Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

The Agathon interlude
Anton, John P
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1996; 37, 3; ProQuest
pg. 209

The Agathon Interlude 

John P. Anton 

T HE SYMPOSIUM follows a definite pattern of development. 
After setting the opening scene of the narrative, Apollo­
dorus, the narrator, recalls Aristodemus' account of the 

symposium, the event itself and the speeches given on that 
evening in 416. The speeches discussed in this paper are the last 
in the sequence, delivered by a writer of comedies,l a writer of 
tragedies,2 a philosopher, and an ambitious young statesman. 3 

I Aristophanes, who had already presented Clouds at the Dionysia of 423, 
when he was in his mid-twenties and Socrates was forty-six, is now in his 
early thirties. He must have known when he wrote Clouds that Socrates was 
no longer the physik os he caricatured. Probably the comedian meant nothing 
more than a portrait of the early Socrates when he was thinking in the 
manner of Anaxagoras. But Aristophanes needed a stereotype of a rising 
Athenian thinker, and he got it by reviving the youthful image of Socrates, 
little suspecting that some day the playful distortion would cause the older 
friend irreparable harm. That Aristophanes knew Socrates well should be evi­
dent from his presence at the gathering in honor of Protagoras at Callias' 
house in 433, when he was no more than seventeen and Socrates thirty-five, 
defending his thesis of the unity of virtues. 

2 Agathon is mentioned in the Protagoras as a meirakion. In 433, the dra­
matic date of the dialogue, he was probably around thirteen. Seventeen years 
later, at the time of the celebrated symposium, when he won his first major 
victory at the Lenaea in 416, he was close to thirty. The latest date of his birth 
must be placed ca 445. He died in 401 in Macedonia. The expressions used in 
the Symposium, vwvimcot; (198A), )lElpU1(lQV (223A), are in jest. He is described 
as a vEOt;. at 175 E. It was not unusual for a dramatic poet to win the first prize 
at his age. Euripides produced his first work at the age of twenty-eight and 
Sophocles at the age of twenty-six. On the other hand, the production of 
comedies seems to occur earlier. Eupolis appears as a writer of comedies at the 
age of seventeen, in 429, Aristophanes at the age of eighteen or nineteen (? cf 
Nub. 530, hinting at his first comedy, Daitales [now lost], which, on account 
of his youth, was produced in 427 by Kallistratos), and Menander at the age 
of twenty in 322. As Wilamowitz noted, "it is perfectly normal for a comic 
genius to produce his works sooner than a tragic poet: U. von Wilamowitz­
Moellendorff, "Ober die Wespen des Aristophanes," SBBerl 1911.1,286; see 
also K. J. Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley 1972) 13. 

3 Alcibiades (450-404) is now thirty-five. At Prot. 320A-B, Socrates remarks 
that Pericles feared lest A!cibiades-then much younger-might corrupt his 

209 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

210 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

This central part of the pattern shows Plato's masterful way of 
stringing together poetry (mainly practitioners of dramatic 
poetry), philosophy, and politics. After the encomium deliv­
ered by a late comer, the statesman, the event ends in an 
exchange that adumbrates the conciliation of poetry and philos­
ophy; the latter became the real victor. 

The Agathon interlude in the middle of the Symposium con­
sists of the following parts: the end of Aristophanes' speech, a 
brief exchange between Socrates and Agathon, the latter's en­
comium, Socrates' refutation of Agathon's definition of Eros 
followed by Phaedrus' decision to end the session of dialectic. 
At the beginning of this sequence, Socrates had departed from 
the convention of the series of epideictic and epainetic speeches 
by shifting to his mode of questioning. 4 It was an illicit move. 
Phaedrus notes that the theme of Eros, disconnected from the 
celebration of the poet's victory, is transferred to the roet him­
self. Socrates had focused attention not on the art 0 the poet 
but on his soul: a move from creation to creator. A special 
thesis is now at work. If the creator is not virtuous, it is only by 
accident that the creation is good. In fact, the literary product 
can be good only when the intention of the creator is controlled 
by wisdom and goodness. The same holds for the relation of 
the man of politics to his resultant political actions. 5 

There are two important parts in the Agathon-Socrates ex­
change: (1) Agathon's speech and what comes immediately after 
the end of Aristophanes' speech, and (2) the interlude itself, i.e., 
the dialectical exchange, the only example in a Platonic work 

younger brother, Cleinias, and decided to place him in Ariphron's house to be 
educated. The move failed, for Ariphron, after trying for six months, decided 
that Cleinias was not given to learning anything and asked him to leave. 

4 In anticipation of Diotima's questioning of Socrates as a young man 
(201 D), who soon will admit to having held views once similar to Agathon, 
Socrates' questioning is a replica of a model already familiar to him. 

5 It may be objected, as Diskin Clay has done per !itt., that the Agathon epi­
sode is more concerned with Agathon's conception of Eros than with his 
character. In view of the Socratic principle of the intimate relation between 
person and ideas, conceptions and character intertwine to meet the demand 
for coherence. Socrates' exchange with Callicles in the Gorgias has already pre­
pared us for the encounter with Agathon in the Symposium. To think and act 
by employing two different sets of principles, even if they are not in oppo­
sition, violates the rule of coherence in conduct and prevents the person from 
maintaining unity of character. I wish to thank Professor Clay for drawing 
attention to this issue and also for making useful suggestions on an earlier 
version of this paper. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 211 

that is not itself a dialogue. It may be said in anticipation that the 
delivery of Agathon's speech is deliberately placed between 
two distinct moments. The first sets the trap just after the end 
of Aristophanes' speech at 194 A-D, when Socrates asks Agathon 
about courage and shame when facing the multitude and when 
addressing a few "people like us." The second exchange directly 
follows Agathon's speech. Socrates, it seems, will not speak 
unless he has his moment of dialectic to clear the air and 
prepare the audience for what he has in mind to deliver as a 
eulogy to Eros. One wonders at this point, after what Agathon 
has said concerning the virtues of Eros, whether there is 
anything left for the last speaker to add. It is significant that 
Agathon endows Eros with all the cardinal virtues save 
eusebeia, but what he praises is a version of Eros far removed 
from the human scene. He speaks about a god. 6 

What, then, is the real function of the dialectical scene? I 
would like to put the question this way: Socrates cannot begin 
his own encomium where Agathon left off. He needs to 
establish the ambience for a new beginning. The new approach 
has to be functional. The correlative object of Eros must be 
stated explicitly. Eros, made the equivalent of desiring, must 
always be the pursuit of something, for if Eros were perfect, it 
would only have the status of a Form. Socrates must show that 
Eros is neither man nor god, but a daimon, and as Diotima told 
him at 202D, a great daimon. 7 If the daimon is to be somehow in 
us, the Aristophanic conclusion 192E, 'tOU OA-OU o~v 'tft bn8uJlt<t 
Kat ()tffi~Et QvoJla ("Eros then is a name for the desire and the 
pursui t of wholeness," 143), has to be woven into the Socratic 
view. Since Eros as desire is not the whole man, it can only be a 
part, albeit basic and special. Agathon, the poet, had gone too 
far. Socrates inserted a note of irony when referring to Aga­
thon's speech: "who could fail to be astonished at hearing the 
beauty of its words and phrases?" Agathon had made a serious 

6 In Agathon's encomium, Eros as a god does not need the virtue of eu­
sebeia. Aristophanes has correctly tied this virtue to the human need to relate 
to the gods (193D): l]J.l.rov 1tapEXOJ.l.EVCOV 1tpo<; SEQ\><; dJOt~Etav; and 1tIlV't' iivopa 
xP'h o.1taV'ta 1tapaKEA.EUEa9at EuaE~E'iv 1tpO<; 'to\><; SEOU<; (193A). 

