Erotic rivalry and victory

Use in the book

The last sentence reveals Socrates’ position among the young man’s lovers rather than making love a separately defined topic. The preceding description of the caring educator and Alcibiades’ willingness to obey give this competition its immediate substance. Socrates seeks a relation secured through beneficial advice and care, although the prospective educator has not explicitly been named.

The victory is desired, not reported as achieved. Socrates takes Alcibiades’ favourable opinion as an omen and describes his own predicament as a rough sea no less than Creon’s. The crown can therefore register present progress without guaranteeing that he will defeat rival influences or that Alcibiades will complete the education.

The earlier Archelaus story supplies a contrasting erotic configuration. A beloved desires tyranny while the tyrant desires him; the effort to seize the desired object destroys both men. The dialogue does not expressly formulate a comparison between these two scenes, but their distribution permits a reading in which possessive competition for power and care directed toward improvement have sharply different prospects.

The final playful tone should not conceal the philosophical uncertainty. The argument has exposed the insufficiency of desire and confidence, and the ending leaves Socrates himself hoping for an outcome. His hopeful interpretation of the wreath is still interpretation, not a divine certificate or a completed proof of success.

Places to read

1. 141d–141e2The lover and beloved in the Archelaus story link erotic desire with destructive political acquisition.
2. 150d–151a2Care and reciprocal eagerness provide the educational context of the final rivalry.
3. 151b–151cSocrates takes an omen and wishes to be fair victor over Alcibiades’ lovers.

Translation in this edition

The edition’s Introduction notes that the last words establish Socrates as a rival of the other lovers. It gives parallels from Alcibiades I and Symposium separately; those fuller narratives should not be imported as events explicitly recounted here. At 151b opinion is printed, with gift reserved for the apparatus.

Use in the book

The lovers’ rivalry supplies more than an entertaining frame. Their verdicts on philosophy are entangled with their claims to deserve admiration. The athlete dismisses the lads’ sky-talk; the cultured rival attacks his bodily habits and presents himself as philosophy’s defender. The audience matters enough that he speaks loudly for his beloved. His later willingness to defend even a poorer thesis against the athlete shows how victory over a person can detach argument from one’s own belief.

Socrates repeatedly changes the direction of this competition. He turns disparagement into a request for an account, asks the athlete to contribute relevant experience, and gets all three adults to agree about expertise and measure. When they cannot name the appropriate educator of the soul, his comparison with Homer’s suitors raises a pointed possibility: lovers may resist another person’s success precisely because it threatens their standing.

The dialogue does not simply replace erotic rivalry with a disembodied inquiry. Socrates confesses that beauty affects him too, and the closing shame and approval remain social responses. What changes is the standard under discussion: from the impressive quantity of one’s learning toward the ability to judge and act rightly. Whether every participant has learned that lesson is left less certain than the failure of the cultured lover’s definitions.

Places to read

1. 132aκαὶ τούτων ἐραστάς — Lovers are among the people Socrates sees.
2. 132cἀντεραστὴς ὤν — The second interlocutor is identified as a rival in love.
3. 133bἐνδεικνύμενος εἰς τὸν ἀντεραστήν — An explicit gesture makes the philosophical declaration a personal challenge.

Translation in this edition

Burnet’s heading is Erastai. The supplied apparatus reports that B and T support it and that a later hand in B’s margin gives Anterastai. The introduction says the latter is the title used in the Thrasyllan arrangement preserved by Diogenes Laertius 3.59, with the subtitle “or On Philosophy” and the classification “ethical.” These are facts reported by the edition about transmission and cataloguing, not subtitles spoken within the dialogue. The same introduction separates traditional inclusion among Plato’s works from disputed authorship; choosing either English title cannot settle that dispute.