Chapter 9. Alcaeus: Poetry, Politics, Exile Alcaeus is an important transitional figure in this study, because with the vita of Alcaeus we seem to leave legend or legend-embroidered history and enter firmly into history. The events in his life, as reflected in his poetry, even though they… Read more
Chapter 10. Theognis: Faceless Exile Theognis of Megara is a shadowy figure whose poetry offers us some evocative hints about his life; one can only wonder if it is a real life or a stereotypical poet’s life. [1] As early as Plato,… Read more
Chapter 11. Tyrtaeus: The Lame General Virtually all critics agree that the story of Tyrtaeus, in which the lame Athenian schoolmaster is sent to the Spartans as a joke, only to become their general in the Second Messenian War, is unhistorical—a piece of Attic propaganda, perhaps, to… Read more
7. Where is Socrates on the “Ladder of Love”? Ruby Blondell On the Road “Where is [Socrates]?” Agathon asks Aristodemus, when the latter shows up at his house a couple of pages into Plato’s Symposium (174c12). Later Alcibiades tacitly likens Socrates to Odysseus (220c),… Read more
8. Tragedy Off-Stage Debra Nails Plato weaves strands of the tragic and the comic, high seriousness and low bawdiness, into his Symposium; that much is uncontroversial. If someone should miss the sweep of the plot from the celebration of Agathon’s prize for tragedy to the waves… Read more
9. The Virtues of Platonic Love Gabriela Roxana Carone Socrates’ speech on Love in the Symposium (201–212), reporting his conversation with the Mantinean priest Diotima, stands as prima facie counterintuitive. First, it is not clear that it has anything to say about interpersonal love at… Read more
10. Agathon, Pausanias and Diotima in Plato’s Symposium: Paiderastia and Philosophia Luc Brisson My goal in this contribution [1] is to shift the center of interest of Plato’s magnificent dialogue the Symposium on two points. First, by showing that the dialogue… Read more
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… 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… 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… Read more