7 When Socrates asks what power Eros possesses, she answers (202E): 
EpJ.l.TjVEUOV Kat OW1tOpElJ.l.EUOV ElEO'i<; 'tE 'ta 1tap' avElpw1tCOV Kat avSpw1tOt<; 'ta 
1tapa ElErov ("interpreting and conveying things from men to gods and things 
from gods to men" [146]). The translation here and throughout is by R. 
ALLEN, The Dialogues of Plato, II. The Symposium (New Haven 1991: here­
after' Allen'). 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

212 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

blunder. He transferred the beauty of Eros from Eros himself 
to the words and phrases of his speech. Socrates must soon 
weave his way between the Aristophanic formulation of eros as 
desire of wholeness and Agathon's view of Eros as divinity. 

A Note on the Event 

We must distinguish between the event of the symposium of 
416/415 in Athens, and the narration of the event in 401 or 402 
when Socrates was still alive. 8 Perhaps this is Plato's way to let 
the reader know that a pertinent and important witness could 
authenticate the narrative. The 'dramatic' narrator, Apollodorus 
of Phaleron,9 on account of his age alone, could not have been at 
the banquet. He heard about it from Aristodemus, who was 
there but no longer on hand in 402, when Apollodorus de­
scribed the event to a group of friends. Nor was Agathon 
present. 10 

The narrative returns to the symposium celebrating Aga­
thon's victory for tragedy (on: 't11 1tpw'tTI 'tpay<p8t~ EVtK1l<JEV, 
173A) at the Lenaea of January 416. At this time Plato was 
eleven or twelve years old. Socrates, in his ironic way, states 
that the event brought a moment of glory for Agathon, as some 
30,000 Hellenes (1tA£OV i1 'tpt<J!lUptOtC;, 175FJ were present at the 
theater of Dionysus, although the capacity of the theater could 
seat no more than 15,000. 11 In 416 Agathon is about thirty, no 

8 If the dramatic date is 402, it is probable that Agathon also was still alive. 
See Allen 4. 

9 Ap. 38B, where he offers 30 minae to free Socrates; also Phd. 117D, where 
he bursts into crying after Socrates drinks the hemlock; Xenophon (M em. 
3.2.17) refers to Apollodorus as Socrates' constant companion. 

10 Agathon had left Athens in 411, the year of Antiphon's trial: Arist. Eth. 
Eud. 1272b6. He was still at the court of Pella in 405 and probably attended 
Euripides' Bacchae in that year as a guest of King Archaelaus. Besides Euripi­
des, who wrote an A rchelaus during his stay in Pella, other illustrious guests 
were the Athenians Plato (epic poet) and Andocides (orator), the Milesians 
Melanippides (dithyrambic poet) and Timotheus (musician), and Nicoratus of 
Heracleia (epic poet). 

11 See J. Sykoutris, Plato's Symposium (Athens 1934) 21 n.l; n.S ad 17SD. 
The inflated numbers serve the two implied ironical asides: (a) Socrates calls 
the viewers KHellenes" instead of Athenians, and (b) he doubles the number 
of the audience. The expansion makes the flattery obvious but draws no 
protest from Agathon. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 213 

longer the young boy CllElpaKElOv) of the Protagoras. 12 Details 
of Agathon's career are lost in the folds of events. He probably 
died in Macedonia in 401. 

We need at this point to settle at least tentatively chronological 
issues and the ages of the symposiasts, all of whom are con­
spicuously young, except for Socrates. Phaedrus is very young; 
he was still living in 385, when he was the target of a comedy by 
Alexis and when Plato was writing or had finished writing the 
Symposium. Eryximachus, son of Socrates' friend, is at this time 
in his mid-twenties; Pausanias, just over thirty-five. 

The Agathon-Socrates Exchange 

At the end of his own speech (193 E), Aristophanes turns to 
Eryximachus and says (193D-E): "That's my speech about Eros, 
of a different kind than yours. As I begged you, don't poke fun 
at it, so that we may also hear what each of the remaining 
speakers will say-or rather, what each of the two will say: for 
only Agathon and Socrates are left" (134). Aristophanes is not 
staving off criticism but preventing "poking fun" that could 
obscure or lessen the importance of his message. Agathon, self­
confident, makes no such request at the end of his speech. 
Socrates, however, does not hestitate to make his move; instead 
of "poking fun" he engages in refutation. Yet Agathon is the 
man of the day. As victor and host, he receives at 198A the best 
applause, which suggests another victory, this time for his rhe­
toric. Agathon had said that Dionysus will decide between him 
and Socrates, and indeed the prophecy is fulfilled later with the 
coming of Alcibiades. 13 

In the sequence of the encomia the tragic poet follows the 
comic poet. Plato designs the Symposium so that Agathon's 
claim that Eros is a god will be refuted later by Socrates. 

12 Prt. 315 D-E: TtapE1l;:u8T]v'to Or au'tcp (Ttt 'ta'i~ TtAT]criov KAivat~ naucr~via~ 
't£ 0 K£paJ.l.Erov Kat J.l.E'tCx nau(Javiou VEOV 'tt E'tt J.l.ElpUKlOV, cO~ J.I.£v EY<!>J.l.at, 
KaA.6v 't£ KuyaSbv 'tl]V <pucrtv, 'tl]V 0' ouv iOEav TtUVU KaA.6~. Eoo~a uKoucrat 
ovoJ.l.a au'tcp 'AyuSrova, Kat OUK iiv SaUJ.l.u~Otl . .lt, d TtatOtKU nau(Javiou 'tuy­
XavEl roy. 

\3 When this favorite of Dionysus entered and was about to crown the 
tragic poet with the garlands he had brought, he recognized Socrates, took 
some of the garlands, and honored the beloved (213A). See H. Bacon, 
·Socrates Crowned," Virginia Quarterly Review 35 (1959) 415-30; J. Anton, 
·Some Dionysian References in the Platonic Dialogues," C] 58 (1962-63) 58. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

214 THE AGA THON INTERLUDE 

Phaedrus made a similar statement at the beginning. The refuta­
tion aptly comes after Agathon's speech, which had summar­
ized everything that could be said about Eros as god. Agathon, 
before giving his speech, turns to Socrates and says prophetical­
ly: "we will be judged on the matter of wisdom by Dionysus" 
(175E), which is indeed what eventually will happen, though 
contrary to his expectations. 

Analysis of the Exchange 

In the first brief exchange between Agathon and Socrates, at 
the end of Aristophanes' speech, there is a surprising and 
unexpected testing of the young tragedian's character. Soc­
rates presses Agathon on his sense of shame before the mul­
titude and the sensible few and their ideas, whether willfully 
misleading or honest and sincere. Socrates reminds the symposi­
asts that yesterday he was a member of the mob at the theater 
while Agathon was bold, self-confident, anything but intimi­
dated. Today, Agathon insinuates, Socrates is the intimidating in­
tellectual who might make Agathon self-conscious (194A, 134): 
"Really, Socrates, said Agathon. You surely don't believe I'm so 
full of theater that I don't even know that to a person of good 
sense, a few intelligent men are more formidable than many 
fools. ,. 

A member of yesterday's mindless multitude is present today 
as one of the intelligent few. How is it that the same person can 
be both and that so sudden a change can happen in a day's time? 
There is more to the phrase "who intimidates whom," 
suggested in Socrates' earlier remark. Aristodemus had remem­
bered the following (135): "So Socrates said: Yes, Eryximachus, 
because you yourself competed so well; but if you were where 
I now am, or rather perhaps where I'll be once Agathon also 
speaks, you'd be very afraid and quite as bewildered as I am 
now." Agathon takes this to mean that Socrates is trying to 
intimidate him (135): "You mean to cast a spell on me, Socrates, 
so that I'll be thrown into confusion by thinking my theater has 
great expectation I'll speak well." 

