This essay is a substantially revised version of a paper entitled ‘The Purpose of Plato’s Symposium’ presented at the 1976 conference of the Australian Society for Classical Studies held at the University of New England, Armidale, N.S.W.

References to the text of the Symposium (and other works of Plato) pertain to Burnet’s OCT edition. The translations are my own.

1. So e.g. Taylor, A. E., Plato: The Man and his Work (London, 1960), 174Google Scholar.

2. The orthodox view is again expressed by Taylor (op. cit., 209): ‘The Symposium is perhaps the most brilliant of all Plato’s achievements as a dramatic artist.’

3. Rosen, Stanley, Plato’s Symposium (New Haven and London, 1968Google Scholar) constitutes the fullest and most sustained such attempt, though even he maintains that art serves a philosophical purpose in the work (cf. xxxviii, ‘The Symposium puts the case for philosophy in poetic terms’). While I do not agree that art is subservient to philosophy (at least philosophy in the strict sense) in this way, it seems to me self-evident that the only way to understand the meaning of the Symposium is to examine the whole work as an integrated sum of its parts. This is the methodological value of Rosen’s study. Unfortunately his many valuable insights lie buried in a morass of often unintelligible jargon, while his insistence on seeing deep significance in absolutely everything robs his interpretation of proper perspective and leads to a proliferation of what one reviewer aptly termed ‘trivial profundity’ (Saunders, T. J., JHS 90 [1970], 210Google Scholar). I am also indebted in varying degrees to the following articles which have appeared over the past decade and exemplify the newer trend in Platonic studies: K. Dorter, , ‘The Significance of the Speeches in Plato’s Symposium’, Ph…Rh 2 (1969), 215–234Google Scholar; Wolz, H. G., ‘Philosophy as Drama: An Approach to Plato’s Symposium’, Ph…PhenR 30 (1969-70), 323–353Google Scholar; Reckford, K. J., ‘Desire with Hope: Aristophanes and the Comic Catharsis’, Ramus 3 (1974), 41–69Google Scholar; Anton, J. P., ‘The Secret of Plato’s Symposium’, SJPh 12 (1974), 277–293Google Scholar; Clay, D., ‘The Tragic and Comic Poet of the Symposium’, Arion n.s. 2 (1975), 238–261Google Scholar; Gagarin, M., ‘Socrates’ Hybris and Alcibiades’ Failure’, Phoenix 31 (1977), 22–37Google Scholar.

4. This of course is not to deny the importance of Platonist doctrines in the work, which would be absurd. Platonism forms an essential part of the conceptual framework by means of which we evaluate and interpret the work. For instance, the fact that Diotima’s speech contains a description of the Form of the Beautiful and how we may come to know it is Plato’s indication (because we have prior knowledge of the importance of Forms in his philosophy) that this speech is at least in one sense the most important intellectual statement in the Symposium. But it is not intended as a means of instructing students, for this is not Plato’s way — cf. n.45 below. What we should be doing in this case is to use Platonist doctrines as critical tools, in much the same way as one does with the works of later Platonists, for example Apuleius — see my ‘Slavish Pleasures and Profitless Curiosity: Fall and Redemption in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, Ramus 4 (1975), 49–82Google Scholar, esp. 52–59, 65 f., 78 n. 32, 80 nn. 50, 54.

5. Cicero, Tusc.Disp. 5.4.10 fin. Cf. Randall, J. H., Plato: Dramatist of the Life of Reason (New York and London, 1970), 127Google Scholar: ‘It [the Symposium] exhibits not so much philosophy as the fruits of philosophy’, which I would modify to ‘not so much the exposition of a philosophical system as the quality and influence of intellectual activity’.

6. I apologise for such a truism, but after immersing oneself in Rosen (cf. n.3 above) it seems a necessary reminder.

7. I shall have occasion to mention Thucydides again, and it is tempting to speculate that Plato is deliberately echoing (or even parodying?) the historian in the composition of his own history (cf. Anton [n.3 above], 277, who refers to Plato employing ‘a model from Thucydides mythistoricus’). This is especially so where Apollodorus seeks to establish the credentials of his record by saying that he checked some details of Aristodemus’ account with Socrates (173b); so Thucydides attests that he did not simply accept the version of the ‘first-comer’ but carefully checked with as many other witnesses as possible (1.22.2–3). Likewise in the case of the logoi, Apollodorus ‘cannot remember’ all that Aristodemus told him, nor could Aristodemus for his part ‘remember’ (oute … ememnēto) all that was said at the party (178a); so neither could Thucydides nor his informants ‘accurately remember’ (diamnēmoneusai) the speeches made before and during the war (1.22.1). In both cases memory has modified the presentation; in both cases therefore we are given not the actual words used but what one would expect such persons to say in such a situation. And more broadly what both authors are concerned to do is extrapolate the universal from the particular; for Thucydides Pericles was not simply a leading fifth-century Athenian politician but the archetypal statesman, for Plato Socrates was not simply an intellectual who propounded a particular approach to ethical problems but the archetypal philosopher — and so mutatis mutandis with other major characters.

