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The Ages of Socrates in Plato's Symposium

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The Ages of Socrates in Plato's Symposium MARGALIT FINKELBERG | 59 The Ages of Socrates in Plato’s Symposium Margalit Finkelberg Tel Aviv University [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1957-9094 ABSTRACT Plato’s Symposium has no less than three dramatic dates: its narrative frame is placed in 401 BCE; Agathon’s dinner party is envisaged as having occurred in 416; finally, Plato makes Socrates meet Diotima in 440 BCE. I will argue that the multi-level chronology of the Symposium should be approached along the lines of Socrates’ intellectual history as placed against the background of Greek ideas of age classes (also exploited in the Republic). As a result, the Symposium functions as a retrospective of Socrates’ life, which uses the traditional concept of ages of man to create a paradigm of philosophical life. https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_21_4 60 | The Ages of Socrates in Plato’s Symposium Nowhere else in his dialogues does Plato years before the great plague, which firmly pay as much attention to chronological detail points to 440 BCE. This means that at the mo- as in the Symposium. The dialogue exhibits a ment of his encounter with Diotima Socrates string of carefully dated events which stretches was approaching the age of thirty. far beyond the chronological framework sugges- In everything concerning the traditional ted by its mult-level narrative structure. Each perception of age groups, arriving at the age of of these events leads the reader further into the thirty was considered a milestone of the utmost past: Socrates’ associate Apollodorus narraters a importance.2 At thirty, the Athenians became story he heard from another Socrates’ associate, eligible for the Council and other offices, in- Aristodemus, about a dinner party in the house cluding military ones.3 When the twenty-nine- of the poet Agathon that took place years ago; -year-old Xenophon takes the decision to as- Aristodemus’ account in turn includes two em- sume leadership of the contingent of his dead bedded narratives relating to even more remote friend Proxenus, he is acutely aware that he has past, namely, Alcibiades’ reminiscences of Socra- not yet reached the appropriate age. “From what tes’ military exploits and Socrates’ account of his state am I expecting the general to come who is meetings with Diotima. As a result, the dialogue to perform these duties?” he asks himself. “And has several dramatic dates relating to different what age must I myself wait to attain? For surely periods in Socrates’ life. In what follows, I will I shall never be any older, if this day I give argue that this assemblage of chronological myself up to the enemy.”4 Thirty was also the data is far from being accidental and that in the age of marriage sanctioned by tradition at least Symposium Plato uses the set of traditional ideas since the time of Solon. Compare Solon’s fifth concerning age classes in order to shape Socrates’ hebdomad (from twenty-eight to thirty-five): life story as a paradigm of philosophical life. The fifth is time a man should think of being wed and look for sons to carry on 1. REACHING MATURITY his line.5 Socrates was born in 469 BCE. When he Similarly, at the age of thirty the Spartans meets Diotima, he is still a young man. gained not only full rights to hold office and engage in economic activity but also the right Symp. 201d1-5 And now… I shall repeat to produce legitimate offspring.6 the account of Eros which I heard from This supplies a broader cultural context to Diotima of Mantinea, a woman wise in those sections of the Republic and the Laws this and in many other kinds of know- that deal with the legislation relating to mar- ledge, who in the days of old, when the riage and procreation. The discussion of the Athenians offered sacrifice before the co- age appropriate for marriage in Books 4 and 6 ming of the plague, delayed the desease of the Laws is especially pertinent: by ten years.1 Laws 721a9-b2 Then let me first give the The Symposium is our only source for the law of marriage in a simple form; it may historical episode evoked in this passage (more run as follows: - A man shall marry be- below). Plato dates it as having taken place ten tween the ages of thirty and thirty-five… MARGALIT FINKELBERG | 61 Laws 785b2-6 The limit of marrigeable boundless love of wisdom (philosophia), ages for a woman shall be from sixteen until … at last the vision is revealed to to twenty years at the longest, for a man, him of some such single science, which is from thirty to thirty-five years; and let a