The Symposium Themes

In the Symposium, the philosopher Plato’s dialogue set in Athens in the fifth century B.C., a man named Apollodorus describes a dinner party to an unnamed friend, who’s eager to hear what was discussed by famed the teacher Socrates and the other guests about love. Though Apollodorus wasn’t there himself, he tells the story based on the reports of a friend, Aristodemus, who accompanied Socrates to the dinner party. During the party…

The symposium, or ritual banquet, at Agathon’s house is a very intentionally male space. Symposia would often include flute-girls (courtesans who provided entertainment and often flirted with guests), but after the men settle the question of how much the guests should drink that night, Eryximachus proposes that they should “send away the flute-girl who’s just come in, and let her play for herself, or for the women in their part of the house, if…

One of the Symposium’s most interesting features is the fact that earthly indulgence—a drinking party characterized by erotic overtones—provides the setting for philosophical contemplation. But embedded in the very structure of Plato’s dialogue is a gradual progression from more worldly conceptions of love to more exalted ones—a progression that’s echoed by Diotima’s higher mysteries at the end of Socrates’s speech, when she describes a ladder of progress to immortality. By structuring the…