CHRISTOPHER P. LONGformal mode of address normally used in the courts; not unlike the pseudo-
civility practiced in the U.S. Congress when speaking of the “gentleman from
Pennsylvania.” See Cobb, The Symposium and the Phaedrus, 179.
- Rosen emphasizes the importance of restraint here; Rosen, Plato’s Sym-
posium, 12– 13n30. - Plato, Plato’s Symposium, 180.
- There is considerable controversy as to whether the nickname is
malakov~ (softy, gentle one) or manikov~ (madman, maniac). Bury reads the lat-
ter, Benardete and Cobb, the former. While Cobb is correct to point out that
the play between gentleness and violence is at work in the dialogue, this of itself
does not necessarily justify malakov~. However, malakov~ does seem appropriate
for Apollodorus, given his incessant crying in the Phaedo; see 59a8 and 117d5.
This latter reference speaks not only of Apollodorus’ weeping, but of his being
vexed or angry (ajganaktw`n). Being “soft” and being “mad” in the sense of hav-
ing lost rational control of oneself would have been closely linked in the Greek
psyche. Bury’s case for manikov~ draws on Apollodorus’ response to the compan-
ion in which iterations of both maivnesqai (to be mad) and paraivein (to wander
from one’s senses) occur. He claims that the thought is: “Though I do not know
exactly why you got the nickname ‘fanatic’—yet in your speeches at any rate you
do something to justify the title.” See Bury, Symposium of Plato, 6. - For a discussion of Platonic irony as “noble dissembling,” see Leo
Strauss, On Plato’s Symposium (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 33.
The distinction between Platonic and Socratic irony is made clear by Drew Hy-
land: Socratic irony occurs where the dissembling words and intentions are
attributable to the fi gure of Socrates; Platonic irony, on the other hand, occurs
in the action, structure, or setting of the dialogues Socrates could not control.
See Drew A. Hyland, Finitude and Transcendence in the Platonic Dialogues (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1995), 91. - Gary Scott has recognized the importance of the “general lack of care
for handling the narration” these characters embody. See Gary Alan Scott,
Plato’s Socrates as Educator (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000),
181n. - Plato tells us the exact date of the drama of the dialogue by having
Apollodorus report that the symposium took place when Agathon won the
prize with his fi rst tragedy (173a). This sort of explicit dating is part of the
grounding strategy as well. - See Debra Nails, The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other
Socratics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), 9. - See Apology 18a ff.
- Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1964), 62. For a detailed discussion of the comic dimensions of this speech, see
Richard Rojcewicz, “Platonic Love: Dasein’s Urge Toward Being,” Research in
Phenomenology 27 (1997): 108– 12. - For a discussion of the ritualistic dimensions of Socrates’ outfi t, see
Rojcewicz, “Platonic Love,” 109.