Socrates' praise of Agathon's fearless demeanor at the theater 
helps introduce the feeling of fear in relation to shamelessness. 
What Socrates is trying to do is to shift attention to Agathon's 
character. Agathon showed self-confidence at the theater but 
today he exhibits a different attitude; the signs indicate that he is 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 215 

indeed capable of being intimidated. As he says, today he is not 
facing yesterday's multitude, which included Socrates as well as 
tonight's fellow symposiasts, indeed a gathering of sensible 
people. 

Socrates is leading up to a case of self-refutation: Agathon is 
and is not self-confident. Whereas Socrates, who was a member 
of yesterday'S multitude and one of today's sensible few, re­
mains the same person, Agathon does not. There are two Aga­
thons; and each behaves differently, depending on what each 
addresses, the multitude or the sensible few. Agathon admits 
that he intends to behave differently today, because "a few 
intelligent men are more formidable than many fools. "14 

Socrates appreciates the admission and assures Agathon that he 
does not therefore think him boorish. But he also seizes the 
opening to expose Agathon 'one' to Agathon 'two'. The charac­
ters of the two Agathons differ significantly: one is shameless, 
the other shameful. But Socrates takes it a step further. He in­
sists that those present, because they were part of yesterday's 
multitude, are not wise, and if so, they are not intimidating, 
given Agathon's understanding of "intelligent people." Hence, 
there is no reason to be afraid of them (194c, 135): 

- I know well that if you met someone whom you believed 
wise, you'd give heed to them rather than the multitude. But 
maybe we're not they-for after all, we were also there, and 
among the multitude-but still, if you met others who are 
wise, you'd perhaps feel shame before them, if you thought 
you were perhaps doing something shameful. Do you agree? 
- You're right, he said. 
- But wouldn't feel shame before the multitude if you 
thought you were doing something shameful? 

Phaedrus, being the symposiarch, senses the dangerous turn 
and urges Agathon not to reply, reminding him that his duty is 
to present his encomium, not to engage in dialogue. 

Let us suppose for a moment that the present exchange 
between Socrates and Agathon had continued. What would 
Agathon's answer be? No matter what the reply, the self-con­
tradiction would follow and ruin the festive atmosphere once 

14 The point of calling all speakers at the party "senseless" is also pointed 
out by W. Cobb, Plato's Erotic Dialogues (Albany 1993) 68: "Socrates ... 
catches him in a mindless platitude that implies he would have no qualms 
about doing something shameful as long as it was not witnessed by anyone 
who knows better." 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

216 THE AGA THON INTERLUDE 

the host is ridiculed. But what does all this have to do with how 
the Symposium ends? Agathon the tragedian and Agathon the 
citizen are two different persons. If so, which of the two is 
worse or less trustworthy than the other? Can the art of dra­
matic poetry from the pen of a bifurcated person be good and 
true, edifying and useful? Perhaps the time has come to raise 
the issue about the symposiasts' affinity to truth and beauty and 
the role of dramatic poetry as the new undisputed educator of 
the multitude. Yet Phaedrus saved the day for Agathon and 
tragic poetry (194A, 136): 

- My dear Agathon, if you answer Socrates it will no longer 
make the slightest difference to him how anything else turns 
out there, if only he has someone to converse with, especially 
someone handsome. But though I enjoy hearing Socrates 
converse, I am necessarily concerned about the encomium of 
Eros, and I have to extract a speech from each one of you; so 
the two of you may talk this way only after rendering what is 
due to the god. 
- Why you're right, Phaedrus, and nothing prevents my 
speaking; for it will be possible to converse often with 
Socrates later. 

Thus Phaedrus, in the name of the god, stors the exchange. 
Piety demands so; but the consequence is stil the same: Aga­
thon, the host, is not embarrassed. Nor will he absolve himself 
before the symposium ends; not even later in his life. It was 
reputed that, like Alcibiades, he took part in the mutilation of 
the Herms and left Athens to escape punishment. Later he 
wen t to the court of Archelaus in Pella. IS 

15 A. Daskalakis, The Hellenism of Ancient Macedonia (Thessaloniki 1965) 
234: "Archaelaus was the best disposed towards Athens of the Macedonian 
kings, in this respect following the example of his grandfather, Alexander the 
Philhellene." Archaelaus ascended to the throne in 413, in which case we may 
surmise that Agathon arrived in Pella close to this date. We have no reliable 
information about this residence after the beginning of the move to persecute 
the perpetrators of the mutilation. Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, who lived in 
Athens during the second half of the fifth century-the Thrasymachus of 
Resp. Bk I-refers to Archelaus in his For the Larissaeans as a "barbarian," 
accusing him of wanting to subjugate Larissa and the whole of Thessaly. The 
use of "barbarian" in the speech is a bit excessive, given that Archaelaus and 
the Macedonians were as Greek as the rest of the Hellenes. Daskalakis 
explains Thrasymachus' "barbarian" as a metaphor to suggest a difference 
between advanced and backward Greeks. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 217 

The Structure of Agathon's Speech 

The speech entails two quests: what Eros is and what Eros 
does. 16 The opening insinuates a subtle criticism of the pre­
ceding speakers for addressing the effects of Eros on human 
beings and the fruits of his favors to them (194E-95A, 136): 

I wish first then to say how I must speak, and then to speak. 
For all who spoke before seem to me not to offer encomium 
to the god, but to felicitate men for the good things of which 
the god is to them cause; but of what sort he himself is who 
gave them, no one has spoken. There is one right way to praise 
anyone in anything, namely, to describe in speech the nature 
of the subject of the speech, and the nature of that of which 
he is the cause. It is right then for us to praise Eros this way 
to: first his nature, then his gifts. 

Agathon is right; he is also pious. The rreviol1s speakers failed 
to focus their attention on the identity 0 the cause. Agathon de­
serves credit, just as Socrates does, for aiming at the right target: 
to reveal in the manner of hymnic poetry (a) a god's nature and 
(b) his aretai. In this way, Agathon sets the stage for Socrates' 
speech, except that he is ignorant of the logical grounds of the 
procedure. Later, Socrates will show that the nature of Eros is 
not as Agathon claims; rather, Eros is the lover, not the be­
loved; the desiring subject, not the desirable object. Hence, the 
properties Agathon attributes to Eros are not what defines 
Eros. It will take the skills of Socrates' dialectic to get Agathon 
to admit that the emphasis must shift from the nature of Eros' 
aretai, read into him qua divinity, to what Eros is, an inter­
mediate, a daimon, in pursuit of what is needed and not yet pos­
sessed. By calling Eros a god, Agathon inadvertently commits a 
contradiction, one that invalidates his own criticism of his 
predecessors. He rejects what he seeks by confusing the nature 
of his subject. Socrates will also seek the causal origin but it will 
not be Eros; the cause is that which Eros loves, the beloved: 
Beauty as Idea. 

16 The literature on the refutation of Agathon's thesis is vast, and conunenta­
tors have repeatedly discussed Socrates' logic to drive the argument home. For 
a recent discussion see Allen 41-45. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

218 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

The Traits of Eros as God 

The tone of the speech gives Agathon an air of apparent 
superiority. In a moment of barely concealed self-flattery, Aga­
thon exclaims in the middle of his speech: "the god is a poet so 
wise that he also makes others poets." And a few lines later he 
adds: "one could not give someone else or teach another what 
one neither has nor knows" (196 E, 138). Eros has all the virtues; 
therefore Eros is the right teacher. If we take the passage liter­
ally, however, as declaring a general principle, we need to deter­
mine whether Agathon understands what he thinks he knows, 
before we can say for certain that the can also teach it. If what 
he possesses is shamelessness, a trait that now seems a long 
stride from the graciousness mentioned at 175D, then this is 
what he can teach. But perhaps the god can come to his rescue 
and save him by suddenly turning him into a wise poet. Con­
tinuing in the mode of self-reference,17 Agathon adds: "do we 
not also know in the craftsmanship of the arts that he of whom 
this god becomes teacher turns out to be notable and illustrious, 
but he whom Eros leaves untouched remains in the shade?" 
(197 A, 138). 

