Alcibiades In Plato's Symposium Essay

Symposium is a gathering hosted by Agaton to celebrate his first tragedy award for playwriting. Each of the guests gave a speech about love. The speech dealing with questions about what is love; interpersonal relationships through love; what types of love are worthy of praise; the purpose of love; and others. A series of speech about the love ended by the entry of Alcibiades, known as a wealthy aristocrat of Athens for his good-looking, and political career. He entered the discussion drunkenly supporting by a flute-girl, follow upon his speech about love. His unexpected entrance and speech dramatically changed the mood left from Diotima’s serious dialogue with Socrates about the ideal love. The first five speeches contradicted each other and were reconciled in Diotima’s speech, especially her speech about “Ladder if love” and “love of wisdom ”, which implies the delicate relationship between Alcibiades and Socrates.

The Peloponnesian war lasted from 431 to 404 B.C. and was profoundly influenced by two Athenian men, Pericles and Alcibiades. Though Pericles and Alcibiades were related by blood they were quite different. Pericles was a diplomat, he approached matters with a level head and tried to find a solution that did not end in bloodshed. Alcibiades was less stable, he either fought, manipulated, or ran when confronted with a problem. Both men spoke eloquently enough to move almost the entire city of Athens, using their words to bend people to their will.  What was different between them was what their will was, one cared about the city and its wellbeing, the other cared about his own wellbeing.

The Apology and Phaedo by Plato are two different books describing what is like to be a philosopher per Socrates believes. These two books take place in two different scenarios in Socrates’ life, The Apology takes place in a court room where Socrates is to defend himself from false charges brought to him by Meletus who is acting as the prosecutor. Phaedo, on the other hand, takes place in a prison cell post judgment on the day of Socrates execution. Hence, The Apology and Phaedo appeared to display different philosophies: The Apology, Plato presented Socrates as wise for he knows that he knows nothing, hence he is seeking wisdom by questioning those who think they know more or something, just to find that they don’t know anything, therefore Socrates makes it his duty to make them look ignorant/stupid. Phaedo, Socrates focuses primarily on death and the immortality of the soul, hence he is seeking knowledge by devoting his final hours picking the minds of his friends to explain the role of a philosopher, which is preparing for death. Consequently, these two views are really the same, yet presented differently by Socrates, for in one he is defending his freedom and life using philosophy, hence he has only done what the Gods expected of him. From the other view, he resigned to his fate, for as a philosopher, he knows his soul will finally become liberated from the evils and limitations of the body to come to its divine state.

Plato's final argument in Phaedo for the immortality of the soul is one of the most interesting topics of all time. It goes hand to hand with the application of the theory of forms to the question of the soul's immortality, as Plato constantly reminds us, the theory of forms is the most certain of all his theories. The Phaedo is Plato’s attempt to convince us of the immortality of the soul by using several main arguments. These include the argument of forms and the law of opposites. In the final passage of the Phaedo, Plato provides his final proof, although it may be his last attempt to give his reasoning, it is not very convincing. Plato has some good points and reasoning to believe in the immortality of the soul, but his arguments often

Male sexual impotence would seem at first to be an unpromising subject for poetry, especially poetry which could loosely be defined as “neo-Classical” and is based on compositional models from the Classical world of ancient Greece and Rome. Yet scholars such as Richard Quaintance and Claude Rawson have traced the history of a literary sub-genre within the neo-Classical tradition that does deal with male sexual impotence, whether through failure to achieve erection or through premature ejaculation. This literary sub-genre includes Restoration poems like Aphra Behn’s “The Disappointment” and the Earl of Rochester’s “Imperfect Enjoyment,” and Quaintance in fact dubs the genre the neo-Classical “imperfect enjoyment poem” after Rochester’s title. Quaintance situates both Rochester and Behn within French neo-Classical models (Quaintance 190), but actual Latin works were their ultimate models: Rawson notes that Ovid himself had written a poem on the subject in his third book of love elegies, Amores III.vii, and Petronius, the great courtier-satirist of Nero’s Rome, had structured his Satyricon as a parody of Homer’s Odyssey—but where Odysseus is pursued by the wrath of Poseidon, God of the Sea, the protagonist

Purposely difficult and intentionally obsessive, Plato’s Phaedrus is an exceedingly difficult read that defies all conventional logic as a piece of discourse. The text is extremely subjective, open to interpretation and individual creativity as to what or whom the narrative is about. Written by Plato, a close disciple of Socrates, this text is set along the Illissus river where Phaedrus and Socrates meet for a day of speech, debate, rhetoric and okay…flirting. Phaedrus leads of the day and recites a speech by his close friend Lysias, who Phaedrus considers to be a top speechmaker. Socrates then, after chiding by Phaedrus unleashes two speeches of his own that overshadow and refute Lysias claim so boldly that Phaedrus is so taken by the

Lust is defined as an intense longing or a sexual desire. It is a common theme in literature; particularly in classic Greek literature. The reason it is so prevalent in literature is that is prevalent in our daily lives. Everyone lusts after something or someone. It is an interesting topic to examine closely, and classic literature is an excellent medium for such an investigation. Two works I have studied, in which lust is a theme, are an epic, Homer's The Odyssey, and a play, Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. In both The Odyssey and Lysistrata, lust is a theme that plays a major role in the course of the story, making the stories similar, but very different.

