Plato: Symposium — PHI2163.02
It is 416 BCE. A group of Athenian men are gathered together for a party, a celebration, a symposium. Among the company are the tragic playwright Agathon, Agathon鈥檚 lover Pausanias, the beautiful but doomed Phaedrus, the comic playwright Aristophanes, the doctor Eryximachus, and the (also perhaps doomed) philosopher Socrates. Diotima, a priestess from Mantinea, puts in a surprise appearance. Alcibiades, the glamor boy of Athens, makes a late, splashy, gate-crashy arrival. There are the usual snacks and drinks.