Symposium - AIC

Gabriel Danzig
(185) Following Bury, he sees the speech as illustrating an interest in mythical allusions and
quotations. 8 But in fact Phaedrus’ speech appears to be highly self-referential.
We know about Phaedrus from several dialogues. Born about 444, he is a very young man in
Protagoras, which is set in 433-2. 9 Evidently interested in intellectual pursuits, he is already
associating with Eryximachos. In Phaedrus he seems to be a slightly older young man (the dramatic
date is uncertain), fascinated by erotikoi logoi. He enjoys hearing speeches in which lovers attempt to
persuade beautiful young men to accept their advances for paradoxical reasons. He appears to be a
popular young man, for we find Socrates following him around and competing jealously with other
offstage intellectuals for his admiration. Although he is not explicitly said to be beautiful, he must
have at least some of the bloom of youth that is necessary for service as an attraction for Socrates
(Symp. 210c1). In one way, the arguments in Phaedrus seem to imply that he is indeed good looking:
Socrates’ explanation of the attractive power of beauty (249e-252c) provides a reflexive explanation
of his pursuit of Phaedrus only on this assumption (see also Diogenes Laertius 3.29).
In Symposium, set in 416 when he would be almost thirty years old, Phaedrus shows a similar
interest in the things that lovers do for their beloveds, especially suicides. In more than one way he is
comparable to Critobulus in Xenophon’s Symposium who describes at length the services he receives
by virtue of his beauty and the desire this inspires in others (4.10-18). Like Critobulus, Phaedrus
believes that love can contribute to military victory, but in arguing for this case, he goes beyond
Critobulus’ relatively mild comments to suggest sexual relations between the soldiers. 10
How acceptable was Phaedrus’ fascination with eroticism in ancient Athens? Despite the
relative openness of the Greeks concerning erotic subjects, it was not at all common to speak in praise
of eros. Phaedrus has complained to Eryximachos that no one, neither poets nor sophists, has ever
done it before, or rather that no one has dared to do it before (177c: tetolmekenai). 11 This language,
which he also uses in describing the heroism of Achilles (179e) and in contrasting it with the less
impressive behavior of Orpheus (179d), suggests that praising eros requires daring or courage, and
hence that eros was not generally thought to be worthy of praise. Aristophanes also testifies to the
general neglect of this deity (189c). The speakers seem embarrassed to even raise the topic: Phaedrus
does not suggest it openly himself, but turns the task over to Eryximachos, and Eryximachos in turn
makes it clear that the idea is not his own. Hostile attitudes towards pederastic couples are reflected
throughout Pausanias’ speech, and the fact that Socrates merits praise for abstaining from sexual
relations with Alcibiades also shows the low esteem in which they were held. 12
This attitude is not difficult to understand: the Greeks before Plato viewed love as a kind of
mental disease that causes personal and communal disaster. 13 It was responsible in Homer and
Herodotus for catastrophic wars, and in Sophocles and Euripides for suicides and murders. Although a
symposium was a natural place for words of love, there is a difference between giving expression to
the effects of a disease by expressing one’s desire, as in much Greek erotic poetry, and actually
praising the disease while sober. In requesting speeches in praise of eros, Phaedrus is demanding
legitimacy for a subject of great personal interest to him. He wishes his obsession with love to brand
him not as a victim of a mental disease, but as an admirable servant of an important god.
There is a further motive here. Phaedrus is not only a partisan of a disreputable god, he is also
himself an attractive eromenos. 14 As is well known, the passive member of a homosexual relationship
8 R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge, 1932) xxiv-xxvi); R. Rutherford, The Art of Plato (London, 1995) 190;
R. Hunter, Plato’s Symposium (Oxford, 2004) 38-42.
9 See D. Nails, People of Plato (Indianapolis, 1992) 233-4.
10 This is one of the chief arguments for the priority of at least this section of Xenophon’s Symposium: it is hard to imagine
Xenophon copying from Plato and attributing to Critobulus a mild version of a suggestion that he evidently finds so
objectionable (see 8.33-4).
11 Phaedrus himself seems embarrassed to raise his suggestion in public and has apparently asked Eryximachos to do so on
his behalf; and Eryximachos, while willing to raise the suggestion, does not take responsibility for it, but mentions its real
author. The fact that this subject was somewhat off-limits by the fourth century may also explain the many-layered literary
frame and the intense curiosity that is evoked in the opening conversation.
12 The off-bounds character of erotic matters is also reflected in the secretive way that Phaedrus treats the speech of Lysias
in Phaedrus (228d-e). This may also explain the great curiosity that the subject evidently arouses at the time of the telling of
Symposium (172a-173d). T. K. Hubbard has suggested that attitudes towards homosexuality underwent a change in the
middle and late fifth century (“Pederasty and Democracy: The Marginalization of a Social Practice,” in T. K. Hubbard, ed.,
Greek Love Reconsidered, New York, 2000, 1-11. If so, the elaborate chain of transmission of the contents of Symposium
may be designed to reflect a memory of a time when pederasty was more widely favored.
13 Although it needs to be used with caution, the most comprehensive treatment of this point is Bruce S. Thornton, Eros: The
Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality (Boulder, Colorado, 1997). This attitude did not change quickly: despite Plato’s efforts to
make eros into a respectable subject, Aristotle barely mentions it in his own vast ethical writings.
14 Although typically the eromenos was a young man without a beard, in Plato’s Symposium this role is played by men who
would have been about the age of thirty, such as Agathon and Alcibiades. It is not clear to me how much we are meant to
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