If being famous and illustrious are signs of having been loved 
by the god, then Agathon is certainly one of the blessed. Aga­
thon leaves no doubt that he is one of the god's works. He thus 
speaks with authority about the god. The effect reveals the 
nature of the cause. The other side, the multitude, has con­
firmed god's choice. And the speech ends in a panegyric of 
Eros. Agathon, being in the god's service, expresses gratitude 
for the favor. The speech, as Socrates says with a touch of 
obvious irony, was worthy of a Gorgias: "The speech reminded 
me of Gorgias" (198c, 140). 

Agathon claims to know the nature of this god. He is the poet 
turned theologian. 18 And here in summary is what he knows: 
Eros is the happiest and most beautiful of the gods, also the 
youngest of the gods. Eros loves the young and the talented, 
not the old and decrepid or barren. Eros is beautiful, soft, deli­
cate, supple, pliant. Agathon can claim that he has received his 

17 ]. Arieti, Interpreting Plato: The Dialogues as Drama (Savage [Md] 1991). 
18 I think we should add this to the other features of Agathon's treatment of 

the nature of Eros. The style of his speech is Gorgian, as many have shown; 
the mode of disclosure is that of the poet-priest, an old tradition that Aga­
thon follows faithfully. The poet may not be speaking for god but he speaks 
of god confidently and with the authority that tradition has established. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANION 219 

beauty and suppleness directly as a gift from Eros and that the 
model for Eros' beauty is Agathon. Eros possesses all the car­
dinal virtues: justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom­
though not, of course, eusebeia-but is still perfect. For a god, 
possession of eusebeia would be superfluous. Eros is the locus 
of the unity of the virtues. Eros is the poet, in fact the best poet, 
and in his wisdom Eros creates all living things and practical arts, 
just as he inspires all poets to create in beauty; they are the 
effects of Eros. Eros also produces in human beings peace and 
kinship, gentleness and goodwill, generosity and graciousness, 
the desire for beauty and the love of order. 

The Basis for Socrates' Refutation 

Eros, to be understood correctly, must be treated as a relative, 
a pros ti thing, always as eros of something. 19 Eryximachus had 
already spoken of the power of Eros: IlUAAOY Of 1tUOUV Mvu­
IltY EXEt ~,\)AAilPollY, also 'tily IlQlO'tllV MYUlllV EXEt (188D). If 
Eros is desiring and possesses the dynamis to pursue some­
thing, to know what Eros is requires the identity of the object 
to which it is attracted. Diotima will reveal that this object is 
Beauty, and by extension the Forms. The value of Eros lies in 
what it can do for the lover: to lead the lover from what is desir­
able in the sensible world to the desirable or beloved objects in 
the intelligible world. Though not a Form, Eros leads to the 
Forms, and though not a knower, it stirs the soul to know, and 
though not wise, it moves the soul to seek wisdom. Eros, seen 
for what it is, a relative and a disposition, should be taken out of 
the mythical dress and its nature made clear. As Eros is always 
in need, in a state of privation, desiring is a movement towards 
that which fulfills the wide range of human needs in their order 
of priority. By way of 'theology', as the gods are perfect, Eros 
must be excluded from the order of divine beings, and hence 
Eros cannot possess all those attributes Agathon had claimed, 
especially wisdom and the other virtues. Therefore, the range 
of the desirable must be carefully redrawn. In the speech within 

19 Allen (45 n.71) has correctly pointed out that this is Aristotle's original 
source for the genus of being 1tp6~ 'tl, the symbebekos translated as "relatives." 
I should like to add that eros, being a disposition, would also be a case of 
qualium. The genus relative calls for stating the correlative object of Eros, 
whereas the genus poion or poiotes, requires the identification of dispositional 
being, and hence the identity of eros could also come under this genus. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

220 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

the speech, Diotima's own disclosed to Socrates the proper 
objects on each rung of the erotic ladder that are available and 
native to the soul in 10ve. 20 The ascending order leads the as­
piring lover from beauty in a single body to the same in all 
bodies, then to the beauty in the soul and to that of laws and 
institutions, rising then to reach the beauty and order of the 
sciences and the beauty manifested in dialectic and philosophy, 
ending with the vision of knowledge of Beauty itself. 

A fundamental difference emerges at this point. Whereas Aga­
thon calls Eros a sophos, Socrates insists that Eros can only be a 
philosophos. It gradually surfaced in the course of the evening 
that at least one of the arts, dramatic poetry, had to be com­
pared with philosophy. If wisdom was what these activities pur­
sued and dispensed, the value of their benefits to the citizen as 
their recipient had to be brought out in the open. Hence, this 
parallel theme in the Symposium may be understood as anticipa­
pating the quarrel between philosophy and poetry in the 
Republic. 

It would be unfair to treat Agathon's speech mainly as a bag of 
empty words, merely an imitation of Gorgias' style. Clearly, 
Agathon is not a subscriber to Gorgias' relativism and subjec­
tivism, although he has imitated his rhetorical model. It would 
seem that Agathon is sincere, although enthusiastic, hasty, and 
conceited. What he says, however, about Eros, when viewed in 
the context of human, not divine, experience, and especially in 
the context of Socrates' (=Diotima's) speech, makes sense and 
shows a high degree of understanding of what human beings do 
as they try to be lovers at their best. Agathon is fully aware of 
what noble deeds human beings in love can do. It is his 
theorizing about Eros that is wrong-headed. 

A Comparative Note 

Agathon, the dramatic poet-artist, trained in Gorgian rhetoric, 
proves unskilled in the art of definition. Despite his valuable in­
sights, he does not know how to draw the line between the 
nature of the works of Eros. He failed to offer the functional 
definition he promised at the opening of his speech. He left 
Eros in the lofty region of rhetorical praise of a god, not human 
desire. Socrates gently elicited Agathon's admission to error 
after making him aware of the wrong way to pursue the truth 

20 For parallels and distinctions in Diotima's disclosure, see Allen 39f. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 221 

about the nature of Eros. Agathon may be flamboyant and facile 
in bestowing praise, but as an account of Eros his is far from 
empty. Hasty and conceited, in the hour of intoxication more 
with victory than wine, this gracious host of the symposium, 
after falling prey to his own craving for applause, masked his 
fallacy with the best of perfumed flowers. 

Socrates was long prepared to speak of Eros, and when the 
right occasion presented itself he gives a true account. The impli­
cation of what he shared with his friends that evening would 
not become clear until the night was almost over; but he could 
not discuss it until what he said about the nature of Eros was 
understood. If Eros is essentially a philosophos, so are the arts 
and the activities that bring us close to the corresponding 
objects of desire. 

This concurrent theme, forming as it does part of the back­
ground of the Symposium, emerges with full force in Plato's 
critique of the poets in the Republic, where it is argued that the 
poets who cannot give an account of reality are limited to 
representing appearances. The criticism there sounds harsh; all 
the flights of the poet's imagination never quite succeed in 
taking him beyond the limits of the sensible world. Like the 
painter, the dramatic poet presents his themes without 
knowledge of their reality. What, then is the truth, if any, 
contained in the poet's creation? At Resp. 60tA-B Plato has 
Socrates speak as follows: 

the poet, knowing nothing more than how to represent 
appearances, can paint in words his picture of any craftsman 
so as to impress an audience which is equally ignorant and 
judges only by the form of the expression; the inherent charm 
of metre, rhythm, and musical setting is enough to make 
them think he has discoursed admirably about generalship or 
shoemaking or any other technical subject (tr. Cornford). 

