Plato: Smp. 212e4-223a9. Alcibiades: An Eulogy of Which Socrates? That of Plato, That of Antisthenes and Xenophon or That of All Three?

Abstract

In the Symposium, there are two revelations: one is that of the woman of Mantinea, the other that of Alcibiades. The former (201d 1–212e 3) proposes a Socrates reshaped by Plato, but what Socrates does the latter (216a 6–217a 3) express? Can the praise for Socrates contained in the latter also be considered a tribute by Plato to his teacher? The opinions are divided. I looked at two scholars: Michel Narcy (2008) and Bruno Centrone (20142), whose judgments, as they are set out and argued, are irreconcilable. The contrast may be determined by a certain ambiguity in Plato’s attitude towards Alcibiades. Part One – In order to clarify this ambiguity and to overcome the contrast between the two scholars I have tried to show how in the praise of Alcibiades there overlap different portraits of Socrates that refer to the tradition, to different experiences of various Socratics and of Plato himself in Apologia, and how this differs from the others and from himself by proposing a whole new portrait of Socrates as a representative of an Eros megas daimōn, revealed by the woman of Mantinea, in contrast to an Eros megas theos. Part Two – As instead regards the accusation of hybris, the hypothesis is this: for Plato his colleagues, and especially Antisthenes and Xenophon, offering an image of Socrates founded exclusively on his way of life and not also on the erotic aspects alluding to the super-sensible world, seem to end up arousing laughter and looking like “fools” (nēpioi), like Alcibiades, who at the end of his speech, after making the audience laugh, is unmasked by Socrates for his clumsy attempt to impart a “life lesson” to Agathon, which he did not need at all, paying at his own expenses for his ignorance of the revelation through arriving late at the party.