The secret loves of the young Socrates

2020-02-19T16:00:25.203Z

From a pederlastic relationship to the mysterious Diotima, a book dives into the inspiration of the philosopher in his youth to change the history of philosophy

“Whoever has been instructed up to this point on the questions of love, contemplating step and correctly the beautiful things, close to his complete initiation into the mysteries of love, will unexpectedly attend the revelation of something surprisingly beautiful by nature. This, Socrates, constitutes the object of all previous efforts [...] culminating with that knowledge that is nothing other than the knowledge of absolute beauty, and thus finally understand what beauty itself is. This is the trance of life, dear Socrates, "said the Mantinea foreigner," who, more than any other, deserves to be lived by man, when beauty itself is contemplated. " Thus - in the recent Castilian translation of Óscar Martínez García (2019) - the culminating words of the mysterious Diotima resonate in his teaching to a young Socrates, which he himself evokes at the Banquet of Plato , just before the festive gathering of the Athenian intellectuals are interrupted by the thunderous arrival of drunk Alcibiades, the famous terrible enfant of Athenian politics and in love with Socrates.

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It is an unrepeatable scene in the history of literature and thought, but who was this Diotima of Mantinea whom Socrates refers to as her teacher in matters of philosophical love? Why this curious scenery and this resource to flashback in one of the central dialogues of Plato, at the time that Socrates gives crucial notions for philosophical pedagogy put in the mouth of a woman? How to interpret this important and familiar moment? On these issues a lot of ink has run and all kinds of theories have been written, from the most academic to the boldest or that, at least, try to thoroughly review the sources to give them another perspective. Only then, in the background, do the sciences of antiquity advance (unless archeology or chance provides us with a new source). And to this group of proposals belongs the book that is just published now, a suggestive essay by the British Hellenist and cellist Armand D'Angour, his first work translated into Spanish, Socrates in Love (Ariel).

D'Angour, professor of Classical Philology at the Jesus College of the University of Oxford, not only comes with his book on the mystery of Diotima, but, of course, aims to shed light on the enigma that interests us more than any something else in this scene and, in general, in all the Platonic dialogues: the one that surrounds Socrates himself. Because if we don't know who Diotima is, what about Socrates? Socrates, or his mask worn by Plato - and by some of his other celebrated disciples, such as Xenophon - continues to be quite indecipherable to all who have approached the history of ancient philosophy: a deep-seated philosopher in the mirrors game he stars in in the literary works that, in the form of dialogues, have dramatized their brilliant journey through the history of ideas. His mask, as melancholic as that of the doubtful portrait that Brancusi made of him, as great experts in his figure have pointed out, from Cornelia de Vogel to Gregory Vlastos, can only be approached from the partial visions we have, applying a hermeneutical or analytical model that try to place it in time and space based on his literary personality. From the idealized Socrates of K. Popper or A. Tovar, to the update of P. Johnson ( Socrates: A Man for Our Times , 2011, Spanish translation 2012), or the antidemocrat of R. Kraut or the controversial book of IF Stone (object of a controversy between García Calvo and Savater), many are the masks of the "Socrates riddle".

D'Angour addresses the Socrates enigma with an attempt to biographically rebuild as exhaustively as possible from the earliest stage of the Athenian philosopher.

Here we have one more, that of a young Socrates in love, who is trying to contextualize following the trail - cherchez la femme - of both the mysterious Diotima and its possible relationship with Aspasia de Mileto, the celebrated concubine of Pericles. What D'Angour tries in his book, which mimics the title of John Madden's movie Shakespeare in Love (1998), is to address the Socrates riddle with an attempt to biographically rebuild as exhaustively as possible from the earliest stage of the Athenian philosopher . Apart from the identity of Socrates, the question with which this proposal begins that focuses especially on what inspired the philosopher in his youth to establish a new style of thinking and life that would change the history of philosophy . A question, needless to say, of impossible answer, according to the available sources, although it is already pointed out from the beginning that perhaps his relationship with Aspasia may be in the background. The approach from here oscillates between the objective data and the suggestive and personal speculations: this is seen in the licenses of the essay itself, which presents at the beginning of each chapter some lines in italics with fictional and literary recreations around Socrates.

The curtain opens with the clouds , the famous work of Aristophanes that includes a parodic and unfair portrait of Socrates, and then analyze the data we have about the philosopher's love life. The most relevant part of the first part of the book is the review of his love relationships, both with Jantipa and with a woman named Mirto, with whom he had two children, so he became accused of bigamy. Later, another very interesting aspect of Socrates, his well-known military activity, is discussed. D'Angour reviews the performance of this "philosopher in arms", in Potidea and other warrior sets, where he stood out for his bravery, saving Alcibiades, who ponders at the Banquet his exceptional physical value for military life. As a curious fact, he was a very appreciated veteran who came to fight after 40 years of age in battles such as Delio's, in Boeotia (424 BC), which betrays a military teaching very appreciated by his fellow citizens.

