[47] Plato, Symp. p. 220.
[48] Plato, Symp. p. 220 A.
What has been here briefly recapitulated will be found in my [twenty-sixth chapter, vol. iii.] pp. 20-21, seq.
[49] Plato, Sympos. p. 223. Compare what Plato puts into the mouth of Sokrates in the Protagoras (p. 347 D): well educated men will carry on a dialectic debate with intelligence and propriety, “though they may drink ever so much wine,” — κἂν πάνυ πολὺν οἶνον πίωσιν.
Sokrates — an ideal of self-command, both as to pain and as to pleasure.
I have thus cited the Symposion to illustrate Plato’s view of the ideal of character. The self-command of Sokrates is tested both by pain and by pleasure. He resists both of them alike and equally: under the one as well as under the other, his reason works with unimpaired efficacy, and his deliberate purposes are pursued with unclouded serenity. This is not because he keeps out of the way of temptation and seduction: on the contrary, he is frequently exposed to situations of a tempting character, and is always found superior to them.
Trials for testing the self-controul of the citizen, under the influence of wine. Dionysiac banquets, under a sober president.
Now Plato’s purpose is, to impart to his citizens the character which he here ascribes to Sokrates, and to make them capable of maintaining unimpaired the controul of reason against the disturbances both of pain and pleasure. He remarks that the Spartan training kept in check the first of these two enemies, but not the second. He thinks that the citizen ought to be put through a regulated system of trials for measuring and testing his competence to contend with pleasure, as the Spartans provided in regard to pain. The Dionysiac festivals[50] afforded occasions of applying these trials of pleasure, just as the Gymnopædia at Sparta were made to furnish deliberate inflictions of pain. But the Dionysiac banquets ought to be conducted under the superintendence of a discreet president, himself perfectly sober throughout the whole ceremony. All the guests would drink largely of wine, and each would show how far and how long he could resist its disturbing tendencies. As there was competition among the youths at the Gymnopædia, to show how much pain each could endure without flinching — honour being shown to those who endured most, and most successfully — so there would be competition at the Dionysia to prove how much wine each could bear without having his reason and modesty overset. The sober president would decide as judge. Each man’s self-command, as against seductive influences, would be strengthened by a repetition of such trials, while proof would be afforded how far each man could be counted on.[51]
[50] Plato, Legg. i. pp. 650 A, 637 A. 633 D.
[51] Plato, Legg. i. pp. 647 D-E-649 D.