros, balancing their ungainly bodies on its steps, while having intercourse
with various partners and giving birth to various offspring. Terms for giving
birth are used throughout. The lover is said to generate (gennn) beautiful
discourse in a beautiful body (210a78), to give birth to (tktein: 210c1)
discourse in a beautiful soul and to give birth (tkt) within boundless
philosophy (210d36).114 Diotimas language even suggests that, at the
highest rung of the ladder, the lover has sexual intercourse with the highest
form of beauty: he gives birth (tktein, teknti), not to images of virtue,
but to true things, because he touches what is true (212a37).115 If this literal
interpretation is rejected as absurd, what is it that is supposed to happen at
the top of the ladder? Diotima, like the initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries,
whose images this passage borrows,116 keeps the secret. The sexual imagery
is also puzzling at the lower rungs of the ladder, where Diotima states that
the lover must become a lover of all beautiful bodies (210b45). If she
114 Cf. plai kei tktei ka genn: 209c3. A good discussion of the meaning of the phrase n
filosof fqn (in boundless philosophy) is provided by Gregory and Levin 1998, although
I do not agree with all of their conclusions.
115 Pender 1992: 812 argues that the image is of the lover having intercourse with the Forms. This
idea might find some support from the fact that, according to one source, the Eleusinian Mysteries
included a sacred marriage between hierophant and priestess: see Burkert 1983: 284. As Nightingale
2004: 115 notes, a similar metaphor is used in Resp. 490ab. There, however, the metaphor does
not occur within the context of an extensive and detailed discussion of eros and reproduction that
itself invites questions.
116 See Riedweg 1987: 229.
is advising the lover to become sexually promiscuous, the Socrates of the
Symposium does not appear to have followed her advice.117
Another reason to believe that Socrates presents Diotimas account in
such a way as to raise stimulating questions without providing authori-
tative answers is the fact that the Greater Mysteries passage fails to give
sufficient information about the negative attitudes it emphasizes. In Dio-
timas account of the Lesser Mysteries of love, ugliness, which makes the
lover frown, feel pain, shrivel, turn away and roll up without generating
(206d57), is contrasted with beauty, which produces the opposite effect.
In the Greater Mysteries passage, however, negative attitudes and reactions
are an important aspect of desire, for eros for each new object involves
a corresponding disdain for inferior objects.118 When the lover learns to
love all beautiful bodies, he relaxes intense love for one beautiful body,
disdaining and thinking this love to be of little worth (katafronsanta
ka smikrn ghsmenon: 210b56). Then, when he progresses to love for
beauty of soul, he thinks this kind of beauty to be of more worth than phys-
ical beauty (timiteron gsasqai to n t smati: 210b7). Next, the
lover loves beautiful practices and laws and, compared to them, thinks little
of physical beauty (t per t sma kaln smikrn ti gshtai enai:
210c36). When the lover goes on to contemplate the great sea of beauty
(210d4) he is no longer, like a worthless slave, attached to the beauty of
one person or one practice (sper okthv . . . doulewn falov ka
smikrolgov: 210c7d6). This statement implies that the object loved by
the slavish lover is itself inferior and worthy of disdain in relation to the
great sea of beauty. Finally, the lover who associates with divine beauty
itself will not give birth to images of virtue, because he is not touching
an image (212a4). It is clear that love of higher beauty involves disdain for
inferior objects. Diotima does not, however, specify exactly what disdain
involves: complete rejection or a proper valuation in relation to higher
things?119
Most notoriously, the Greater Mysteries passage raises without answering
the question about whether or not the disdain felt by the ascending lover
is compatible with interpersonal love. Only at the bottom of the ladder is
the lover said to experience eros in the specific sense of love for a particular
117 Promiscuity: Nussbaum 2001: 4901.
118 Noted by Moravcsik 1972: 289. On the use of negatives in this passage see Sier 1997: 2824.
119 The phrase at 210b56 (disdaining and thinking this love to be of little worth; cf. 210c56) is
interpreted as scorn by Gagarin 1977: 312, as putting in its place, not turning out of doors by
Price 1989: 44, and as keeping the former interests and adding to these newer ones by Moravcsik
1972: 293. Pakaluk 2004 has helpful remarks on the close association between contempt and
virtue in other dialogues of Plato.
individual. The references to pederasty (211b56), to beautiful boys and
youths (211d4), and to boyfriends (211d6) imply that the relationship in
question at the early stages of the ascent resembles the erotic-educational
relationship between two males of different ages that is depicted in Pausa-
nias speech.120 The erastes of Diotimas account loves one beautiful body
(210a7), and he loves and cares for (kdesqai) a beloved with a beautiful
soul, whom he attempts to educate by giving birth to and seeking those
words that make the young man better (210b8c3). Diotimas main concern,
however, is not with interpersonal love, but with a very different kind of
eros: love for beauty itself. Moreover, her teachings about the Greater Mys-
teries contain no reference to reciprocal philia between lover and beloved
of the kind said to be shared by those initiated into the Lesser Mysteries
(209c27), although the lover initiated into the Greater Mysteries is once
said to care for the person who has beauty of soul (210c1). Aside from
Diotimas address to Socrates as dear (fle: 211d1), phil- words occur only
twice: philosophia (210d6) and theophilei (god-loved: 212a6). The lover
has philia for wisdom and in turn is loved by the gods. Nor is anything said,
even in the account of the lowest steps on the ladder, about the physical
contact between lover and beloved that led, in the Lesser Mysteries passage,
to generation (209c23).121 Diotima uses sexual vocabulary (being with,
giving birth and touching: sunntov, tktein, faptomn: 212a25)
to characterize the lovers contact with divine beauty instead of with a
human beloved, and we are not told what role, if any, interpersonal love
has at the top of the ladder, where all of the lovers emotions appear to be
directed toward higher objects.
Further confusion is added by the fact that the Lesser Mysteries, in
which interpersonal love has a very positive role, are said to be for the sake
of the Greater Mysteries (210a12). Moreover, the ascent up the ladder
in the Greater Mysteries passage is said to proceed by means of correct
pederasty (211b56). Love for one body and for one soul, however, are
said to characterize only the lower stages of the ascent up the ladder of
love, and these lower stages are said to be for the sake of the final vision
of true beauty (210e56). It would appear, then, that unless the lover first
experiences passionate desire for another person, the lover will not be able
to progress up the ladder. Yet, in order to progress, the lover must acquire
120 See Introduction at I.2, especially n.29.

