[40] Plato, Sympos. p. 216 C-D.
[41] Plato, Sympos. p. 219. See also, respecting the historical Alkibiades and his character, Thucyd. vi. 15; Xenoph. Memor. i. 1; Antisthenes, apud Athenæum, xii. 534.
The invention of Plato goes beyond that of those ingenious men who recounted how Phrynê and Lais had failed in attempts to overcome the continence of Xenokrates, Diog. L. iv. 7: and the saying of Lais, ὡς οὐκ ἀπ’ ἀνδρός, ἀλλ’ ἀπ’ ἀνδρίαντος, ἀνασταίη. Quintilian (viii. 4, 22-23) aptly enough compares the description given by Alkibiades — as the maximum of testimony to the “invicta continentia” of Sokrates — with the testimony to the surpassing beauty of Helen, borne by such witnesses as the Trojan δημογέροντες and Priam himself (Hom. Iliad iii. 156). One of the speakers in Athenæus censures severely this portion of the Platonic Symposion, xi. 506 C, 508 D, v. 187 D. Porphyry (in his life of Plotinus, 15) tells us that the rhetor Diophanes delivered an apology for Alkibiades, in the presence of Plotinus; who was much displeased, and directed Porphyry to compose a reply.
[42] Plato, Symp. p. 222 B.
In the Hieron of Xenophon (xi. 11) — a conversation between the despot Hieron and the poet Simonides — the poet, exhorting Hieron to govern his subjects in a mild, beneficent, and careful spirit, expatiates upon the popularity and warm affection which he will thereby attract to himself from them. Of this affection one manifestation will be (he says) as follows:— ὥστε οὐ μόνον φιλοῖο ἄν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐρῷο, ὑπ’ ἀνθρώπων· καὶ τοὺς καλοὺς οὐ πειρᾷν, ἀλλὰ πειρώμενον ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ἀνέχεσθαι ἄν σε δέοι, &c.
These words illustrate the adventure described by Alkibiades in the Platonic Symposion.
Herakleides of Pontus, Dikæarchus, and the Peripatetic Hieronymus, all composed treatises Περὶ Ἐρωτος, especially περὶ παιδικῶν ἐρώτων (Athenæ. xiii. 602-603).
Perfect self-command of Sokrates — proof against every sort of trial.
Not merely upon this point but upon others also, Alkibiades recounts anecdotes of the perfect self-mastery of Sokrates: in endurance of cold, heat, hunger, and fatigue — in contempt of the dangers of war, in bravery on the day of battle — even in the power of bearing more wine than any one else, without being intoxicated, whenever the occasion was such as to require him to drink: though he never drank much willingly. While all his emotions are thus described as under the full control of Reason and Eros Philosophus — his special gift and privilege was that of conversation — not less eccentric in manner, than potent, soul-subduing,[43] and provocative in its effects.
[43] Plato, Sympos. pp. 221-222.