was an all male affair (except in the event of any invited entertainment), like the
institution of the gymnasium, it had the indirect effect of enforcing male bonding.
Reclining couches were laid round the room with tables in the middle. The men wore
garlands and there was usually a master of ceremonies. Plato, in his dialogue Laws,
is at pains to stress the need for a leader to conduct the proceedings in a sober
manner (639d–640d). In addition to the wine, there was entertainment. Hired flute-
girls (aulotrides) might entertain the guests with music, or the guests might provide
their own music by playing the lyre. Participants might sing songs, tell stories or
debate a set theme. Plato’s Symposium,held at the house of the tragic poet Agathon,
with its lofty discussion on the nature of love, represents the intellectual ideal. But
even here the interruption of Alcibiades, a late arrival, suggests that the symposium
might be a rowdy affair.
Well, it wasn’t long before they could hear Alcibiades shouting in the courtyard,
evidently very drunk, and demanding where Agathon was, because he must see
Agathon at once. So the flute girl and some of his other followers helped him
stagger in, and there he stood in the doorway, with a mass of ribbons and an
enormous wreath of ivy and violets sprouting on his head, and addressed the
company....
And now gentlemen he said, as he settled himself on the couch, can I be right
in thinking that you’re sober? I say, you know, we can’t have this! Come on, drink
up! You promised to have a drink with me. Now I’ll tell you, there’s no one fit to
take the chair at this meeting – until you’ve all got reasonably drunk – but me.
Come on, Agathon, tell them to bring out something that’s worth drinking out of.
No, never mind, he went on. Here, you, just bring me that wine cooler, will you?
He saw it would hold a couple of quarts or so. He made them fill it up, and took
the first drink himself, after which he told them to fill it again for Socrates, and
remarked to the others, But I shan’t get any change out of him. It doesn’t matter
how much you make him drink, it never makes him drunk.
(212d–214b)Besides characterizing him, Alcibiades’ intervention has the effect of showing that
Socrates, by contrast, is a man of extraordinary self-control, for the pair of them have
drunk a vast amount direct from the wine cooler. The usual custom was to drink out
of small cups and to dilute the wine, which was served by slave boys, in a proportion
ofthree to one (water to wine). Alcibiades has very definitely broken the rules as one
of the other guests points out.
Xenophon also has written an account of a Socratic drinking party in his
Symposium,at which the host, Callias, has invited his new flame Autolycus and his
father to dinner. The Symposiumbegins with the contemplation of beauty:
118 THE GREEKS