Symposium - AIC

Phaedrus and the sophistic competition of beautiful speech
Noburu Notomi
In Plato’s Symposium, a series of speeches in praise of Eros are introduced as customary
entertainment at a symposium with reference to the sophistic activity of encomium. The five speakers
before Socrates predominantly depend on experts’ or sophists’ knowledge, and respond to each other.
It is against these sophistic modes of speech that Socrates forwards his own speech. I will clarify this
sophistic feature of the earlier speeches in contrast with that of Socrates in contrast with that of
Socrates by putting special focus on Phaedrus, the first speaker and original proposer of this theme.
The dialogue is concerned with “wisdom” (σοφία), 1 and its relation to “philosophy” (φιλοσοφία) and
“sophistry”.
1. Speech competition over wisdom
In the symposium celebrating the first victory of Agathon, the participants agree to enjoy
conversation, rather than heavy drink or music. They choose “encomium to Eros” for the topic of
conversation. While this topic is proposed by Eryximachus at the party, the original idea comes from
Phaedrus. Eryximachus explains that Phaedrus insisted each time that Eros should be praised, for he
complained that this god alone has not been bestowed proper honour differently from other gods
(177a-d). He tried to prove this claim with reference to poets and sophists: whereas the past poets
dedicated hymns and eulogies to the other gods, no poet has made an encomium to Eros. Then, he
refers to the sophists, as follows.
[Plato, Symposium 177b-c]
Or again, if you like, consider the case of the sophists, I mean the respectable ones (τοὺς χρηστοὺς
σοφιστάς). Isn’t it terrible that they write prose panegyrics of Heracles and others, as the excellent
Prodicus did – in fact, that isn’t so amazing, but I have actually come across a book by a clever man in
which salt was the subject of amazing praise for its usefulness (πρὸς ὠφελίαν), and you’ll see many
other things of that sort given encomia. (trans. C. J. Rowe)
His first reference is to Prodicus’ famous work, The Choice of Heracles, 2 in which he
encourages young people to choose, as Heracles did, a life of virtue and labor, instead of that of vice
and pleasure. Phaedrus takes this moralist story as a kind of encomium to the hero (half-god). Next,
the “clever man” mentioned here and one who praises “bumble-bees and salt and the like” (Isocrates,
Helen 12) are supposed to be Polycrates. 3 He is said to have produced encomia to such trifles as
pebbles and mice, and to such notorious heroes as Clytemnestra and Paris. 4 Thus, it is true that the
sophists produce speeches in praise of gods and heroes, but they are nothing but playfulness
(παίγνιον), as Gorgias says at the end of his Encomium of Helen (21), and as Agathon emphasizes in
his own speech by calling it “play” (παιδιά, 197e).
On the other hand, we should remember that Prodicus advances the rationalistic view that
useful things (τὰ ὠφελοῦντα) and the men who designed them were regarded as gods. 5 He is said to
have related Demeter to bread, Dionysus to wine, Poseidon to water and Hephaestus to fire. For this
idea of the gods, he is later regarded as an atheist. 6 In this respect, Phaedrus’ reference to the sophists
implies departure from traditional religion, notwithstanding his apparently pious proposal of
encomium to the god.
It is also interesting to note that Gorgias is not mentioned here as the author of the famous
Encomium of Helen. This work may not have been written before 416 BC (the date of Agathon’s
party); 7 however, it seems possible that Phaedrus deliberately ignores it because it is too paradoxical
1 For example, Bury (1932 2 ), xix, says that “one main motive of the dialogue as a whole is to exhibit the σοφία of Socrates,
his intellectual as well as moral supremacy”.
2 DK 84 B2 (Xenophon, Memorabilia II 1, 21-34).
3 This is assumed by Sauppe, Blass, Jebb, Hug, Bury, Dover, and Rowe. For the relation between the two texts, see Bury
(1932 2 ), xx-xxi; cf. Radermacher (1951), B XXI 9. Bury introduces Antisthenes as another candidate.
4 He wrote The Apology of Busiris, a monstrous king of Egypt, and also published a pamphlet entitled The Accusation of
Socrates, around 393BC.
5 Cf. DK 84 B5 (Sextus Empiricus, Math. 9.18, cf. 9.51–52).
6 Cf. Notomi (2010).
7 Gorgias may have responded to Eupirides’ Trojan Women, produced in 415 BC, since there are many similarities between
the two works. If Euripides responded to Gorgias, his work may have been written around 416 BC.