Abstract

In his Symposium Plato sought to provide for posterity a portrait of his beloved companion and teacher Socrates, focusing on two main features: Socrates as a mystagogue or spiritual guide and Socrates as a paragon of philosophical virtue. Plato’s depiction of these two aspects of the Socratic persona impressed so many writers and artists of later centuries that the Symposium became one of Plato’s best known and most admired dialogues. For many early Christian thinkers Socrates’ account of Erôs or ‘passionate desire’ (imparted to him by the priestess Diotima) established that love is not merely a central aspect of human experience but also the means by which mortal beings achieve union with the divine. Following the lead of Marsilio Ficino, numerous Renaissance poets and artists praised a special ‘Socratic’ or ‘Platonic’ kind of love, inspired by the perception of physical beauty but fully realized in a life of virtuous conduct.