121 Moravcsik 1972: 291 and Patterson 1991: 197 argue that the ascent begins at a stage beyond that of
mere sexual desire. This is one possible interpretation, but it is not supported by explicit statements
in the text.
disdain for love of one body (210b56) and no longer be enslaved to one
boy and one human being (210d13).
Socrates Diotima, then, does not provide a clear and unambiguous
account of the role played by interpersonal love in the ascent. In interpreting
her statements, scholars have tended to emphasize either the positive or
the negative statements about interpersonal love, while downplaying the
importance of other apparently inconsistent statements.122 The fact is,
however, that the text simply does not supply clear and explicit information
about such important issues as whether or not the lover discards lower
objects, whether sexual relationships continue after the lover turns to beauty
of soul, or what prompts the lover to turn from bodies to souls.123 On the
other hand, precisely because it is not represented as containing a body of
authoritative teachings, the Greater Mysteries passage, like the metaphor of
pregnancy in the Lesser Mysteries passage, leads the audience to recognize
their own ignorance and to desire wisdom about eros and its object, beauty.
This is one way in which his speech, like Socrates himself in the Apology,
is wiser than the other speeches: it recognizes its own lack of wisdom.
Indeed, Diotimas characterization of Eros as a philosopher who desires
beauty and wisdom because he realizes that he lacks these good things
is consistent with a general principle in the Greater Mysteries passage,
if not with specific steps on a ladder. As noted in Chapter 2 at 2.2.3,
loving or liking (eran or philein) is a necessary condition for desiring
and searching for wisdom about the objects one loves or likes. When we
love something and recognize that we do not possess it, we ask questions
about this object and attempt to find out how to acquire it. That is,
loving leads people to like wisdom: philo-sophein. Similarly, in the Greater
Mysteries passage, love for one beautiful object leads the lover to desire and
search for as much wisdom about beauty as he can acquire, and to love
other beautiful objects as he comes to understand them.124 This process
culminates in philosophia (210d6), a state in which we desire to grasp the
truth about the beauty we love (212a25), including what it is to love this
122 Those who stress the negative statements about interpersonal love in Diotimas account include
Ferrari 1992: 258; Kahn 1996: 25864; Nussbaum 1986: 17684; Rutherford 1995: 1937; Santas
1988: 44; and Vlastos 1973. Others argue that the account of ascent up the ladder is compatible
with interpersonal love: Irwin 1995: 31011; Kosman 1976; Nye 1990; Patterson 1991: esp. 205 n.8;
Price 1989: 459; Rowe 1998: 7 and 195, on 210c2; and Sheffield 2006a: 15482. Gill 1990 argues
that some of the disagreement is due to mistaken assumptions about Platos concept of what it is
to be a person.
123 Noted by Nehamas 2007b: 11415 and 1223, who shows an unusual awareness of the ways in which
this passage fails to give a clear account of interpersonal love and other matters.
124 Note the cognitive terms used throughout this passage: katanosai: 210a8; nnosanta: 210b4;
ghsmenon: 210b6; gsasqai: 210b7; gshtai: 210c6.
beauty. As Alexander Nehamas notes: love and beauty are inseparable
from the effort to understand what we love or what is the same to
understand why we love it. As long as love persists, no answer will ever
be complete . . . This forward-looking element in the perception of beauty,
the sense that beautiful things are constantly drawing us forward, is the
deep truth in the lovers ascent in the Symposium.125
More specifically, the Greater Mysteries passage can be interpreted as a
mythical account of initiation into Socratic eros. When guided correctly, a
passionate young man can progress from ordinary eros for physical beauty
(see 210a47) to Socratic eros for true beauty and wisdom (see 210d3e1).
Like the myth of the charioteer and horses in the Phaedrus, the story of
the ascent up the ladder of love is a mythical hymn to Socrates master,
Eros, a not entirely unpersuasive speech, that contains some truth (Phdr.
265b6c3).
3.4 i am persuaded and i try to persuade others