'The Death of Socrates', work painted by Jacques-Louis David in 1787.

The relationship with Alcibiades, in line with this military activity, is one of the keys to the vault of the book. The controversial "young lion" of Athenian politics - who ended up experiencing an extraordinary adventures of boldness, betrayal and escapes in the Peloponnesian war - recalls his relationship as a loved one (eromenos) with Socrates and also his tutelage for Pericles. Pericles' favorite protégé, D'Angour argues, could not have maintained that relationship without the acquiescence or approval of the strategist and strong man of Athens. And this is related to what can be known about the love life of Socrates in youth: a pederlastic relationship, this time of Socrates as a loved one, with Arquelao, a disciple of Anaxagoras (another friend of Pericles). It is said that the young Socrates traveled with him the island of Samos, home of the contemporary thinker Meliso. This leads to assessing the extent to which the intellectual context of these characters could influence the young Socrates and end up conditioning in some way the image of clueless naturalistic sage that Aristophanes will later transmit in his aforementioned parody. But the most interesting part of this central part of the book (chapters 3 and 4) is the reflection on the role of Socrates in the intellectual circles around Pericles. On the strategist, certainly, there is a somewhat embarrassing attitude in the texts of the disciples of Socrates, Plato and Xenophon, who speak of Pericles putting Socrates in the mouth at the same time a certain familiarity, but great caution.

The end of the book calls into question some of the common places around Socrates, such as his poverty, ugliness or filth, which may also have been part of the character created for posterity. Socrates, argues D'Angour, had the proper education of the Athenian elite in musical art ( techne mousiké ), notion much broader than our current music, as to make him an "educated man" or mousikós aner of aristocratic circles. A review of the prosopography of the characters Socrates relates in Plato's dialogues gives us an idea of the socioeconomic level we are talking about, as can be seen, for example, in the Banquet itself. The sources speak of a character who could have inherited a heritage off his father, who left him with some peace of mind to live philosophizing (not to mention paying the Hoplite armor). His proverbial ugliness and the famous Socratic “genius” are other questioned aspects: interesting, in the case of the first, the attempt to present ourselves to a beautiful Socrates, this time eromenos of another philosopher, in line with a double tradition in his ancient portraits. But some of the author's plot jumps baffle us, since D'Angour seems to take too much of the letter, in terms of his attempt to rebuild the youth of Socrates, many things written by the late Plato, who already had, certainly, a own and very personal philosophical agenda.

The question focuses on what inspired the philosopher in his youth to establish a new style of thinking and life that would change the history of philosophy.

It is at the end of the book when the hottest topic is addressed: the old question of the identity of Diotima (“honor of Zeus”) of Mantinea (oracular city par excellence) and the possibility that it was an alter ego of Aspasia of Miletus ( lover of the almighty strategist who was nicknamed "Zeus"). Who would this hidden character of the Banquet of whom Socrates affirm, no less, teach him "everything he knows about love"? But in Plato there is a stellar appearance of Aspasia, in the Menéxene, no longer as a philosophy teacher but, which is very symptomatic, as a rhetoric teacher, improvising a funeral speech parallel to the famous epitaph logos of her lover Pericles, which we know by Thucydides What has been conventionally understood as a sort of platonic parody of this genre is taken by D'Angour as an indication of the teaching of this woman. It is true that we have certainty about the great intelligence of Aspasia, and glimpses of his probable philosophical activity - according to titles of lost works, for example, or according to the much later Plutarch - that outline a unique woman's personality in the Athens of his time , which came to congregate a great intellectual circle around it. To that is added the kinship, distant and political, but attested, between Aspasia and Alcibiades.

All of this and many other aspects, such as his dubious reputation as causing problems to the traditional and conservative culture of Athens, may somehow match Socrates and Aspasia in the shadow of the circle of Pericles. But is it a truly determining relationship, as D'Angour points out? We do not know if this Socrates in love was with Aspasia, if Plato modeled Diotima on her, or if she was the great woman silenced behind so many great men. They are insinuations that fly over the whole argument, and especially in the final chapter, without coming to fruition. In the end, everything remains in foggy terrain, between historical evidence and novel speculation, which by the way knows how to masterfully pass the author, making use of his scholarship and, at the same time, the poetic license. This mystery, of course, will not be solved. But it is interesting that an academic proposes an approach not strictly academic and very suggestive that allows us to return to the old and enigmatic passage that has made so many readers of Plato dream with the teacher of truth that allowed the contemplation of Beauty-in-itself.

David Hernández de la Fuente (Madrid, 1974) is a writer, translator and professor of Classical Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid. He is the author of 'Greek Oracles' (Editorial Alliance) and 'History of Greek Political Thought' (Trotta) among other books.