Plato here digresses[40] from his main purpose to examine the question of drunkenness. He will not allow it to be set aside absolutely and offhand, by a self-justifying ethical sentiment, without reason assigned, defence tendered, accompanying precautions discussed. Upon this, as upon the social functions proper for the female sex, he is a dissenter from the common view. He selects the subject as a case for exhibiting the proper method of criticism respecting social institutions; not without some consciousness that the discussion, if looked at in itself (like the examples of scientific classification or diæresis in the Sophistês and Politikus), would appear unduly prolonged.[41]
[40] He himself notes it as a digression, iii. p. 682 E.
[41] Plato, Legg. i. pp. 642 A, 645 D. Compare the Politikus, pp. 264 A-286 C-E.
Description of Sokrates in the Symposion — his self-command under abundant potations.
To illustrate his peculiar views[42] on the subject of drunkenness, we may refer to the picture of Sokrates which he presents in the Symposion, more especially in the latter half of that dialogue, after the appearance of Alkibiades. In this dialogue the occasion is supposed to be festive and joyous. Eros is in the ascendant, and is made the subject of a panegyric by each of the guests in succession. Sokrates partakes in the temper of the society, proclaiming himself to be ignorant of all other matters except those relating to Love.[43] In all the Platonic writings there is hardly anything more striking than the panegyric upon Eros there pronounced by Sokrates, blending the idea of love with that of philosophical dialectics, and refining the erotic impulse into an enthusiastic aspiration for that generation of new contemplative power, by the colloquial intercourse of two minds reciprocally stimulating each other, which brings them at last into a clear view of the objects of the ideal or intelligible world. Until the appearance of Alkibiades, little wine is swallowed, and the guests are perfectly sober. But Alkibiades, being intoxicated when he first comes in, becomes at once the prominent character of the piece. He is represented as directing the large wine-cooler to be filled with wine (about four pints), first swallowing the whole himself then ordering it to be filled again for Sokrates, who does the like: Alkibiades observing, “Whatever quantity of wine you prescribe to Sokrates, he will drink it without becoming drunk”.[44] Alkibiades then, instead of panegyrising Eros, undertakes to pronounce a panegyric on Sokrates: proclaiming that nothing shall be said but what is true, and being relieved from all reserve by his drunken condition.[45] In this panegyric he describes emphatically the playful irony of Sokrates, and the magical influence exercised by his conversation over young men. But though Sokrates thus acquired irresistible ascendancy over others, himself (Alkibiades) included, no one else acquired the least hold over Sokrates. His will and character, under a playful exterior, were self-sufficing and self-determining; independent of influences from without, to such a degree as was almost insulting to any one who sought either to captivate or oblige him.[46] The self-command of Sokrates was unshaken either by seduction on one side, or by pain and hardship on the other. He faced danger with a courage never surpassed; he endured hunger, fatigue, the extremities of heat and cold, in a manner such as none of his comrades in the army could parallel.[47] He was indifferent to the gratifications of love, even when they were presented to him in a manner the most irresistible to Grecian imagination; while at festive banquets, though he did not drink of his own accord, yet if the society imposed obligation to do so, he outdid all in respect to quantity of wine. No one ever saw Sokrates intoxicated.[48] Such is the tenor of the panegyric pronounced by Alkibiades upon Sokrates. A general drinking-bout closes the Symposion, in which Sokrates swallows large draughts of wine along with the rest, but persists all the while in his dialectic cross-examination, with unabated clearness of head. One by one the guests drop asleep, and at daybreak Sokrates alone is left awake. He rises and departs, goes forthwith to the Lykeum, and there passes the whole day in his usual colloquial occupation, without being at all affected by the potations of the preceding night.[49]
[42] Aristotle especially notes this as one among the peculiarities of Plato (Politic. ii. 9, 20).
[43] Plato, Symp. p. 177 D. ἐγὼ ὃς οὐδέν φημι ἄλλο ἐπίστασθαι ἢ τὰ ἐρωτικά, &c. 198 D: ἔφην εἶναι δεινὸς τὰ ἐρωτικά.
[44] Plato, Symp. pp. 213-214.
[45] Plato, Symp. pp. 214-215-217 E.
[46] Plato, Symp. pp. 219 C. τῆς Σωκράτους ὑπερηφανίας. Compare 222 A.