Even though Socrates represents himself as questioning many of Diotimas
teachings, he nevertheless concludes his speech by saying that he has been
persuaded by this wise woman:
Diotima spoke, and I am persuaded [ppeismai d g]. Being persuaded I attempt
to persuade others also that one could not easily acquire a better co-worker for
human nature in acquiring this possession126 than Eros. And so [di] I say that
every man should honor Eros, and I myself honor ta erotika and am especially
devoted [diaferntwv sk] to these matters, and I urge [parakeleomai] others
to be so also. Both now and always I praise the power [dnamin] and courage of
Eros as much as I am able. (212b18)127
When Socrates says that he has been persuaded, he cannot mean, like the
Socrates of the Crito, that he has been persuaded by arguments.128 With the
exception of the elenchus she is reported as having given Socrates when he
expressed views similar to those of Agathon (201e27), Diotimas teachings
are unsupported by arguments. Socrates means, instead, that he has been
125 Nehamas 2007b, 120. Cf. Scott and Welton 2008: 93: desire prompts one to think of the desired
object.
126 That is, in becoming as god-loved and immortal as it is possible for a mortal to be (see 212a57). I
follow the interpretation of Dover 1980 and Rowe 1998, both on 212b34.
127 diaferntwv can mean especially or differently. That the latter sense might be applicable here
was suggested to me by Sandra Peterson.
128 Not now for the first time, but always, I am the sort of man who is persuaded by nothing in me
except the argument that seems best to me when I reason: Cri. 46b46. Insightful discussions
about Socrates use of persuasion in the Crito and other dialogues are given by Moore 2008.
given true beliefs about those matters that are also the concern of his own
erotic art.
The Symposium contains five important sources of information that,
taken together, provide a consistent account of what Socrates finds persua-
sive in Diotimas teachings: (source 1) the passage just quoted (212b18);
(source 2) Socrates conversation with Agathon (199c3201c9), and his
summary at 201d5e7 of conclusions agreed upon by Agathon, Socrates
and Diotima; (source 3) his questions and answers during his conversation
with Diotima; (source 4) the views he expresses before his conversation
with Agathon; and (source 5) other aspects of Platos characterization of
Socrates.
In the passage just quoted (source 1), Socrates says that he has been
persuaded that Eros is the best co-worker for human nature, that he himself
is devoted to Eros, that he urges others to be similarly devoted, and that
he praises the power and courage of Eros. These statements, obviously
referring to the Eros of Diotimas speech, indicate that Socrates agrees with
at least some of her account of the nature of Eros, and of his deeds, that
is, his usefulness to humans.129 Further information is given in Socrates
summary (source 2) of the conclusions about which he, Agathon and
Diotima agree (201d5e7).130 All three agree that Eros is eros of 131 beauty
(201e5, referring back to 201a9), and that Eros lacks beauty and other good
things (201e7, referring back to 201b4 and 201c45). Before his conversation
with Agathon also (source 4), Socrates implies that he believes Eros to be
neither beautiful nor good, when he criticizes the symposiasts disregard
for the truth in their attempt to present Eros as the most beautiful and
the best (198d8199a2). In his summary (source 2), Socrates also questions
the idea that Eros is a great god when he links this idea to the view, refuted
by Diotima, that Eros is beautiful and good (201e57). Because Diotimas
later statement that Eros is a daimon (202d13) is consistent with the idea
that he is not a god, it is reasonable to suppose that Socrates agrees with
this idea also.
129 These two aspects of Eros are mentioned at 199c5, 201d8e2 and 204c8.
130 As noted above 3.3.1 and n.74, Socrates statement at 201c89, that it is not hard to refute Socrates,
suggests that there may be flaws in his previous arguments. The specific ideas I discuss here,
however, are stated repeatedly in the dialogue and are never questioned.
131 Or, perhaps more accurately, concerning (per). Diotima will later claim that eros is not love of
