Symposium

The opening section frames the speeches as told secondhand by Apollodorus, which was common in traditions in which stories and knowledge were passed orally, rather than in writing. From the outset, readers are aware that the events are twice filtered, first through the memory of Aristodemus and second through the memory of Apollodorus. A great deal of time has passed since the events of the symposium as well, creating an even greater distance between the teller and the events as they occurred. The importance of memory plays on the relationship between Love and immortality that Socrates explores in his speech and shapes the context and themes of the dialogue.

The opening section introduces the theme of The Nature of Love and the motif of the Mystery Cult. Socrates will, at the end of the dialogue, assert that Love is the best partner for humans in the quest for immortality, and mystery cults presume that it is important to remember and relive the past through ritual reenactments repeated annually. In Plato’s work, the reenactment is not an event from the life of the god or hero who is being worshipped but the continuation of dialogue, represented by Socrates, the personification of philosophy.

By emphasizing that neither his nor Aristodemus’s recalling of events is infallible, Apollodorus draws attention to a third central theme, The Pervasiveness of Dualities. The two storytellers, Apollodorus and Aristodemus, both remember and do not remember. Thus, whatever readers believe they know about the speeches and events at the symposium must be set against the unknowability that Apollodorus openly acknowledges. This setup implies that philosophy never has all the answers and that the search for knowledge is a never-ending quest.

Given that the Symposium is believed to have been composed around 385 BCE, both Apollodorus’s conversation with his friends and the symposium he recounts would have taken place in the past. Scholars have proposed 416 BCE as the supposed date of the symposium, given the occasion of Agathon’s victory at the festival. In 415 BCE, Athens launched an ill-advised expedition, of which Alcibiades had been a strong supporter, to bring Sicily under its control, with disastrous consequences. In 399 BCE, Athens executed Socrates. These two events had profound and long-lasting consequences on the city. Thus, 416 BCE is the latest the (fictional) symposium could have occurred, given the events that followed, which would have made it impossible.

The failed campaign to Sicily eventually caused Athens to lose its war with neighboring Sparta, which led to the loss of Athens’s empire and, temporarily, its democracy. Though it retained its cultural prestige, Athens never recovered political power and influence. Both events laid bare that well-constructed and attractive arguments could convince the foolish to support terrible ideas. Hence the importance of cultivating virtue— philosophy means “love of wisdom” in Greek—in the youth of Athens, who would grow up to run the city’s direct democracy. Thus, the introduction introduces the fourth theme, The Education of the Youth of Athens. The symposium is believed to be fictional, bringing together historical figures associated with classical Athens—including the physician Eryximachus, the comic playwright Aristophanes, the tragic playwright Agathon, the controversial general Alcibiades, and Socrates, the philosopher par excellence—to discuss issues of utmost concern to the citizens of Athens.