On the night of the symposium, some years before the drama­
tic date of the Republic,21 Socrates had kind words to say about 
Agathon's encomium of Eros but nothing about the tragedy 
that won him the victory. His mind had been made up about 
tragic works, but the speech of Agathon was a different matter. 
It was making a point. Agathon had correctly drawn attention 
to what was to be defined: the nature of Eros. Yet no sooner 

21 As W. K. C. Guthrie points out, the dramatic date is still a matter of con­
jecture: A History of Greek Philosophy, IV: Plato: The Man and His Dia­
logues: Earlier Period (Cambridge 1975) 437. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

222 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

did Agathon promise to deliver the result of the quest than he 
switched to embellishments: nobility, solemnness, richness, 
magnificence, and variation. Although the speech failed to find 
its target, it was received with a great round of applause, indeed, 
e6p'\)~0~. Soon Agathon was to feel the cutting edge of 
elenchus. Socrates said (198E-99A, 140f): 

It was earlier proposed, it seems, not that each of us should 
offer an encomium of Eros, but that each of us should seem 
to offer an encomium to him. That's why, I suppose, you stir 
up every kind of story and apply it to Eros, and claim he is 
of such sort and cause of such great things, so that he may 
appear as beautiful and good as possible; and clearly to those 
who do not know him-not, surely, to those who do-your 
praise is beautiful and impressive. But I really didn't know the 
manner of praise, and not knowing, I agreed with you to take 
my turn in praising him too. So, "the tongue swore, but not 
the mind." But let it go. For I don't any longer offer enco­
mium in this manner-indeed, I cannot, but I am nevertheless 
willing to tell you the truth, in my own way, if you wish, 
though not in competition with your speeches, so that I may 
not incur your laughter. 

The fusion of Agathon, the dramatic poet, and Agathon, the 
orator, was obvious to Socrates. Agathon's two sides work with 
appearances to produce what Plato's Socrates calls CRespo 
5.497D) "the many conventional notions of the mass of minding 
about what is beautiful or honorable or just" ecf esp. Resp. 
10.604E). The issue is put squarely. An informed and intelligent 
audience would not accept Agathon's account of the nature of 
Eros. Socrates implies that the speech is designed for people 
who do not understand that truth demands more than rhetori­
cal and dramatic skills. Agathon's art has no wisdom to impart 
nor does it lead to wisdom. By saying this, Socrates is scolding 
his fellow symposiasts for indulging in enthusiastic applause, 
implying that they are not the "chosen few," the oAiyol. 
Agathon has persuaded them without the benefit of truth. 
Socrates is 'willing to tell the truth'. Those who preceded him 
praised appearances. 

In Agathon's speech the force of the appeal is that of the poet, 
akin to the orator; both stir the appetitive, not the rational, part 
of the soul. Had Agathon known this, he might have come 
closer to the truth, namely that Eros is a philosophos, not a 
sophos, and indeed not a theos. But Agathon is a dramatic poet 
and can only work with the tools of his craft. Functionally, all 
he can do is persuade. But acceptance of the message of the dra-



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. A1\T1'ON 223 

matic poet is due to powerful evocation, not confirmation of its 
claim to truth. 

At this point we expect Socrates to take over and show the 
way of truth. Before taking his turn, he must clear the path. 
First he shows that the nature of Eros is that of a relative term 
requiring always a correlative: lover and beloved. As stated 
earlier, if Eros is desiring, Eros is in need of that which it does 
not have: the correlative. Without explicit reference to the 
latter, desiring becomes opaque. Agathon had at some point de­
clared that Eros is the love of beauty. If so, Eros does not 
possess, only wants to possess beauty. He is neither rich nor 
poor, neither beautiful nor ugly. By occupying an intermediate 
position, Eros lies between two contraries, good and bad, 
beautiful and ugly, knowledge and ignorance, richness and pov­
erty. Socrates insists that Eros cannot be a divinity, not even the 
youngest of the gods, as Agathon believes. Eros is only the in­
termediate power that secures the needed connection between 
the soul and its beloved ideal beings. We do not possess beauty, 
goodness, wisdom, but the gods do, and hence we can depend 
on Eros to show us the way from mortality and immortality. 
Everyone can learn from Eros, including those who handle the 
arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices, mysteries and 
charms, and all prophesy and incantation (202E -203A). 

Eros is a philosopher, a seeker of wisdom. This being the case, 
there is no way out of Agathon's difficulty except to try the 
new path of philosophical Eros. This is the way the new poet 
must choose in place of the old tradition. The time has come for 
both poetry and philosophy to listen to the rational part of the 
soul and by so doing learn how they differ in the results they 
produce. The ultimate source of inspiration is the same for both 
poet and thinker: it is the good and the beautiful and the true, 
the permanent Forms. Only thus can the new roet, like the 
true philosopher, become a noble lover, a lover 0 wisdom. 

Socrates and Dioti rna 

At the end of Agathon's speech and before relating the story 
of how Diotima set him straight, Socrates tells Agathon 
(201D-E, 144): 

It is necessary then, Agathon, as you explained, first to re­
count who Eros is and of what sort, and his works after­
wards. Now, I think I can most easily recount it as she used 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

224 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

to do in examining me. For I used to say pretty much the 
same sort of thing to her that Agathon was saying now to 
me, that Eros would be a great god, but of beautiful things; 
but she refuted me by these arguments I offered him, that 
Eros by my account would be neither beautiful nor good. 

As Socrates concedes that he too held at one time a position 
similar to Agathon's, that Eros is a beautiful and good god, what, 
we wonder, can we make of this statement? Does it have any 
autobiographical value? Was it meant to comfort Agathon and 
set him at ease after the refutation? If it contains a germ of 
autobiography, what was the original version of that view and 
when did Socrates hold it? Assuming that he once held such a 
position, this must have been, as he informs the symposiasts, 
prior to the encounter with Diotima. But, then, when did the 
two meet? To put the question differently, if Diotima is a piece 
of Platonic fiction, when did the Platonic Socrates develop the 
new thesis he is about to disclose in his speech? A few lines 
earlier, as part of the preamble, he says (201 D, 144): "But the ac­
count of Eros I once heard from a Mantinean woman, Diotima, 
who was wise in this and many other things-she once caused 
the Athenians, when they offered sacrifices before the Plague, a 
ten-year delay in the onset of the disease, and it was she who 
instructed me in the things of love.» 

Which plague? Where was Diotima at that time? Either she 
had visited Athens at the invitation of the Athenian authorities 
or a delegation visited her in Mantinea. If the latter, was Soc­
rates, one of the delegates ? Nothing is said about this in his 
speech and no hint is provided. Thucydides (2.47) says that 
many oracles (llav'tEtat) were in circulation about the war in the 
PeJoponnese and the plague that occurred ca 440. At that time 
Socrates was twenty-nine. If so, one may conjecture that he 
was still modifying and extending the theory of Forms he once 
held, the one Plato wants us to think he had developed in 450 at 
the age of seventeen, as the dramatic date of Plato's Par­
menides allows to conjecture. 22 What was his theory of the 
Forms and what were its implications for a view on Eros and 
the correlative values when Diotima induced Socrates to reflect 
on the erotic lessons? Was her teaching, aside from what Par­
menides had said, responsible for initiating a new phase in his 

22 For discussion of the dramatic date of the Parmenides, see W. K. C. 
Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, V: The Later Plato and the 
Academy (Cambridge 1978) 34f. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 225 

recasting of the original theory of the Forms? If so, then either 
Diotima or Socrates, in a mood of self-examination, corrected 
his early theory of the Forms especially by adding the 
psychology of desire and introducing the theory of contraries 
with intermediaries to strengthen the part that makes Eros 
relational. The result, to speak in mythic terms, was to think of 
Eros as a daimon. 