beauty, but of generation in beauty (206e25), and for this reason she states that Eros is concerning
(per) beauty (203c4, 204b3), attributing the view that Eros is of beauty to Socrates (204d3). These
distinctions do not affect my main point here. As Rowe notes (1998, on 206e23), if the good is
also beautiful, then in a way eros is still of beauty.
Socrates responses to Diotima (source 3) give further information about
what Socrates agrees with. In answer to Socrates question about the power
(dnamin: 202e2) of Eros, Diotima characterizes him as a courageous and
clever hunter after the beautiful and the good (203d48), a being in a state
between wisdom and lack of understanding, who philosophizes and desires
to become wise because he realizes that he lacks these things (203e4204a7).
Socrates indicates that he agrees with this account of the power and courage
of Eros by saying: You speak well (204c7), and by his repetition of the
words power and courage (212b8) at the end of his speech (source 1).
That he also agrees with Diotimas account of generic eros as the desire for
good things and for happiness (205d13), and as the desire to possess good
things forever (206a1112) is indicated by his responses (source 3) at 205c3,
c10, d9 (You speak the truth) and 206a13 (You speak most truly).
Moreover, Socrates criticism of the symposiasts disregard for truth
(198d8199a2) just before his conversation with Agathon (source 4), and
his positive responses (source 3) to Diotimas characterization of Eros as
lacking beauty and goodness make it reasonable to infer that he agrees with
Diotima in characterizing Eros as unlike anything described by the literary
sources who are cited as authorities by the first five speakers. Diotima
does not attack these authorities directly, but her use of them is revealing.
As noted above 3.3.3, in the Lesser Mysteries passage she, like the first
five speakers, uses examples that occur in literary works without explicitly
examining and questioning them. Her use of these sources, however, differs
in several ways from that of the other speakers. First, she does not quote
selectively, leaving out passages that might support opposing points of view.
Some might question her interpretations, for example, the extent to which
Alcestis and Achilles are represented in literary sources as motivated to die
for those they love by the desire for immortal fame (208d1e1). Whatever
the motivations of these characters, however, it is undeniable that they do
in fact achieve glory in Euripides Alcestis (e.g., 43554 and 9951005) and
Homers Iliad. Second, Diotima never suggests that poets and prose writers
are authorities on Eros. She begins by teaching Socrates about the birds and
the beasts, that have, she claims, the same natural desire for immortality
that humans have (207a5d6). Nature, she implies, has more to teach us
than literature.
Finally, the Greater Mysteries section of her teachings characterizes
beauty itself by giving examples of what it is not. Beauty, she says, nei-
ther comes to be nor passes away, nor is it beautiful in one respect, ugly in
another. It does not appear like a face or hands, or anything that partici-
pates in body, nor is it any particular discourse or kind of knowledge. The
negative particles ou, oude or oute occur fifteen times within the space of
eight lines (211a18). Diotima goes on to tell Socrates that true beauty will
not seem to him to be like gold or clothes or the beautiful boys and youths
at whose sight he now experiences intense emotion (211d38), that it is not
full of human flesh and colors and much other mortal nonsense (211e23),
and that the person who associates with it will not give birth to images of
virtue because he is not touching an image (212a24). These negatives make
it clear that the lover who is initiated into the Greater Mysteries has an
experience unlike any in the literary tradition. Moreover, Diotima avoids
any quotation from or explicit mention of literary sources in this part of
her teachings. Although her characterization of beauty in negative terms
recalls the language and thought of Parmenides, she presents the views as
her own, without citing him as an authority, leaving it to the audience to
notice literary parallels.132
