Panel Title
The Image of Achilles in Plato's Symposium
Location
Carpenter B21
Start Date
10-11-2013 4:45 PM
End Date
10-11-2013 5:30 PM
Abstract
Closer attention to some previously unnoticed aspects of the imagery of Plato's Symposium can help us to achieve a better understanding of Plato's use of heroic figures. Alcibiades says that he will praise Socrates "by means of images" (215a). He must resort to imagery because of Socrates' strangeness: "With a man such as Achilles was," says Alcibiades, "one might compare Brasidas, and others, and with such a man as Pericles one might compare Nestor and Antenor," but Socrates can be compared with no other human, ancient or modern (221c-d). Thus, Alcibiades says that Socrates is not the image of anyone else, and, in particular, that he is not the image of Achilles, first on this list of heroic figures. Comparison of significant words and actions of Socrates in the Symposium with those of Achilles in the Iliad reveal, I contend, that Socrates is indeed not an image of Achilles in the sense of a likeness. He is, on the contrary, an Achilles in reverse, whose words and deeds are just the opposite of those of Achilles. That is, he is a mirror-image of Achilles, in the sense of an image that is the reverse of the original (see Timaeus 46a-c).
The Image of Achilles in Plato's Symposium
Carpenter B21
Closer attention to some previously unnoticed aspects of the imagery of Plato's Symposium can help us to achieve a better understanding of Plato's use of heroic figures. Alcibiades says that he will praise Socrates "by means of images" (215a). He must resort to imagery because of Socrates' strangeness: "With a man such as Achilles was," says Alcibiades, "one might compare Brasidas, and others, and with such a man as Pericles one might compare Nestor and Antenor," but Socrates can be compared with no other human, ancient or modern (221c-d). Thus, Alcibiades says that Socrates is not the image of anyone else, and, in particular, that he is not the image of Achilles, first on this list of heroic figures. Comparison of significant words and actions of Socrates in the Symposium with those of Achilles in the Iliad reveal, I contend, that Socrates is indeed not an image of Achilles in the sense of a likeness. He is, on the contrary, an Achilles in reverse, whose words and deeds are just the opposite of those of Achilles. That is, he is a mirror-image of Achilles, in the sense of an image that is the reverse of the original (see Timaeus 46a-c).