Andrew SCHOLTZ Socratic mastropeia: Erotic-Political Paradox in Xenophon's Symposium In Xenophon's Symposium

Socrates memorably boasts of his skill as a mastropos, or pimp (3.11). As for what he means by this boast, that is perhaps the central interpretive problem of the dialogue, and it is the problem that I shall address in this paper.

     After being teased by Antisthenes for his mastropeia, Socrates develops the idea that there are two Aphrodites, Pandemos and Ourania, the former associated with carnal, the latter with spiritual love (8.9ñ10). Yet this contrast strikingly suppresses the civic, even democratic, associations of cult to Pandemos, patroness of civic harmony (Simon SNR 40, Sokolowski HThR 57). Striking too is the transition from erotic to political themes that occurs toward the end of Socrates' disquisition. Callias, whose love for Autolycus Socrates praises, is urged by Socrates to emulate the great statesmen of the past if he would prove himself worthy of the boy (8.39). This leads to Socrates' praise of Callias' statesmanly qualities (8.40ñ41) and, finally, to Callias' expressed expectation that Socrates' mastropeia will make him into a politician agreeable to the polis (8.41ñ2). The joke is, of course, that Callias the noble lover will be further ennobled by his entering public life. Yet in thus allowing Socrates to pimp for him, Callias becomes a pornos. As such, he might be expected to worship at the altar of Pandemos, and Callias as pornos-politician recalls the Old Comic joke of representing democratic politicians as sexual pathics. But there is a further irony in that Callias the politician could be thought of as a votary of this same goddess, though in her capacity as protectress of the democracy rather than as patroness of venal love.

     To sum up: the image of Socrates as mastropos is inextricably tied to that of Callias as pornos; together, the two images mingle the erotic realm with politics. The paradoxical character of this imagery is reinforced by its links to Socrates' misrepresentation of the Pandemos-Ourania dichotomy, which, taken with the mastropos-pornos images, suggests both criticism of the venality of democratic politics (Socrates' "vulgar" Pandemos) and praise of statesmanship that unites the dêmos behind wisely conceived policy (Pandemos the civic goddess).