Platos characterization of Socrates in other respects (source 5) is itself
the most compelling reason for believing that Socrates has been persuaded
by Diotimas account of Eros as a philosopher-daimon, unlike anything
in the literary tradition, who is the greatest helper for human nature.
This is because her Eros personifies the erotic art that Socrates himself is
represented as possessing.
The Socrates of the Symposium is represented as possessing erotic art in
that he, like Eros, is devoted to ta erotika: the wisdom, beauty and other
good things that are the objects of eros (component (1) of the erotic art). Like
Eros, Socrates realizes that he lacks these good things, and especially wisdom
(component (2): 175e24, 219a12). That Socrates, like Eros, also desires
passionately to acquire this divine (204a12) possession (component (3)) is
evident from the constant search for wisdom that leads him, for example,
to stand thinking about something for a day and a night (220c1d5). Like
Eros (203d48), Socrates is marvelously skilled in seeking to attain as much
wisdom as he can (component (4)), by, for example, becoming Diotimas
student over a long period of time (206b56, 207a56), and by skillfully
questioning others and engaging them in dialectic (194d14). Socrates also
helps to create in others a desire for divine wisdom, in particular by leading
them to understand that they lack it (component (5)), both by general
exhortations, like the one at the end of his speech (212b18, quoted above
beginning of 3.4), and in more specific ways, for example in his elenchus of
Agathon at 199c3201c9 and in the conversations reported by Alcibiades
132 Sier 1997: 284 quotes Parmenides DK 28 B8. Solmsens (1971) argument that this passage is indebted
to Parmenides was anticipated by many German scholars: see Palmer 1999: 3 n.1, who also cites
numerous later studies.
(for example, at 216a4b5). In thus initiating others into the erotic art,
Socrates resembles the daimon who helps mortals to commune with the
gods to the extent that they can (202e3203a8), and who is of use to mortals
(204c8) in leading them to desire the good (205d13). Socrates marvelous
skill in urging others to devote themselves to ta erotika is apparent in his
strong effects on others throughout this dialogue.133 When he claims to
know nothing other than ta erotika (177d78, 198d12), then, Socrates
refers to his lack of knowledge and to his art, both of which are erotic and
Erotic.134
The speech in which Socrates reports his conversations with Diotima
is an especially powerful demonstration of component (5) of the erotic
art. Just as, in the Phaedrus, Socrates uses his erotic art to create poetic
language that can help to turn Phaedrus toward eros together with philo-
sophical words (257a3b6), so, in the Symposium, Socrates creates a speech
that appeals to each member of his audience of symposiasts. Diotimas dis-
cussion of love of honor would appeal to Phaedrus, whose speech empha-
sized the role of eros in producing this kind of love (philotimia: 178d12,
e6; 208c3); her emphasis on education would resonate with Pausanias,
who discussed the lovers ability to educate the beloved (padeusin: 184e1;
paideein: 209c2). In representing Eros as facilitating prophecy and the
communion of humans with gods (202e3203a8) Diotimas teachings recall
Eryximachus representation of Eros as governing prophecy and allowing
gods and humans to commune with and be friends of one another (188b6
d9).135 Moreover, her mention of craftsmen (209a5) recalls Eryximachus
description of physicians as craftsmen (186d5). Diotimas characterization
of Eros as lacking good and beautiful things interests Aristophanes, and the
comic elements in her teachings would appeal to him also.136 The solemn
language of the Greater Mysteries passage is of a style that would impress
the tragic poet Agathon, as would her inclusion of poets among those
who give birth to wisdom (phronesis) and virtue (209a34). Thus, in mak-
ing a speech that contains both comic and solemn (or tragic) elements,
Socrates demonstrates in practice what he will later prove by argument:
that the man who creates by means of techne, that is, erotic art, is able to
create both comedy and tragedy (223c4d6).
133 See Introduction to Part II and Chapter 4.