the science of this kind of beauty.10 woman hold office at forty, and a man at thirty years.7 This is the the way shown to Socrates by Diotima, his instructor in the matters of Love Significantly, this late dialogue not only (ta erōtika).11 resumes the association between procreation As far as I can see, little attention has been and immortality which plays such a prominent paid thus far to the fact that Diotima’s trai- role in Diotima’s speech of the Symposium but ning of Socrates as presented in the Sympo- also treats it in closely similar terms.8 In the sium bears a close resemblance to the program Symposium, however, the biological procreation of the training of the Guardians introduced serves only as a starting point for developing in Book 7 of the Republic.12 In the Republic, the concept of a spiritual one:9 the unspecified ‘sciences’ of the Symposium materialize as a succession of disciplines that Symp. 208e1–209a4 Those who are preg- includes arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and nant in the body, betake themselves to harmonics; the highest level of study is repre- women and beget children - this is the sented by dialectic;13 it emerges at the point at character of their love; their offspring, as which the Symposium has “some such single they hope, will preserve their memory science, which is the science of this kind of and giving them the blessedness and im- beauty” (Resp. 534e2-535a, Symp. 210e2-6 and mortality which they desire in the futu- above, with n. 10). re. But those who are pregnant in their The Republic is quite explicit as to the age at souls rather than in their bodies (for there which the Guardians’ training is supposed to certainly are such people) conceive that start. Not surprisingly, this is the age of thirty: which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these? – good Resp. 537c6-d7 The comprehensive mind sense (phronēsin) and the other virtues. is always the dialectical. …and those who have most of this comprehension, and The lower levels of this kind of procreation who are most steadfast in their learning, relate to such spheres of human activity as poe- and in their military and other appointed try and legislation (209c4-e4); the higher ones duties, when they have arrived at the age relate to sciences and, eventually, to what Plato of thirty have to be chosen by you out of sees as the greatest science of all: the select class, and elevated to higher honor; and you have to prove them by the Symp. 210c6-7 And after laws and ins- help of dialectic, in order to learn which titutions he will go on to the sciences of them is able to give up the use of sight (epistēmai), that he may see their beauty… and the other senses, and in c omp a ny (d3-e1) …drawing towards and contem- with truth to attain absolute being.14 plating the vast sea of beauty, he will give birth to many and noble arguments in a The study of dialectic should last five years: 62 | The Ages of Socrates in Plato’s Symposium Resp. 539d8-e2 Suppose, I said, the stu- the age of thirty-five, they have completed their dy of dialectic (logoi) to take the place training in dialectic: of gymnastics and to be continued dili- gently and earnestly and exclusively for Resp. 539e2-540a4 At the end of the twice the number of years which were time they must be sent down again into passed in bodily exercise — will that the cave and compelled to hold any mi- be enough? –Would you say six or four litary or other office which young men years? he asked. –Say five years, I replied. are qualified to hold, lest their experience of life be inferior to that of the others. This brings us again to the age of thirty-five, In addition, on this occasion it should marked in the Laws as the upper limit of the also be examined whether, when they period during which the male members of the are drawn all manner of ways, they will community should conclude marriage (above). stand firm or flinch. –And how long is We arrive, then, at the following correlation: this stage of their lives to last? –Fifteen years, I answered. REACHING MATURITY (30-35) Note that the phrase “on this occasion it THE should also be examined whether, when they SOCIAL POLITICAL SOCRATES GUARDIANS are drawn all manner of ways, they will stand 15 eligible for training in training firm of flinch” applies not only to the extraor- marriage offices dialectic by Diotima dinary endurance and self-control displayed by Socrates at the siege of Potidaea and the retreat With this in view, let us turn to the next from Delium but also to his withstanding Alci- age group with which Socrates is associated biades’ attempts at seduction which, according in the Symposium.
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