The Thucydidean Backdrop to Plato's Symposium
A Recorded Lecture with an Open Conversation, 1/27
Hi all,
I’ve recorded a talk for the Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC) with the title “The Thucydidean Backdrop to Plato’s Symposium.” You can watch it on YouTube here (or just scroll below).
On Friday, January 27th, at 10am EST, the ACTC will hold a discussion session about the lecture via zoom. You can find that link here—just click on the top tab “Core Conversations” and then “Zoom Link.” Or respond to this email asking for the zoom link, and I’ll send it to you directly.
What’s it about? In the talk, I try to connect the transformation of Athens, from the Battle of Salamis to the Sicilian Expedition, to the drama of the Symposium, specifically, the contest between poetry and philosophy. I try to show how the practical or political concern in Athens—how to moderate her citizens’ unrealistic, even impossible ambitions—leads to the basic theoretical question in this contest—whether erōs is a god, and whether its ends are good.
If you miss it, you can always listen to the discussion later on: it will also be posted to YouTube afterwards.
My gratitude to the ACTC and its director, Charlotte Thomas, for having me—check them out and consider attending their always excellent conference this Spring in Dallas!
And please do forward this email to anyone who might be interested.
Cheers,
Alex
P.S. Here’s “Plato’s Symposium” (1648) by Pietro Testa. Alcibiades enters on the left, enrapturing Agathon, next to whom sits Socrates, engaged in conversation with two others. I suspect Aristophanes is to his left, while Aristodemus sits across from him. At any rate, Testa shows beautifully why Alcibiades did not at first notice Socrates, and vice versa: though they sat beside one another, each had turned away from his couch-mate, the one to the beautiful Alcibiades and the other to conversation with Aristophanes.
And finally the video of my talk: