Symposium - AIC

ABSTRACT
A Rejected Version of the Symposium
Menahem Luz
Phoenix son of Philip is said to have passed on a version of the Agathon's symposium described by
Apollodorus as unclear and in the end passed over in favour of that described in the main body of
Plato's Symposium (172b, 173b). Although many assume that Plato was the inventor of the
symposium genre, but Apollodorus' remarks are a prima facie admission that an earlier version of the
account existed only to be here dismissed. More recently a number of scholars (e.g., Holgar Thesleff
(1978)), for considering Plato's account of Agathon's Symposium to have been written after
Xenophon's account of Callias' Symposium that Plato rejected in his account of Apollodorus' opening.
Since Xenophon's composition has been long shown to reflect salient linguistic, stylistic and
philosophical passages in that of Plato, it was then suggested that Xenophon partially rewrote his
material (esp. cap. viii) as a reply (Gabriel Danzig (2005)). Although it is possible that Xenophon
rewrote his composition, my own contention is that we need not presuppose his chronological
priority. When we recall the structure of Plato's work we see that it opens a basically two level
structure suggesting, as I hope to show, the seams of rewriting. The main section of the Symposium is
in oratio obliqua as many previous dialogues while the opening introduction of Apollodorus is in
oratio directa. Although a handful of dialogues show this technique, the one easiest recalled is the
Theaetetus itself known to have been rewritten by Plato after its initial composition. We need only
assume that Plato initially composed the Symposium without Apollodorus' introduction or with
another one. Shortly afterward, Xenophon produced his account of Callias' Symposium riffled from
Antisthenes, Aeschines and Plato himself. Finally Plato reworked the opening of the Symposium as
he was said to have done with other dialogues all of his life, but in this case included a rejection of
Xenophon's account. Other scholars have given reasons for seeing Phoenix son Philip – the author of
the version rejected by Apollodorus – as representing Xenophon's account, but none are convincing.
My own suggestion is that Phoenix' father, Philip - both elsewhere unknown in Plato – is to be
identified with Philip the comedian in Xenophon's Symposium who appears uninvited at Callias'
house along with his child. This unnamed child should be identified with Phoenix. Although it has
been suggested that Xenophon's rewrote cap. viii of his compostion as a reply to Phaedrus' speech in
Plato's work, we find in Xenophon a much deeper misconstruction of Socratic eros emerging from his
piecemeal choice of sources on this issue (Aeschines, Antisthenes and of course Plato).