Even if Diotima never existed and hence did not instruct Soc­
rates, we must infer that it was ca 440, when he was twenty­
nine, that he recast the theory of the Forms, after seeing what 
was needed in order to include forms of values, contraries, and 
an account of desires and their objects. If Diotima is not an his­
torical figure and hence there is no bona fide identifiable 
teacher of Socrates, what is the alternative?23 We must resort to 
another source or accept the possibility of self-illumination. 24 In 
the absence of information about the existence of Diotima, we 
are left with the latter. Still, for self-illumination actually to 
occur two elements are needed: a certain disposition or state of 
personality, such as a 'trance state', and the stimulus to self­
enlightenment, assuming that the right disposition exists. The 
narrator says that Socrates had a tendency to fall into a state of 
trance. Aristodemus informed Apollodorus that Socrates 
experienced such a state before entering Agathon's house. 
There are other instances as well, e.g. the incidence in Potideia, 
as Alcibiades reports in the Symposium. 25 

23 Sykoutris (supra n.ll: 152-59) does not reject the possibility that Diotima 
was a real person. He notes that the encounter between Socrates and Diotima 
must be placed ca 440, when Socrates was close to thirty years old. The his­
toricity of the event aside, Socrates' performance in the Protagoras at the age 
of thirty-five requires that we imagine Socrates trying-or at least making the 
first public attempt-to apply the erotic lessons in the form of a dialectical 
refutation of a rival theory concerning the teaching of virtue. It would seem 
that by the time he talked openly about Eros in the Symposium, at the age of 
fifty-two, he had at least twenty years of experience during which to train 
himself in self-illumination and translate the erotic lessons into traits of 
personal conduct. 

24 Symp. 210E may actually provide the needed clue: o~ yap (Xv f.lEXPl EV­
'tuuOu 1tpO~ 'to. EPOl'tl1Co. 1tUlouyroYTlOn. O£OOf.l£vo~ E<P£~i1~ 't£ KUt 6pOw~ 'to. 
KUMi, 1tpO~ 'tEAo~ ijo" trov 'twv Epro'tlKWV E~ui<pv,,~ Ku'too/Hui 'tl OUUf.lU(l"tOV 
'tf)V <pUOlV KUA.6V. What the soul sees suddenly is uil'to KUO' uino f.l£6· uu'tou 
f.LOVO£lO(~ uEl5v (211B). 

25 There is a passage in Ep. 7, where Plato gives us a clue as to how self-il­
lumination happened to him at a certain stage in his life. He talks about the 
written words and why "there is not, nor could there ever be, a treatise of 
mine concerning the things I care about most deeply; for this is nothing that 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

226 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

If we accept the age of twenty-nine as the dramatic date of the 
'encounter' with Diotima, then six years later, Socrates meets 
Protagoras, and presumably is ready for the great debate about 
education and the unity of the virtues. That victory remained in 
balance at the end of the Protagoras need not surprise us. Soc­
rates was too new in the art of dialectic to score very highly, as 
we see him doing in other dialogues. He certainly had to 
overcome the difficulties of articulating the insights gained 
while in states of trance. In the Protagoras the stakes were high 
and the hour was pregnant with signs for the future. 

At the time of the Symposium, Socrates is in his mid-fifties 
and recalls events that had taken place twenty-four years 
previously, events related to his development during a period 
when learning was still under way and apprenticeship, most 
likely the teacher being his own disciple, was far from finished. 
But how does it follow, from the early view of the Forms as 
seen in the Parmenides, that the Platonic Socrates once held a 
view similar to the one Agathon presents in 415? The admission 
made in passing remains opaque. Perhaps more important is the 
question how Socrates at the age of twenty-nine began to 
ascend the ladder of Eros, if he did, for the potential was there, 
as Diotima's gesture intimates at 209E-I0A. One cannot help but 
wonder on which rung of the ladder Socrates found himself 
when he tried refute the great Protagoras by adding to the 
power of the dialectic the persuasive force of his understanding 
of Simonides' poem. That education, his own as well as that of 
his friend Hippocrates, was at stake we have no reason to 
doubt. But that poetry had to be included in the counterattack 
is a bit more than the reader can accept, unless of course one is 
prepared to admit that Socrates at the age of thirty-five was still 
exploring ways to make his method and thesis stronger. Put 
another way, Socrates could still be seen climbing at the age of 
thirty-five. If so, it would be an injustice to him to dismiss as 
fallacious the arguments in the Protagoras by assuming that he 
had full command of the higher dialectic we see in the Sym­
posium or the Republic. The problem here is not when Plato 
wrote these dialogues but rather how carefully he constructed 
the philosophical development of his celebrated drama tis 
persona. 

can be set down like other subjects of instruction. Rather it is something that 
from much conversation about the matter itself, and from a life lived together, 
suddenly, like a light kindled from a leaping flame, is born in the soul and 
thenceforth feeds on itself" (tr. W. K. C. Guthrie, ·Plato," Paideia 5 [1976J 11). 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 227 

Eros-Diotima, a special event in Socrates' life, is used in Plato 
to mark Socrates' development that goes back to the latter's 
early period of pre-Socratic theorizing, beginning with the Par­
menides, where Socrates qua dramatis persona makes his debut. 
Socrates, at the age of seventeen, conceived the Forms to be 
mainly physical constants. But when he makes his second 
dramatic appearance in the Protagoras at the age of thirty-five, 
his main concern is the unity of the virtues and whether the 
virtues can be taught. In the foreground the Forms of values 
take precedence over the Forms of natural things. How can we 
account for this theoretical refocusing from nature to culture? 
The explanation may well be due, if we believe Plato, to the 'en­
counter with Diotima', to a 'turning point' that happened 
several years before Socrates' performance at the famous 
meeting of the sophists in Callias' house in 433. But what is im­
portant in this connection is that Socrates never spoke of such 
an encounter before Agathon's symposium. 

We may now return to the two Agathons. Going back to this 
remark about the host in the Symposium, we may also entertain 
the possibility that there is not one Socrates but two, in this case 
without the self-contradiction of Agathon. In the Socratic 
speech and via Diotima's disclosure, in particular, we have 
Socrates the narrator who instructs by sharing his experience, 
and also Socrates the pupil who on the surface of the narrative is 
Diotima's disciple. The odds are more in favor of the view that 
Socrates has been the pupil of himself. He is engaged in self­
education as an on-going movement-as Aristotle would have 
it-from first to second entelechy towards autarkeia. The 
trances we hear of are perhaps major events in the process of 
self-discovery, and these in turn are the disclosures that lead to 
the revisions in the theory of the Forms. Assuming that 
Diotima is a fictional persona, even if such an historical person 
existed, it is unlikely that she was Socrates' teacher of the erotic 
mysteries. How, then, are we to explain the origin of his 
speech? The only reasonable alternative is self-illumination. 

A close study of Socrates' speech shows that the lesson in 
erotic mysteries is not carried out in the form of argument. The 
doctrine is not demonstrated. It is reported as an event in the 
course of personal history. What is disclosed is the nature of 
Eros, together with the range of its beloved objects. It seems 
that the nature of desiring had to be understood first and 
properly defined before the results of its effects could be 
assessed. The nature of Eros is primary as well as primitive. The 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

228 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

objects that Eros pursues, the values that constitute the de­
sirable, are discovered in the course of life, instituted in culture 
and confirmed through experimentation in experience and 
social interaction. Whereas the nature of Eros is non-debat­
able, its effects are open to discussion and call for justification, 
whereby the justifier must appeal to the modes of understan­
ding the pursuit of the desirable. The need to understand what 
these values are-centered on the beloved-involves justifica­
tion of the preference of one over other alternative systems of 
values. In the Symposium only the path is prescribed. 

A note must be added here: the Symposium continues the 
cultural and educational revolution Socrates began when he 
made his appearance in the Protagoras. Arete, in order to be 
taught to the citizens of the polis, cannot be left to the es­
tablished ways of the poets, be they epic, lyric, or dramatic. In 
the Protagoras, Plato had occasion to emphasize this point. 
Socrates introduced the new mode of educating the citizens of 
the future. Poetry, he argued, was obscure just as the rising 
trends of rhetoric, though not parallel, were similarly lacking in 
critical depth. If the Ion is read as a critique of the educational 
efficacy of epic poetry to inculcate arete, the Symposium 
crowns the attempt to complete the critique by raising the issue 
of the validity of the educational claims that comedy and 
tragedy, the darlings of the Athenian polis, make on behalf of 
their efficacy. 