8. Cf. Phaedrus 227a-228e, 242a-b.

9. Dorter (n.3 above) 222 maintains that the virtue of courage constitutes a major motif in Phaedrus’ speech. In fact courage (andreia) is never mentioned; what Phaedrus dwells on is tolma (‘daring’), which is specifically distinguished from courage elsewhere in Plato’s writings (e.g. Laches 193d). Courage is a virtue, and as such is based on knowledge (cf. the discussion in Prot. 349d-360e); daring however is unreasoning confidence. Love as Phaedrus conceives it inspires not reasoned bravery but reckless heroics — and rightly, for are these not more the stuff of romantic dreams?

10. Phaedrus’ criticism of Aeschylus at 180a (while being in part a parody of the Hippias style of literary ‘research’) serves to highlight his insistence on preserving this image of Achilles as the daring beloved, and thus its importance to him.

11. A point noted by Friedländer, P. (Plato: The Dialogues, Second and Third Periods, tr. Meyerhoff, H. [London, 1969], 9Google Scholar) but not as far as I can recall by any other commentator. Yet it seems to me vital.

12. For a full discussion on this see Dover, K. J., ‘Eros and Nomos’, BICS 11 (1964), 31–42Google Scholar. Rosen (n.3 above) 63 f. suggests that Pausanias is in fact misrepresenting the Athenian nomos, which he maintains ‘sanctioned very harsh treatment against paederasts’. But it is necessary to remember that nomos means ‘custom’ as well as ‘statute law’ (Dover, op. cit., 32) and Pausanias’ remarks seem more appropriate to ‘accepted practice’ than to ‘law’ as such. In any case the precise nature of the relevant laws is hard to determine (cf. Dover’s discussion of Aeschines In Tim. [op. cit. 32 f.]) and Rosen’s interpretation may very well be wrong.

13. A Homeric quotation (Il. 10.244) used by Socrates in this work (174d) and elsewhere (Prot. 348d) to illustrate the importance of partnership in intellectual inquiry. As Pausanias makes clear, the ultimate goal of a ‘noble’ love relationship is a partnership of equals, in which each participant bestows and receives improvement in equal measure. It is unfair to accuse the ‘noble’ lover of wanting always to dominate the beloved (as does e.g. Wolz [n.3 above], 330), though naturally he will have to take the lead in the initial stages.

14. Rosen (n.3 above), 88; cf. also Bury, R. G. in the introduction to his edition of the Symposium (Cambridge, 1932), xxviGoogle Scholar.

15. See esp. Gorg. 464b ff.

16. For the rhetorical devices employed see Bury (n.14 above) xxvii f. Pausanias follows Prodicus in distinguishing between the physical and spiritual aspects of erōs and attaching moral superiority to the latter — cf. Prodicus’ Choice of Heracles (p. 163 above) and the distinction drawn between euphrainesthai and hēdesthai (i.e. intellectual and physical pleasure) at Prot. 337c.

17. One of those words for which it is impossible to offer a simple, single-word translation. Its semantic range incorporates ‘applied science’, ‘artistic technique’, ‘craft’, ‘skill’ and ‘method’; generally it denotes a practical skill attained through training in a particular methodology. According to Rosen (n.3 above xxxvii) ‘a large part of the Symposium is dedicated to the criticism of technicism or unrestricted technē’. In my view this goes too far in that it suggests that ‘technicism v. philosophy’ is a recurrent theme, whereas in fact it is confined to the words and actions of Eryximachus.

18. One is reminded of Euthyphro 14e.6 where Euthyphro’s fourth attempt to define piety is reduced by Socrates to the proposition that ‘piety is a technique (technē) of trade between gods and men’.

19. It is this which constitutes the distinctive common factor in these first three speeches, and not, as Rosen (n.3 above 92) maintains, the fact that each defends the practice of paederasty; this is to a large extent incidental.

