TWO BANQUETS OF SOCRATES
TWO BANQUETS OF SOCRATES

Summary/Abstract: In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates and his friends convened to celebrate the young and handsome Agathon’s first victory at the dramatic contest of tragedies in 416 BC. The gathering was practically an after-party, since the actual festivity took place the previous day (thus the participants have hardly sobered down), but Socrates had not wanted to take part in it because of the crowd. Xenophon, another pupil of Socrates, commemorated a banquet organized in honour of Autolycus, who was victorious in pankration in the Athenian Panathenaic Games in 422 BC, which is consequently the date of the dialogue. We do learn from these dialogues what a symposion meant to elegant Athenians at the end of the 5th century BC, and what kinds of conversation and jokes poets and philosophers used to while away.

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