Socrates has gradually introduced the new mode of education: 
philosophy. A new opportunity presented itself at the celebra­
tion of a poetic victory of a young, brilliant, rising star in the art 
of tragedy. In effect, the theme of education is introduced in 
the Symposium through the back door, painlessly as it were. 
The scene is set, and the actors are all there, especially the 
comedian and the tragedian. In fact the most important points 
made in the speeches are those of the dramatic poets. Further­
more, Socrates has entered the lion's den, and the chances that 
philosophy will survive the other modes seem rather slight. It is 
expected that the victory of poetry will be reconfirmed to­
gether with, and its claims to, superiority. The soul of the multi­
tude belongs to the poet. It is an old story. Homer had been for 
centuries the acknowledged educator of Hellas. 

It is not expected that philosophy will in fact replace the 
established modes of educating the citizenry; but a beginning 
had to be made, and it was. Socrates, the radical reformer 
crossed the line. Whether the new movement succeeded in 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 229 

changing the character of Hellenic culture is not the issue, but 
making a beginning in understanding the need and how to 
proceed was. In a broader sense, the target was Eros: in the 
narrower sense, the identity of the human soul and its telos, the 
heights to which it can rise. In the Symposium the debate, or 
rather the agon, is between dramatic poetry and the new way of 
assessing what poetry puts before the citizens for the improve­
ment and understanding of their souls. The philosophos that 
Diotima expects to act in the future is not so radical as to de­
mand the replacement of all the values Agathon associated with 
the god Eros. The names of the values are the same, and in 
certain respects so is the content. 26 The reliance on facile forms 
of understanding and pursuing the aretai in association with the 
deepening of their meaning needs to be eliminated. But so long 
as Eros is considered a god, none of these things can be done, 
and the poet will continue to rule supreme over the future of 
the citizens' souls. 

The theater is the teacher. But the theater, just like the courts 
of kings in older times, is not a philosophos. And now that 
Athens has developed the theater arts to an unprecedented 
height, the future of the city, its citizens and institutions, must 
not be left in the hands of the demagogues and untutored 
legislators. To do so seals the city's fate, and Socrates knows it. 
The situation can only get worse unless philosophizing enters 
the mainstream of public education to prepare the citizens to 
face their future as thinking beings. That the movement remains 
to be led by few, even by one, is another story, but it did not 
detain Plato from seeing what could be done once the message 
is communicated and shared. But Plato was only eleven years 
old when the symposium he later commemorated sometime 
after 385 took place. 

What happened that night in 416 was more than a drinking 
party. Socrates finally succeeded in extracting an agreement 
from both tragic and comic poets that the most qualified person 
to write either type of dramatic poetry is the philosophos, and if 
so the day will come when critical intelligence using its own 
combination of dialectic and myth will be trusted to clarify the 
direction that the education of the soul must follow to secure 
human fulfillment. It was almost dawn when the agreement 

26 At 20SB poetry is one of those as it was for Diotima: otae' on 1tOtll<H<; Ecr'tt 
'tt 1tOA.u· 1] yap 'tOt h: 'tOU Ill) DV'tO<; Ei<; 'to Bv iovtt OtCfloUV ai'tta 1tiicra Ecru 
1tOlllcrt<;. COOtE Kat ai. U1tO 1tucrat<; ta'i<; thvat<; i:pyacrt<Xt 1tOtf)m:t<; dcrt Kat oi. 
'tOUtrov 0111ltO'lJPYOt 1tUVtE<; 1tOtlltal. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

230 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

came, but wine and too much talking had rested heavily on the 
eyelids. "So after putting them to sleep, Socrates got up and left, 
and Aristodemus as usual followed him. He went to the 
Lyceum and bathed, passed the rest of the day as he would any 
other, and after that he went home in the evening and rested" 
(225D, 170). 

Some years later, Plato informs us, Socrates completed the 
argumentY The full story is told in the Republic, towards the 
end in the famous quarrel between poetry and philosophy. 
Socrates led the way in dismissing the peculiar and unnecessary 
bifurcation of the creative powers of the soul. Following the 
example of the teacher, the disciple also sought to keep the 
soul's power in harmony and remain a poet-philosopher or 
philosoyher-poet, depending on how the reader perceives the 
focus 0 the dialogues. As for Agathon and Aristophanes, their 
careers came to different ends: Agathon died an unhappy man, 
and of his entire production only fragments now exist; 
Aristophanes fared much better, but despite his brilliant and 
astute powers of observation, he never overcame the limits of 
comedy. The other members of the symposium survived only 
through the grace of Plato's flair for drama. The triumph of 
political waywardness came with Alcibiades' rise and fall. Nor 
did it stop with his assassination at the hands of the mortal 
enemy of Hellas, the Persians-ironically at a time when he was 
finally able to prove that there was more to his restless soul 
than the lack of genuine nobility. Neither poetry nor philoso­
phy could direct the dynamis of his Eros to meet the tasks of 
authentic political leadership. He did something unheard of to 
Eros. Legend has it that he had the image of Eros with the 

27 See n.22 supra. Because there is general agreement that Plato composed 
the Symposium before the Republic, only the dramatic date of the latter is of 
interest at this point. However uncertain that may be, it would seem 
unreasonable to accept A. E. Taylor's dramatic date of 421 (Plato, The Man 
and His Work 2 [London 1927] 263), i.e., about six years before that of the 
Symposium. An earlier dramatic date for the Republic would imply that 
many of the topics and critical themes discussed there-especially the quarrel 
between philosophy and poetry-would by 416 have been familiar to at least 
some of the symposiasts, especially the poets. It is better suited to the 
argument developed at the end of the Symposium and the criticism of poetry 
at the end of the Republic to assume that the latter work comes after the 
former in both types of dates. I am prone to think that the earliest dramatic 
date for the Republic would be 414. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 231 

lightning bolt of Zeus painted on his shield-another instance of 
hybris. 28 

The Last Exchange: How the Symposium Ends 

The exchange between Socrates, Agathon, and Aristophanes 
was renewed in the wee hours of the morning when Socrates 
had argued and persuaded the two poets that the same man can 
compose tragic as well as comic poetry, a task that under the 
circumstances had been unthinkable, given the opposition 
between the two types of dramatic poetry.29 The Symposium, 
as others have noted, ends in a paradox, leaving the reader pon­
dering an unsolved riddle: "Perhaps we shall never know just 
how Socrates managed his argument, but the character of his 
paradox is clear in its outlines" (Clay 199). 

The reader is disappointed if not perplexed by Plato's reluc­
tance to state clearly the solution of this "paradox." Instead, we 
have an anticlimatic ending: Aristodemus falls asleep and does 
not hear the argument from the beginning. Waking up later 
close to daybreak and still in a state of drowsiness, he caught 
only the tail end of the argument. Gathering from what he 
heard, he concluded that Socrates had convinced Aristophanes 
and Agathon to accept the soundness of his theory of the unity 
of the art of the tragic and comic poets. By that time the hall was 
in disarray. Other roaming celebrants found the door open and 
crashed the party. Everyone was drinking wine beyond any 
measure, ignoring the etiquette of the symposium. Eryxim­
achus and Phaedrus had already left. The other guests were 
either gone or asleep. Agathon and Aristophanes were still alert 
and drinking from a large cup while listening to Socrates. Then 
Aristophanes first fell asleep, and later, when daybreak had 
come, so did Agathon. The tragedian, symbolically enough, 
surrendered last. After quoting 223c- D Clay comments (187): 

28 Plut. Ale. 16.1: "He had a golden shield made for himself, bearing no 
ancestral device, but an Eros armed with a thunderbolt" (tr. B. Perrin, LCL). 