20. Another difficult word to render into English. Diotima herself at a later stage of the work defines it as ‘the whole cause for anything passing from nonbeing to being’ (205b.8 f.); in the realm of art it is the activity of creation (as opposed to technical expertise in the use of materials). He who practices such creation is of course a poiētēs.

21. Cf. pp. 147f. above.

22. Apart from this point, Rosen’s (n.3 above) treatment of this incident (91 f.) seems forced. It certainly does not ‘suggest the final subordination of poetry to technicism’ as he claims. In a complex society there exists a whole range of dependences as each individual becomes more specialised; but dependence does not imply subordination. Clay’s (n.3 above) point that by means of this device tragic and comic poet are conspicuously juxtaposed (242) is much nearer the mark.

23. By far the best treatment of the Aristophanic elements in this speech is that of Reckford (n.3 above), esp. 41–46, and my own interpretation owes much to his fine work; he does, however, place too little emphasis on the didactic aspect of Old Comedy.

24. One could find a profound element of pathos in these representations of unrealisable desires, especially in the Frogs (see e.g. Whitman, Cedric, Aristophanes and the Comic Hero [Cambridge, Mass., 1964], 252–256Google Scholar); but as Reckford (n.3 above) points out (55 ff.), comic drama provides a catharsis of its own, a ‘purgation’ of desire and hope, the emotions which pertain to it as pity and fear do to tragedy. Rather than fill us with disappointment, these representations of our deepest wishes in the context of comedy give us the will to carry on — just as the experience of genital sex did for the severed wholepersons.

25. That Aristophanes chooses to concentrate on the genital aspect of Eros is not intended to make the reader confine his attention to this area. The comic poet employs the imagery which is the ‘proper province’ of his Muse (189b.7).

26. Cf. Aesch. PV 247 ff., where Prometheus’ gift of ‘blind hopes’ (tuphlai elpides) is seen as a consequence of his removing man’s power of precognition. Knowing the future, there is no point in striving to make it any different from what it inevitably will be. Only when ‘foreknowledge of doom’ (proderkesthai moron, 248) is replaced by ‘hope of betterment’ does the advance of civilisation become possible.

27. On the healing power of comedy cf. Reckford (n.3 above), 45 f.

28. Op. cit. (n.l above), 221.

29. Kosman, L. A., ‘Platonic Love’, in Facets of Plato’s Philosophy (Phronesis Supp. 2 [1976]), 53Google Scholar; Wolz op. cit. (n.3 above), 338; Dorter op. cit. (n.3 above), 223. (Is Agathon’s ‘logic’ in fact any worse than Aristophanes’? Is it appropriate to complain that a poet does not express himself in syllogisms?) For a more sympathetic treatment of Agathon see Grube, G. M. A., Plato’s Thought (London, 1935), 100Google Scholar, though Grube too belittles the intellectual content of the speech (‘it says very little yet says it so beautifully’).

30. Cf. Taylor’s (n.l above) fulmination against those cursed ‘with the poison of Romanticism in their veins’ (209) and his comparison of Agathon to ‘the sonneteering tribe’ (222).

31. Foreshadowed at 179e. It is strange that modern writers on Plato’s attitude to art have paid so little attention to Agathon’s speech, which must exemplify what Plato saw as the essence of the tragedian’s representation of reality and also might reasonably be expected to show as much insight into the nature of Agathonic tragedy as he before demonstrated in the case of Aristophanic comedy. Lodge, R. C. (Plato’s Theory of Art [London, 1953]Google Scholar) gives Agathon only two passing mentions, and he fares little better in the most recent study (Murdoch, Iris, The Fire and the Sun [Oxford, 1977]Google Scholar).

32. Agathon’s concern with beauty is also highlighted in Aristophanes’ caricature of him in the opening scene of Thesmophoriazusae (1–265). Here too his personal appearance (exaggerated into gross effeminacy) matches his verse; indeed, Agathon declares that this is a matter of policy (148–152). It is fully in accord with Plato’s portrait that Agathon should also say that ‘it is uncouth (amouson) to see a poet who is rustic (agreios) and shaggy (dasus)’, and this correspondence supports the contention of n.31 above.

33. Thus if nothing else Agathon’s speech constitutes an advance in terms of encomium. Clay (n.3 above) sees the ‘fundamentals’ of this approach right back in Phaedrus’ speech (246); but simply to declare that Love is among the oldest of the gods is hardly to praise him for what he is, which is the proper task of the encomiast.

34. Agathon thus seeks to establish Love in the highest class of good, that which is both good in itself and good in the benefits that result from it. Cf. Rep. 357b ff.

