Eleven: Female Imagery in Plato Angela Hobbs The Image of the Pregnant Philosopher At Symposium 206c–e Diotima tells us that all humans (anthrôpoi) are pregnant (kuousin) in both body and soul, and require contact with the beautiful in order to be able to relieve their pangs and give birth to their physical or spiritual children. She also makes it very clear that the virtues… Read more
12. Plato in the Courtroom: The Surprising Influence of the Symposium on Legal Theory Jeffrey Carnes It is not often that classicists find themselves in the middle of public policy debates, at least not in this day and age; yet this is precisely what has happened in recent years in the ongoing public battle over gay rights, in which proponents of both sides have invoked… Read more
13. Plato’s Symposium and the Traditions of Ancient Fiction Richard Hunter Among the most striking products of the literature of the Roman empire are large-scale fictional narratives in prose, or occasionally a mixture of prose and verse. Such “novels”—the validity of the term is much debated but its usefulness seems undeniable—appear in both Greek and Latin, and cover a remarkable range of tone, style and milieu. Read more
14. Some Notable Afterimages of Plato’s Symposium [1] J. H. Lesher From the fourth century BCE down to the present day Plato’s Symposium has provided a stimulus to reflection on the nature of love. [2] Among the earliest known responses to the dialogue are portions of Xenophon’s Symposium, Petronius’ Satyrica, Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love, Tacitus’ Dialogue… Read more
15. The Hangover of Plato’s Symposium in the Italian Renaissance from Bruni (1435) to Castiglione (1528) Diskin Clay [1] It is not that Socrates did not drink with his companions at symposia; he did. The strange thing about the man is that no one ever saw him drunk. In Plato’s Symposium he leaves the company who had remained at the second… Read more
16. Platonic Selves in Shelley and Stevens David K. O’Connor Ralph Waldo Emerson, who certainly knew a thing or two about essays, said in “History” that the best of them describe to their readers our “unattained but attainable self” (1983:239). Our reading shows us how the self we have so far attained is estranged from the self we can be. The self we are is… Read more
The Contributors Ruby Blondell is Professor of Classics at the University of Washington, Seattle. Luc Brisson is Directeur de Recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Jeffrey Carnes is Associate Professor of Languages, Literature, and Linguistics at Syracuse University. Gabriela Carone is an independent scholar. Diskin Clay is R. J. R. Nabisco Professor of Classical Studies at Duke University. … Read more
Chapter 4. Nostalgia and Virgil’s Pastoral Dream (On the Dangers of Playing Orpheus) Virgil, we are told, “was given a house in Maecenas’ gardens on the Esquiline with the hope of enticing him to Rome.” [1] With this in mind, it would be tempting to identify the Esquiline villa in which the Odyssey Frieze was found with Virgil’s Roman house, particularly since… Read more
Epilogue: The Medallions and Other Magic Gardens Barely visible beneath a century’s accumulation of grime, a limpid lake beckons the viewer, its grassy shores flanked by stands of stately trees, its waters reflecting the clouds that grace a moody sky. On the opposite wall is its pendent, the depiction of a small farmhouse shaded by a grove and accessed by a road winding its way through verdant… Read more
Illustrations Figure 1. Mapping utopia. Map of the wanderings of Odysseus. Figure 2. Blueprint of the ideal polis. Reconstruction: The Shield of Achilles. Figure 3. A landscape “of unusual, even startling interest.” Red-figure pelikē: Odysseus, Elpenor, and Hermes in the Underworld. Figure 4. Alone in the realm of Nature. Attic black-figure amphora: the suicide of Ajax. … Read more