29 B. Knox notes: "For the fifth-century Athenian, tragedy was tragedy, and 
comedy was comedy, and never the twain should meet": «Euripidean 
Comedy," in A. Cheuse and R. Koffler, edd., The Rarer Action: Essays in 
Honor of Francis Fergusson (New Brunswick 1970) 69 (cited in D. CLAY, 
"The Tragic and the Comic Poet of the Symposium," in J. Anton and A. 
Preus, edd., Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy [Albany 1983: hereafter 
'Clay'] II 199). 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

232 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

"And after Socrates had spent his day as usual and returned 
home at nightfall to get some sleep, the dialogue between Plato 
and his reader begins. For we are brought to ask what comedy 
and tragedy have to do with one another; and what the last argu­
ment of the Symposium has to do with its central argument: the 
praise of Eros." He suggests that "the answer to our riddle lies 
submerged in the dialogue itself," provided we arrive at a 
proper description of the Symposium. He calls it (194) "a tragi­
comedy or a new form of philosophical drama which, in the 
object of its imitation, comprehends and transcends both trag­
edy and comedy." It would be difficult to disagree with Clay's 
solution if the argument were meant to address the mode of 
literary transcendence of the duality in the dramatic types of 
poetry by introducing the new genre of "philosophical drama. '" 
Perhaps the problem rather than the solution may be taken a 
step further or explored from a somewhat different perspecive. 

Transcending the duality of tragic and comic poetry may 
solve a serious problem in literary composition but it does not 
necessarily address the deeper issue of education in the polis, 
the didaskalia needed in the period of crisis when things for 
Athens were not faring well. The man that Socrates said was to 
be able to compose both tragedies and comedies, prophetically 
speaking, was to be Plato. But Plato, though he began his career 
as a tragic poet, was to write neither type of dramatic poetry, 
not because he did not know their respective canons of com­
position, but rather because his concern and commitment, after 
meeting Socrates, went beyond literature and the written word 
in general. He identified with Socrates in trying to uncover the 
true nature of Eros and use the findings to build a new educa­
tion for the polis. If in practice tragedy and comedy were miles 
apart, despite the fact that both address the public in their capa­
city of a didaskalia, as education as well as entertainment, the 
Socratic quest for a solution to the paradox cannot be limited to 
effecting a comprehensive theory of literature. We need to seek 
its ultimate concern in the comprehensive art that Eros pre­
scribes: the relation between the philosophical life and the good 
of the polis. 30 If the duality 'tragic-comic' is a dangerous division 
that affects education in political virtue, especially in view of the 
established tradition, then the time had come to pass the crown 

30 This is not to suggest that Clay has ignored the broader range of the para­
dox. In fact, he goes beyond the limited application of the solution in litera­
ture to bring up indirectly the issue of education in the context of imitating 
the new model of conduct Socrates provides. 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 233 

to a new authority. In this sense the theme of the Republic is ad­
umbrated in the Symposium. 

Whatever principles of a "unified theory of dramatic poetry," 
if we may call it that, were set forth at the end of the Sym­
posium (and already articulated in the Ion), they could not 
counter the principles embedded in what was said about Eros as 
creator, a point that Agathon had defended and Socrates did not 
challenge. What Socrates had insisted at the time of the 
<interlude' was that all arts, especially the art of life in the polis, 
must originate with Eros as philosophos. But the argument 
worked out in support of the new conception of creative Eros 
could only come at the end of the Symposium, not some­
where in the middle, and definitely not immediately after Soc­
rates' speech, although Diotima had connected Eros to poiesis. 
The celebration of the evening called for encomia, not argu­
ments. Phaedrus insisted on keeping to the epideictic, non-dia­
lectic plan, when the exchange between Socrates and Agathon 
was about to get out of hand. Bringing the paradox of poetry 
into any of the encomia would have been out of place. Nor 
could it occur after Alcibiades' encomium. 

If we admit that the solution to the paradox presupposes the 
quest of the nature of Eros, its dynamis, and the range of the 
hierarchy of values on the rungs Diotima described, it is not out 
of place to ask a different question: did Socrates, who knew the 
solution to the paradox, ever become an artist, or rather a poet? 
In the Phaedo, on the last day of his life, the Muse bid him to 
compose verses, which he said he did. He versified one of 
Aesop's fables, hardly an impressive feat. 

But there is more to the creative side of Eros than the produc­
tion of literary works, as Diotima brought to Socrates' attention 
at 20Se ff. Hence we may return to the question: how far did 
Socrates climb up on the ladder of Eros? If he became a creator, 
what was he a creator of? The answer should be that his crea­
tion, in a primary sense, was the shaping of himself and, simul­
taneously, helping to shape other souls. But to say that he 
climbed the ladder and remained permanently on the highest 
rung would be tantamount to hybris. Not unlike that of the 
man who left the Cave never to return. But he did attain a 
vision of the Forms and, in the case of the Symposium, the 
Form of Beauty. We may want to speak here of obstacles that 
interfere with the climbing, not just that of Socrates, but of all 
human beings. There is the condition of humanity, in which the 
soul is prisoner of the body, and therefore the completion of 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

234 THE AGATHON INTERLUDE 

the climb remains problematic. There is also the problem of the 
external conditions, of the institutions in political life, es­
pecially when they do not favorably support the pursuit of the 
philosophical life. But now we have gone beyond the Sym­
posium and have entered the discourse of the Republic and the 
Phaedo. 

It would be unfair to say that Socrates intended to degrade the 
poets. His concern was about the effects of their poetry and 
their lack of 'self-awareness' as artists. What the tradition had 
left unexamined was the relation between the source of poetry 
and knowledge about the nature of the soul. Socrates argued for 
a higher set of principles from which the significance of poetry, 
its subject matter and intent, can be properly understood and 
assessed. Insofar as the poets did not know the common source 
of their principles, they do not work from episteme, and hence 
their output does not qualify to be entrusted with the molding 
of public opinion and the education of the appetites, the ErtteU­
IlTl'tl.KOV. Exciting the appetites and the emotions is one thing, 
directing and taming them in light of the logistikon, quite 
another. The demand Socrates makes on both types of dramatic 
poetry is that they must learn to create from knowledge (bti­
(Haaeat 1tOt£lV), not by some divine dispensation (ed~ Iloip~). 
The point of the argument was to make clear that both modes 
of poetry address the same object, the same human soul, not 
two different souls and not two altogether different divisions of 
the same soul. Such is the basic meaning of the higher principle 
that covers the arts of tragedy and comedy. 

Plato, the dramatist-philosopher, knew about the lesson Soc­
rates was projecting at the end of the Symposium: 'tou au'tOu 
av8po<; dvat Kc.pIlc.p8iav Kat 'tpa'Yc.p8iav 1tOtElV, with which both 
poets agreed. And he put it to good use, but not by creating 
dramatic works. There is also the possibility that Plato invented 
if not sharpened the 'literary' issue, as he has done with many 
other philosophical quests, by extending and enriching the 
teachings of Socrates. It was convenient to let Socrates speak of 
the foundations of the art of composing dramatic poetry, ack­
nowledging thus the source of his own theory of literature, but 
for one thing: Plato puts the teacher in a difficult position when 
the demand is made that the author of a theory demonstrate in 
action the truth of the theory. There is no problem in the case 



Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

JOHN P. ANTON 235 

of Plato. He wrote masterpieces;31 Socrates did not; he became 
one. 

UNIVERSITY OF SOUill FLORIDA 

February, 1997 

31 Sykoutris (supra n.ll: 20) notes that "the Phaedo is the tragedy, the Sym­
posium is the comedy of the philosopher [Plato]" (my translation). Sykoutris 
follows Wilamowitz, Platon I (Berlin 1920).