35. Cf. Genesis 9.8–17.

36. ‘Let this speech from me, Phaedrus, lie as an offering to the god; I have given it, as far as I am able, its share of playfulness as well as of measured seriousness (spondēs metrites).’ Clay’s (n.3 above) remarks on this passage epitomise the relative value placed on the two poets’ contributions by modern commentators (248): ‘It is tempting to say that Aristophanes was playfully serious. But of Agathon all that can be said is that he spoke playfully, beautifully, with solemnity, but falsely.’

37. DK 82 B 11 and 82 B 3 respectively.

38. Cf. Friedlander (n.ll above) 22: ‘Plato has given him [Agathon] a magical power of words with full enjoyment.’

39. Cf. Aristotle, Poetics 1452a 22–29.

40. Cf. Murdoch, op. cit. (n.31 above), 41 f.: ‘Art is a sort of dangerous caricature of anamnēsis (‘recollection’) … [Its] pleasure comes from its connection with the purely egoistic unconscious (in Freudian terms) and privily robs art of alētheia, truthfulness and realism. Art has no discipline which ensures veracity.’ However I take issue with Miss Murdoch’s earlier contention (32) that the artist ‘directs our attention to particulars which he presents as intuitively knowable’. This may be the case with the artist who paints a portrait of a bed (cf. Rep. 596e ff.), but it certainly does not fit either Aristophanes or Agathon in the Symposium. Both are concerned to present a universally valid portrait of Love and its operation. But in both cases the myth proves false, being a poiēma (‘creation [out of nothing]’ — cf. n.20 above) of the artist himself and so not grounded in objective reality.

41. As Plato says elsewhere (Rep. 606a-d), poetry excites the emotions and fosters them to the detriment of intellect. The proper ‘philosophical’ attitude is to allow these emotions to atrophy.

42. Which has been going on since the time of Xenophanes and Heraclitus: cf. Kaufmann, W., Tragedy and Philosophy (New York, 1969), 3–5Google Scholar. One is inevitably reminded of a much later manifestation of this conflict in the quarrel between Nietzsche and Wagner. Like Socrates, Nietzsche was a philosopher who saw himself as endowed with a mission to revitalise and transmute the ethical thinking of his contemporaries; like Agathon, Wagner was an artist who presented images of love and love’s operation in the world which (their impact now reinforced by the power of music) encapsulate the impossible dream of the romantic, Agathon’s vision of Love overcoming Necessity is paralleled in the final scene of Gōtterdämmerung, in which Brünnhilde’s heroic self-immolation (Phaedrus would have loved this) under the influence of love destroys the power-oriented world of Wotan and causes the ring of world-domination to be lost forever in the depths of the Rhine — this symbolising the ultimate victory of romantic love over the will to power. Naturally this was anathema to the philosopher of the Übermensch. In words remarkably reminiscent of Plato’s, Nietzsche accused Wagner of being ‘a master of hypnotic trickery’, ‘a rhetorician in music’, ‘a magician’ — ‘Nowhere will you find a more pleasant method of enervating your spirit, of forgetting your manliness in the shade of a rosebush… . Ah, this old magician, mightiest of Klingsors; how he wages war against us with his art… . There never was such a mortal hatred of knowledge’ (original italics). See Nietzsche, F., The Case of Wagner, tr. Ludovici, A. M. in Levy, O. (ed.), The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Vol. VIII (Edinburgh and London, 1911), 14, 30, 40Google Scholar.

43. While no doubt Plato sides with the philosopher in this confrontation, we might object here that the way to understanding a work of art lies in an examination of the work itself, not a cross-examination of the artist. It is not legitimate for the philosopher to assume a monopoly over the way of truth simply because the artist cannot ‘give an account’ of his perception.

44. So in the Meno, it is seen as a necessary preliminary to the education of Meno’s slave that he should first be disabused of false opinion (82b-84a); only thus can he acquire that desire to learn the truth which enables Socrates to move into this second, positive phase of the process (84d-85b).

45. Cf. Plato’s own remarks in Letter VII (341c-d): ‘There is no treatise (sungramma) of mine on these matters, nor will there ever be. Unlike the other branches of learning it cannot be put into words. Only after a long association and a life shared with others in the subject itself does it come-to-be in the soul — suddenly, like a flame kindled from a leaping spark: once there, it supplies its own nourishment.’ Cf. also Phaedrus 275a-278b.

