Gabriel
Danzig Xenophon and the Symposium of
Plato
In the eighth book of Xenophon's Symposium, Socrates takes aim at Plato's Phaedrus (whom he
mistakenly identifies as Pausanias) for making outrageous
assertions about the value of homosexual relations for
improving the valor of an army. This attack involves
disrupting the dramatic unity of the work, for Socrates
criticizes a speech which was not made at the party
Xenophon describes, but at a different party, described
by Plato, with a later dramatic date. This is the only
place in Xenophon's work where he attacks Plato this
openly. This anomaly deserves a special explanation; I
argue that Xenophon attacks Plato here because Plato's
Symposium itself contained a hostile response to a
previous version of Xenophon's own Symposium.
The idea that Xenophon wrote an earlier version of his
Symposium and that this influenced Plato, has been argued
by H. Thesleff. His arguments can be supplemented by an
analysis of the relation between the speeches of
Critobulus and Phaedrus. These speeches are certainly
related, but Critobulus' speech cannot have been
influenced by Phaedrus' because Phaedrus' speech is the
offensive one that Socrates attacks in chapter eight.
Instead, Plato derived his speech of Phaedrus from
Xenophon's Critobulus, altering and distorting it on the
way to such an extent that Xenophon was forced to
respond. While Critobulus only suggested that a
good-looking general would inspire loyalty in his troops,
Plato's Phaedrus claims that homosexual coupling among
the troops would contribute to military success. This is
the idea that Xenophon's Socrates attacks in chapter
eight.
There is evidence for a third round in which Plato
inserted a rebuttal to Xenophon's attack on him into the
mouth of Aristophanes (192a) in a revised version of his
Symposium. And
even in his first Symposium,
Plato may have referred to Xenophon directly. In
the opening of the work there is a reference to another
version of the story told by one Phoenix (172b). Some
scholars have suspected that this was a reference to
Xenophon, but they dismissed this on the grounds that
Xenophon wrote later. But if Xenophon wrote first, this
possibility cannot be dismissed; and if it is correct, it
suggests a surprising method by which Plato could
indicate the names of his rivals.
From this
dispute we may derive the following conclusions:
1)
Plato's and Xenophon's works were read on several occasions
and re-writing occurred.
2)
The authors could rely on their audiences to be sufficiently
familiar with the work of the other that they could
recognize even indirect and inexact references.
3)
Although criticisms could take on a personal character,
explicit references to other authors were unnecessary and
possibly offensive.