Symposium - AIC

Olga Alieva
characteristic of the sophistic writings. Lysias mentions moral perfection among the reasons to yield
to the non-lover. 10
If we give a closer look to the extant specimens of sophistic oratory, we’ll note that though Eros and
beauty (both physical and literary) do occupy an exceptional place here, 11 nothing is said concerning
their “moral” influence whereas both in the Symposium and in the Phaedrus it is this aspect that
comes to the fore. In Isocrates we even find the motif of voluntary slavery for the sake of beauty, 12 but
for him, this slavery requires no justification like moral perfection. Even for Gorgias it would be farfetched
to claim that Helen has become “better” due to her passion for Paris: as playful as an
argument might be, it should nonetheless remain within the domain of εἰκός.
But the problem is deeper than that: technical παιδεία of the sophists is absolutely unconcerned with
erotic disposition of the person being converted. His χάρις is of no interest to the teacher. 13 On the
contrary, in the earliest testimonies on Socrates his paideia is so to say sexually connoted. Thus, in
Aristophanes’ Clouds, Socrates is presented on the one hand as the cheerleader of the sophistic
movement, 14 and on the other hand as a sexually licentious person. 15 Far from being historically
reliable, this image testifies to the effect that Socratic education was understood “in terms of eros” as
late as in 423 BC. 16
Polycrates might have developped some of the motifs present in Aristophanes. After Polycrates’
accusation, 17 there were attempts to reconsider the Socratic eros (“corruption”) in a more positive
way. It is at this point when eros and moral protreptic become associated: it would be pointless to look
for something similar in non-Socratic literature. That is why I am inclined to think that Pausanias’
speech is not a specimen of some generalized “sophistic” reasoning, 18 but a response to one particular
sophist, 19 Antisthenes.
10 Phaedr. 233a4−5: “And then, too, it will be better for your character (βελτίονί σοι προσήκει γενέσθαι) to yield to me than
to a lover” (hereinafter Fowler’s transl.). Cfr. note 545.
11 See, e.g., Gorg. Helen. 11. 110−111: “If, (being) a god, (love has) the divine power of the gods, how could a lesser being
reject and refuse it?” (transl. by G. Kennedy in Sprague, op. cit., 30 ff). According to Gorias, the power of eros is that of
“impression”: “the sight engraves upon the mind images of things which have been seen” (εἰκόνας τῶν ὁρωµένων
πραγµάτων ἡ ὄψις ἐνέγραψεν ἐν τῶι φρονήµατι). Εros is therefore compulsory (cfr. 11. 125: ἔρωτος ἀνάγκαις), just like
λόγος is, — one can hardly resist it; still, nothing is said concerning their “moral” influence. Isocrates also dealt extensively
with the exceptional power (54.5: δύναµιν; 55. 6: ῥώµην) of beauty in his Helen, where he claims that “beauty is of all things
the most venerated, the most precious, and the most divine.”
12 Isocr. Helen. 57: “we submit more willingly to be the slaves of such than to rule all others, and we are more grateful to
them when they impose many tasks upon us than to those who demand nothing at all” (ἥδιον δουλεύοµεν τοῖς τοιούτοις ἢ
τῶν ἄλλων ἄρχοµεν…) Transl. by G. Norlin.
13 Gaiser tries to overcome this difficulty by pointing to Ps.-Demosthenes’ Erotikos: “Der ἐραστής empfiehlt seinem
Liebling eine sophistische Ausbildung, der er selbst nicht zu leisten vermag” (op. cit., 69). “Eine solche äußerliche
Verquickung der sophistisch-paideutischen und der erotisch erotisch-paideutischen Werbung in der Form des protreptischen
Logos Erotikos ist nun aber auch für die Zeit der Sophisten vor dem Aufkommen der sokratischen Literatur zu vermuten”,
he argues. However, this is not convincing for the writing in question is a later one (presumably, 350 th BC) and is most likely
influenced by the Socratic literature. On Ps.-Demosthenes, see: Blass, F., Die Attische Beredsamkeit III. 1: Demosthenes,
Leipzig, 1893, 406 ff.; Wendland, P., Anaximenes von Lampsakos: Studien zur ältesten Geschichte der Rhetorik, Berlin,
1905, 71 ff.
14 See: Shichalin, Y., “Was the image of Socrates–Pythagorean Plato’s invention?”, in the Socrates and the Socratic
Dialogue, ed. Ch. Moore et al. (in print). Shichalin observes that Aristophanes’ Socrates worshipes the Clouds as the gods of
the sophists’ (Nub. 331: Σω. οὐ γὰρ µὰ Δί' οἶσθ' ὁτιὴ πλείστους αὗται βόσκουσι σοφιστάς), whereas the Clouds consider
Socrates to be inferior only to Prodicus (Nub. 360-361: οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἄλλῳ γ' ὑπακούσαιµεν τῶν νῦν µετεωροσοφιστῶν // πλὴν
ἢ Προδίκῳ); the graduate of Socrates’ school is supposed to become a sophist (Nub. 1111: ἀµέλει, κοµιεῖ τοῦτον σοφιστὴν
δεξιόν). Note that Aristophanes’ Socrates is engaged in typically sophistic activity: linguistic contrivances, making the just
logos unjust etc.
15 The Just Logos claims that Socrates’ παιδεία will fill the young boy “with the lewdness of Antimachus” (1022:
καταπυγοσύνης; cfr. 909: καταπύγων εἶ κἀναίσχυντος) and eventually will make him εὐρύπρωκτος (1085). Dover maintains
that these terms were associated with passive homosexualism. See: Dover, K.J., Greek Homosexuality, Cambridge, Mass.,
1989, 141.
16 I don’t think that what we find in Aristophanes is more than an obsentity, a rude joke which is not supposed to be taken
literally (neither is contemporary abusive language!). Nevertheless, it doesn’t enable to maintain that “no one before
Aeschines proposed to understand the protreptic and educational influence of Socrates in terms of eros” (Kahn, Ch.,
“Aeschines on Socratic Eros”, 93). A useful survey of Aristophanes’ attitude to eros (as connected with sophistry) may be
found in: Rosen, S., Plato’s Symposium, New Haven, 1968, 120 ff.
17 In Polycrates, Socrates’ corrupting influence was illustrated with the example of Alcibiades. Isocrates witnesses in his
Busiris that this was a novelty, for before Polycrates no one heard of Alcibiades as a student of Socrates. Isocr. Bus. 5.9−13.
Livingstone, N., A Commentary on Isocrates’ Busiris, Leiden; Boston, 2001, 38.
18 Rosen notes that Pausanias’ “sexual inversion” is “assisted by the teaching of the Sophists” (op.cit., 86). It is agreed that
Pausanias was a pupil of Prodicus; see: Nails, D., The People of Plato: a Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics,
Indianapolis, 2002, 222; cfr. Hunter, R., Plato’s Symposium, Oxford, 2004, 43.
19 We know that Antisthenes edorsed some key sophistic attitudes, for instance, τὴν ἀρετὴν διδακτὴν εἶναι (SSR V A 99 =
DL VI 105, see note 34 below), and studied with Gorgias. He is one of the “sophists” Isocrates addresses in his In sophistas.
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