One of the most famous tragedy was The Bacchae from the Athenian playwright Euripides. The Bacchae won first prize when it premiered at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC, and is known as Euripides greatest work. This tragedy represents the two opposite sides of a man's nature: the rational and civilized side, which is represented by the character of Pentheus, the King of Thebes, and then there is the instinctive side, which is represented by Dionysus. This side feels a connection between man and beast and it’s a potential source of divinity and spiritual power. It’s believed that The Bacchae implies that it’s dangerous to deny this instinctive human nature; those who accept it find spiritual power, and those who suppress the desire in themselves

It’s no secret the ancient Greeks were fans of sex. From large scale orgy parties to everyday polygamy, ancient Greek culture heavily revolved around sex and the pleasures of the body. In the epic poem, The Odyssey, Homer recounts the famed journey home of the Greek hero Odysseus, from the Fall of Troy to his home on the Isle of Ithaca to be reunited with his wife Penelope. Along the way, however, Odysseus finds trouble everywhere he looks, especially when it comes to sex. Throughout his ten year journey home, sex acts as an instrument of power, self-preservation and intimacy.

The different portrayals of female characters Antigone and Lysistrata illustrate the fundamental nature of the proper Athenian woman. Sophocles' Antigone allows the reader to see that outrage over social injustices does not give women the excuse to rebel against authority, while Aristophanes' Lysistrata reveals that challenging authority in the polis becomes acceptable only when it's faced with destruction through war. Sophocles and Aristophanes use different means to illustrate the same idea; the ideal Athenian woman's ultimate loyalty lies with her polis. This Greek concept of the proper woman seems so vital when considering Athenian society because both a tragedy and comedy revolve around this concept. The differing roles accorded to

On the other end, Capellanus views the trophy of virginity as futile and counters that while you know “some other man is enjoying the embraces of your beloved, this will make you begin to value her solaces all the more” (2.2, 3). Furthermore, he makes the argument against adultery, again opposing the views of Ovid. Capellanus explains his argument in detail by stating that a man in love is adorned “with the virtue of chastity, because he who shines with the light of one love can hardly think of embracing another woman, even a beautiful one” (1.4, 2).

Plato's metaphor of the divided line is essentially two worlds; the world of opinion (the

The older man will exchange his knowledge and virtue to the younger man for the fulfillment of the older man’s sexual desires. Like Plato, Pausanias believes that the highest maxim in the world to strive for is virtue: “For he too has demonstrated something about himself: that he is the sort of person who will do anything for the sake of virtue—and what could be more honorable that that? It follows, therefore, that giving in to your lover for virtue’s sake is honorable, what ever the outcome.” (185B) Yet, Plato, through Socrates and Diotima, differs from Pausanias in the way in which virtue is obtained. For Pausanias, the relationship between desire and virtue requires favors to be exchanged for both bodily and mindful stimulation. Since virtue is the desired outcome for the young man, he must submit to the authority of the older man by basically any means necessary, namely through sexual favors. Homosexuality appears to be a common beginning for the quest of virtue and philosophy, but by what means necessary to obtain these ends? Plato presents Pausanias’s theory to be only partially correct, as he ultimately extols a love that requires no sexual love. In Pausanias’s theory of love, sexual love is necessary to fulfill the both needs. Plato’s ideal form of love is fully expressed in the concept of Diotima’s ladder.

Homosexual conduct between a teacher and a student was considered a valuable part of the education process. Since the children were taken care of mostly by the government, it was important to establish a lasting relationship with someone that would teach you how to become a young man. The military supported homosexuality, as they thought that one would fight harder to protect his unit if he had a lover or multiple lovers in the same unit. It was also believed to bring about a sense of comradeship. "Similarly, the Greek attitude toward sex was, for the most part, value-neutral... And though exclusive homosexuality was probably discouraged as a threat to the family, it was widely tolerated both for older men who had children and for younger men prior to marriage."-(Blumenfeld and Raymond 1988. 155) Yet, as time went on, people who performed homosexual acts were considered polluted and to have become like women, and were therefore expelled from the military. The Greeks had double standards. Even though they recognized passion and attraction towards the same sex, those who were not attracted to women were not tolerated. Therefore, if a man was homosexual, he had to already have a wife and children. These double standards came from the fact that the society had to reproduce in order to survive. Homosexuality was only tolerated if both of the men have already established a family and met their obligations to reproduce. Social status was also

The Greeks considered tragedy the greatest form for literature.  However, the tragic ends for the characters were not ordained or set by fate, but rather caused by certain characteristics belonging to that person.  Such is the case with the characters of Sophocles' plays Oedipus the King and Antigone.  Oedipus from King Oedipus, and Antigone and Creon from Antigone posses characteristics, especially pride, that caused their tragic ends.  As the play progress, other characteristics appear and further add to the problem to such a point that it is inevitable that it will end in tragedy.  Therefore the tragedies were not a result of a plot by the fates, but rather a result of the