Symposium - AIC

Revisiting the Symposium:
the paradoxical eroticism of Plato and Lucian
Ruby Blondell - Sandra Boehringer
The purpose of this paper is to provide a new perspective on Plato's Symposium by viewing it through
the lens of a humorous and paradoxical reading supplied by a short dialogue by Lucian. Lucian was a
prolific second century CE rhetorician and satirist whose native tongue was Syriac but who wrote in
Greek. His numerous works include a set of fifteen short farces known as the Dialogues of the
Courtesans, which seem to offer us a kind of survey of character-types from the world of commercial
sex in the Athens of Plato's day. Lucian openly acknowledges the philosophical roots of dialogue
form, thus priming his audience to detect Platonic resonances. Because of their subject-matter,
however, which seems closer to comedy, scholars have not viewed these particular dialogues through
the lens of Platonic influence.
In this paper we shall argue that this exclusion is unwarranted. Not only was Plato himself a
master of serious play, but the subject matter of the Dialogues of the Courtesans gives them an
immediate point of contact with the philosopher's interest in erotic themes, his dramatization of erotic
relationships, and his eroticizing of philosophical conversation. We shall focus specifically on
Dialogues of the Courtesans 5, in an effort to show that Plato--and especially the Symposium--is
fundamental to a proper understanding of this particular work. Conversely, we believe that Lucian's
parody allows us to see aspects of Plato's erotic theory more clearly.
Dialogue 5 is a short quasi-Socratic work, which opens with an inquiry about a sexual relationship. A
courtesan named Clonarium addresses her friend, the courtesan Leaena. Using diction that evokes the
ambiguities of philosophical eros in Plato, she says she has heard that Megilla, a wealthy woman from
Lesbos, is "in love with" Leaena (eran) and they are "having intercourse" (suneinai), doing together "I
don't know what". Baffled, she subjects Leaena to a series of questions, and the latter ends up
describing for her a remarkably erotic evening that she spent with Megilla and another rich foreign
woman, the Corinthian Demonassa.
It all started with a party of a very unorthodox kind--an all-female drinking party, complete
with the musical and sexual entertainment typical of a male symposion. Leaena was invited as a
musician, but after she finished playing, when it had grown late and the two foreigners were drunk,
Megilla proposed that she spend the night with them. We are then treated to a description of sexual
activity that stands apart from all other ancient erotic texts for its detail and specificity, its enthusiastic
and multifacted eroticism, the involvement of three participants instead of two, and (most strikingly)
the fact that they are all women.
When the erotic and narrative tension is at its height, something unexpected intervenes. In the
heat of passion, Megilla removes her (previously imperceptible) wig, revealing a shaved head like that
of a male athlete. She thereupon declares herself a handsome youth (kalos neaniskos), demands to be
called Megillus, and announces that she "has married" Demonassa, who is her "wife". This startling
announcement leads to a discussion of the paradox of Megilla's identity.
Leaena, who reports the conversation to Clonarium, adopts the "Socratic" role of questioner,
offering a sequence of hypothetical explanations for the mystery that confronts her. First she
hypothesizes that Megilla is really a man. But to confirm this theory she wants to know two more
things. One of her questions is about the body--does Megilla have the "manly thing" that men have (to
andreion)?--and the other is about behavior--does she do to Demonassa what men do? Megilla
responds negatively to the first question, and affirmatively to the second, leaving the confusion
unresolved (how can a woman "do what men do" without "having what men have" to do it with?). For
her next hypothesis Leaena suggests that Megilla has bodily attributes of both sexes, like a
hermaphrodite. When the object of her inquiry replies in the negative, Leaena speculates that Megilla
was transformed by a divinity, like Teiresias, who "became a man after being a woman". When
Megilla denies this too, the women start debating what it is that makes a man a man. For Leaena, it is
the male sexual organ, but for Megilla it is "mind" (gnomê) and "desire" (epithumia). When Leaena
wonders whether this is "enough", Megilla assures her that she does not need the male organ because
she has "something instead".
With this exchange we leave the embedded dialogue and return to the narrative frame. Leaena
describes--briefly but unambiguously--sexual intercourse between herself and Megilla. She embraced
Megilla "as if she [Megilla] were a man" and Megilla went at it vigorously with evident pleasure. Her
audience--Clonarium (and of course ourselves)--wants to know exactly what Megilla did, and how,