46. Thus I do not agree with Gagarin’s (n.3 above) contention that ‘Socrates has reached the end of the lover/philosopher’s journey, has had his own vision of true Beauty, and now possesses knowledge and virtue’ (28). This would make nonsense of Socrates’ claim to ‘know about nothing other than matters of love’ (177d.7 f.) and of his well-known and constant profession of ignorance elsewhere: in fact it would turn him into a hypocrite and intellectual sadist. Socrates is a philosopher, not a sage, knowing nothing but the desire to know; knowledge is the possession of the mysterious Diotima, the mouthpiece of the gods.

47. Cf. Dorter (n.3 above), 224: ‘Socrates’ speech … separates the element of truth in each of [the earlier] portrayals of Eros from a false interpretation and incorporates that truth into itself.’

48. Cf. esp. the myth of the cicadas at Phaedrus 259b-d, where philosophy is said to be under the jurisdiction of the Muses Calliope and Urania.

49. The philosopher’s arguments in the Phaedo for the immortality of the soul and for the closer union of the philosophic soul with ultimate reality in the afterlife (see esp. Phaedo 114b-c) may be seen as an attempt to achieve this goal. But in the Symposium the immortality of the soul is, as Grube says (op. cit. [n.20 above], 130) ‘all but denied’. Diotima’s final word on the subject (212a.5–7), couched in the form of a question, is ambiguous. Cf. Bury (n.14 above) xliii-xlvi.

50. Rosen (n.3 above) 165 n.32 usefully draws attention to Adeimantus’ description of the effect of Socratic dialectic at Rep. 487b-d, where he says of Socrates’ interlocutors, ‘They feel your arguments are like a game of draughts in which the unskilled player is always in the end hemmed in and left without a move by the expert. Like him they feel hemmed in and left without anything to say, though they are not in the least convinced by the conclusion reached in the moves you have made in the game you play with words’ (487b.7-c.4, tr. Lee). So Euthyphro after complaining that Socrates makes all his attempted definitions wander about and not stay in the one place (Euth. llc-d) eventually remembers an urgent appointment elsewhere (15e) and retires from the argument; having alienated himself from his family by prosecuting his father for impiety (4d-e) and endured the laughter of his fellow-citizens whenever he addresses the Assembly about divine matters (3c) he cannot allow himself to be convicted of ignorance by Socrates. For the more violent response cf. Anytus at Meno 94e and Thrasymachus at Rep. 336b-345b. On the alienating nature of the Socratic elenchus cf. Robinson, R., Plato’s Earlier Dialectic 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1953), 10Google Scholar, and Vlastos, G., ‘The Paradox of Socrates’ in Vlastos (ed.), The Philosophy of Socrates: a Collection of Critical Essays (New York, 1971), 2Google Scholar: ‘Plato’s Socrates … wins every argument, but never manages to win over an opponent.’

51. Kosman (n.29 above), 61.

52. Cf. Phaedrus 227a, 242a, 270c.

53. Cf. Rosen (n.3 above), 57: ‘If Phaedrus is Achilles, then Eryximachus, his lover, is Patroclus.’ He does not develop the point, however.

54. Note that the philosopher rejects prizes, even when they are deserved: see 220e.

55. It is clear from this that Socrates’ logoi have had no effect on Agathon. Socrates explicitly criticised Agathon’s method of encomium, saying that all it consisted of was a list of marvellous qualities which were attributed to the object of praise whether it possessed them or not (198d.8 ff.). Socrates’ method, however, is first and foremost to tell the truth (198d.3). Agathon obviously anticipates an encomium of his own sort rather than the philosopher’s, despite this statement of Socrates (and also despite Alcibiades’ warning at 222b against being seduced by the Socratic ‘chatting up’ that he has been receiving throughout the evening). It is fortunate for Agathon that he is prevented from hearing the truth about himself as the philosopher sees it by the irruption of a new crowd of revellers (223b) — by which device Plato may well be suggesting that the philosopher would in the end have had nothing to say.

56. Wolz’s (n.3 above, 330) contention that ‘the lover will tend to impose his goals, his ideals upon the beloved in order to make him as much like himself as possible’ is thus not strictly accurate (unless the lover is narcissistic). This certainly has not happened in the case of Pausanias and Agathon.

57. I do not wish to buy into the controversy surrounding the genuineness of the Alcibiades (also known as Alcibiades I or Alcibiades Major to distinguish it from the undoubtedly spurious Alcibiades II); I shall simply state that I believe it to be an early work of Plato. The case for authenticity is summarised by Friedländer, Plato: The Dialogues, First Period, tr. H. Meyerhoff (London, 1964), 231 f. and 348 n.l; the case against by Taylor (n.l above), 522 f.