134 On Socrates resemblance to Eros see further Chapter 4 at 4.6 and Introduction at I.1.
135 On this parallel see McPherran 2006.
136 At 212c46, Aristophanes is about to mention his own view that love is desire for the whole
(192e10193a1), criticized by Diotima at 205d10206a1.
Socrates speech is also persuasive because, when Diotima discusses those
who are pregnant in soul, she describes people who resemble the symposi-
asts. Those pregnant in soul, she says, give birth to wisdom [phronesis] and
the other virtues137 that are generated by all the poets and those craftsmen
who are said to be inventors. And far the greatest . . . and the most beautiful
part of wisdom is that concerning the governance of cities and households,
whose name is moderation and justice (209a38). In creating a character
who emphasizes the areas in which each speaker claims expertise political
virtue, poetry, craftsmanship within the context of the conventional love
of erastes for eromenos that each praises, Platos Socrates uses his erotic art
to attempt to persuade the symposiasts to devote themselves to another
kind of eros and another kind of art.138 And in winning their praise (212c4),
Socrates shows himself to be at least partly successful.
Before going to Agathons symposium, Socrates dresses himself up so
that he can go as a beautiful man to visit a beautiful man (174a39). In a
similar way, Socrates dresses up his beliefs about his erotic art with mythical
and poetic elements that help to make them beautiful and persuasive to his
audience. Plato appeals to his own audience in a similar way, by writing a
passage that has been one of the most influential in the entire history of
Western thought.139
137 frnhsn te ka tn llhn retn; cf. Pausanias 184d7e1: frnhsin ka tn llhn retn.
138 Parallels between the symposiasts and those pregnant in soul are noted by Rowe 1998, on 209a34
and a45, and Sheffield 2001: 10 and n.10.
139 Sier 1997, 147 and Nehamas 2007b: 133. Good accounts of the influence of the Symposium are
provided by Clay 2006 and Lesher 2006.

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part ii

Eros and Hybris in the Symposium

The Symposium has the extremely complex formal structure of a dramatic

10 I discuss these two narrators in greater detail in Belfiore 1984.

15 Akletoi: Fehr 1990; Halliwell 2008: 1434; Wilkins 2000: 7186.

In praise of Eros: the speeches in the Symposium

3.1 victories in words

3.2 the first five speakers: the best and most

3.2.1 The symposiasts and the poets

3.2.2 Phaedrus: courage

3.2.3 Pausanias: education

3.2.4 Eryximachus: medicine

The text of the Heraclitus passage quoted by Eryximachus is problematic.

3.2.5 Aristophanes: comedy

3.2.6 Agathon: tragedy

3.3 socrates: eros the philosopher

3.3.1 Interlude: Socrates and the Gorgon

The reference to Homer in this passage indicates that Socrates is alluding

3.3.2 Socrates and his teacher

102 On 198b3 see Chapter 4 at 4.3 with n.34.

The Greater Mysteries (209e5212a7)

120 See Introduction at I.2, especially n.29.

3.4 i am persuaded and i try to persuade others

133 See Introduction to Part II and Chapter 4.

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