58. Cf. n. 45 above.

59. The most valuable recent studies of the treatment of this relationship in the Symposium are the articles by Anton and Gagarin (n.3 above).

60. Alcibiades’ motivation in seeking to establish a love-relationship with Socrates tells against Anton’s (n.3 above, 284) contention that Alcibiades functions here as ‘the showpiece of eros pandēmos in Athens’.

61. For more detailed investigations of the nature and quality of Socrates’ hubris see Rosen (n.3 above) chapter 7, Anton (n.3 above), 283 f. and 291 f., and Gagarin (n.3 above), 29–33. Cf. also p. 159 above.

62. We are in fact never allowed to forget that this is a reported, secondhand account, for apart from the actual encomia the story is narrated in the accusative and infinitive construction of indirect speech — as if ApoUodorus were continually saying ‘Aristodemus then said that such-and-such happened’. The comparison with the Homeric rhapsode may perhaps be extended. Apollodorus’ conversation with his Companion is plausibly dated by Bury (n. 14 above) to c.400 (lxvi); but the event narrated comes from the Heroic Age of Athenian intellectual activity, where philosopher, sophist and artist could meet to do battle for the souls of men, and Athens herself under the influence of such politicians as Alcibiades was still strong, vital and full of daring. But by 400 all that was gone. Athens had experienced the traumas of the Sicilian disaster, defeat by Sparta and the rule of the Thirty; Alcibiades was disgraced and dead; Agathon had left Athens (not to mention the deaths of Sophocles and Euripides); Aristophanes had lost his inspiration (the Frogs was his last great play); Eryximachus and Phaedrus had been implicated in the profanation of the mysteries (Andocides, On the Mysteries, 15 and 35); and the storm-clouds were gathering against Socrates — the new democracy did not want gad-flies. The same aura surrounds the Symposium as surrounded the tales of heroic deeds associated with the Trojan War and its aftermath, which constituted a reminder in the impoverished time of the Greek Dark Ages of the great civilisation that had gone before. These tales were preserved by rhapsodes — just as ApoUodorus preserves the intellectual saga of ‘The Victory-Dinner of Agathon’. But ApoUodorus has acquired no more genuine understanding from learning and reciting Socrates’ logoi than the rhapsode Ion has from learning and reciting the epē (‘epic verses’) of Homer — cf. Ion 532c, 541e f.

63. And in fact does not claim to. In the Protagoras indeed he professes to believe that virtue cannot be taught at all (Prof. 319b ff.).

64. Cf. n.50 above. This aspect of Socratic logoi is highlighted by the use of the verb anankazein (‘compel’) in relation to defeat in argument. So Alcibiades at 216a.4 f.: ‘He compels me to agree’ (anankazei me homologein). It recurs right at the end of the dialogue in the celebrated statement about tragedy and comedy (223d): ‘Socrates was compelling them to agree (prosanankazein ton Sōcratēn homologein) that it was the property of the same man to know how to create (poiein) comedy and tragedy and that the man who had the skill (technē) to create tragedy was also a creator of comedy.’ This passage has given rise to much discussion (e.g. Clay [n.3 above] 249–258, Friedlander [n.ll above] 31 f. to name but two). I would contend that the idea of ‘compelling agreement’ is the most important item, not the question of technē and epistēmē in the composition of plays. Even at the end of the night Socrates continues hammering away at the artists, beating them into submission through tiredness if nothing else, forcing agreement to a proposition that their own professional experience shows them to be false. He gets neither drunk nor sleepy; like a machine, he carries on pitilessly with what he has been programmed to do.

65. Plato returns to the problem of Socrates and Alcibiades again in the Republic (487b-497a). Although no names are mentioned and the discussion is in general terms, it is nevertheless clear that this relationship and its failure are uppermost in his mind. See Anton (n.3 above) 286–289.

66. Cf. Gagarin (n.3 above), 36.

67. And so no procreation out of the humanly beautiful, spiritually as well as physically. Vlastos (n.50 above) correctly observes in Socrates a ‘failure of love’: ‘One feels there is a last zone of frigidity in the soul of the great erotic’ (16 f.). What I hope to have shown is that this failure is not incidental but an inevitable concomitant of the philosophic nature, arising from the philosopher’s redirection of his erōs. Only if it is inevitable is the word ‘tragedy’ appropriate.